Tim Sweeney

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Tim Sweeney, born in 1970[1], is a computer game programmer and the founder of Epic Games, being best known for his work on ZZT and the Unreal Engine.

Sweeney established Epic as a shareware company while he was a student majoring in mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland. Sweeney revealed that he had been interested in game development and computer programming since he was 10 years old [2]. Tim finally started to make games, right out of his parents' basement where he lived[3]. Epic got its start when Sweeney created ZZT, the company's first game. As Sweeney has revealed in interviews, ZZT's success fueled the early growth of his company.

Sweeney became slightly more known for working on Epic's Unreal Engine, the game engine used for the Unreal series of first-person shooters and other computer games.

For Unreal Engine 3 and upcoming Epic Games titles, Sweeney states that he is not doing as much programming as was done on previous projects, and that he is fulfilling the role of a technical director. His duties include setting the overall direction of the engine and the various projects based on the technology, meeting with the independent hardware vendors, and doing research and development work for future engine technology.

Sweeney is frequently considered the counter-part to another famous game programmer, John Carmack. Both are industry leaders in game engine design and although various tools now allow these developers to program less, it is noteworthy that they simply focus more on engine programming. Testament to this is the next Unreal Engine (Unreal Engine 4) already being under research and development with a team of one: Tim Sweeney. These new technologies as well as additional programmers take away some of the tedious work of project-specific programming and instead allow the game engine programmer to focus on larger concepts.

In 2005, Sweeney attended Wake Tech Community College Digital Game Expo as a guest speaker. He showed a demo demonstrating his Unreal Engine and talked about his book "Mastering Unreal Technology: The Art of Level Design".

He is well known for his love of exotic sports cars; he owns a Lamborghini Diablo and a Ferrari F430.

Tim currently lives in Cary, North Carolina.

External links

• MobyGames' rap sheet on Sweeney
• Tim Sweeney's talk at POPL06 (January 11-13, 2006)
• TeamXbox interview with Tim Sweeney (February 28, 2008)
• TG Daily interview with Tim Sweeney (March 10, 2008)
• Ars Technica interview with Tim Sweeney (September 14, 2008)
• From The Past To The Future: Tim Sweeney Talks (May 25, 2009)

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