Epic opinions
I’ve mulled over whether to say anything at all, but if you can’t say what you think about the games industry when you own your own company, when can you?
I was part of a panel yesterday at Develop, the games conference for developers in Brighton UK. I was speaking about ‘microstudios’ with Robin Lacey(Beatnik), Sean Murray(Hello Games) and Mark Morris(Introversion), all of whom are good guys. As a one-man outfit, I’m the real baby studio there, but at 13 years of experience, also the grandfather, so I guess that makes me middle aged. Anyway… all was cool, and there was much joking and mutual silliness. Apparently I am the Barry Manilow of game development, and a mug to spend £75 on jeans. And the topic then came up of how indies can respond directly to gamers on stuff like messageboards. Basically I started making the point, and mark was also agreeing about how someone can email you as an indie dev, and you can reply personally back to that potential customer, and hopefully, that way you have converted that guy to buying the game.
At this point, there was this derisive snort from this guy in the front row, who said something to the effect of ‘one guy? who cares, that’s a waste of time’. He then started to lecture us on how that’s a silly way to do it. I’m 95% sure that all four of us on the panel thought ‘what the fuck?’ as well as ‘who is this guy’? compounded by Robin asking him if he worked in marketing.
Anyway… it turned out this guy was Mark Rein from Epic, although he seemed to assume everyone within earshot knew exactly who he was, and why he must obviously be right. I got the impression he was there to laugh at the little guys, or to just inform us how we are all wrong. Interestingly, it seemed there was someone from sports interactive (one time indies, as I recall) there, who seemed more on the indie wavelength than Mark. It would have been cool to chat with him.
So… I’ve given this a lot of thought, and weighed up the pros and cons of just putting this down to misinterpreting someone, and so on, and I have reached this conclusion.
Mark Rein is a jerk.
Now I suspect this is not groundbreaking news, although it is to me, because I’ve never met him or even seen him before. However, this experience seems to confirm my opinions on Epic and companies like them in general. Now Mark may well look down on humble indies like me. He may well think I’m doing it wrong. he may laugh when me and Mark discuss the pitiful money our companies make, and giggle at the fact that we reply to gamers on a one-on-one basis… But fuck him. I would rather earn minimum wage making indie strategy games for the PC, as my own boss, with an original game, satisfying a hardcore niche of friendly customers (the one-thousand-true-fans-philosophy), without a publisher telling me what to do, and without having to leave my house to go to work, without having to do ‘crunch time’ (because, dude… its like so macho to work until 3AM and never see your family)… Than I would work at epic for megabucks. The sheer overwhelming stench of testosterone would probably give me a headcahe, combined with the dizzy excitement of exactly what shade of grey our next game’s space-marine would wear as he kicked alien butt. (I feel bad working on Gratuitous Space Battles for almost 2 years, but it seems like that old ‘wisecracking space marine with big muscles and chisel-jaw’ idea has been stretched out longer than the hundred years war).
I have absolutely no doubt mark would just naturally assume me feeling like that is jealousy, which, as anyone who knows me personally would testify, is just fucking funny. I really don’t care about Epic, and their games, as they are way way too macho and ‘dude’ for my liking, and don’t have demos, so I just assume they haven’t changed since Unreal Tournament. I try not to comment on games I don’t like, as each to their own tastes etc. The only reason I’m moved to give a damn enough to state my opinion, is that I resent having some triple-a studio jerk come and tell someone whose run a microstudio for thirteen years that he is doing it all wrong. If Mark from introversion suggests I’m doing it wrong, thats cool, he does what I do, and has some serious experience, ditto anyone on that panel, or anyone with long indie experience. And I listen carefully, often over lunch.
But Triple-A studio bosses trying to lecture me on how to communicate better with gamers? Fuck off.
Cliff Harris (cliff@positech.co.uk)
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by cliffski and Miguel Á. Friginal, Alex Hopkinson. Alex Hopkinson said: RT @cliffski: Epic opinions http://bit.ly/cElWB5. Angry blog post. Now to take it out on making a cake. Maybe not very macho… [...]
LOL probably your best post ever
In the end is all up to quality of life. Something that isn’t based on how much money you have on bank, but also on FREE TIME.
Wow, that Mark Rein almost sounds like a walking stereotype. You know, the type of evil rich guy that gets his comeuppance at the end while the hero walks away with the girl at the end of a romantic comedy.
Still, annoying to hear that guys like that prance around at cons with such comments.
Its even sillier than that. He doesn’t know how any customer services work. Publishers have customer services departments that do actually reply to customers individually (although they often send an automatic reply if they catch a known support term issue in an email message).
An advantage indies have is that the people making the games can talk directly to those that play it – rather than go through filters of reviews etc.
Gabe Newell is sort of famous for replying to fan email in person and I believe that his company has a much better reputation with action game fans than Epic.
Isn’t Mark Rein’s job also to sell the Unreal engine rather than make games? He was probably there to convince indie devs that they need to use whatever indie branded unreal engine they are hawking so that indie games can be just as over budget and blandly similar as 90% of xbox games.
I just wonder what attracted him to the industry and I’m a bit baffled why when epic (it is epic isn’t it) are pushing their UDK engine into the indie sector but for a 25% cut of the indie profit (after $5000 USD) ?
Hoorah, Marine!
Hey, maybe he was having a bad day, or got a nasty mail from a customer? I’m very much with you though. My iPhone Apps are non game so far, but caring about customers is a big deal for me, because I want to make the functionality that my App does implement absolutely perfect for its target audience. When I get one happy customer who knows they’ve got ten times the two bucks they’ve given me, they pass that on. Some day, one of them will pass in on to thousands, or hundreds of thousands.
Going about thinking that one user doesn’t count is a dangerous dangerous game too. Look at how plenty of companies that could laugh at tiny Epic, have been kicked about by one unhappy customer. Apple, for instance, with the time capsule, who’ve finally given in and done a blanket swap out for customers with problem models.
So maybe it’ll come back and bite him on his Epic arse
Weirdest thing to me – Epic started off as a few-man ‘indie’ band, waaaaay back in the day (Who recalls Epic MegaGames? ZZT? Jazz Jackrabbit and all that stuff?). Seems like they’ve forgotten their roots…
Cliff I bought your games not because indie developers are the ‘in thing’ but because you make games that are fun. Turds like Mark Rein and the company he represents I have no time for.
Great post.
There is a freedom in designing for yourself the games that you love and for those 1000 fans that Mark Rein will never see again.
It is perhaps he who should be jealous of the creativity and passion that an indie direction gives as well as the more humane hours.
Hat’s off to you for your *rant*
A game designer from warm Greece
I wish game companies were more about games than companies. Companies like EA who care little about the quality or length of a game. They only care about how many people they can see it too for as much as possible.
Bah, I wouldn’t worry about it, the guys at the top of the “industry food chain” aren’t in touch with reality any more anyway. Everyones so caught up with being an “industry celebrity” it makes me quite sick…
This whole “kotick doesn’t play games” bullshit coming from Schafer winds the shit up out of me too, of course he doesn’t play games, he’s the top of a multi-billion dollar empire who make more money than god. Why the FUCK would he sit in his massive mansion playing video games? He can probably go out and spunk a few million crashing cars into trees and have a shit load more fun. Games are escapism for the have-nots. Not the billionares of the world.
Mind you, Schafer has lost a lot of respect for me too, mainly for spouting off like a cock, Just shut the fuck up and make your game the best it can be, that’s the best way to send a clear fuck you. Otherwise you’ll turn into another Romero…
I don’t know Mark Rein but I’d guess he’s just being an edgy cock to try and get mentioned on Kotaku for saying something interesting once…
Cliff, Keep answering your 1-to-1 E-mails, Fuck what Epic megafail think…
This is just mindblowing. How the hell does that Mark Rein think his own company got started???
I’ve got it fresh since I happen to have read about it … just yesterday!
Epic Mega-Games (as it was called back then) started as a 1-man shop; his founder was Tim Sweeney. This was on the early BSS days; the business model was more or less like this: you get the shareware for free, and if you want the full version send me a check to my (real) home address. Its first game, called ZZT, is still sold – around 2 sales per month or something – by Tim’s father, who is now retired but still leaves on that same address.
Tim Sweeney is among other things the mind behind UnrealScript, and a language-hacker in general. By what I read on the interviews, he seems a very nice chap. And on top of that he doesn’t seem to do bad on managing or making a business grow.
In contrast, Mark Rein is just a managerial guy. He got to the company when it was already 30 people or something. I wouldn’t expect him to be technically savy, but I would expect him to know when to keep it shut, being a vice president and all.
Amen
As much as I appreciate a good Epic game now and then, one of the things I love about being an indie developer is getting to know the people who play my games. I will probably never be a millionaire, but that isn’t my measure of success.
The same happens in almost every industry, though. The bigger you get the less contact you have with individuals, the less they mean to you.
I have about 3 fans right now, so I still have a way to go before I even get to the 1000 true fans level, but I hope that I never get to the point where people don’t matter.
I’m glad you realize that Mark Rein is nothing more than a Jerk. You are absolutely right, but I could actually go one step further and say that the higher-ups at Epic are all Jerks – nay, more along the lines of dickheads! Yes, even Cliff Bleszinski (the design director for Epic Games – some of you may know him as the man behind Gears of War) can be a dick. CliffyB as he liked being called, has grown up a little bit in the past few years, probably realizing – but more importantly – __being told__ – that he comes off as a tiny minded arrogant prick, has probably opened his eyes just a little. The top dogs at Epic are still just a bunch of arrogant PRs that nobody really likes, not even the working-class employees at Epic.
However, to stay on topic to your point Cliffski, it’s no surprise that Mark Rein – one of the fools behind Epic, would see customer support, albeit from a single person or very small team, as a nonsensical solution to encouraging, promoting, and marketing all while helping the customers whom you get to know on slightly more intimate level. In other words, what you, and the other fine indie developers out there do, simply makes sense and you’re just cramping the style of the bigger guys – why? Because they can’t be bothered to interact with their fan base anyway, their is no real passion behind what they do, these big wigs are only there to make money, bottom line. Money might be all well and good and useful for surviving in a commercialized society, but it does not bring people closer in any way and if there is one thing gamers and game developers should share in common it is the love of the game itself. When a customer gets to interact with the creator of the entertainment they are so fond of it certainly does make a connection that Marketing PR’s simply cannot understand. To them, human connection gets in the way of what they deem most important and that is money. Guys like Mark Rein only wants to have any contact with his customers when there’s an exchange of money involved – from the customers pockets to his. After that it’s shut up and listen to him.
