[email protected]
Tim Sweeney is founder and CEO of Epic Games, the company behind the Unreal Engine as well as games such as Gears of War, Unreal Tournament, Infinity Blade and Fortnite. Sweeney started Epic in 1991 with the release of its first shareware game, and then wrote much of the first-generation Unreal Engine. He has led the company through the eras of PC, console and mobile gaming and now looking forward into the emerging worlds of free to play, virtual reality and augmented reality.
Sweeney attended the University of Maryland starting around 1989, where he studied mechanical engineering, though he was still fascinated by computers. Around this time, his father, who worked for the Defense Mapping Agency, gave him an IBM Personal Computer/AT. Sweeney established a consulting business, Potomac Computer Systems, out of his parents' home to offer help with computers, but it never took off and he shelved the company.
Later, Sweeney had the idea of creating games that could be sold, programming them at night or over weekends outside college work. This first required him to create a text editor based on the Pascal language to be able to program the game, which led to the idea of making a game out of the text editor itself. This became the basis of ZZT. He revitalized Potomac Computer Systems for selling ZZT, fulfilling mail orders with help of his father. ZZT sold well enough, a few copies each day that came to about US$100 per day, that Sweeney decided to make developing games his career. Recognizing he needed a better name for a video game company, he renamed Potomac Computer Systems to Epic MegaGames.
Videos
News
Related Speakers View all
David Baszucki
Founder & CEO of Roblox; Entrepreneur, Engineer, & I...
|
|
John Hanke
Founder & CEO of Niantic; Creator of Pokemon Go App ...
|
|
Marc Merrill
Co-Chairman & Co-Founder of Riot Games
|
|
Stacy Brown-Philpot
Fortune 100 Board Director, Investor & Advisor; Form...
|
|
Mariya Yao
Founder of TOPBOTS & Author of "Applied AI: A Handbo...
|
|
Jayshree Ullal
President & CEO at Arista Networks
|
|
Robert Swan
CEO of Intel
|
|
Darren Sugg
Game Designer & Director, Creative Director at Epic ...
|
|
Brian Brackeen
Founder & CEO of Kairos
|
|
Chad Mureta
CEO of App Empire and Author of "App Empire: Make Mo...
|
|
Jade Raymond
Canadian Video Game Executive, Ubisoft Toronto
|
|
Brenda Louise Romero
Award-Winning Game Designer & Developer
|
|
Matt Barrie
CEO of Freelancer.com; Matt Barrie is an award winni...
|
|
Chris Larsen
Business Executive & Angel Investor; Co-Founder of R...
|
|
Kirin Sinha
Founder & CEO of Illumix, Entrepreneurship and Women...
|
|
Kat Holmes
Senior VP of Product Experience at Salesforce; Forme...
|
|
Justin McLeod
Founder & CEO of Hinge
|
|
Francis deSouza
President & CEO of Illumina; Leader in Genomic Seque...
|
|
Min-Liang Tan
Razer co-founder and CEO
|
|
Ori Inbar
Founder at Super Ventures and AWE
|