Epic Games (1999–present)

Unreal and personal computer gaming (1999–2006) A statue of Unreal's Malcolm at Epic Games' headquarters In February 1999, Epic MegaGames announced that they had moved their headquarters to a new location in Cary, North Carolina, and would henceforth be known as simply Epic Games.[14] Rein explained that "Unreal was first created by developers who were scattered across the world, eventually, the team came together to finish the game and that's when the real magic started. The move to North Carolina centralizes Epic, bringing all of the company's talented developers under one roof."[14] Furthermore, Sweeney stated that the "Mega" part of the name was dropped because they no longer wanted to pretend to be a big company, as was the original intention of the name when it was a one-man team.[6] The follow-up game, Unreal Tournament, shipped to critical acclaim the same year,[15] at which point the studio had 13 employees.[16] The company launched the Make Something Unreal competition in 2004, aiming to reward video game developers who create mods using the Unreal game engine. Tripwire Interactive won US$80,000 in cash and computer hardware prizes over the course of the contest in the first contest in 2004.[17][18]