A turn-of-the-millennium email from Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has gone viral 26 years after being shared via online forums.
Sweeney, who laid off over 1,000 Epic Games employees this year to push a new focus on generative AI, has found himself swung from controversy to controversy.
Just recently, the CEO pushed the release of a new vibe-coded Epic Games Store which was stated to be faster than Steam. Not only was that not the case, but the new launcher was also hilariously buggy compared to the old, already unliked storefront.
Now, an email from May, 2000 has been shared on social media which features Sweeney’s thoughts on the closure of Looking Glass Studios. While studio closures are upsettingly commonplace nowadays, with BioWare closing just days ago at the time of writing, Looking Glass’ closure was a shock to many.
“This isn’t a sad day,” Sweeney said, shared online on May 25th, 2000 on the Looking Glass forums. (Thanks,Sinnoware.) “It’s an economically realistic day. Looking Glass spent lots of money making innovative games that never sold well.”
At the time, Sweeney claimed that the studio’s logo “may well have been ‘By MIT Grads, For MIT Grads”. He added: “Think about that. Most of the stuff they did was way out of the realm of what most mainstream gamers wanted.”
“Being a niche company and making good, unusual styles of games is cool, but you have to be lean-and-mean in order to do that successfully. Pop Top (Railroad Tycoon) is a great example of success in a small genre. But you can’t be a niche company and have the kind of huge overhead and expenses that Looking Glass had.”
While somewhat realistic, Sweeney’s comments then state that “Looking Glass are only the beginning” adding that “some of the companies and teams that will take the axe damn well deserve it”. The Epic Games CEO also dubbed teams such as Looking Glass “financial losers”.
“This is the bit where the comet hits the earth and the dinosaurs die, but the way is cleared for cooler life forms of evolve,” the Epic Games boss continued. Speaking honestly, I fail to see how Fortnite is cooler than System Shock, Thief, or System Shock 2.
In fact, a response on the original Looking Glass forums feels quite apt as a response. “What a strange thing to say. He seems to be implying that only games that sell are good and deserve to exist. Nothing could be more illogical and farther from the truth. Gamespy has already made the analogy, but Van Gogh only sold one painting in his life. Did he deserve to die unknown and miserable in an insanitarium? I will the [sic] grant Sweeney the fact that there’s nothing to do when shit happens, but not being sympathetic is very weird and unkind,” said user Robin Goodfellow.
The resurfaced email has sparked another wave of controversy for Sweeney with many citing the email as a precursor to his current behaviour. “Yeah, he certainly had the mindset of an a**hole Ceo down even back then,” Gloomwood developer Dillon Rogers said.
“Oh Pop Top was an example of a studio that was doing things the right way according to Tim Sweeney? Sounds great, I wonder how they’re doing today! Surely they must still be around?” another social media user wrote.
While Looking Glass’ games were not all big hitters, the studio created some of the most iconic titles of the 1990s. To this day, Thief still serves as the blueprint for 3D stealth experiences, and the design of System Shock is still inspiring creatives to craft brilliant worlds. Let’s just put it this way: Looking Glass’ door code, 451, is still more iconic and memorable than anything in Fortnite.
