RALEIGH, N.C. – The awards keep coming and the sales keep growing for Epic Games’ monster hit “Gears of War.”
The Triangle-based gaming company’s title developed for the Microsoft Xbox 360 platform dominated the 10th annual Interactive Achievement Awards last weekend in Las Vegas, taking eight top honors.
The game’s domination of the awards as hosted by The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences came just a few days after Microsoft disclosed the title had already topped 3 million in unit sales. Gears of War was released just in time for Christmas.
“It’s pretty amazing,” said a jubilant Mark Rein, the vice president who heads all the marketing and promotion for Epic Games who was in Las Vegas for the awards. “It was like being Titanic at the Oscars.”
Gears of War received the top award – Game of the Year. Its eight awards were more than double those of runner-up “Wii Sports” for Nintendo, which received three awards. Only games produced by members of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences were considered for awards.
Microsoft Game Studios published Gears of War, a multiplayer action title that matches humans against a locust horde. Rod Ferguson was the producer, Michael Capps the game director and Cliff Bleszinski the creative director.
Other awards for Gears of War were: top console game; animation; art direction; online game play; visual engineering; outstanding male performance; and action/adventure game of the year.
In December, Epic received the Studio of the Year award and Gears of War added three other category honors at the Spike TV Video Games Awards.
According to Microsoft, Gears of War has sold more than 3 million in units in less than three months. Additionally, the game has drawn another 1.5 million downloads over the Xbox Live online network.
“There’s no question that Gears of War has been pretty impressive,” Rein said. “To sell over 3 million copies, isn’t that awesome?”
Gears of War set Microsoft records for the speed with which it has sold.
“They don’t sell at that pace forever,” Rein said of individual title sales once the newness has worn off, “but Gears of War is still going well.”
