Epic Games, the gaming company that has made its way into the list of the most successful gaming companies in the world thanks to Fortnite, has announced that it is acquiring RAD Game Tools, a video game software development company, this Thursday. Epic Games is popularly known as the creator of the money-making machine Fortnite, but the company has been up and kicking for decades and has a good working relationship with the RAD team for years.
The products and technology of RAD Game Tools appear in close to 25,000 games and are employed by the world’s leading gaming companies. They have five main tools: Bink Video, the Telemetry Profiling System, the Miles Sound System, Granny 3D, and Oodle Data Compression. Each of these tools solve a different problem for game developers. Their most common product is Bink 2, which is visible at the start of a lot of games, and is easily recognized by any gamer. It is a video codec for games, which a compresses and decompresses digital video.
Epic Games intends to integrate RAD’s powerful technology into Unreal Engine in order to benefit the developer community and gamers alike. While Epic now owns RAD, it will continue its existing work with game industry, television, and film partners, including those who do not use Unreal Engine in their work.
“We know first-hand how impressive RAD’s compression technology is, having used it to improve the load time and quality of our most popular games – including Fortnite. The RAD team includes some of the world’s leading compression, video and game dev tooling experts, and we are thrilled to welcome them to the Epic family.” Said Kim Libreri, CTO of Epic Games.
The Founder and CEO of RAD Game Tools Jeff Roberts also commented on the union with the Epic Games.
“Our work with Epic goes back decades, and joining forces is a natural next step given our alignment on products, mission, and culture,” Roberts said. “We both believe that solid technologies enable developers to build beautiful, performant, and reliable experiences. We’re excited and humbled to join the amazing Epic team.”
This is not the only big move that Epic Games has made lately. Last November, Epic Games had acquired SuperAwesome, a pioneer in the “kidtech” market. Also, Fortnite’s developer and publisher had recently purchased a mall with almost a million square feet of space to serve as the company’s global HQ.
