Global InformationEpic Games information
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 Headquarters in Cary, North Carolina, 2016 | |
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| Company type | Private |
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | 1991 in Potomac, Maryland, US |
| Founder | Tim Sweeney |
| Headquarters | Cary, North Carolina , US |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people |
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| Products |
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| Owners |
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Number of employees | 4,000+ (2023[1]) |
| Subsidiaries | See § Subsidiaries and divisions |
| Website | epicgames |
| Footnotes / references [2][3][4] | |
Epic Games, Inc. is an American video game and software developer and publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991, originally located in his parents' house in Potomac, Maryland. Following its first commercial video game release, ZZT (1991), the company became Epic MegaGames, Inc. in early 1992 and brought on Mark Rein, who has been its vice president since. After moving the headquarters to Cary in 1999, the studio changed its name to Epic Games.
Epic Games developed Unreal Engine, a commercially available game engine which also powers its internally developed video games like Fortnite and the Unreal, Gears of War, and Infinity Blade series. In 2014, Unreal Engine was named the "most successful videogame engine" by Guinness World Records.[5]
Epic Games owns the game developers Psyonix, Mediatonic, and Harmonix, and operates studios in multiple locations around the world. While Sweeney remains the controlling shareholder, Tencent acquired a 48.4% outstanding stake, equating to 40% of total Epic, in the company in 2012, as part of an agreement aimed at moving Epic towards a games as a service model. Following the release of the popular Fortnite Battle Royale in 2017, the company gained additional investments that enabled it to expand its Unreal Engine offerings, establish esports events around Fortnite, and launch the Epic Games Store. As of April 2022, the company has a US$32 billion equity valuation.
On August 13, 2020, Epic released a version of Fortnite that included a permanent discount on V-bucks across all platforms (except iOS and Android devices) if they purchased directly through Epic, bypassing Apple and Google's storefronts. Both Apple and Google immediately delisted the game for violating the storefronts' terms of service by including their own storefront, which led Epic to file lawsuits against both companies the same day, accusing them of antitrust behavior in how they operate their app stores. While Apple was ultimately victorious in a bench trial in September 2021 and upheld through appeals, Google's actions were found to be monopolistic by a jury trial in December 2023.
- ^ Stewart, Marcus (September 28, 2023). "Epic Games Lays Off Over 800 Employees". Game Informer. Retrieved January 10, 2024.
- ^ Crecente, Brian (July 25, 2018). "How a 2012 Decision Helped 'Fortnite' Make Epic Games a Billion Dollar Company". Variety. Archived from the original on July 25, 2018. Retrieved July 26, 2018.
- ^ Crecente, Brian (March 21, 2013). "Tencent's $330M Epic Games investment absorbed 40 percent of developer [Updated]". Polygon. Archived from the original on August 20, 2016. Retrieved August 24, 2016.
- ^ Crecente, Brian (March 29, 2019). "'Fortnite' Creator Sees Epic Games Becoming as Big as Facebook, Google". Variety. Archived from the original on March 29, 2019. Retrieved March 30, 2019.
- ^ "Most successful videogame engine". Guinness World Records. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015.