I understand why you wrote this particular blog Cliffski, and to be honest, you came across quite level headed which is the professional thing to do, but at the same time I know that the situation must have also pissed you off. By extension, just reading about this (and some of the other bastards at the larger publishers and developing studios – mostly the CEO’s and hierarchy) pisses me off in a way that has made me want to respond. The reason for this is, I’ve always seen the indie game developer (or film maker, musician, etc. etc.) as the everyman. Someone who has gone out and done what they want to do, which can and in fact has inspired others to go out and do the things they want to do as well. With that said, I hope all indies (both the developers and audiences) realize what a unique relationship we have with one another and that being able to speak one-on-one (when time permits) is the best and most useful thing a developer and a customer can have because it benefits both sides equally in the form of customer service for the customer and important feedback for the developer. I sincerely hope these connections between real people never die off, and if they do, then I hope I don’t live long enough to ever be around when they’re gone. That probably sounds pretty heavy or that it leaves a lot on the indie developers shoulders, but it is I’m sure, something that can and has inspired many indie developers to keep doing what they do and continue creating those connections and relationships with their audience and customers.
With that said – yes, Mark Rein is a JERK.
That’s pretty bad. It reminds me of a talk Gary Vaynerchuk gave in which he referred to a Twitter user who asked for advice about following the “right” people. (Namely, people with 500+ followers or something.) Gary allegedly responded to this guy, telling him he was an asshole for caring about that sort of thing.
For what it’s worth, I bought Gratuitous Space Battles a few months ago but I can’t remember the last time I bought an Epic game. I’m not much for the frat-boy market that has coopted the term “hardcore”.
Anyway, nice to get another blog to follow.
I have actually met Mark Rein, both at my former studio, and at AGDC, and I can actually confirm that he IS a jerk. Absolutely.
What sealed it for me was watching him interact with those whom he considered unimportant or irrelevant. He does that thing where he looks over your shoulder and past you AS he’s talking to you, he can barely conceal his boredom.
‘Arrogant marketing fuck’ was my genuine impression.
He sounds a bit defensive from the way you describe it – could he be feeling threatened / worried about micro-studios?
Mark Rein is the same guy behind APB, if you played that game you would realize it’s just mass appeal gone wild to a shit lack luster game.
@Thomas
APB was made with the Unreal Engine, and Mark Rein did a little bit of promotion for APB, but he isn’t behind it in any way. It’s from a completely different company.
As Stuart said, he sounds defensive. You have to question why, as part of a large company, he was there. He doesn’t exactly sound like the kind of guy who goes to give out sound advice or pick up tips. Maybe he’s doing it to make him feel better about himself.
Well put, sir.
Whoa, slow down there. Why are you the Barry Manilow of videogames? (nice post
)
Awesome blog post. I get fed up by some of the so called industry elite looking down their noses at indies. Well said and you have a new blog follower.
I have nothing to say other than thanks for posting this.
I never met Mark Rein and don’t know him at all, but I can only say that Tim Sweeney is a very cool and nice dude. I think Tim’s the main programmer at Epic too.
Does anyone else think this juxtaposition of comments is ironic?
“I’ve mulled over whether to say anything at all, but if you can’t say what you think about the games industry when you own your own company, when can you?”
“[owner of small game company] has lost a lot of respect for me too, mainly for spouting off like a cock, Just shut the fuck up and make your game the best it can be, that’s the best way to send a clear fuck you.”
Really?
To try and avoid the potential dogpile:
I really enjoy your blog. I also like the Introversion blog (although wish it was updated more frequently.) I don’t enjoy your games for a number of reasons (mostly design choices) but I still have a lot of respect for what you are doing and hope you continue to succeed.
So I’m on your side, honestly, but why would you post this?
This post reads follows the fairly predictable ’smaller, indie guy’ vs ‘large evil company’ line. You go on to bash Mark for a single comment. Then you bash the whole company. You treat it like a personal attack and, perhaps more importantly, assume he’s wrong.
If you were 10x as busy (in copies shipped, active products, whatever.) would you reply to every single person who emailed you?
What about 100x? 1000x? 10,000x?
What about if you were that much busier AND received the same increase in emails received?
I’m guessing you might find it difficult and you would pick where you focused your time. Or maybe not? If you wanted to thats your choice, but it’s certainly possible it would be a waste of your time.
You sound righteous and angry and this attack on Epic doesn’t gain you anything. I wish instead of reading this you had another interesting post about your development. Oh well.
Here, here! Mark Rein sounds like a major douche now that I heard about what happened at the Develop conference. He should hang out with Bobby Kotick! I fully support you guys and how you guys roll.
Personally, I’m with your attitude 110% – I would NEVER want to work on a mainstream-friendly title, because that means you’d have to target it at “lowest common denominator” gamers. AKA, the future college drop outs who’d rather grief people in another round of CoD or Madden than go to class (We’ve ALL seen those douches). This “one thousand true fans” philosophy is absolute aces.
I sincerely hope that your studio can continue operating under such conditions and can prove this model is worthwhile for a long, looooooooooooooong time to come.
And to think, they used to make Jazz Jackrabbit. Wasn’t that sh*t shareware back in the day? Man – the apple has fallen so far from the tree, it’s burrowed a hole to china by now
Good luck on all your future endeavors! Seriously. I’m with you dudes 110%!
This is the most compelling reason that I wish I’d made the effort to go to Develop – I’d've found it very hard not to just repeatedly shout “CUNT!” at him until he gave up talking.
Mark Rein just loves trolling. He’s like a bratty kid showing off his AT-AT to the rest of the kids in the street who only have a stormtrooper and that han solo figure with the big head. I’m sure he loves his kids and is kind to puppies but behaving like a prick is behaving like a prick. the bottom line is that he was hijacking a panel discussion that really was nothing to do with him because he’s needy and craves attention even if the attention is people saying he’s a dick. Just ignore him and maybe he’ll go away
It was a ridiculous interjection that he made. I was biting my tongue through it so as not to turn it into his panel discussion.
Direct communication with people works, it is also part of the whole thing. It is not just the games biz that suffers from this megalithic organisation thinking it should just hand off to PR and marketing departments.
Interesting though that Mark Rein should have to come along personally to interact on a one on one basis, his attitude seemed to be he should have sent some minions to heckle.
I think he missed the point though, he was not taking on board that that all forms of communication and interaction with people work. Why just advertise when you can also engage and reach people who do not respond to advertising.
I should add that last year, my first experience on Develop I was sat near Mark and he was very happy to make quite loud heckling comments during another talk that was about the sort of openness we now have on the web. Which I just half mentioned in passing in my last years blog post about it
I guess its his role in the industry to stomp around like that, though wandering in late to your panel, which was really interesting, and being quite disruptive was out of order.
[...] Source: Cliff Harris’s blog [...]
I was there as well (great panel discussion by the way, good amount of swearing), and watching Mark troll into the room halfway you could just see he was going to get on his usual bandwagon!
I think, bless him, that beyond all the bluster and jerkery he probably did have a point of wanting to encourage indies to consider the more mainstream press interaction as well as the more direct dealings. Just unfortunate that he couldn’t be polite enough to wait till the question period and just had to shout it out :-/
FWIW, Miles (from SI) can be just as blustery as well, but at least had the decency to wait to the end!
Well said sir – I commend you on your efforts of creating games for the love of it, not just to make as much $$$$$$ as you can.
Long live the indie developers.
Great comments. I do like Gears but I don’t like arseholes. Go Cliff!!
[...] Epic opinions [Cliffski, thanks Chris!] [...]
[...] indies) to illustrate his point so don’t expect them to work with everything (although some recent rumblings over comments made by Mark Rein of Epic might help prove Doulin’s [...]
[...] indies) to illustrate his point so don’t expect them to work with everything (although some recent rumblings over comments made by Mark Rein of Epic might help prove Doulin’s [...]
Its easy not to care about individual customers when you have the backing of a multi-million marketing campaign to sell a designed-by-numbers shooter. I’m completely ambivalent when it comes to Epic, but the bombastic arsehole double-act of Mark Rein and CliffyB just make me want to avoid their games.
Now just wait for Mark Rein to reply here.
At the Nordic Game conference last year I saw how he interacted with a poor guy who was trying to sell his lighting algorithm to the unreal engine. Mark’s reply to the guy’s tech pitch: man, I’m jet lagged, bring me some water.
During talks he would make random outbursts of 360 / gears marketing speils, which had little/nothing to do with the academic/gameplay discourse of the discussion/talk.
If remember sitting there thinking: SHUT THE F**K UP, you are making yourself look like a complete idiot.
I worked at Epic for 3 years, mixed with Mark quite a bit and found your comments quite offensive. I think you should offer up an apology to jerks everywhere for equating them to this pathethic excuse of a man.
[...] Epic opinions [Cliffski, thanks Chris!] Tagged:britaindevelop conferenceepicgratuitous space battleshumourindiemark reinnsfwpositech [...]
As an Indie Developper, I can only back you up on this. Sure Mark Rein may not feel the impact of a satisfied customer, but we know that it is the basis of a good company. As it has been pointed out, being big doen’t necessarily mean being a douchebag, look at Valve. Great post Cliffski.
[...] Epic Opinions (Cliffski developed life sim game Kudos 2) Bioware talked culture. Not minister for culture, but [...]
I can’t wait for Mark Rein to do our Marketing/PR…. I’M GOING TO BE RICH!!!!
Tsk. I was two seconds away from buying Gears of War, but I’ve suddenly lost interest. Oh well, I’m just one customer…what’s my initial $20 purchase going to mean? Or my following $30? Or the $60 one? Guess they won’t miss it.
You, however…seem pretty chill, I shall be back.
Also, that was the most maturely written “fuck off” blog I’ve seen yet.
Well said.
Bravo Cliffski! I feel compelled to reply to this (a first on a developer board, mind you) as a fan of many of Epic’s games. Mr. Rein was out of line, and a complete douchnozzle. There is absolutely NO COMPARISON between a large dev like Epic and a small or “micro” one like Positech.
