Epic Games has grown from a small studio in Potomac, Maryland into one of the most influential companies in gaming. Founded in 1991 by Tim Sweeney when he was just 20, the company is now headquartered in Cary, North Carolina, and employs thousands of people worldwide.
The company’s two biggest products define different aspects of the gaming world. Unreal Engine, first released in 1998, is the industry’s premier game engine for AAA titles and is used far beyond gaming in film, architecture, and automotive design. Unreal Engine 5, launched in 2022, introduced technologies like Nanite (for massive geometric detail) and Lumen (for real-time global illumination) that have pushed real-time graphics to near-photorealistic levels.
Then there’s Fortnite, which launched in 2017 and became a cultural phenomenon, generating over $9 billion in revenue by 2019 and peaking at 350 million registered accounts. Fortnite didn’t just make money — it popularized the battle royale genre and the free-to-play battle pass model that’s now standard across the industry.
Epic has also been a fierce critic of platform fees, most notably in its ongoing legal battle with Apple over App Store commissions. The Epic Games Store, launched in 2018, challenges Steam by offering developers an 88/12 revenue split compared to Steam’s standard 70/30.
Tencent holds a 40% stake in Epic, which was valued at $31.5 billion in its 2022 funding round. Despite being private, Epic’s combination of engine technology, hit games, and a distribution platform gives it an outsized influence on where the gaming industry is headed.
