14 DAY TRIAL // The leader of Epic Games, one of the best known video game developers of the moment, believes that the factory system is not suited to video game creation but that there’s a fundamental need for structure that can generate innovation.
Mike Capps, the president of developer Epic Games, has told Gamasutra that, “The bigger we get as a company, the harder it is for everyone here to feel comfy just walking into my office and telling me what I'm doing wrong.
“There's a lot of guys here who would do that in a heartbeat because they've been in the trenches with me but there's folks here who only know me as the president of a multinational.”
He added, “If there's no hierarchy and you're just two hundred people standing in a building, who do you talk to about what's making you uncomfortable who can help you to fix it? You need to know who to call on and where the specializations are internally.”
Capps specifically talked about Valve and their employee handbook, which suggests a higher level of individual freedom, saying that Epic preferred to see what those newly hired could do and then made them part of a bigger team that could support them and reveal their abilities.
Epic Games is probably best known for its Gears of War series, which recently got its third installment on the Xbox 360 home console, but the company is also creating the Unreal Engine, which powers many of the biggest releases of the moment.
The company recently revealed the fourth generation of its engine, which will be used by companies to deliver the high-profile titles on the next generation of home consoles.
It has also shown a tech demo based on it, called Samaritan, which might become an actual Epic Games video game project aimed at new hardware.