Games company enjoys an epic journey

Robert Troughton is at the helm of Epic Games UK, part of a global business that produces some of the best-known games on the market.

From Gears of War, to the company’s next big game, Fortnite, Robert and his team, along with colleagues from around the world, devise, develop and test games for hour after hour, polishing every feature and ironing out every last glitch to make sure the millions of gamers worldwide enjoy the best possible experience.

“Most of our work here involves developing the technology that drives both video games and the development of video games", says Mr Troughton.

"That’s pretty rare in the industry; most development studios will work on one or two games each year.

"We do that too, but we’re also able to make an impact on hundreds more games through licensing of our technology, Unreal Engine, to other studios.

"It's a cool job.

"For a gamer, it is a dream to work on the best games using some of the best technology.

"People who work here get to use one of the most cutting edge development platforms, Unreal 4, so they become among the best developers out there.

"That's important to Epic Games UK."

The Sunderland-based company is so committed to getting its hands on the best developers available it will usually only employ specialists with a minimum of five years’ industry experience.

Mr Troughton says: "The North East is a great region with a very talented labour pool so we can afford to be selective; we know there are plenty of skilled people to meet our needs.

"The gaming sector in the North-East is strong.

"Being based in the Evolve Business Centre, in Sunderland, means we are right at the heart of the region, so we can draw people from the north and south of the area, thanks to the road links we enjoy.

"The great universities we have in the North East, coupled with a strong gaming community, means we are in a great place to attract talent.

"We also have offices in Leamington Spa and Guildford, as well as a handful of employees that work from home.

"Thanks to a great IT infrastructure in the company, and with a little planning, we’re able to allow this without it impacting performance of the team.

"Allowing flexibility in location helps greatly with hiring the very best talent.

"Being flexible, and doing what it takes to employ the best people in the industry is what allows us to the best company possible", he added.

In September 2014, Epic Games Inc, headquartered in North Carolina, in the US, completed a buyout of Pitbull Studio after working with the firm for five years, rebranding the company as Epic Games UK and moving Mr Troughton, formerly managing director of Pitbull Studio, to be general manager of UK operations.

"It was a big decision for us both," he says.

"But the timing was right.

"As Pitbull, we had essentially become an integral part of the Epic team, so much so our colleagues around the world had always just assumed we already were Epic.

"As Pitbull, the decision to take on so much work from Epic in the first place was something we had to think really carefully about.

"We, the whole team at Pitbull, discussed at length the pros and cons of having all of our eggs in one basket.

"On the one hand, it was a risk; what if Epic pulled the plug on the contract, what if the work dried up?

"But on the other hand, we knew it could strengthen our position; we became true specialists with technology, so we became invaluable to them.

"In hindsight, we were actually in a much safer position that most companies, by concentrating on the work for Epic, we removed ourselves from the pool of other developers that were constantly fighting to gain funding or publisher backing for small to medium projects."

It was a decision that turned out to be the right one.

Having built Pitbull Studio from scratch, Epic’s offer to buy out the company was an opportunity Mr Troughton and the other shareholders couldn’t turn down.

He said: "We were turning over around £3m when Epic Games bought us out.

"Being so tightly integrated with Epic prior to the purchase, the culture at the studio was already in line with Epic’s own, so the transition was spectacularly smooth.

"For most within the company it was just business as usual.

So, now at the helm of such a well-known brand, you’d think Mr Troughton would have been a devoted gamer.

“Not really,” he says.

“I actually studied maths at university, and hoped to make it as a banker.

"But after trying and failing to get a job in that field, and after a failed interview at a branch of McDonalds - the interviewer didn’t believe I would be in it for the long-term - I took on board a suggestion by my brother to follow him into the gaming world.

"Programming had always been a huge hobby of mine, as a teenager I’d funded a huge home entertainment system - TV, surround sound, video recorder and my own sofa - through programming for some ‘serious’ magazines.

"Another magazine had supplied me with almost every single game released on the Commodore 64 in exchange for me hacking the games to pieces to create cheat codes.

"So falling into the games industry was surprisingly easy.

"My first job in the sector was in the North-East at Reflections, a big gaming company based in Newcastle.”

At 21, Mr Troughton moved to the region, working alongside his brother for a year at Reflections.

“I remember arriving at the office and seeing a big bin full of empty soft drinks cans and pizza boxes", he says

"Not your usual office environment.

"It was a great place to work.

"Working on games like Destruction Derby and being part of a team of just five meant I was able to learn really quickly.”

The next move was not so fortuitous.

In January 1996, Mr Troughton made the move to a newly formed company, Scavenger, in Liverpool.

Employed as a lead engine programmer, he hoped to work on graphics technology, but was made redundant when the company ceased trading due to financial difficulties within a year.

“It was pretty disappointing to be in that position", he says.

"But I moved on.

"I used it as a catalyst to get started in my own business and, as part of a team of eight, set up Pitbull Syndicate Limited in December 1996.

"We tendered to work with Accolade, a company that was looking for a new version of Test Drive, a popular franchise from the 1980s.

"The company was desperate to release a title within a year and their in-house team was saying it would take them two years to make a game of that calibre.

"We promised a finished product within nine months, so we got the contract.

"The finished the game on schedule and went of to sell well over 1.5million copies.

"It allowed us to grow the company quickly.”

The company had a successful nine years of trading, before being sold to Midway Games in 2005.

As Midway Studios Newcastle, the company created Vin Diesel, starring ‘Wheelman’.

This was the first game the company had made without using their own technology, Midway had licensed Unreal Engine from Epic Games, a decision would later help Mr Troughton and others of the team.

As early adopters of the technology, they gained fantastic insight into how the technology worked and how to improve it.

When Midway declared bankruptcy in 2009, Mr Troughton moved on to join a new startup studio, CCP Newcastle, to work on Dust 514 on Playstation 3, but after less than a year, he took the plunge and left to set up a new start up, Pitbull Studio with some industry friends.

“The business grew quickly", he says.

“Initially, we were working on Circus Challenge, a game developed for the NHS, but I personally missed the more technical side of development, so began contracting to Epic Games as a programming, working on Unreal Engine, while the other team members finished off the game for the NHS.

"We also contracted to Sega, Kuju, Geomerics and others to support them in Unreal Engine development, but after some time, almost all of our work was for Epic.

"It became a fundamental part of the business.”

So what’s next in this epic adventure?

“The plan is to swallow up the competition", he says.

“We have the skills, the games and the wherewithal to do it, and as part of Epic, we really can be stronger than ever.”

Given the company’s achievements so far, it is hard to believe they’d be beaten at their own game.