13th April 2006, 7:59 PM
True, but an opinion built over a course of years (Epic and Apogee's PC shareware lineups) doesn't change easily, and given that I don't play FPSes that much (I do have Return to Castle Wolfenstein, but it's the only Epic or id FPS I own... though if Apogee is also included, I do also have Duke Nukem 3D.), I can't really compare them. :)
Of course, perhaps the trickiest thing about this comparison is that so many of the games both Epic and Apogee published were just published, not developed, by them, and the same continues now (Epic didn't make Unreal 4, and id didn't make Quake 4, for instance...), making direct comparisons hard... though it is true that both companies have been accused since their early days of making 3D games of being better at making engines than actually making the games the engines run, perhaps making it more obvious why they outsource so many of them... :)
But it is interesting that the two top FPS engine developers have been the exact same companies for a decade now.
Of course, perhaps the trickiest thing about this comparison is that so many of the games both Epic and Apogee published were just published, not developed, by them, and the same continues now (Epic didn't make Unreal 4, and id didn't make Quake 4, for instance...), making direct comparisons hard... though it is true that both companies have been accused since their early days of making 3D games of being better at making engines than actually making the games the engines run, perhaps making it more obvious why they outsource so many of them... :)
But it is interesting that the two top FPS engine developers have been the exact same companies for a decade now.