On top of that, despite my love for FPS games in the Epic mold, I couldn’t be more pleased that the indie developers out there are making some unique works of vision that you won’t see from the big box guys. I gambled on GSB a while back, and was very pleasantly surprised. It looks great, sounds nice, and with the challenges there’s an embarrasment of gameplay. I eagerly await the campaign add-on you’ve been mercilessly teasing us with…
Anyhow, this was mainly a convenient opportunity to write you some fan mail. You’re on my personal short-list of indie developers I keep close tabs on. Now see if you can’t lean on Mark at Introversion and get them to finish Subversion.
Goodness didn’t realise the panel would have caused such a hubub. Regardless of whether people feel Mark’s comments had validity or not he interjected in a very rude way, not once but several times. Although I hear that’s not uncommon behaviour from him, and others were surprised it didn’t happen more often over the conference (especially the Unity talk)
As an audience member it annoyed me, I went to the panel to hear talk from micro studios and indie devs, not to listen to studio guys snort and interject over how other people handle their lives and work.
Priceless..!
and…. breathe
We all still love you Cliff, maybe just a little bit more!
And no, I’m not a spotty stick-it-to-the-man student type fanyboy.
And yes, that bloke sounds like a prize pilliock
epreadator’s comment hit the nail on the head, what a comeback
“Interesting though that Mark Rein should have to come along personally to interact on a one on one basis, his attitude seemed to be he should have sent some minions to heckle.”
Aside from the fact that Mark pulled a total dick move – well, let’s assume for a moment, just as a gedanken experiment, that general dick-ishness was not actually behind his scornful little outbreak. What could be motivating him?
I can’t help but remember that the pricing model for UDK is pretty generously skewed toward Epic, but *only* after an initial level of sales ($5000?). From Epic’s perspective, then, UDK – and by extension the indie market using it – makes a lot more sense with profits as high as possible. The more modest perspective demonstrated by you and some other indies – the fact that you value your own autonomy and your contribution to, and connection with, customers more than a huge bottom line – might simply be incomprehensible to them. Alternatively, it might even be downright threatening, by representing the chance that UDK will never get them much money even as a small side project. Even tho Epic preached charity when they released UDK, in other words, they have a built-in incentive to push indie devs to become less of a cottage industry and more of a money-printing machine.
Kudos sir. A grand kudos. Absolutely love your bashing of the big companies. You couldn’t be more right. May I add when I saw Gratuitous Space Battles I passed that on on a personal blog as it looked quite epic. I thoroughly enjoyed this article and you couldn’t be more right.
Thanks for it!
Jeff
Well done Cliff! It’s refreshing to see that even though a lot of news sites around the net have misquoted your quotes that the vast majority of people, even on console sites, are on your side.
I’ve always defended Indies as the way to go in an industry stagnated in creativity and innovation. Mainstream games no longer offer anything new and it’s good to see a small Indie company stand up for what they believe even if they clash against titans and I’m glad you did it because these titans are no longer worthy of being called so. You stood your ground and I applaud for standing for what you believe and know it’s right.
The next generation of titans will come from the Indies. For me the future of gaming does not like in mainstream gaming and publishers but in the thousands of tiny indie developers spread around the world.
My hat’s off for you, Mr Harris.
Wait…. Epic has contact with customers? When did that happen!
I found this post through kotaku, and I just want to give my two cents.
You were obviously upset when mark rein budged in on your panel, and maybe you had every right to be. I wasnt there so I wouldnt know, but that alone is in no way any grounds to judge a whole company.
Epic games started as an indie studio and one of their goals was to reach the big masses and make big games, I would assume. They have done that. They made it. They obviously know what they are doing. They make the games they want to make, make no mistake about that and along the way they have spawned a MASS of indie developers that use their technology to make their own games through their mod community.
Epic hosts the make something unreal contest every so often that promote the best modifications for their games and enables those projects to push forward and possibly become a game. These are mods, people sitting at home and hammering away out of passion and love for what they are doing.Then there is Unreal Developers Kit, which have enabeled their former mod commuity to now become an Indie dev community. That is beyond comitment, beyond what any other big company has done to support their community, to reach out to people and to enable those people to make it on their own. That is way more important than answering mails. Dont get me wrong, i think its great that you answers your mail but on the whole, it doesnt do much for the indie scene, and epic does.
Epic enables people to persue their dreams and get into a very competative industry, indie or AAA titles alike. Epic does so much for the games indie scene without asking for anything back. And you see fit to judge this guy because he DARED to speak his mind at a game development panel that is, if i am not mistaking, conceived from the desire to discuss?
I am currently working in the industry and I long for the day when i have gathered enough experience to join up with people i have met through out my career and go indie. That is my dream. I have no love for big cooperations and I am getting sick of working on big AAA titles that are mainstream and the same stuff you see over and over. For being indie, I salute you. It takes guts, commitment and alot of hard work (I would imagine).
For being overly sensetive, naive and a bit ignorant I encourage you to do your fucking homework before you pass judgment on one of the biggest supporters of the indie scene.
Epic have sucked shit ever since Rein joined.
The guy is a total douchebag and has been a cancer on what used to be one of my favourite dev studios. Such a shame.
@Tomas
You weren’t present at the conference. Mark kept interrupting the conference, giving rude remarks and barging in when it was no questions time yet. He was VERY rude all the time.
You had to be there to fully appreciate it but Mark deserves the lambasting here because he came across to everyone in the panel and audience as a VERY rude douche.
Hey there Cliff, sorry you had such a hard time at Develop. I’m not a fan of Epic’s games, really, and I struggle to understand the popularity of the Gears franchise, but whatever.
I’ve met Rein a few times and he’s always been congenial and friendly, despite having a “businessman” doucheyness to his attitude. Of course, he can’t really help that, that’s his job, that’s what he was trained to do. Typically that training involves keeping his mouth shut and making sure other employees of Epic do the same. I’ve never encountered him as you describe him, and I find it hard see the guy doing this for no other reason than to be a snarky bastard.
So, I think he was drunk. Not very professional, but unfortunately liquor rules the game industry, and it would explain his erratic bitchiness.
Tomas you really need to do your own homework before throwing those accusations around, the UDK licensing terms are bizarre and the cost is significant, the Make Something Unreal contest is great but has only ran twice from my recollection and has only produced one released game (Red Orchestra). The only other indies that have used the engine were the guys behind Roboblitz who had special licensing because they were producing the first UE3 powered game. The point being that the licensing terms are too restrictive and the only way for a company or individual with a turnover of less than 200k+ a year is to win that contest.
I could go on and on about the incredible lack of support resources available for the UDK, with even basic documentation being for licensees only, or the fact that Epic updates UE with compability breaking features designed for their very narrow choice of genres for their own games.
But more to the point, all of this is irrelevant because Mark Rein is just a jerk, he goes to these conferences both with an expectation to be treated as a superstar and with a reputation of being a jerk that he feels he has to keep up. His opinion is his opinion but you don’t snort in derision then heckle at a panel of people who run tiny studios effectively.
[...] décontract’ ci-contre, de se faire remarquer. Cliff Harris du studio indé Positech Games a décrit sa rencontre mouvementée avec le bonhomme lors du Develop de Brighton, alors qu’il menait une [...]
@ Miguel Artur
I am not defending Mark Rein. Im sure he can be a jerk, as can we all and you are right, I wasnt there. I Have met him though. I met Mark Rein at Dice in Vegas few months back because I was in the winning team of Make something Unreal contest. Granted Epic games invited me, granted he might have put on a good face because we were the winners but I did not get any bad vibes from him. All in all, I liked him. He was a very passionate guy, very chatty and friendly. He promoted epic quite vividly, he promoted the games they make but thats his job so i wouldnt hold that against him. To the point, does that single encounter alone enable me to judge him as a character? Maybe, and cliff most certainly seam to think so. Fair Enough. Does it enable me to judge the company he works for? Not really.
I just think it is very immature and naive to pass judgement not only on him, not only the company he represents but “all the big” companies in the industry based on something he said or did at a panel for discussions and quite frankly, coming from a guy who has run a company for 13 years it is nothing short of shocking.
Atleast he made himself heard at a panel for discussions rather than rant down on a public forum like the internet. I find this post very immature, it is just a big rant singling out a big name in the industry and calling him a jerk without actually presenting any counter arguments to what he said, whatever that might have been.
It’s really a shame, because Epic was one of the really great PC game companies back when it was just Tim Sweeney. That guy knew how to make a really good game! Now, it’s gone corporate and has assholes like this guy acting like he owns the place.
People like that have no business in this industry. It’s should be about making fun, unique, interesting games. NOT about garbage-talk from ridiculous PR people.
@ Eddie J
But garbage talk from company CEOs on their blogs is okay?
IMHO, Mark was just trolling, plain and simple.
Mark Rein’s job is to sell UE3 licenses. You were in a huge room full of developers who have zero interest in UE3. By acting like a jerk, he was able to shift attention away from whatever you were talking about and on to Epic’s way of doing things. 99% of you were probably annoyed no doubt, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a couple people walked out of that session thinking “yeah, Mark was rude but I think he might be right”. Which is probably good enough for him.
I mean really, it was a session on micro studios… Why the fuck else would Mark Rein be there?
All the same, I hope the additional press gets you some more GSB sales!
Source: I’ve had Rein shit on my work, too
[...] the developer of Gratuitous Space Battles, among other indie games. On his blog (via CVG), he detailed the events of what occurred at the Develop panel which also featured Robin Lacey of Beatnik Games [...]
@Tomas
I do agree that one shouldn’t judge an industry from a single individual but truth be told the mainstream gaming industry is a bit on the ruthless side and stifles creativity. Having said that I’d like to say I’m not against your views at all, I just think that Cliff may have reasons to feel angry at Mark, and he has good reasons too since Mark was rude to the point of being obnoxious, and it’s natural for one to overreact and transpose that anger to a lot of other things, like the whole industry. But you’ve said it yourself, you are tired of working AAA titles that are mainstream and the same thing over and over again.
But you are correct that one shouldn’t transpose a person’s opinion to another medium but if your work is attacked it’s human nature to go defensive, nobody likes when your work is harshly attacked, having reason on the attack or not. I jot it down to human nature though I too have dealing with the gaming industry and find that Cliff may be more right than wrong about the whole ambient and corporate culture that the industry is turning into. It is a ruthless, stressful industry right now, at least mainstream and people’s perceptions of the industry is getting worse and worse.
