Epic Games, Inc. is an American video game and software developer and publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991, originally located in his parents' house in Potomac, Maryland. Following its first commercial video game release, ZZT (1991), the company became Epic MegaGames, Inc. in early 1992 and brought on Mark Rein, who has been its vice president since. After moving the headquarters to Cary in 1999, the studio changed its name to Epic Games.

Epic Games develops Unreal Engine, a commercially available game engine which also powers their internally developed video games like Fortnite and the Unreal, Gears of War, and Infinity Blade series. In 2014, Unreal Engine was named the "most successful videogame engine" by Guinness World Records.

Epic Games owns the game developers Chair Entertainment, Psyonix, Mediatonic, and Harmonix, as well as cloud-based software developer Cloudgine, and operates studios in Seattle, England, Berlin, Yokohama and Seoul. While Sweeney remains the controlling shareholder, Tencent acquired a 48.4% outstanding stake, equating to 40% of total Epic, in the company in 2012, as part of an agreement aimed at moving Epic towards a games as a service model. Following the release of the popular Fortnite Battle Royale in 2017, the company gained additional investments that enabled it to expand its Unreal Engine offerings, establish esport events around Fortnite, and launch the Epic Games Store. As of April 2022, the company has a  equity valuation.

On August 13, 2020, Epic released a version of Fortnite that included a permanent discount on V-bucks across all platforms (except iOS and Android devices) if they purchased directly through Epic, bypassing Apple and Google's storefronts. Both Apple and Google immediately delisted the game for violating the storefronts' terms of service by including their own storefront, which led Epic to file lawsuits against both companies the same day, accusing them of antitrust behavior in how they operate their app stores.

History

Potomac Computer Systems (1991–1992)
Potomac Computer Systems was founded by Tim Sweeney in 1991. At the time, Sweeney was studying mechanical engineering and living in a dorm at the University of Maryland. He frequently visited his parents, who lived in nearby Potomac, Maryland, where his personal computer, used for both work and leisure, was situated. Out of this location, Sweeney started Potomac Computer Systems as a computer consulting business but later figured that it would be too much work he would have to put into keeping the business stable, and scrapped the idea.

After finishing his game ZZT, Sweeney opted to re-use the Potomac Computer Systems name to release the game to the public in January 1991. It was only with the unexpected success of ZZT, caused in most part by the easy modifiability of the game using Sweeney's custom ZZT-oop programming language, that made Sweeney consider turning Potomac Computer Systems into a video game company. ZZT was sold through bulletin board systems, while all orders were fulfilled by Sweeney's father, Paul Sweeney. The game sold several thousand copies as of May 2009, and Paul Sweeney still lived at the former Potomac Computer Systems address at the time, fulfilling all orders that eventually came by mail. The final copy of ZZT was shipped by Paul Sweeney in November 2013.

Epic MegaGames (1992–1999)

In early 1992, Sweeney found himself and his new-found video game company in a business where larger studios, such as Apogee Software and id Software, were dominant, and he had to find a more serious name for his. As such, Sweeney came up with "Epic MegaGames", a name which incorporated "Epic" and "Mega" to make it sound like it represented a fairly large company (such as Apogee Software), although he was its only employee. Sweeney soon underwent searching for a business partner, and eventually caught up with Mark Rein, who previously quit his job at id Software and moved to Toronto, Ontario. Rein worked remotely from Toronto, and primarily handled sales, marketing and publishing deals; business development that Sweeney found to have significantly contributed to the company's growth. Some time this season, the company soon had 20 employees consisting of programmers, artists, designers and composers. Among them was the 17-year old Cliff Bleszinski, who joined the company after submitting his game Dare to Dream to Sweeney. The following year, they had over 30 employees.

In 1996, Epic MegaGames produced a shareware isometric shooter called Fire Fight, developed by Polish studio Chaos Works. It was published by Electronic Arts. By 1997, Epic MegaGames had 50 people working for them worldwide. In 1998, Epic MegaGames released Unreal, a 3D first-person shooter co-developed with Digital Extremes, which expanded into a series of Unreal games. The company also began to license the core technology, the Unreal Engine, to other game developers.

Epic Games (1999–present)

Unreal and personal computer games (1999–2006)

In February 1999, Epic MegaGames announced that they had moved their headquarters to a new location in Cary, North Carolina, and would henceforth be known as simply Epic Games. Rein explained that "Unreal was first created by developers who were scattered across the world, eventually, the team came together to finish the game and that's when the real magic started. The move to North Carolina centralizes Epic, bringing all of the company's talented developers under one roof." Furthermore, Sweeney stated that the "Mega" part of the name was dropped because they no longer wanted to pretend to be a big company, as was the original intention of the name when it was a one-man team. The follow-up game, Unreal Tournament, shipped to critical acclaim the same year, at which point the studio had 13 employees.

The company launched the Make Something Unreal competition in 2004, aiming to reward video game developers who create mods using the Unreal game engine. Tripwire Interactive won US$80,000 in cash and computer hardware prizes over the course of the contest in the first contest in 2004.

Gears of War and console games (2006–2012)
Around 2006, the personal computer video game market was struggling with copyright infringement in the form of software piracy, and it became difficult to make single-player games, elements that had been part of Epic's business model to that point. The company decided to shift focus into developing console systems, a move which Sweeney called the start of the third major iteration of the company, "Epic 3.0". In 2006, Epic released the Xbox 360 shooter Gears of War, which became a commercial success for the company, grossing about  off a  budget. A year later, the company released Unreal Tournament 3 for PC and acquired a majority share in People Can Fly.

