Industry leaders have bemoaned the tremendous costs attached to projects being developed on new consoles, as estimates reached the $25 to $30 million mark. But Epic Games’ Mark Rein has revealed that Gears of War cost less than $10 million to develop.
Rein said the amazing feat was accomplished through the use of the Unreal Engine 3. "We spent less than $10 million to make Gears of War. People are always saying that making next-generation games is really expensive, and we’re saying, ‘you should license our technology.’"
While Gears has proven to be a tremendous success, Epic’s most vocal company executive pointed out that the Unreal Engine isn’t just about developing shooters–the engine can be used in other gaming environments as well. He said, "Imagination is the biggest barrier," with some developers, and remarked, "When I get asked, ‘can you do this kind of game, that kind of game?’ Yeah, you can do all kinds of games. You just have to use your imagination. So we’re really good at helping our licensees figure out how to attack problems and do things that we’re not even doing in our own games."
Square Enix recently licensed Epic’s Unreal Engine 3, and although it’s unknown what sort of games the company is intending to develop, it is an indication that more game companies are looking towards the Unreal Engine 3 as a resource in producing new games. Gears of War clearly demonstrated that it doesn’t take a king’s ransom to make a successful game–this aspect of using Epic’s game engine will surely be catching the attention of game companies.