I have a suggestion in light of your encounter. Whip up a new little fighter unit for “Gratuitous Space Battles” called “Epic Space Marines”. The unit itself can be as useless as it is cheap but die in a visually interesting way while uttering some appropriately Gears-of-Tournament-esque catchphrase. I’d pay for the humor value in that alone.
Hi Cliff – As has been pointed out elsewhere here (and on Twitter) it was me from SI who was there and asked a question about demo’s before the end.
Regarding our “indieness”, I don’t think we would have passed the “indie test”, as our games have always gone through major publishers, rather than selling direct (we did sell direct one year, but that’s a long story), but we were certainly a micro-studio for many many years, and still run the different teams with the same sort of mentality as “back in the day”.
I’d be delighted to meet up and talk any time you’re free – the current micro-studio scene is something that fascinates me, mainly because it’s where most of my favourite games are coming from at the moment, although I admit that I haven’t played yours, but will be buying (via Steam) this weekend, so at least you’ve got some extra sales out of the panel!
We also try and talk direct to the people who play our games, which I do personally via Twitter and Facebook, and sometimes on our forums, although I post a lot less there now than I used to for various reasons which I’m happy to go through with you, but not happy to put on a public forum.
Shards – I don’t know if I know you or not behind the internet anonymity, and I’m not even sure what you mean by “blustery”. I am certainly opinionated, and not shy of stating that opinion when asked, and very passionate with what I (or the studio, depending on the situation) believe it, but I was at that panel to learn, not to impart my opinion on anyone. I respect each of the guys on the panel, and the independent studio scene at all levels, massively for putting their livelyhoods on the line for their creations, as myself, Ov & Paul did for over a decade at SI until the point where it made sense to us to be part of a larger organisation.
@ Miguel Artur
It is human nature to get defensive about something you work on, I agree. That does not excuse behaving as badly as the person who potentially wronged you, however. Judging by Cliffs standards I could write off Cliff as a jerk for writing this post, ranting on a public forum about something that has no place being there. I dont, however, nor am I call Cliff an all out immature person. I just think that this post is immature and does no good for anyone. If its a publicity stunt that congrats, you have made some headlines but all in all, I think it goes to make the games industry, an industry that is already a difficult industry to be working in, even worse.
If he just needs to vent thats fine, Ive done quite a bit of name calling and ranting in my day but I keep it to my mates over a paint. I think we are all frustrated with the games industry at one point or another but I really do believe that acting out in this manner does more harm than good in the overall picture.
@ Tomas
Agreed, Cliff could have handled things a bit more professionally, true. I can’t fault him for it though, human nature is often stronger than anything.
I agree that this blog post as it is is probably doing more harm than good to the industry but what if Cliff had written the same content but in a more professional way? Would it help the industry too? The point I’m making being that this industry is becoming faceless and uncaring faster and faster and there may come a day where anything written about the industry will do more harm than good regardless of what’s written.
Bravo. Its the Indy houses that keep this industry fresh. Instead of constantly churning out regurgitation of last year’s hits, Indy devs bring a fresh perspective, voice and vision to the gaming world. It would do the entire industry a giant service to look at the concepts Indy developers bring to the table and try and implant some of that creative vision into their overly bloated conglomerated releases.
Thanks for that, your independence on what you want to work and how you want to work is refreshing and inspirational. Keep it up and I’m going to try some of your games now.
[...] the developer of Gratuitous Space Battles, among other indie games. On his blog (via CVG), he detailed the events of what occurred at the Develop panel which also featured Robin Lacey of Beatnik Games [...]
Cliff Harris:
Don’t let any of these assholes get you down whining about “professionality”
You had your career defaced publicly by a fucking douchebag. I’d be pissed off too.
Anyway it was good to read your words on that, thanks for sticking up for yourself and the rest of us. (the little guys)
In any case, you’ve got my respect. I’ve never heard of you before, but I’ll be going to check out your games.
This snort reflects the worth of a sale to a big company. After overheads and publishing fees how much is a single sale worth to Mr Big compared to Mr Indie? Mr Big might see 0.0001c rise in his share options/bonus – whereas Mr Indie could see $15 in his take home pay from the same sale.
Each point of view is valid within it’s own sphere of business – but this clearly shows a misunderstanding of how a one man band operates.
Go you Cliffski
Tbh, this sucks – it sucks because i like Epics last 2 games, really liked them that and CliffyB over at epic has always seemed nice when interviewed, to hear a senior member one of my faviourate studios treat a great pannel of indy developers like they are dumb is a real piss down.
big shame, i always liked epic; shame this story doesnt have a happy ending.
btw Cliff, fix the gui more!!! we all know how much you like doing that
I think I’m going to buy a second copy of GSB now.
[...] diatribe! We didn’t even get to the part where he says “f*ck off” yet! You really should read Harris’ blog though, as it’s stellar stuff. Some might say it’s unprofessional, but it’s still jolly [...]
“so that indie games can be just as over budget and blandly similar as 90% of xbox games.”
Now you’re just talking out of your ass.
[...] the developer of Gratuitous Space Battles, among other indie games. On his blog (via CVG), he detailed the events of what occurred at the Develop panel which also featured Robin Lacey of Beatnik Games [...]
What drivel. I got here through a link on Desctructoid but really didn’t have any opinion one way or the other. I had to re-read parts of your text several times in an attempt to discern any real point or justification for this tirade of personal attacks and bitching followed by several poor arguments and further ad hominems.
What did he actually say? The guy COULD have been a total prick but you never specify how or why he disagreed. For all I know those evil “Big Bucks” might fund actual in-depth research into how the market actually fucking works. While you’re own personal life-style business works for you, the advice you’re dispensing as an ‘authority’ may be demonstrably false by real data. (I have absolutely no idea if any of this is true, I’m making a point.)
I’ve played and enjoyed some Epic games. I’ve probably not yours but am sure they’re wonderfully charming and original. You should however make your case better. The way someone’s acting, doesn’t tell us much about what they said.
I would think “someone whose run a microstudio for thirteen years” would be more professional.
[...] diatribe! We didn’t even get to the part where he says “f*ck off” yet! You really should read Harris’ blog though, as it’s stellar stuff. Some might say it’s unprofessional, but it’s still jolly [...]
[...] the developer of Gratuitous Space Battles, among other indie games. On his blog (via CVG), he detailed the events of what occurred at the Develop panel which also featured Robin Lacey of Beatnik Games [...]
[...] “Basically I started making the point, and mark (Morris) was also agreeing about how someone can email you as an indie dev, and you can reply personally back to that potential customer, and hopefully, that way you have converted that guy to buying the game.” Wrote Harris in his blog. [...]
I don’t think calling names this dude, Mark Rein, is a good idea. Is burning bridges, and thats is never a good idea…. or that is my personal rule, other people can have other rules.
What I see here positive, is that the industry on UK can create something that is talked about worldwide. I think is important for the world and uk, to look at britain wen talking about videogame things. USA can have a mass-appeal industry, and produce 900 giganteous blockbusters a year, and win the war only with the power of his industry. These are numbers soo big, that stop making sense to me, and any other human this side of the world. The Indie industry is delivering (a word that I think the AAA industry has to love), what the Indie industry is delivering is rare type of quality, gems, something akin to “I+D”, … creating new types of gameplays, exploring what can be done. And doing all this in the cheap. If the indie culture die today, I would remenber it with a fond memory, but It will be a great think if continue, a great and very healty thing for the industry as a whole.
Videogames is not the only option for enteirnament, is the favorite now, but withouth the “I+D” impetus of the Indie people is possible that the whole thing would fade out, since people bored of tired old formulas can change his enteirnamente to something else.
I think we needs the types like Mark Reins, and the types like Cliffski.
[...] the developer of Gratuitous Space Battles, among other indie games. On his blog (via CVG), he detailed the events of what occurred at the Develop panel which also featured Robin Lacey of Beatnik Games [...]
[...] Ciffski's Blog] Share and [...]
[...] in the front row – interrupting the discussion to give him a piece of his marketing wisdom. Go read Cliff’s takes on the event – though I was actually at the event, so will hopefully write it up soon. It’s worth [...]
Great post! Keep being awesome, ignore the jerk.
Sing it, Cliff! (your educated opinion, that is.) Did M.R. have any advice for you on how to part your hair or tie your shoes? I can only assume he thinks you do those things wrong too…
Wicked post mate!
I think it’s funny to compare you and Rein because it’s kinda like comparing a cowboy and city slicker.
You put both in the wild on their own and only one is going to survive.
Rein would dry up, turn to dust and sweep away with the wind if he didn’t have millions of dollars and hundreds of people with talent behind him. Even then, his studio generates games that essentially play themselves. Woopdedoo.
You on the other hand, if handed a keyboard and mouse could generate a game on your own, subsequently a studio, and an income all your own.
I think one of the most interesting points that somebody else has already made in your comments is the fact that Gabe Newell answers his fans emails, one to one.
Fuck Rein. Fuckin’ sales…
This post just sold me on buying Gratuitous Space Battles…
Call it a reward for good customer service, or Karma coming back around for you… Thanks. Heading over to Steam right now to buy it.
The abject failure of the Unreal Tournament 3 launch is proof positive that Mark Rein shouldn’t be giving marketing advice to anyone.
It’s one thing attending a panel and listening to people, or behave like an idiot by interrupting those who share their experience. If this wasn’t interesting to Marc Reign, he should have left the room. Or he should have waited for the Q&A part.
I’ve been working at Westka as a Lead Game Engine developer for an unpublished game when my bosses invited Epic to the company. They bought Epics Unreal 2 engine back then with the promise that the engine is usable. Happened that it wasn’t and more than half of the time the programmers of the Y-Project had to fix bugs, program around bugs and work with non-functional tools. The project manager came by my office one day because we managed to deliver a working prototype 2 weeks ahead schedule with our own game engine. When we showed him the tools, he had his jaw dropping. My company paid $500k back then for a non-working engine. A payroll which finally weighted in so much that the company closed doors.