In 2008, Epic Games released Gears of War 2, selling over three million copies within the first month of its release.

Epic Games released on September 1, 2010 Epic Citadel as a tech demo to demonstrate the Unreal Engine 3 running on Apple iOS, within Adobe Flash Player Stage3D and using HTML5 WebGL technologies. It was also released for Android on January 29, 2013. Epic Games worked on an iOS game, Infinity Blade, which was released on December 9, 2010. The third game in the series, Gears of War 3, came out in 2011.

In 2011, Epic's subsidiary Titan Studios was dissolved. At the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards, Epic Games announced their new game Fortnite.

In June 2012, Epic announced that it is opening up a new studio, Epic Baltimore, made up of members of 38 Studios' Big Huge Games. Epic Baltimore was renamed to Impossible Studios in August 2012. However, the studio ended up closing its doors in February 2013.

Epic fully acquired People Can Fly in August 2012, rebranding them as Epic Games Poland in November 2013 as they began work on Fortnite alongside Epic. Epic alongside People Can Fly made one last game in the Gears of War series that served as a prequel to the other games, Gears of War: Judgement, which was released in 2013. At this point, Epic had considered developing a fourth main title for Gears of War, but estimated that its budget would be at least . Additionally, they had suggested the idea of a multiplayer-only version of Gears of War that featured improved versions of maps based on user feedback, similar to the concept behind Unreal Tournament, but Microsoft rejected this idea. Epic recognized the troubles of being held to the business objectives of a publisher and began to shift the company again.

Games as a service and Tencent shareholding (2012–2018)

Coupled with their desire to move away from being beholden to a publisher, Epic Games observed that the video game industry was shifting to a games-as-a-service model (GaaS). Sweeney stated, "There was an increasing realization that the old model wasn't working anymore and that the new model was looking increasingly like the way to go." In an attempt to gain more GaaS experience, they made an agreement with Chinese Tencent, who had several games under their banner (including Riot Games' League of Legends) operating successfully as games as a service. In exchange for Tencent's help, Tencent acquired approximately 48.4% of Epic then issued share capital, equating to 40% of total Epic – inclusive of both stock and employee stock options, for $330 million in June 2012. Tencent Holdings has the right to nominate directors to the board of Epic Games and thus counts as an associate of the Group. However, Sweeney stated that Tencent otherwise has very little control on the creative output of Epic Games. Sweeney considered the partial acquisition by Tencent as the start of "Epic 4.0", the fourth major iteration of the company, allowing the company to be more agile in the video game marketplace.

Around this point, Epic had about 200 employees. A number of high-profile staff left the company months after the Tencent deal was announced for various reasons. Some notable departures included:
 Cliff Bleszinski, then the design director, announced he was leaving Epic Games in October 2012 after 20 years with the company. His official reason was "It's time for a much-needed break". Bleszinski later stated that he had become "jaded" about the gaming industry in the lead-up to Tencent's involvement. After Tencent's investment, Bleszinski attempted to renegotiate his contract but failed to come to terms, making him think about retirement instead. He opted to stop coming to work, spending his time at his beach house, eventually leading Sweeney to come down and have a heart-to-heart discussion with Bleszinski on the new direction Epic was going, and asking him to make a firm decision regarding his commitment to Epic. Bleszinski opted to write his resignation letter the next day. After about two years, Bleszinski started Boss Key Productions in 2014.
 President Mike Capps announced his retirement in December 2013, and cited the reasons as the arrival of a baby boy he was having with his wife and his plans to be a stay-at-home dad. He subsequently announced his departure of his advisory role as well as his affiliation with the company in March 2013.
 Rod Fergusson, who had been a lead developer for the Gears of War series, left Epic in August 2012. Fergusson stated that he had seen the direction that the Tencent acquisition would have taken the company, and was not interested in the free-to-play style of games but instead wanted to continue developing a "AAA, big-narrative, big-story, big-impact game". Fergusson briefly joined Irrational Games, owned by 2K Games, to help complete BioShock Infinite. While there, Fergusson talked with 2K about potentially continuing the Gears of War series, leading to talks between 2K Games, Epic, and Microsoft. As a result, Microsoft acquired the rights to Gears of War on January 27, 2014, eventually assigned those to Microsoft Game Studios; Fergusson moved to Black Tusk Studios, owned by Microsoft Game Studios, to take on lead development for a new Gears title, with the studio being rebranded as The Coalition. The first game since the acquisition, Gears of War 4, was released in October 2016.
 Adrian Chmielarz, the founder of People Can Fly and who joined Epic when his studio was acquired earlier in 2012, decided to leave after Tencent's acquisition, stating that he and other former People Can Fly members did not believe the free-to-play, games as a service direction fit their own personal vision or direction they wanted to go. Chmielarz and these others left Epic in late 2012 to form The Astronauts.
 Lee Perry, a lead designer on both Unreal and Gears of War series, felt that Epic has started to grow too large to maintain a role as an eccentric game developer. Coupled with the studio's need for more management to support the games as a service model, Perry felt that their creative freedom would become limited. He and five other senior people left Epic to form a new studio, Bitmonster.

Epic continued its goal to deliver games as a service following these departures. Fortnite was to serve as their testbed for living games, but with the shifts in staff, and its engine from Unreal Engine 3 to 4, its release suffered some setbacks. Epic started additional projects; the free-to-play and community-developed Unreal Tournament, first announced in 2014, and the free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena game Paragon, launched in 2016 for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4. Epic also released a remastered version of Shadow Complex for newer consoles and computers in 2015, and their first foray into virtual reality with the release of Robo Recall for the Oculus Rift.

