Cheap: Epic says Gears of War cost less than $10 million

Epic vice president Mark Rein talks Gears, Unreal Engine 3, and maybe just a little ZZT

Apparently, if you too have just $10 million and a dream, you can make it come true too. A recent interview with Wired has Epic vice president Mark Rein covering numerous topics, including the development of Gears of War. Contrary to industry complaints claiming that the cost to develop games has been skyrocketing with the coming of next-generation technology, Rein claims that the cost to make Gears of War was under $10 million:

"We spent less than $10 million to make Gears of War. Somewhere between nine and ten million dollars," Rein says. "People are always saying that making next-generation games is really expensive, and we're saying, you should license our technology."

By "technology", Rein is referring to Unreal Engine 3, which made headlines last week when Square Enix bought the rights to use the next-generation development engine in what many analysts see as a breakthrough agreement for international relations in the video game industry. That deal, in addition to cracking the top 10 in Japan's game charts with Gears of War, has set the company's sights on the Japanese market:

"It's definitely a challenge to convince Japanese developers to work with a third-party technology like ours. But we've got a few, and we're gonna have more, and I think Square Enix, they're the granddaddy. I'm hoping that'll be pulling the stopper out of the drain, and we'll get more. [...] We've been looking to hire somebody in Japan, to be our representative there. We're looking, the job's open."

Even without the Japanese market, however, the list of Unreal Engine 3 licensees continues to grow, what with Ed Boon's recent announcement that the engine will be used for the upcoming eighth installment of the Mortal Kombat series. However, one console that will not reap the benefits of UE3 is the Nintendo Wii, which Rein claims does not have the graphical capabilities to support it:

"It's not in our plans to bring Unreal Engine 3 to the Wii. It's really designed for next-gen, high-definition.One of our licensees has been porting it, and they might be successful at that, and that would be great if they do it. It's doable, but not something that we're going to focus on."

When prodded about the possible development of a sequel to Gears of War, Rein stated that the development team feels that work on the original game has not yet finished, and that they're still in the process of creating much more downloadable content for the game. When asked how he feels about games such as his that extend their development cycle past the final release date, he responded that Epic has had "great success with that model with Unreal Tournament."

He then concluded the thought by showing his appreciation for Sony for putting a hard drive in every PS3, stating that Epic has plans to fully utilize the hard drive for Unreal Tournament 3. He then cautions that, "if you don't have a hard drive on Xbox 360 and you want to get the most out of your UT3 purchase, think about getting one."

On a sad note, Rein stated that there are currently no plans to create a next-generation sequel to ZZT.

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