During that time I actually had the chance to meet Mark Reign in person. And his behavior back then already was as some people described it here: Paying no attention at all to people who are not directly involved in him selling his stuff…
That said, a wording says: “You always meet twice.” and hopefully, next time, some people got a little bit more mature…
Rein was rude no doubt there. Little known fact he got into some fight with everyone at id software way back in the day during Wolf3D development and was let go from id Software. It’s mentioned in the Masters of Doom book I think.
That should give you a clue as to the man.
That said Epic were sort of an indie studio for a few years at the beginning before they went big time with Unreal, when did Mark Reign join ?
[...] the developer of Gratuitous Space Battles, among other indie games. On his blog (via CVG), he detailed the events of what occurred at the Develop panel which also featured Robin Lacey of Beatnik Games [...]
Hmm. The thousand fan theory is usually about providing a living wage, not minimum wage. A recent news story put a realistic minimum wage at £14400 per year. Yeah, good luck raising a family on that. Anyway…
At one game a year, it’d be just 15 quid profit per fan though, so not out of the question. A thousand fans paying thirty quid a year, starts to look liveable.
Of course, ten years from now, there will be a hundred times as many people looking for fans.
Gather your fans early, and gather them often.
Sad article, Cliff. It’s a genuine shame that crap like this goes on. Similar to the worst of those 80s Hollywood movies with the jocks and the nerds.
Cliff,
That was um…er… epic
Leo
“I just assume they haven’t changed since Unreal Tournament”
Basically: yes. While Epic are not quite as bad as Id software in this way, they are one of those companies that likes to release virtually an identical copy of their previous game with an upgraded engine. (The main difference is that the Id Tech engines are all Carmack’s personal playthings designed with his tastes in mind, while the Unreal Engine has tons of features meant to cater to other developers’ needs.) While Unreal 2 was interesting, Unreal 3 basically threw out everything that Unreal 2 did and basically tried to build a narrative around deathmatching. This is not unlike Nintendo making a Zelda game where they decide to focus exclusively on combat in the overworld and not include any dungeons or puzzles at all and towns are only seen in cutscenes.
@LazerFX: “Weirdest thing to me – Epic started off as a few-man ‘indie’ band, waaaaay back in the day (Who recalls Epic MegaGames? ZZT? Jazz Jackrabbit and all that stuff?). Seems like they’ve forgotten their roots…”
I think that may be part of why Mark had that reaction in the first place. I believe a lot of people who started off small in the late 80s-mid 90s and went big now regret doing it that way: in the beginning they could be totally indie; now they’re shackled to publishers demanding they work 24/7 on AAA ultra-mega-remakes of existing games. Or they’re burned out and not working on games at all anymore.
@Vance: “In other words, what you, and the other fine indie developers out there do, simply makes sense and you’re just cramping the style of the bigger guys – why? Because they can’t be bothered to interact with their fan base anyway,”
I think it may also have something to do with the average Epic fan. Now, not everyone is like this (for example: I’m not), but the general perception is that generally those who play Unreal Tournament are much like those who generally play Counter-Strike and/or Halo: immature adrenaline junkies. And in that context, I can’t fault Mark for not wanting to interact with his own fanbase much. It sounds like he’s envious of the quality of GSB’s fans.
Sorry to say it but Mark Rein is correct in his own way. If you pander to the lowest common denominator like Epic does then you are much more likely to sell more copies than innovative, interesting, more maneuverable indie studios. However, you say that you’d rather make a modest living doing something you love than to churn out the next McDonalds of games, and that’s integrity that Epic lost since they stopped making Megagames.
Is Mark Rein a jerk? Hell yes. But it won’t do you any good to tell it to him because he will never understand where you’re coming from. Soulless business men dream of volume, not quality.
I’ll be blunt: Fuck Epic Games.
Now to elaborate…
I remember when Epic was new. When CliffyB and Mark Rein were the two most visible public faces of the company. Back when they were pushing Unreal in the Engine Wars™ between iD’s Quake Engine and Epic’s UE. I loved Unreal and Unreal Tournament and firmly stood with Epic, even during their few blunders like UT2K3. Back in those days, I remember e-mailing both CliffyB and Mark Rein and getting PERSONAL responses back, and they were both very active in the Epic Games community.
Along came the Gears of War franchise and Epic started acting like they were the appointed Kings of gaming. I had to laugh when I played the first Gears, though, because the models looked like next gen, higher resolution, higher polygon models of the typical UT2K4 male soldiers. Nothing really new, just the same characters in a different context with different names.
I anxiously awaited UT3, but the writing was on the wall. Epic started making comments about how UT was just a testing ground for their new engine features. This comment was complete and utter shite, because if it hadn’t been for Unreal and UT, Epic Games would have never survived long enough to make Gears. The ultimate back stab was when they showed the intro trailer for UT3 and it opened with the line “From the studio that brought you Gears of War…”, completely turning their back on the history of the Unreal Tournament franchise.
Now, it’s impossible to communicate with anyone from Epic Games. They’re rarely in contact with their own community. They’ve become far too big for their britches. Mark Rein is off peddling Unreal Engine, which as someone has mentioned has become far too standard and bland, while CliffyB is finishing up Gears 3 and then moving on to his new baby – the multiplatform FPS BulletStorm (which, by the way, looks JUST LIKE GEARS… shocker, I know).
In stark contrast there’s a triple-A studio that never lost sight of the individual gamer: Insomniac Games. I have e-mailed Insomniac with praise and criticism of both their Ratchet & Clank franchise and their Resistance franchise and, without fail, I get a personal response from someone every time. Sometimes it’s simply a PR person writing a thank you letter. A few times, as was the case with R&C2 (PS2) and Resistance 1 (PS3), I actually got responses from developers of the respective games.
The ultimate hilarity, at least to me, is that Microsoft is going to be the company that suffers most because of Epic Games. MS has carved out a nice little relationship with them and the 360 benefited significantly from the exclusivity of Gears which drove unit interest until Halo 3 came out. Epic doesn’t really care about Microsoft – Gears was a contract of convenience for Epic Games. Gears 3 ends the franchise and Epic has moved on to multiplatform and UE4 development. After Gears 3, Epic’s exclusivity with Microsoft is done, and Microsoft is going to lose one of their major “staple” titles.
Thing is, devs from big studios don’t tend to need to interact with their community in the same way as indie devs.
Why bother building up your own community when you know a load of fan sites are going to spring up, and the only work you need to do is to get your community manager to post there once a week? That technique seems to work more than well enough for a load of the bigger studios.
Of course, people always appreciate it when you go the extra mile…
I’d be interested in seeing how many extra sales Cliffski gets because of this blog post.
Personally as a gamer, I would rather have devs replying to our concerns than dealing with those CS or Tech support guys. It gives us more of a homely feeling, such as you actually give a shit. Epic sucks, and so those their Engine, it is the worst POS engine I have ever worked with when it comes to functionality.
Yeah, Mark Rein can jump in with guns blazing sometimes, invited or not.
It’s all intended to be in good fun, but I guess it didn’t work out that way this time. Sorry!
To the the “Epic was nice till Mark came along” crowd, Mark’s been here since 1992. He’s a world-class dealmaker, and Epic would certainly not have survived to 2010 as an independent developer without his tenacity and business savvy. The ability to doggedly negotiate with publishers and platform markers has absolutely been key to retaining the freedom of our creative and technical folks.
@MadTinkerer, companies like Epic and Valve retain total creative control over our games. We work with publishers who do marketing and distribution, but what we build and when we’ll deliver it is up to us. The spirit is the same now as in the early days; what’s really changed is size (it takes 70+ developers to build a game like Gears) and process (you need some real organization and management to run this sort of company effectively).
When you have millions of customers, you can’t talk to them all. Many of the Epic folks are in frequent contact with enough gamers that we have a pretty clear idea of what the community is thinking, but with this scope of product you can’t respond as quickly or as pervasively. It’s a nice but real problem, and one smaller teams like y’all will share when faced with a runaway success.
I just wanted to say kudos to you for standing up and saying what you think.
yow!
lol Cliff, nice to see you haven’t changed since our days at Elixir. Well said and congrats on GSB, I play it far more that any GoW/UT game I can assure you
Tim, let’s be honest. Too often, Mark is way too jerky, and this is why he’s served you so well as a negotiator, which makes you complicit in his assaholism. Some of us aren’t willing to go to those lengths to remain independent. The moral compass doesn’t always point the way to wealth.
I recently asked Mark for a quote on UE3 for an angel funded game with a cool design you couldn’t get funded at a publisher where he asked for 25% of the developer’s budget and 25% of the developer’s royalty. Come on. I shipped the first UE3 game before even Epic did, and every complaint people have about it were compounded 3-fold to pull that off, but we did it minimal whining. Mark doesn’t remember shit like that, and it’s unprofessional.
I like Mark personally and realize he’s mostly having fun, but life is too short to negotiate with him. He’s gets petulant and overly competitive, and it’s frankly amateur and disrespectful. If you weren’t spoon-feeding him some of the best tech out there, he’d be unemployable.
Mark isn’t serving you well as your customer-facing representative. Unity is crawling right up your asses, and I’m cheering them on, primarily because of Mark’s abuse. A lot of people I know are, and they cite that same behavior.
It’s telling that he hasn’t gotten on here and apologized yet. Is there an excuse for that, too? His guns don’t seem to be blazing now.
Well said Cliff! There’s no excuse for such behavior, and it’s good you made a post about this, so that it becomes apparent that no-one enjoys this man’s way of talking. I liked the Gears Of War games for what they are, but the entire CliffyB/Mark Rein charade is making me feel a little “guilty” when I play those games.
Well now, that money I was possibly going to spend on Gears 3 and Bulletstorm will now go in a reserve for more Gratuitous space battles expansinos
This strikes me as completely weird – back in the day when UT shipped (almost 11 years ago!) I emailed Mark Rein about when it would come out in Australia. He replied almost straight away and was very helpful.