The investment infusion from Tencent allowed Epic Games to relicense the Unreal Engine 4 engine in March 2015 to be free for all users to develop with, with Epic taking 5% royalties on games developed with the engine.

In June 2015, Epic agreed to allow Epic Games Poland's departure from the company and sold its shares in the studio; the studio reverted to their former name, People Can Fly. The Bulletstorm IP was retained by People Can Fly who has since launched a remastered version called Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition on April 7, 2017, published by Gearbox Software.

Fortnite success (2018–present)

By July 2017, Fortnite was finally in a state for public play. Epic launched the title through a paid early access then, with a full free-to-play release expected in 2018. Following on the popularity of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, a battle royale game released earlier in 2017, Epic developed a variant of Fortnite called Fortnite Battle Royale, which was released in September 2017 as a free-to-play title across computer, console, and mobile platforms. Fortnite Battle Royale quickly gained an audience, amassing over 125 million players by May 2018 with estimates of having earned over  by July 2018 through microtransactions, including its battle pass system. Epic Games, which had been valued at around  at the time of Tencent's acquisition, was estimated to be worth  in July 2018 due to Fortnite Battle Royale, and expected to surpass  by the end of 2018 with projected growth of the game. Player count continued to expand when Epic broke new ground by convincing Sony to change its stance on cross-platform play allowing players on any device to compete with each other in Fortnite Battle Royale. Fortnite has drawn nearly 250 million players as of March 2019.

Fortnites commercial success enabled Epic to make several changes to its other product offerings. In July 2018, it reduced the revenue cut that it took for assets sold on the Unreal Engine Marketplace from 30% to 12%. Epic launched the Epic Games Store digital storefront to compete with services like Steam and GOG.com, not only taking a 12% cut of revenue compared to the industry standard of 30%, but also eliminated the 5% cut for games using the Unreal engine sold via the storefront. However the company also refocused its development efforts to provide more support for Unreal and Fortnite by ending support for Paragon and Unreal Tournament.

The financial success of Fortnite brought additional investment into Epic Games. Epic Games was one of eleven companies selected to be part of the Disney Accelerator program in 2017, providing Epic equity investment and access to some of Disney's executives, and potential opportunity to work with Disney in the future. Disney had selected both Epic and aXiomatic as potential leads in the growing esports arena.

Epic's has used its windfall to support its products. In January 2019, following a dispute between Improbable and Unity Technologies over changes to the acceptable uses of the Unity game engine, Epic announced it was partnering with Improbable to launch a  fund to help bring developers they believe affected by these changes towards solutions that are more open and would have fewer service compatibilities. Epic launched a  prize pool in February 2019 for Fortnite-related esports activities that it plans to run from 2019 onward. To expand its esports initiatives, Epic Games hired Nate Nanzer from Blizzard Entertainment and their commissioner of the Overwatch League in May 2019. At the 2019 Game Developers Conference, Epic announced it was launching a  MegaGrants initiative, allowing anyone to apply for up to  in funding to support game development using the Unreal Engine or for any project, even if not directly games-related, that would benefit the Unreal Engine. One of the first major funded entities under this was the Blender Foundation in July 2019, having received  from the MegaGrants funding, to help them to improve and professionalize their Blender tools for 3D art creation.

Epic Games was given the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Special Award in June 2019 for its past and continuing developments for the Unreal Engine, a software which also earned it the Engineering Excellence Award from the Hollywood Professional Association.

Epic announced in March 2020 it was establishing a new multi-platform publishing label, Epic Games Publishing. Alongside this, the label had announced three deals with developers Remedy Entertainment, Playdead and GenDesign in which Epic would fully fund development and publishing (including employee salaries, quality assurance, localization, and marketing) of one or more games from each studio, but leaving full creative control and IP rights to the studio, and sharing profits, following Epic's recouping of its investment, 50/50 with the studio. The company expanded their publishing options in October 2021 with Spry Fox and Eyes Out.

Unreal Engine 5 was announced on May 13, 2020, with plans for an early 2022 release. Alongside this announcement, Epic released its Epic Online Services, a free SDK toolset for online matchmaking and other similar cross-platform play support features based on Fortnite. Epic further waived all Unreal license fees retroactively for games up through the first  in revenue, regardless of how they were published, retroactively starting from January 1, 2020.

Bloomberg reported that Epic was nearing a  valuation in June 2020 once it had completed a new  investing round from its previous investors and newcomings T. Rowe Price Group Inc. and Baillie Gifford. The company partnered with Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros. to acquire distribution rights for Inception, Batman Begins and The Prestige as part of "Movie Nite" on Fortnite's "Party Royale" island. The film live streams were based on a user's country.

Across July and August, Epic raised an additional  in capital investment, bringing the company's post-money equity valuation to . This included a  investment from Sony, approximately a 1.4% stake in the company. The deal continues the two companies' technology collaboration after they had worked together on the development of Unreal Engine 5, but does not commit Epic to any exclusivity to the Sony PlayStation platform. Sweeney said that Sony had started talking with Epic about investing following the demonstration of the Unreal Engine 5 in May 2020.

Epic purchased Cary Towne Center in Cary, North Carolina, in January 2021, which had been scheduled to be closed and demolished after 2020, to be their new headquarters and campus, with the conversion to be complete by 2024.

Epic unveiled its MetaHuman Creator project in February 2021. Based on the technology from 3Lateral, Cubic Motion, and Quixel, the MetaHuman Creator is a browser-based application to allow game developers to create realistic human characters within a short amount of time starting from various presets, and then can be exported as pre-made models and animation files ready for use in Unreal Engine.

