It’s a known fact that Tim Sweeney and co’s heavily licensed technology (Unreal Engine 3) isn’t exactly a breeze to work with among the developers in the industry.
Just ask Mistwalker, the Japanese role playing game studio (responsible for Microsoft’s answer to Dragon Quest, Blue Dragon) currently applying its best efforts to complete their latest title, Lost Odyssey.
In a recent interview with Ars Technica, Hees Kyung (Microsoft’s Global Product Manager) revealed that troublesome, constant engine updates resulted in many complications in the development of Hironobu Sakaguchi’s second RPG for Microsoft’s platform.
"The issue was that Epic kept updating the versions, so it was hard to catch up," stated Mr. Kyung. "For example, if they released Unreal Engine 3, version 6.1, which has certain requirements and limitations for graphics, you wouldn’t have the tools. It was hard to get the tools and instruments necessary to produce the most updated versions of our software."
Not only were the technical issues affecting Mistwalker’s progress, but the language barrier between the two companies factored heavily into the whole ordeal.
"Also, the lack of bilingual staff made it hard for our coders to get the support they needed. Most of our staff is Japanese, and so the language barrier and the updates made it hard to do. These were some of the issues with the engine for us."
If Epic is going to license its technology to developers around the world, wouldn’t it be logical for them to invest in making a much better support system for those using it? It seems that the company fails to realize that developers other than themselves need to complete their products and get them out the door in the quickest way possible.
It seems like some consideration is in order…