@Tim Sweeney
“It’s a nice but real problem, and one smaller teams like y’all will share when faced with a runaway success.”
with great respect tim (you made the ZZT, after all, which was instrumental in basically founding the indie games / hobbyist games community), i don’t think that’s really what this about. of course you can’t reply to everyone personally after the volume reaches a certain degree. it was more that the VP didn’t recognize that what works for marketing and PR at a smaller scale doesn’t work at a larger scale, and vice versa. if you only need to sell 1000 copies a year to make a living, every one sale counts, and every email counts, and every forum post you make about your game counts.
so him saying it’s inefficient to do it that way shows he is a bit out of touch with the realities of being an indie game developer, and the relatively lack of marketing and notability we have to deal with. for instance, you do realize how easy it is to get gears news in games magazines compared to how easy it is for cliffski or myself to get news of our games in game magazines (even if our games are just as good)? because we can’t rely on games journalists to market our games (we can only rely on them to ignore them) we can only do unorthodox, guerrilla tactics and one on one connections with other people. that’s our bread and butter, literally, and saying ‘ignore personal connections and email’ doesn’t make sense as advice to give an indie developer.
-paul
Tim:
The fact that you just smile off what Mark did is weak. I’m local to the Cary area, so do you mind if I come into your next presentation and start making uninvited remarks during it? I don’t care if you support Mark; hell, that’s your job. However, this isn’t the first time that Mark has failed with the brain-to-mouth filter test. Remember 2003 and the Unreal security vulnerability? Yeah. Let’s piss off a bunch of hackers. Good idea there.
Look, Epic may retain creative freedom, but I’ve seen the sports cars outside; you’ve lost the underground touch. To this day, I’m still wondering why Epic hasn’t embraced the local gaming community (like Redstorm has) and offer volunteer game testing to those who apply.
Well, Mark isn’t doing a great job promoting UE among indie devs now, is he?
My guess is that he was hired to be a jerk (either artificially or because he’s a natural) to deal with jerky publishers – something the guys that do the actual work and thinking at Epic can’t be bothered to do. Since the real world is full of jerks, he may be indeed a central piece in Epic’s success, given his (proven) natural jerkiness.
Now we only need a way to avoid guys like him taking first row seats in such events and the world will be a step closer to perfection.
Great post. It is a shame you and the other panel members had to deal with this idiot. You have the right attitude though, screw Mark Rein. To be honest the unreal engine is popping up way too much in games these days. I have reduced the time I spend playing Xbox due to the “sameness” in the games. Glad there are companies such as yours trying things differently. Keep up the good work.
Lesson for Epic to learn: a large company’s ability to innovate in the games world (thus, chances of future success) greatly depends on how well they can isolate their (necessary) jerks from the developers both inside and outside the company’s walls.
Addendum to free lesson for Epic to learn: the direct proportion described above relies on the tenet that a company large enough to need jerks should also isolate that class of workers from the players as well.
CHEERS MATE!! BIG UP for this!!
and why the heck was Rein even at this conference?
@Tim Sweeney – Mark is fairly famous now for running his mouth. Its obvious he doesn’t actually do anything in the back office (work on games), other than negotiate and think he is cool because he directs a big powerhouse like Epic. I think you would see, however, that Mark is definitely a replaceable commodity. Sales guys are a important, especially one with that amount of experience, but he’s not helping you guys in as many ways as you think. I’m not suggesting he isn’t a loyal and good friend to you and to Epic, but his opinions are obviously out of line. I’ve never met him, but I know I would recognize him from the many stories, videos and screenshots I’ve seen of him making stupid statements. I’ve followed games long enough that I have a long history of Mark’isms in my head.
Mark, keep your opinions to yourself. Indies don’t try to compete in your market, stay out of ours.
Great read, I agree with you.
The best service and experiences from games I’ve had this have all been from indie or small developers.
Keep up the great work.
Dear Mr. Cliff Harris,
You have just sold one copy of Gratuitous Space Battles with this post. I fucking love what you stand for. Buy a beer with the money you’ll be getting from me next payday.
I’d like to preface this by saying that before seeing a news piece about this blog I didn’t know there was any sort of indie games scene on the internet.
Mr Harris, I’m screwing around with all the demos on your site now, and I think you just sold one copy of every game here and opened my eyes to a whole new world. Just earlier this week I sold every console, game, controller etc. that I had because I’m so bored of video games. I held my first controller when I was three years old and have been playing games constantly since, but over the last few years I’ve gotten more and more bored with it for exactly the reasons you just described in Epic Games. I’ve actually been depressed lately because I’m not sure what to do now. It’s not that video games are my life, I’ve picked up lots of new hobbies as they got more and more boring (See: grey space marine vs aliens), but they were such an important part of my life for so long that giving them up is almost like losing an old friend.
Now, just from your site and flitting around the internet with my new google keyword “indie” in tow, the magic is back. It feels almost like that first time again. All because you decided to tell one bigwig asshole to fuck off.
Thank you.
Very well put! More people in the industry should reply to fans now and then. Since Twitter more have and that’s good to see. Why would you ever be above replying to a fan/customer? You can’t or have to answer everybody of course, but pick a few from time to time, it helps to keep you in touch with reality also.
Being an microstudio has nothing to do with doing it right or wrong. You might not sell millions of copies of your game, but that doesn’t mean you’re a lesser company then anyone else. I’ve had more fun with some indie titles, then I had with some so called AAA titles with teams of 100+ people. When will people finally learn that size doesn’t matter?
Gladly some of the bigger guys like Stardock (Impulse Driven) and Valve (Steam) also understand that very well and work and interact with the community on many levels. Its more a mindset then anything to do with being a micro or a macro studio.
I won’t buy GSB, because I already own it
, but I’m going to buy the expansions this weekend (easy since the only reason I didn’t do so before, was me not having the time to play with them 
)and promise to tell at least two people abouts GSB this week. You’ve always shown quality service / responses to fans and customers and that should be rewarded.
Keep fighting the good fight!
[...] and proud indie developer, cliffski, outs Epic sales legend, Mark Rein, as a “jerk” [...]
I haven’t read all the comments and I missed this particular exchange, although I was at Develop. Sorry if this sentiment has been stated earlier.
I have a little theory as to why this Mark Rein was being so offensive: you unsettle him.
From what I can gather, he’s a marketeer near the top of the Epic food chain. As such, he’s fairly far removed from the pushing of pixels, the pulling of vertices or the wrestling of code. He probably earns a fair bit of cash and undoubtedly more than most at Epic. In order to justify his role to himself, whilst all this hard work of actually making their games goes on around him, he has to big up his role of salesman in his own mind. Some people in his position do this by convincing themselves that they are more important than the actual creative/technical talent on the shop floor.
Then he sees you, an independent developer making great games that people like and you, along with all the actual work of making the games, also do his job. And you do it by talking to fans as if they were human beings, rather than spending squidillions on massive marketing campaigns.
Your success undermines the reason for his professional existence. This is why Bobby K. says that it takes a village to make a game and only a village idiot thinks they can do it alone; the perceived need for a big organisation justifies their existence. When proved wrong, like all bullies, they lash out and ridicule, rather than change their view of the world.
As a coder for a well known games studio I think that most actual developers, as well as gamers, will side with you on this.
I hate that he missed the point and didn’t realize everybody is making games here. Perhaps he got defensive over perceiving you guys as bashing the traditional way of doing games these days, but I don’t see the sense in it. Everybody’s making games for game lovers.
You’re probably right though. Testosterone is the root of many problems and he was likely being a jack ass for the sake of being one.
People pay you for you to keep on what you’re doing and you have been for a while. That to me is exactly what successful business is.
[...] the developer of Gratuitous Space Battles, among other indie games. On his blog (via CVG), he detailed the events of what occurred at the Develop panel which also featured Robin Lacey of Beatnik Games [...]
Mr Harris,
This blog post is starting to be picked up on a lot of sites:
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3180422
I met a large number of the guys at Epic during E3 back in the day when Unreal Engine 2 was first coming out. The company I worked for at the time was using their engine for non-game purposes. Even though we were five people and would possibly not provide them with any real money they helped us out greatly. We met with them during E3 to show what we had done so far and they worked with us to make our product better. Even some of the features we suggested made its way into the core code. Everyone I met was nice, they showed us their latest stuff, we played games, we chatted and overall it was an excellent experience.
And even before that I had met Cliff Bleszinski during a QuakeCon back in its early years. This was when Epic was in its Unreal 1 days. Cliff and I ran a small panel about level design and even the first guys of 2015 were there listening to the panel. I thought Cliff was a good guy, he listened to what I said, helped with the panel and talked with the people who hung around after the panel. Overall, I felt Cliff was a good guy and would have happily claimed him as a friend if I had more contact with him from that point.
I miss those days.
But it is quite clear at this point that the success and money has inflated some egos to the stretching point because I have no problem in saying, with my real name here in fact, that too many people in Epic have become the assholes of the video gaming industry. And just like every large developer/publisher that feels that are too good for their own industry, they will eventually wither away to be bought out by one of their competitors to disappear.
And based on their attitudes lately, this example just being the latest in a series of questionable behavior, I say good riddance.
I know my comment is about to be burried by 1,000 more, but I feel the need to type it out anyway…
As a customer and life long gamer (started on the NES), I want to support Cliffski and his attitudes about customer interaction. Too many big developers/publishers have this sense of entitlement, as though they somehow deserve to make profits just because they spent money making a game – even if it’s a shitty game. They focus almost exclusively on the “mass market” and they all toss their games out to retail at the same time. Then when their game fails commercially (largely because it’s competing directly with every other AAA new release for that year) they blame it on piracy. The triple A game development industry has absolutely no room to lecture anyone about sales and marketing. They are universally awful at it. It’s obvious from Epic’s recent abandoning of the PC market that they couldn’t cut it in that department either.
Cliff on the other hand seems to have adopted a philosophy where the business adapts to the customers, which is the way a business should be run. People like Mark Rein will never understand that, because running a business in that fashion requires you to have an ego that doesn’t make you look like a bobblehead. For him to think that he’s going to go to a developer conference and teach those indie devs a lesson is so far beyond douchebaggery that there simply isn’t a word for it. I put forth the idea that such excessive levels of jerkdom hence forth be known as douchereinery.
mark rein was thrown out of id and that`s all you need to know about him
Hahahaha, Mark Rein sure is a cocksucker! What a hopelessly retarded piece of human excrement. Don’t mind me, I’m just behaving in the same manor Mark Rein does when other people are speaking.
Fuck you Mark Rein (and anyone that would stick up for him) – yeah, that includes all you Epic trash-bags.