Epic announced a partnership with Cesium in March 2021 to bring its 3D geospatial data as a free add-on into the Unreal Engine.

In April 2021, Epic completed another  round of funding to support the company's "long-term vision for the metaverse", putting the company's valuation at . The round of funding included another  strategic investment from Sony. Sweeney remains the controlling shareholder with these additional investments.

The Information reported that Epic Games was launching a new scripted entertainment division in October 2021, bringing on three former executives from Lucasfilm to manage it, with initial plans for a Fortnite film.

In February 2022 Epic Games announced that at least half a billion accounts have been created on its platform.

Epic released the initial beta version of RealityScan, a mobile app that uses the tools from Capturing Reality and Quixel, in April 2022. RealityScan allows users to create 3D models that can be imported into Sketchfab using photos taken by the user.

Epic received another $1 billion each from Sony and from Kirkbi, the parent company of The Lego Group, in April 2022 for continued support of building out Epic's metaverse. These investments gave Kirkbi 3% ownership and increased Sony's to 4.9%. With these investments, Epic had an estimated valuation of . Epic and Lego also announced their partnership to build a child-friendly space in the metaverse that same month.

The company announced in September 2023 that it was laying off 870 employees, along with divesting in Bandcamp to Songtradr and spinning off SuperAwesome into its own company. Sweeney said this move was needed to rein in spending, and did not anticipate there would be further layoffs in the future. Mediatonic reported a significant number of layoffs from their team, but remained part of Epic.

Acquisitions
In 2008, Epic acquired Utah based Chair Entertainment, developer of Undertow. Summer 2009 saw the launch of Chair's Shadow Complex, an adventure game inspired by the Metroid series.

Epic announced in October 2018 that it had acquired  in investment from seven firms: KKR, ICONIQ Capital, Smash Ventures, aXiomatic, Vulcan Capital, Kleiner Perkins, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The firms join Tencent, Disney, and Endeavor as minority shareholders in Epic. With the investment, Epic Games was estimated to have a nearly  valuation in October 2018.

Besides expanding support for Fortnite and the Epic Games Store, these investments allowed Epic to acquire additional firms. In January 2018, it was announced that Epic had acquired Cloudgine, a developer of cloud-based gaming software. The company also announced the acquisition of Kamu, a firm that offered anti-cheat software called Easy Anti-Cheat, in October 2018. A year later, in January 2019, Epic acquired 3Lateral and Agog Labs. 3Lateral is known for its "digital human" creations, using a combination of digital technology, motion capture, and other tools to create photo-realistic human subjects in real-time. Epic plans to add some of 3Lateral's features to the Unreal Engine. Agog had developed SkookumScript, a platform for scripting events in video games; on the announcement of this acquisition, Agog stated they will stop the development of SkookumScript to work more on Unreal Engine scripting support.

Epic acquired Psyonix, the developer of Rocket League, in May 2019. Epic and Psyonix have had a past history, as Psyonix was originally founded a few miles from Epic's headquarters and had contributed to Epic's Unreal Tournament. Epic acquired the Twinmotion visualization tool used in architectural design in May 2019 from Abvent, and which they plan to expand and incorporate into their Unreal Engine offerings. Epic acquired Life on Air, the developers behind Houseparty, a social networking service, in June 2019. The monetary terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Epic later shuttered Houseparty's app in October 2021, though the team behind it was continuing to develop social apps for Epic's platforms.

In November 2019, Epic acquired Quixel, the world's largest photogrammetry asset library which makes 3D models of objects based on real-world high-definition photography. Epic plans to open Quixel's existing library of models to users of Unreal Engine, while the Quixel staff will continue to build out its assets within Epic. The company acquired Cubic Motion, a studio that provides highly detailed digital facial animations for both films and video games, in March 2020.

Epic acquired SuperAwesome, a firm that has developed services to support children-safe games and services around games, in September 2020, as to incorporate these elements more into Epic's portfolio and to offer to other developers, particularly for games built around Epic's vision of metaverse games.

Epic acquired the digital facial animation firm Hyprsense in November 2020.

In January 2021, Epic acquired RAD Game Tools, a company that makes a variety of middleware solutions for video game development which Epic plans to incorporate into the Unreal Engine. RAD's tools will still remain available outside of Unreal as well.

In March 2021, Epic announced it was acquiring the Tonic Games Group, which includes developers Mediatonic and Fortitude Games. Mediatonic's Fall Guys, a major success during 2020, would remain available on Steam while Epic would help to bring it to additional platforms. Epic buying Tonic Games Group falls under the company's broader plans of creating its own metaverse. Additionally in March, Epic acquired Capturing Reality, the developers of RealityCapture, a photogrammetry suite that can create 3D models from numerous photographs. Epic plans to integrate RealityCapture into the Unreal Engine.

Epic Games acquired ArtStation, a professional artists' marketplace, in April 2021. As part of the acquisition, ArtStation members would gain access to Epic's tools and support such as the Unreal Engine, while the ArtStation marketplace will reduce its take on purchases from 30% to 12%. In July 2021, Epic acquired Sketchfab, a marketplace for 3D models. As with ArtStation, the acquisition allowed Sketchfab to reduce its pricing structure, lowering its revenue cut on purchases to 12% and making their Sketchfab Plus level of membership free.

In November 2021, Epic Games acquired Harmonix, a music game developer, for undisclosed terms. Harmonix will continue to support their existing games including Rock Band 4 and Fuser and will help Epic with expanding musical experiences and gameplay within Fortnite and Epic's larger metaverse plans.

