Here's Why Epic Games Abandoned Gears Of War
The first three Gears of War games were made by a studio called Epic Games. The fourth, however, is being made without their involvement. Epic sold their marquee title to Microsoft in 2014 and moved to developing freemium titles. One has to wonder why.
This week Epic answered that question: it was because they didn’t see the financial path of AAA game-making sustainable. Co-founder Tim Sweeney told Polygon that the first Gears of War, which came out on the XBox 360, cost $12 million to produce. “It made about $100 million in revenue,” he added. “It was very profitable.”
But then the costs started rising, with each sequel being more ridiculously expensive than the last. Sweeney says Gears of War 3 cost “about four or five times more” to make and they calculated if they went ahead with a Gears 4, they would be blowing $100 million — meaning nothing less than an instant mega-hit would put them out of business. Upon this conclusion, Sweeney decided continuing with Gears no longer made financial sense. They let Microsoft do it.
Microsoft hasn’t discussed how much Gears 4 is actually costing them. But the ridiculous cost of modern big games is an issue that needs a solution sooner rather than later. More studios may end up following Epic’s lead if premiums get higher than they already are.