[...] by BlackThunder on Jul.17, 2010, under News Here is something that slipped passed me in the last couple weeks. If you don’t check Cliff’s blog on a regular basis you are bound to miss something good. If you listen to us any time you know that Cliff has a special spot in our hearts. He seems to be a genuine nice guy, that loves what he does and aims to please his customer base. Well… he is doing it all wrong… if you believe the voice of Epic Games that is! Here is the story from Cliff’s Blog: [...]
[...] Read the rest at Cliffski’s Blog [...]
Hi there.
Just read about this story on Gamespy.com, and found the adress of your site in comments.
Way to go and answering to that rudeness from Rein. Some of the comments suggest that your reaction places you on same immature and rude level as he is on, but I disagree. From time to time its good, and even a duty to stand up to jerk.
I’m not buying stuff from Activision and Blizzard because of the reason you’ve talked about, or that is implied in your speech, if I understand in correctly. namely – they dont care about their clients, judging about what people like or dont like with statistics and stat tracking. No personal relation or interest in gamers’ minds except for “what will make them buy” is there.
Perfect example of that attitude is in BLizzard’s reaction to RealID story, and ironicly – from Rein himself on claims that Epic is not PC studio anymore.
Both of them seem to want to please the fans, but somehow avoiding saying the words!
Blizz CEO did NEVER told they are sorry, or agree that RealID was a bad idea. All he did was repeating that they “want the best”. If I havn’t followed the story on forums and boards, I could think that RealID was cancelled just bacause someone’s mood changed, and its not a big deal.
No words, even remotely resempling “community- you are right, we wont do it, we’re sorry” were there.
Rein’s talk about Epic being “still PC” annoyed me no less, and its actualy quite disappointing that not many reacted to that.
Instead of saying “yes, we have forgot about PC for some time, we had to work for m$, but we will try to improve”, all he talks about is their engine they sell to PC, and how they sell their engine to PC. Oh, and their engine – its for PC! At the end he squized few words about Bulletstorm, that is ALSO on PC, forgeting to mention that its actualy People Can FLy’s game.
Same motive – no “sorry”, no “youre right”. After that claim, I see the happening at the convention as continuation of that attitude.
Anyway – good luck to you in your work, and I wish that all this incident only bring you some fame, so more gamers could find about you and your games.
[...] in the front row – interrupting the discussion to give him a piece of his marketing wisdom. Go read Cliff’s takes on the event – though I was actually at the event, so will hopefully write it up soon. It’s worth [...]
Fuck that bastard.
Im sorry, let me start again….
FUCK THAT BASTARD….
Okay, better…
The fact of the matter is, it is the indie gamers that keep gaming going. It’s that one idea for a video game that some guy has had as a story in his mind for 13 years and has finally developed into a game so epic that gamers just have to buy it that makes games worth playing. Games are revolutionary pieces of story and art that are independently thought of by guys and gals who have passion for it. And then the money his them and that epic story that was so amazing that it reshaped gaming itself, gets a crappy sequel because a Mega-studio bought it and decided that if the game was split up into 3 parts and given filler it could still be good but more money could be made. That same studio that holds it’s workers rightfully earned money ransom so that it can “motivate” them into creating the next big thing. It’s those mega-studios, who are run by a bunch of suits that have never picked up a game in their life much less care enough about anything other than money and prestige to bother reading more than a few lines of plot to their story. Those studios are mechanical beasts with their heart (designers who have a passion for games) disconnected from their heads (the suits). And us gamers can only hope, can only pray, can only yearn for some heroes… some champions in the gaming industry to rise up and create that next amazing piece of art that breaks out of the cookie cutter mold and renews our passion and vigor. But until then, we will be force fed the next “fast-food” game that has more effort put into the Photoshop work on the box and the 2 minute trailer that is more awesome than the game could ever live up to be. Maybe it’s me… just maybe… and I have absolutely not business experience to back this up… but I feel that given the chance I could run a better gaming studio than people like Mark Rein. So keep fighting the good fight Mr. Harris. Keep on trucking.
@EmperorZakan
Epic own People Can Fly, now.
I am starting to believe Indy developers are those who just can’t be successful in the mainstream market.
If you were truly making good games, then you’d be able to break out of the Indy scene and be a reputable company. But you’re not making good games. If they were good, they would become more popular and everyone would want them. I have never heard of your games until now, and I spend a lot of time on the tubes.
Mark and his company make more money because they make games that people want to buy. You want to make games for yourself. Working for a company would mean making games for other people, which is going against Indy development.
Maybe you should look at your career and say “You know, maybe I should do it differently.” If you’re Indy, the current path sure isn’t working.
[...] The show itself brought out some pretty well known industry veterans, and provided a lil bit of controversy. During the show, Tim Schafer referred to Bobby Kotick as a ‘Total Prick’ and Mark Rein was called out as a ‘Jerk’ [...]
“If you were truly making good games, then you’d be able to break out of the Indy scene and be a reputable company”
Thanks, I needed a good laugh
[...] am moment” from him, and clearly some of the panel didn’t, which is brilliant. The best post on this was from Cliffski himself For me it was a ridiculous corporate haranguing in a forum that was about individual personal [...]
You, sir. Are made of epic pwnage.
That is all.
@ BigFatChris “I am starting to believe Indy developers are those who just can’t be successful in the mainstream market.”
Ridiculous. Plainly you don’t understand that Indy just refers to their business being detached from what has now become the traditional model of having a Publisher business pay their bills, it has little to do with amount of commercial success a developers products achieve in the market. There are Indy books, music, movies, etc. Some have angel investors (less stringent terms than a Publisher, like in regards to ownership of intellectual property), others release smaller projects from small teams (one person in Cliff’s case) that corner niche markets or create them with their creativity.
Do you also believe entrepreneurs are just people who can’t cut it managing and doing the menial tasks of someone else’s business successfully for their bosses profit?
Sure, they may not have lots of access to Other People’s Money to call their own, afford the printing costs of retail boxes, and advertising slots in the 24 hr / 7 days a week mainstream media outlets but they more than make up for that in lower cost forms of development & distribution, and customer retention through satisfaction in having their niche entertainment desires fulfilled – who also spread word of their product through one of the most effective methods of advertisement that results in a sale of a product, word of mouth positive reviews.
No wonder you gave Cliff a laugh, reading your post was like a text version of 3 Stooges skit, where Curly tries to smack Moe in the face with a pie and ends up getting it all over himself and Larry who he was ignorant of even being there while Moe calls them knuckleheads and gets pie on himself when he goes to get revenge.
Hopefully if you return to check for responses to your comment, you will find yourself a little less ignorant or at the very least, I hope someone else learns something about what Indy means IMHO.
I’ve come face to face with Mark Rein a couple of times. Cunt of truly epic proportions.
Not an adbot, but -
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=256162?cid=OTC-RSS&attr=CVG-General-RSS
Anyway, Mark Rein truly is a prick. Good on you Mr. Harris for telling it how it is. I agreed with every word you said, and while your scathing post was as entertaining to read as it was brilliant, as a lifelong gamer I see it as my duty to support you from now on.
Heh, warms the cockals of my heart, this.
I have a great deal of respect for the trailblazers of the (PC) game dev biz, Carmack, Sweeney, et al, but I feel that respect is eclipsed by the current breed of devs, Positech, Introversion, etc. I feel the challenges faced by the current generation are much greater than those faced by the previous. But I’m biased, as I face those very challenges.
As a side note, I was amused to see UnrealScript mentioned. I find it to be UE’s greatest failing and should have been replaced by a more modern script in UE2, not to mention 2.5 and 3. It was fine 10 years ago, but is now far superseded by freely available embedded script parsers, in fully dynamic OO languages to boot.
So tired…
I love all these great responses. Its was nice to read the back and forth of folks in the business. Tim Sweeney’s point of view was nice.
If someone would come into your meetings to be distracting, interrupt, and not be respectful of the people who were running it. That person would be told to shut their manpleaser and shown the door. Interruptions cost time, valuable time each person was there to learn from fellow developers. One mans work in the past while great for the business, shouldn’t be used condoned a disrespectful action. It seemed to take the mood of sharing to frustration. Hopefully the connections others made at the panel will continue. Hopefully it triggered debate to further connect the community.
I am just an Strat gamer and IT guy and not in the grand development business. Just hate when folks who come in as self appointed experts come in with closed mind, derailing even simple discussions. Its all about respect for your fellow man.
I look forward to reading more opinions, and especially from others who were at the panel.
[...] Sources: CVG.com, positech.co.uk [...]
[...] Epic opinions (Cliffski’s Blog, Cliff Harris) + Cliff Bleszinski and Cliff Harris Twitter Follow-Up “I’ve mulled over whether to say anything at all, but if you can’t say what you think about the games industry when you own your own company, when can you?” [...]
[...] relationship with “a small number of gamers” was a “waste of time.” Harris shot back on his blog, pointing out that (a) whatever he’s doing is working for him, because he’s been [...]
[...] relationship with “a small number of gamers” was a “waste of time.” Harris shot back on his blog, pointing out that (a) whatever he’s doing is working for him, because he’s been [...]
[...] relationship with “a small number of gamers” was a “waste of time.” Harris shot back on his blog, pointing out that (a) whatever he’s doing is working for him, because he’s been [...]
[...] according to Cliffski’s blog and a couple of other sources, it kinda went like this: At a game developer’s conference in [...]
@Nick
Amen! Don’t I know that look. Mark Rein in a nutshell.
Disappointed by the rather childish personal jibes in these comments.
I will say this: in any of my professional dealings with Mark, he has been gracious and generous and helpful. He is very good at what he does. He can be a bigmouth at times but understand that it comes from a place of sincerity and experience, and the point he was making at Develop has merit.
Perhaps the question needs to be asked – why are some indie devs so prickly, so sensitive, so precious and protective of their indie status? It really doesn’t help anyone, and some day you may find yourself in need of some help from a Mark Rein and only a fool would burn those kinds of bridges.
If you haven’t read it yet, here’s Mark Rein apology on Develop web site.
http://www.develop-online.net/news/35418/Exclusive-Mark-Reins-indie-apology
According to Mark Rein, this is some kind of misunderstanding. I can’t tell the full tructh (I don’t know it) but I can tell a few things about Mark. I met Mark Rein a few times on different conferences around Europe, and I can’t tell he’s a jerk – because I don’t think he’s a jerk. He’s actually quite clever and quite enjoyable. Although I don’t know the exact reason why he came to the panel, I know for sure that he’s not going to attend a conference session if the content doesn’t have any interest to him (maybe he wants to buy Introversion. Just kidding). I saw him going out of a conference room because the way the speaker handled the subject didn’t convinced him, so if he stayed you can be sure that he was indeed interrested in the discussion.