Epic acquired the indie music platform Bandcamp in March 2022. Bandcamp was expected to remain independently operated under Epic while gaining the benefits of Epic's backend services. In April 2023, Epic acquired Brazilian studio Aquiris and changed its name to Epic Games Brasil, with the intention to be used in Fortnite. In September 2023, Epic sold Bandcamp to music licensing company Songtradr.

Products

Video games

Epic Games is known for games such as ZZT developed by founder Tim Sweeney, various shareware titles including Jazz Jackrabbit and Epic Pinball, the Unreal video game series, which is used as a showcase for its Unreal Engine, the Gears of War series which is now owned by The Coalition and Xbox Game Studios, Infinity Blade, Shadow Complex, Bulletstorm, and Fortnite.

Unreal Engine

Epic is the proprietor of five successful game engines in the video game industry. Each Unreal Engine has a complete feature set of graphical rendering, sound processing, and physics that can be widely adapted to fit the specific needs of a game developer that does not want to code their own engine from scratch. The five engines Epic has created are Unreal Engine 1, Unreal Engine 2 (including its 2.5 and 2.X releases), Unreal Engine 3, Unreal Engine 4 and Unreal Engine 5. Epic also provides support to the Unreal marketplace, a digital storefront for creators to sell Unreal assets to other developers. Further, since 2019, Epic has provided support for filmmakers which have utilized the Unreal Engine to create virtual sets for productions such as The Mandalorian, and will be backing major animated feature film production using Unreal, starting with Gilgamesh with studios Hook Up, DuermeVela and FilmSharks.

Epic Games Store

Epic announced its own Epic Games Store, an open digital storefront for games, on December 4, 2018, which launched a few days later with The Game Awards 2018 presentation. Differing from Valve's Steam storefront, which takes 30% of revenues (30/70 revenue-sharing agreement) from the sale of a game, the Epic Game Store will take 12%, as well as foregoing the 5% for games developed in the Unreal Engine, anticipating that these lower revenue-sharing agreements will draw developers to it.

Epic Online Services
Epic Online Services is a free SDK based on Epic's Fortnite code that allows developers to implement cross-platform play features in their games, including matchmaking, friends lists, leaderboards, and achievements, with support for Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android systems. It was first released for all in May 2020. Support for anti-cheat and voice chat was added in June 2021.

Subsidiaries and divisions

Former

Legal issues

Litigation with Silicon Knights

On July 19, 2007, Canadian game studio Silicon Knights sued Epic Games for failure to "provide a working game engine", causing the Ontario-based game developer to "experience considerable losses". The suit alleged that Epic Games was "sabotaging" Unreal Engine 3 licensees. Epic's licensing document stated that a working version of the engine would be available within six months of the Xbox 360 developer kits being released. Silicon Knights claimed that Epic missed this deadline and that when a working version of the engine was eventually released, the documentation was insufficient. The game studio also claimed Epic had withheld vital improvements to the game engine, claiming they were game-specific, while also using licensing fees to fund the development of its own titles rather than the engine itself.

In August 2007, Epic Games counter-sued Silicon Knights, alleging the studio was aware when it signed on that certain features of Unreal Engine 3 were still in development and that components would continue to be developed and added as Epic completed work on Gears of War. Therefore, in a statement, Epic said that "SK knew when it committed to the licensing agreement that Unreal Engine 3 may not meet its requirements and may not be modified to meet them". Additionally, the counter-suit claimed that Silicon Knights had "made unauthorized use of Epic's Licensed Technology" and had "infringed and otherwise violated Epic's intellectual property rights, including Epic's copyrighted works, trade secrets, know how and confidential information" by incorporating Unreal Engine 3 code into its own engine, the Silicon Knights Engine. Furthermore, Epic asserted the Canadian developer broke the contract when it employed this derivative work in an internal title and a second game with Sega, a partnership for which it never received a license fee.

On May 30, 2012, Epic Games defeated Silicon Knights' lawsuit and won its counter-suit for $4.45 million on grounds of copyright infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets, and breach of contract, an injury award that was later doubled due to prejudgment interest, attorneys' fees and costs. Consistent with Epic's counterclaims, the presiding judge, James C. Dever III, stated that Silicon Knights had "deliberately and repeatedly copied thousands of lines of Epic Games' copyrighted code, and then attempted to conceal its wrongdoing by removing Epic Games' copyright notices and by disguising Epic Games' copyrighted code as Silicon Knights' own". Dever stated that evidence against Silicon Knights was "overwhelming", as it not only copied functional code but also "non-functional, internal comments Epic Games' programmers had left for themselves".

As a result, on November 7, 2012, Silicon Knights was directed by the court to destroy all game code derived from Unreal Engine 3, all information from licensee-restricted areas of Epic's Unreal Engine documentation website, and to permit Epic Games access to the company's servers and other devices to ensure these items have been removed. In addition, the studio was instructed to recall and destroy all unsold retail copies of games built with Unreal Engine 3 code, including Too Human, X-Men Destiny, The Sandman, The Box/Ritualyst, and Siren in the Maelstrom (the latter three titles were projects never released, or even officially announced).

On May 16, 2014, Silicon Knights filed for bankruptcy and a Certificate of Appointment was issued by the office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy, with Collins Barrow Toronto Limited being appointed as trustee in bankruptcy.

Apple and Google disputes

Since as early as 2017, Tim Sweeney had questioned the need for digital storefronts like Valve's Steam, Apple's iOS App Store, and Google Play, to take a 30% revenue sharing cut, and argued that when accounting for current rates of content distribution and other factors needed, a revenue cut of 8% should be sufficient to run any digital storefront profitably. When Epic brought Fortnite Battle Royale to mobile devices, the company initially offered a sideloaded package for Android systems to bypass the Google Play store, but eventually also made it a store app.

