Epic Games: “We beat the Wii!”

Fresh from the 2007 D.I.C.E. Summit in sin city Las Vegas, Epic Games and Microsoft Game Studios sported big grins on their faces after Gears of War won eight awards, including the Game of the Year award from the Interactive Achievement Awards hosted by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences.

 “This is incredible,” said Epic’s CEO Michael Capps. “Getting sales is great, making the game we wanted and having people buy it and enjoy it is fantastic. But having our peers say it’s the best game of the year? That’s insane. We beat the Wii.” Nintendo’s Wii Sports came second, taking only three awards home.

Lead designer Cliff Blezinsky also added:

The thing is, being on the outside of this industry looking in as a kid, and wanting to be part of it, and then being able to be here and get an award from all of these talented people … is absolutely unbelievable. We could not be honoured more.

The game was designed for implementation, based on the EA Montreal‘s Alain Tascan‘s idea of “zero innovation strategy.” It was never meant to have any features, except be fun.

“I think there’s a lot of iteration and a lot of polish that went into the game,” Blezinsky added. “I’ve actually heard a compliment from people saying it has a learning curve. Which, as a designer, that actually means the game has some cool new features in it.”

Epic Games and Microsoft? What a combo! Now we really can’t wait for UT3.

Via GamesIndustry

Fresh from the 2007 D.I.C.E. Summit in sin city Las Vegas, Epic Games and Microsoft Game Studios sported big grins on their faces after Gears of War won eight awards, including the Game of the Year award from the Interactive Achievement Awards hosted by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences.

 “This is incredible,” said Epic’s CEO Michael Capps. “Getting sales is great, making the game we wanted and having people buy it and enjoy it is fantastic. But having our peers say it’s the best game of the year? That’s insane. We beat the Wii.” Nintendo’s Wii Sports came second, taking only three awards home.

Lead designer Cliff Blezinsky also added:

The thing is, being on the outside of this industry looking in as a kid, and wanting to be part of it, and then being able to be here and get an award from all of these talented people … is absolutely unbelievable. We could not be honoured more.

The game was designed for implementation, based on the EA Montreal‘s Alain Tascan‘s idea of “zero innovation strategy.” It was never meant to have any features, except be fun.

“I think there’s a lot of iteration and a lot of polish that went into the game,” Blezinsky added. “I’ve actually heard a compliment from people saying it has a learning curve. Which, as a designer, that actually means the game has some cool new features in it.”

Epic Games and Microsoft? What a combo! Now we really can’t wait for UT3.

Via GamesIndustry