Now, having so many people from outside the industry tha calls him a jerk without even knowing him is just plain weird. He makes bold statements. Most of the time, he doesn’t express his own views but Epic’s views – so crediting him for giving out corporate stuff is a bit like “shooting the messenger”. Sometimes he speaks for himself – and in these cases, he might be righth, wise, wrong, awfull, stupid, clever, dishonnest, honnest, and so on. He’s just a man, and unless I’m mistaken, “errare humanum est”.
I can tell you that, for sure, he’s not closed minded, neither he is a bastard who should be fucked.
@BigFatChris : Yeah. “Castle Crusher”, “Braid” or the myriad of other XBLA games are just plain awful and unsuccessfull. Thanks for englighening us with your deep knowledge of the game industry
@BigFatChris, The sales of Minecraft are proof enough that indie game development can be profitable. I don’t know just how well Cliff has done with GSB, or the Arcen guys have done with AI Wars, but with the sales data on the minecraft site, the developer there has made some really nice money over the past 14 months, somewhere in the range of $400k. I don’t know what his costs are, but I imagine a very significant amount of that is profit. How many people do you know who make that kind of money in any field?
So indie devs can be successful, and they have the advantage that they can take chances on ideas that the big guys can’t. They will most likely be the main driver of gameplay innovation for many years to come.
If you are 1 person, you can’t say you run a microstudio…because you aren’t a studio at all. I am one person who makes music of a band. I am not a band, I am a musician.
To undermine Epic because of where they are now, and not consider any of their past is……IGNORANT.
you can’t be ignorant.
Don’t know about the major under dwellings of Epic yet but, I’ve come to understand many company heads are growing out of their own skin to produce a marketable game. Just in general example, what happened to Gabe Newell when he announced at E3 that Portal 2 would be the best game on PS3? Why does that even matter?
I understand that there is a console war going on and will always be until for some crazy reason games die out but, when do games even become about being fun anymore? I still however, highly respect Gabe. I just hope that more head game developers out there will keep to the basics and ask what is really fun? If you are making games and are not having fun, doesn’t that defeat the purpose?
I’m guess what I’m trying to say is that being more personal to gamers helps to better understand why games are fun in the first place. I’m glad that you helped to open this response up Cliff. What you’re doing is right. Thanks for the post!
On the one hand I think it’s hilarious that Cliffski would deign to respond to Mark Rein for something that’s obviously beneath him, on the other hand I feel it’s pure genius that Cliffski is going to get so many sales out of this little rant. It’s friggin’ brilliant!
I find it even more hilarious though about some of the responses to the rant. I mean seriously some of you guys are no longer going to buy Epic games because one guy was being rude. Even if he is rude constantly, all the fun you’ve had over certain games and you even care what he has to say. I mean if I came to that meeting and started being rude and making comments and so forth, I would have just been asked to leave. And you guys would be having a snicker about me later, but because this guy is in the industry, and apparently somewhat famous (I’ve not even heard of this guy, but then again I don’t play many Epic games), it’s frickin’ news. I mean seriously guys.
I have respect for Cliffski in one way and that his, his ability to make a living doing what he loves. The indie world isn’t going to take off because of some of you telling Mark Reign to f**k off, and the mainstream industry isn’t going to suddenly fold because a few of you “heard” that one guy was being an idiot and you’re suddenly not going to buy their games or the whole industry. Yeah the whole industry is to blame for one guy who is as you put it “a jerk”.
This whole thing just cracked me up I had to read all of the comments, I haven’t had a great laugh, in a long, long time.
Cliffski – you’re the man for turning this into some great indie pr (like the thing with pirates) I hope this does as well for you as that did.
[...] Mark Rein is a bully and got on Cliffes bad side [...]
[...] the panel of indies – one of which, Cliff Harris of Positech Games, later posted a blog telling Epic to “fuck off.” Rein has since apologised – here’s the full [...]
[...] Few days earlier, we reported that a very disgruntled indie developer, Cliff Harris, was not pleased with Mark Rein interrupting his talk at the Develop panel… going as far as to calling him a jerk and telling him to **** off. [...]
[...] started out at last week’s Develop conference and unfolded on Cliffski’s blog over the [...]
Cliff, I just wanted to congratulate you on having the courage to publicly rip on a AAA studio and follow your gut with this. It’s not something most indie devs would do, and it looks like it benefited everyone involved, including the spectators (i.e. there’s some great advice in Mark Rein’s apology that I relate to). It was cool hearing from Tim Sweeney too, I’d love to meet up with him at a conference one of these days.
[...] Cliff Harris of Positech Games didn’t take kindly to this, going so far as to write on his blog “Mark Rein is a jerk” and “…Triple-A studio bosses trying to lecture me on [...]
Personally, I think its complete balls to keep your customers in the dark about information just because you want to use it to make your marketing penis bigger. How many times have we all asked developers to tell us about whats going on and they refuse just because they don’t want to say anything until they can use it to get press? Fuck that. I like the little guys ideas, fucking tell us whats up like we actually matter for a change.
[...] salon Develop de Brighton où il avait commis son impair], j’ai été accueilli par un lien vers [le blog de Cliff Harris] et je me sens vraiment [...]
Mark Rein or anyone from Epic can’t tell anyone about where they’re going wrong, criticise someone that they wouldn’t know how to connect with fans or try to lecture anyone about how to make a game, they have absolutely no interest in either the community on their origional title, which compared to Unreal tournament is starting to seem like a major happy accident, called Unreal. Not only did they release an incredibly buggy which lacks the origional features (the kind of things it was shipped with, such as dynamic shadows which only work on older versions), but they also released 3 completely incompatible versions of the same damn game. One being the first retail Unreal, then Unreal Gold because it comes with both the origional game and expansion built in, and then a year or so ago, Unreal anthology, which is incompatible with either because of a logo on the intro screen.
Epic have been informed about this by hundreds of fans over almost a decade (Yes, a decade), and they have just completely ignored the problem or any issue anyone has noted. Instead, a very admirable devotee from the Unreal community actually had to buy the damn Unreal source code from Epic, which was released in 1998, in order for him to fix most problems which people are having (which Epic put there in the first place and didn’t pay one ounce of attention into fixing them or even caring about them), and add re-add in the origional features such as dynamic shadows, with some others.
But apart from Mark Rein, I hardly think Cliff Blizenski is the highly expertised game designer he makes himself out to be, according to him a good game should not be longer than 10 hours.
i guess it’s true when they say:
IF YOU’RE NOT INDIE, FUCK YOU.
Was there any video recorded of this interaction? I would love to check that out, haha
Great post Cliff!
It was my first time at Develop (Student) and was sat at the front across from Mark Rein. He’s comments just felt so out of place for what the panel was talking about and really gave the impression of just waylaying the whole session.
A great talk though and plenty of food for thought for students out there!
[...] Harris ?f P?sit??h Games didn’t take kindly to this, going so far as to write on his blog “Mark Rein is a jerk” and “…Triple-A studio bosses trying to lecture me on [...]
Great post Cliff. I was also at that talk (with Cameron Akitt) and it was a great panel. When I first heard Mark Rein’s comments I had the exact same reaction as you, but in all honesty I think he had a point. Ok, some of it may have been lost in his attitude and tone, and the fact that he just sat there and interrupted a panel without so much as an explanation, but it was there. What I got from his comments was that although it makes great marketing sense to talk 1-on-1 with your consumers to build a fan base, it doesn’t make sense to release information about the game to them – at least not before you release it to the press. Word of mouth marketing is a powerful tool for indie’s as I’m sure you’ll know, but if you can get the press to spread that buzz for you it’ll reach a larger and more diverse audience.
I’m not trying to tell you how to scramble eggs here; you’ve run your own company for 13 years and I’ve just graduated Uni. I’m just offering my perspective on what happened at that talk. So yeah, Mark Rein’s a jerk…but I think it was more a case of misplaced enthusiasm than outright and purposeful arseholeness. In any case keep up the good work. I would suggest organising a boxing match between yourself and Rein at next years Develop but it looks like he has the weight advantage. Plus, i’d hate to see you mess up those £75 jeans.
This is BA. I love UT and EPIC games, but I’ll have to side with you/cliff. I despise companies that have the kind of mentality that you describe. Which is why my arch-nemesis is EA.
Probably not related, but since we’re getting it out there.
Just keep doing what you do!
pew pew!
[...] mentioned above. The reason he wrote the line is quite interessting and i advice you to read it here. In short it´s the Triple A approach to communication with gamers vs. the indie [...]
I’m a type of guy You ware talking about Cliff. I remember, a years ago, I wrote a mail with comments to game, which have been during development process, to people who worked on it. They replied me. I bought that game, and sequel too. Even if both still had many bugs, or been to wanting as a whole. I would buy them in pre-order if it would be possible in Poland for that game. And remember about currency rates. They make shopping in on-line stores 4 times more expensive for polish then for US citizen. But still thanks to this piece of private contact, its worth any penny. You just said on this conference for developers, a thing, witch I think is clear for any one. To compete with big studios, You just have to be better then them in some sides of this business – A great contact with buyers of Your products is generally low-cost and effective way. I wonder, who put Mark Rein on his job, if he is so incompetent. Best Regards.
[...] – Cliffski’s Blog » Epic opinions http://positech.co.uk/cliffsblog/?p=769 [...]
I’m not sure it has been mentionned yet, so:
Mark Rein’s apologies:
http://www.develop-online.net/news/35418/Exclusive-Mark-Reins-indie-apology
I just bought GSB agn via Steam. its as much fun to play now as when i got it a year ago.
Have your game downloads increased as a result of this post? I love indi strategy games and stay away from mainstream games like those that epic produce. Never heard of your one man band outfit before but about to get stuck in trying out some of your products
Way2go
[...] Harris, the one-man dev team of Positech Games. Cliff has been known for talking to pirates, and calling some guy a ‘jerk’ quite publicly, but those topics concerning Cliff have been talked and written about to death. I [...]