On August 13, 2020, Epic Games updated Fortnite across all platforms, including the iOS and Android versions, to reduce the price of "V-Bucks" (the in-game currency) by 20% if they purchased directly from Epic. For iOS and Android users, if they purchased through the Apple or Google storefront, they were not given this discount, as Epic said they could not extend the discount due to the 30% revenue cut taken by Apple and Google. Within hours, both Apple and Google had removed Fortnite from their storefronts stating the means of bypassing their payment systems violated the terms of service. Epic immediately filed separate lawsuits against Apple and Google for antitrust and anticompetitive behavior in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Epic did not seek monetary damages in either case but instead was "seeking injunctive relief to allow fair competition in these two key markets that directly affect hundreds of millions of consumers and tens of thousands, if not more, of third-party app developers." In comments on social media the next day, Sweeney said that they undertook the actions as "we're fighting for the freedom of people who bought smartphones to install apps from sources of their choosing, the freedom for creators of apps to distribute them as they choose, and the freedom of both groups to do business directly. The primary opposing argument is: 'Smartphone markers [sic] can do whatever they want.' This is an awful notion. We all have rights, and we need to fight to defend our rights against whoever would deny them."

Apple responded to the lawsuit that it would terminate Epic's developer accounts by August 28, 2020, leading Epic to file a motion for a preliminary injunction to force Apple to return Fortnite to the App Store and prevent them from terminating Epic's developer accounts, as the latter action would leave Epic unable to update the Unreal Engine for any changes to iOS or macOS and leave developers that relied on Unreal at risk. The court granted the preliminary injunction against Apple from terminating the developer accounts as Epic had shown "potential significant damage to both the Unreal Engine platform itself, and to the gaming industry generally", but refused to grant the injunction related to Fortnite as "The current predicament appears of [Epic's] own making." In September 2020, Epic Games, together with thirteen other companies, launched the Coalition for App Fairness, which aimed for better conditions for the inclusion of apps into app stores.

U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers issued her first ruling on Epic Games v. Apple on September 10, 2021. Rogers found in favor of Apple on nine of ten counts brought up against them in the case, including Epic's charges related to Apple's 30% revenue cut and Apple's prohibition against third-party marketplaces on the iOS environment. Rogers did rule against Apple on the final charge related to anti-steering provisions, and issued a permanent injunction that, in 90 days from the ruling, blocked Apple from preventing developers from linking app users to other storefronts from within apps to complete purchases or from collecting information within an app, such as an email, to notify users of these storefronts.

FTC child privacy settlement
In December 2022, Epic Games was fined a combined $520 million after the Federal Trade Commission accused the company of separate accounts related to Fortnite, one for violating COPPA related to children's privacy by collecting personal data without parent or guardian consent, exposing children and teens to potential harassment, and a second related to misleading users into making unwanted purchases while playing the game. Epic Games said "No developer creates a game with the intention of ending up here. The laws have not changed, but their application has evolved and long-standing industry practices are no longer enough. We accepted this agreement because we want Epic to be at the forefront of consumer protection and provide the best experience for our players. Over the past few years, we've been making changes to ensure our ecosystem meets the expectations of our players and regulators, which we hope will be a helpful guide for others in our industry."

Criticisms
Since the partial investment by the Chinese company Tencent, some consumers have become wary of Epic Games' reliability and use of their data, particularly in relationship with the Epic Games Store. These concerns have been connected to broader issues of general distrust of the Chinese government and Chinese corporations among some Western video game players. Epic has stated that Tencent does not have access to any of this private data nor provides this to the Chinese government.

In late March 2020, accusations began circulating on social media that the Epic Games social networking app Houseparty led to other services such as Netflix and Spotify being hacked. However, both Epic and Life on Air claimed this was a smear campaign against its product and offered a  bounty for anyone able to substantiate their claim.

Further reading

Notes

References

External links

1991 establishments in Maryland
American companies established in 1991
Companies based in Cary, North Carolina
Golden Joystick Award winners
Potomac, Maryland
Privately held companies based in North Carolina
Tencent
Video game companies established in 1991
Video game companies of the United States
Video game development companies
Video game publishers

Epic Games


"Be Good to Yourself" is a song by Journey from their ninth studio album, Raised on Radio. Released in 1986 as the first single from the album, the song reached number 9 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.

Background
The single heralded the band's first new album in three years, as singer Steve Perry had taken time off for a hit solo album and had appeared on 1985's "We Are the World", while guitarist Neal Schon had recorded a one-off album as part of Hagar Schon Aaronson Shrieve.

The title owes itself to a sort of mantra of Perry's at the time, which keyboardist Jonathan Cain jotted down in his notes during writing sessions for the album. Calling it a "Perry-ism" in the liner notes to 1992's box set Time3, Cain explains, "With his own domestic situation in disarray and his mother slowly dying, Perry needed life affirming messages."  Still, a complete song eluded the band for five months before coming together in a sudden moment of inspiration in the shower for Cain on the very day they were booked to finish the record; Perry was equally inspired, working out his entire finished vocals in under an hour. "Be Good to Yourself" has words by Steve Perry and Jonathan Cain and music by Perry, Cain and Neal Schon, who are the only members of Journey to appear on the single. The 1980s saw advanced new technological approaches to writing and recording music, which resulted in the departure of founding member Ross Valory, the band's bassist, and drummer Steve Smith, replaced with studio musicians for the album and tour including drummer Larrie Londin and bassist Randy Jackson. "Be Good to Yourself" was the first release following this development, and was produced by Perry and mixed by Bob Clearmountain.

