Rein apologizes to Harris over comments made during Develop panel

There was a big hoopla on the internet last week, after indie developer Cliff Harris of Positec Games blasted Epic's Mark Rein on his personal blog, over comments Rein made while Harris was giving a talk at the Develop Conference in Brighton.

This has resulted in Rein apologizing to Harris for interrupting the panel discussion.

A bit of a back story first: Harris was one of four panel speakers for the Rise of the Micro Studio talk last Wednesday, in which Harris and the other panelists chatted a bit about marketing their games, and how having one-on-one relationships with the public could convince someone into the purchase of an indie title.

The panelists were also discussing whether a more traditional route could be taken with PR and marketing and if it was even relevant to "the modern micro studio". At this point, from the front row, Rein offered up advice from his experience back when Epic was an indie developer.

This, apparently, did not sit well with Harris, who went on to air his grievance through a blog post on both Rein and triple-A title makers as a whole.

"I resent having some triple-a studio jerk come and tell someone whose run a microstudio for thirteen years that he is doing it all wrong", he wrote, before concluding: "Triple-A studio bosses trying to lecture me on how to communicate better with gamers? F**k off."

Last night, Develop posted an apology from Rein issued to Harris, which states he did not mean to come off as "a jerk" and he was sorry for interrupting Harris' panel with his "opinion no matter how well intentioned".

According to Develop, which was moderating the panel, the controversy on the internet following the panel was caused by a misunderstanding of Rein's "enthusiastic contribution", and his comments actually added a bit of healthy debate to the panel.

Still, in his apology, Rein told Harris it was "completely rude" of him to interrupt the panel, explaining his outburst as nothing more than being "overwhelmed with a passion" to share Epic's experiences, and "just can't wait for the right turn to speak".

"I'm supremely passionate about the plight of indie developers, and game developers in general, and I heard something I thought was incorrect advice and I just couldn't keep my big mouth shut," he said.

"Indie studios don't usually have big advertising budgets and PR is a war where you have to save your bullets for the greatest possible impact. Indie developers already have a strong relationship, and close ties, with their users and customers but getting heard through all the noise of the internet, and reaching new ones, is a massive challenge."

Hopefully, this puts it all to bed, then.

Rein's full apology can be found below.

Cliff,

After spending the whole day on the plane ride home from England yesterday I was greeted with a link to your blog post and boy do I feel like an ass now. Since I got home last night I've been trying to think of a proper response but I decided just to send you an apology and try to clear up a misunderstanding.

First of all I want to apologize. It was completely rude of me to interrupt your panel with my opinion no matter how well intentioned. I'm supremely passionate about the plight of indie developers, and game developers in general, and I heard something I thought was incorrect advice and I just couldn't keep my big mouth shut. But there's no excuse for bad manners. You called me on it and it made me realize that it is a behavior I need to try and change for these types of events in the future.

It's not like some great injustice was being done and needed commentary from me. I was just being a jerk.

But I did want you to understand that it was not my intention to criticize the fact that you reply to your fans' emails or discourage anyone from doing that. What caused me to speak up was when I heard you talk about revealing important news items about games through 1-on-1 emails and in forums. My opinion is that doing so runs the risk of these things no longer being 'news' when you need to use them to get publicity for your game. Gaming websites and magazines are all about news and getting a 'scoop' and often won't cover things that are already announced or generally known. If you release important new details to small numbers of people you run the risk of not being to get it disseminated to a larger audience that helps make more people aware of your talents. Indie studios don't usually have big advertising budgets and PR is a war where you have to save your bullets for the greatest possible impact. Indie developers already have a strong relationship, and close ties, with their users and customers but getting heard through all the noise of the internet, and reaching new ones, is a massive challenge. I know this because, I've spent many years trying to tackle this challenge. I wasn't trying to talk from the perspective of what we do today with games like Gears of War and Shadow Complex, or trying to talk down to anyone, but rather share my direct experience being an indie studio of our own for many years and working with tons of them these days as a technology licensor. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with a passion to share our experiences (both good and bad) and I just can't wait for the right turn to speak.

Epic was a tiny indie studio back in 1992 when I became a partner in the business and this sort of thing (sales, marketing, PR) was my specific responsibility. Just like you do now we sold our games directly to our customers by giving our free 'shareware' episodes (or demos) they could download with no fuss. I've noticed you sell GSB in separate episodes and one big value pack exactly the same way we sold our games back in our shareware days. Through careful dissemination of news and other information we were often able to get our little shareware games reviewed and covered in the top gaming magazines alongside titles from major publishers and studios. Being prudent about PR never stopped us from communicating in smaller venues with our customers and undoubtedly brought us many more of them.

In addition to our efforts we've also been huge supporters of indie studios. We created three Make Something Unreal contests (the latest ones with cash and prizes over a million dollars!) and loaned our
technology, and provided support and encouragement, to many indie studios hoping to catch on and be successful. We also created the Unreal Development Kit which indie developers can download and use for free then buy an inexpensive license when they want to start making money with it. We've updated it regularly with new features and enhancements. We answer tons of email from small developers and I regularly talk 1-on-1 with them by phone and at events like Develop all over the world.

I'd like to think I do already have the "long indie experience" you talk about in your post and my intentions were purely to try to be helpful to folks in the room. I wasn't trying to talk down to you or anyone else there. But clearly it didn't come off that way and, regardless of intentions, none of this makes up for my bad manners. So again I apologize and hopefully I've learned my lesson.

Good luck with your studio and games in the future. If you'd like to discuss this by phone I'd be happy to speak with you. I'll try not to be a "triple-a studio jerk" :)

Mark Rein
Epic Games, Inc."