A former Epic Games’ president joins one his former company’s main rivals in the game-tools business.
Unity Technologies announced today that Mike Capps has joined as internal adviser to the company’s research and executive teams. This move has the industry figurehead moving from the maker of one of the most popular multiplatform game engines, Unreal Engine, to its direct competitor, which Unity CEO John Riccitiello said at the GamesBeat Summit this week sees 800 million game downloads a month. Capps will use the knowledge gained from 10 years at Epic to help Unity expand its reach into the game development world.
In a statement today, Riccitiello said that Capps will be a huge boon for Unity in democratizing game development. As competition between the top game engines heats up, both Epic Games and Unity have worked to open the door for independent game makers and hobbyists to develop on all available platforms, from mobile to VR. Epic announced in March that its Unreal Engine 4 would be free to use (with 5 percent royalties paid on commercial releases), and Unity responded with its free Unity 5 personal edition aimed at hobbyists.
“Unity is in such an enviable position in the industry,” Caps said in a statement. “I see so much exciting potential, and opportunities where I might be able to help, that this role was a logical next step. I’ll do my best to advise John and the leadership team to keep Unity’s tools driving innovation and creative self-expression in ways we can’t even imagine.”
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Capps will begin work at Unity in a month, starting with a trip to Copenhagen, where development on the Unity engine takes place.