Music video
Journey made front-page news in Billboard magazine for the superstar rock act's decision at the height of MTV's influence and popularity to release no music video in support of their new album's lead single.  "We're not trying to say, 'To hell with you MTV,'" the band's manager, Herbie Herbert, was quoted as saying, going on to explain that while the band appreciated the heavy rotation the video music channel had given to previous clips, they actually feared overexposure and having the song and the band too closely linked with a particular director's vision rather than the music speaking for itself.  The band also eschewed corporate sponsorship for a tour that year.
Two of four subsequent singles from the album, "Girl Can't Help It" and "I'll Be Alright Without You", were supported by live concert clips that received strong rotation at MTV. In light of the airplay that these performance clips achieved, a live music video for "Be Good to Yourself" was later released.

Reception
Billboard wrote upon the single's release—when it became the second-most added song at radio after Madonna's "Live to Tell"—"Power pop kingpins return with a bang, reelin' and a-rockin' and defying expectations of a ballad". The song peaked at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 the week of May 31, 1986, tying with "Don't Stop Believin'" and "Only the Young" for their fourth-highest peak on that chart. It fared even better on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, where it peaked at #2, tying "The Party's Over (Hopelessly in Love)" as their second-most successful single on that chart, after "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)". Raised on Radio became their fourth consecutive Top 10 album, reaching its peak of #4 the same week "Be Good to Yourself" topped out on the Hot 100; it was their seventh consecutive multi-platinum album in the U.S. The song also charted in Canada and the UK.

"Be Good to Yourself" appears on several of the band's hits compilations and has been a staple of most of the various formations of the band's tours since its release.
"Be Good to Yourself" is played in 1987's White Water Summer starring Kevin Bacon and Sean Astin.

Song structure
The uptempo song starts off with a keyboard driven riff by Cain. Perry soars swiftly through an inspirational pair of verses and choruses over a driving beat and surging guitars punctuated by punchy keyboards. The intro keyboard riff returns briefly before the final third of the song devotes itself to an extended guitar solo by Schon over a G major, D minor, F major, C major chord progression.

References

1986 songs
1986 singles
Columbia Records singles
Journey (band) songs
Songs written by Steve Perry
Songs written by Jonathan Cain
Songs written by Neal Schon

Be Good to Yourself


Anthony Dominick Benedetto (August 3, 1926 – July 21, 2023), known professionally as Tony Bennett, was an American jazz and traditional pop singer. He received many accolades, including 20 Grammy Awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award, and two Primetime Emmy Awards. Bennett was named an NEA Jazz Master and a Kennedy Center Honoree and founded the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Astoria, Queens, New York. He sold more than 50 million records worldwide and earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Bennett began singing at an early age. He fought in the final stages of World War II as a U.S. Army infantryman in the European Theater. Afterward, he developed his singing technique, signed with Columbia Records and had his first number-one popular song with "Because of You" in 1951. Several popular tracks such as "Rags to Riches" followed in early 1953. He then refined his approach to encompass jazz singing. He reached an artistic peak in the late 1950s with albums such as The Beat of My Heart and Basie Swings, Bennett Sings. In 1962, Bennett recorded his signature song, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco". His career and personal life experienced an extended downturn during the height of the rock music era. Bennett staged a comeback in the late 1980s and 1990s, putting out gold record albums again and expanding his reach to the MTV Generation while keeping his musical style intact.

Bennett continued to create popular and critically praised work into the 21st century. He attracted renewed acclaim late in his career for his collaboration with Lady Gaga, which began with the album Cheek to Cheek (2014); the two performers toured together to promote the album throughout 2014 and 2015. With the release of the duo's second album, Love for Sale (2021), Bennett broke the individual record for the longest run of a top-10 album on the Billboard 200 chart for any living artist; his first top-10 record was I Left My Heart in San Francisco in 1962. Bennett also broke the Guinness World Record for the oldest person to release an album of new material, at the age of 95 years and 60 days.

In February 2021, Bennett revealed that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2016. Due to the slow progression of his illness, he continued to record, tour, and perform until his retirement from concerts due to physical challenges, which was announced after his final performances on August 3 and 5, 2021, at Radio City Music Hall.

Early life

1926–1943: Family and education
Anthony Dominick Benedetto was born on August 3, 1926, at St. John's Hospital in Long Island City, Queens, in New York City. He was the son of grocer John Benedetto and seamstress Anna (née Suraci), and was the first member of his family to be born in a hospital. In 1906, John had emigrated from Podargoni, a rural eastern district of the southern Italian city of Reggio Calabria. Anna had been born in the U.S. shortly after her parents also emigrated from the Calabria region in 1899. Other relatives came over as well as part of the mass migration of Italians to America. Tony grew up with an older sister, Mary, and an older brother, John Jr. With a father who was ailing and unable to work, the children grew up in poverty. John Sr. instilled in his son a love of art and literature, and a compassion for human suffering, but died when Tony was ten years old. The experience of growing up in the Great Depression and a distaste for the effects of the presidency of Herbert Hoover would make the child a lifelong Democrat.

Bennett grew up listening to Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Judy Garland, and Bing Crosby as well as jazz artists such as Louis Armstrong, Jack Teagarden, and Joe Venuti. His uncle Dick was a tap dancer in vaudeville, giving him an early window into show business, and his uncle Frank was the Queens borough library commissioner. By age 10 he was already singing, and performed at the opening of the Triborough Bridge, standing next to Mayor Fiorello La Guardia who patted him on the head. Drawing was another early passion of his; he became known as the class caricaturist at P.S. 141 and anticipated a career in commercial art. He began singing for money at age 13, performing as a singing waiter in several Italian restaurants around his native Queens.

Bennett attended New York's School of Industrial Art where he studied painting and music and would later appreciate their emphasis on proper technique. But he dropped out at age 16 to help support his family. He worked as a copy boy and runner for the Associated Press in Manhattan and in several other low-skilled, low-paying jobs. He mostly set his sights on a professional singing career, returning to performing as a singing waiter, playing and winning amateur nights all around the city, and enjoying a successful engagement at a Paramus, New Jersey, nightclub.

1944–1950: World War II and after
Benedetto was drafted into the United States Army in November 1944, during the final stages of World War II. He did basic training at Fort Dix and Fort Robinson as part of becoming an infantry rifleman. Benedetto ran afoul of a sergeant from the South who disliked the Italian from New York City; heavy doses of KP duty or BAR cleaning resulted. Processed through the huge Le Havre replacement depot, in January 1945, he was assigned as a replacement infantryman to the 255th Infantry Regiment of the 63rd Infantry Division, a unit filling in for the heavy losses suffered in the Battle of the Bulge. He moved across France and later into Germany. As March 1945 began, he joined the front line of what he would later describe as a "front-row seat in hell".

As the German Army was pushed back to its homeland, Benedetto and his company saw bitter fighting in cold winter conditions, often hunkering down in foxholes as German 88 mm guns fired on them. At the end of March, they crossed the Rhine and entered Germany, engaging in dangerous house-to-house, town-after-town fighting to clean out German soldiers; during the first week of April, they crossed the Kocher River, and by the end of the month reached the Danube. During his time in combat, Benedetto narrowly escaped death several times. The experience made him a pacifist; he would later write, "Anybody who thinks that war is romantic obviously hasn't gone through one", and later say, "It was a nightmare that's permanent. I just said, 'This is not life. This is not life. At the war's conclusion he was involved in the liberation of the Kaufering concentration camp, a subcamp of Dachau, near Landsberg, where some American prisoners of war from the 63rd Division had also been held. He later wrote in his autobiography that "I saw things no human being should ever have to see."

Benedetto stayed in Germany as part of the occupying force but was assigned to an informal Special Services band unit that would entertain nearby American forces. His dining with a black friend from high school—at a time when the Army was still racially segregated—led to his being demoted and reassigned to Graves Registration Service duties. Subsequently, he sang with the 314th Army Special Services Band under the stage name Joe Bari (a name he had started using before the war, chosen after the city and province in Italy, and as a partial anagram of his family origins in Calabria). He played with many musicians who would have post-war careers.

Upon his discharge from the Army and return to the States in 1946, Benedetto studied at the American Theatre Wing on the GI Bill. He was taught the bel canto singing discipline, which would keep his voice in good shape for his entire career. He continued to perform wherever he could, including while waiting tables. Based upon a suggestion from a teacher at the American Theatre Wing, he developed an unusual approach that involved imitating, as he sang, the style and phrasing of other musicians—such as that of Stan Getz's saxophone and Art Tatum's piano—helping him to improvise as he interpreted a song. He made a few recordings as Bari in 1949 for a small outfit called Leslie Records, but they failed to sell.

In 1949, Pearl Bailey recognized Benedetto's talent and asked him to open for her in Greenwich Village. She had invited Bob Hope to the show. Hope decided to take Benedetto on the road with him and shortened his name to Tony Bennett. In 1950, Bennett cut a demo of "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and was signed to the major label Columbia Records by Mitch Miller.

Career

1951–1959: First successes

Warned by Miller not to imitate Frank Sinatra (who was just then leaving Columbia), Bennett began his career as a crooner of commercial pop tunes. His first big hit was "Because of You", a ballad produced by Miller with a lush orchestral arrangement from Percy Faith. It started out gaining popularity on jukeboxes, then reached number one on the pop charts in 1951 and stayed there for ten weeks, selling over a million copies. This was followed to the top of the charts later that year by a similarly styled rendition of Hank Williams's "Cold, Cold Heart", which helped introduce Williams and country music in general to a wider, more national audience. The Miller and Faith tandem continued to work on all of Bennett's early hits. Bennett's recording of "Blue Velvet" was also very popular and attracted screaming teenage fans at concerts at the famed Paramount Theater in New York (Bennett did seven shows a day, starting at 10:30 a.m.) and elsewhere.

A third number-one came in 1953 with "Rags to Riches". Unlike Bennett's other early hits, this was an up-tempo big band number with a bold, brassy sound and a double tango in the instrumental break; it topped the charts for eight weeks.
Later that year, the producers of the upcoming Broadway musical Kismet had Bennett record "Stranger in Paradise" as a way of promoting the show during a New York newspaper strike. The song reached the top, the show was a hit, and Bennett began a long practice of recording show tunes. "Stranger in Paradise" was also a number-one hit in the United Kingdom a year and a half later.

Once the rock and roll era began in 1955, the dynamic of the music industry changed and it became harder and harder for existing pop singers to do well commercially. Nevertheless, Bennett continued to enjoy success, placing eight songs in the Billboard  during the latter part of the 1950s, with "In the Middle of an Island" (which he vehemently hated) reaching the highest at number nine in 1957.

For a month in August–September 1956, Bennett hosted an NBC Saturday night television variety show, The Tony Bennett Show, as a summer replacement for The Perry Como Show. Patti Page and Julius La Rosa had in turn hosted the two previous months, and they all shared the same singers, dancers, and orchestra. In 1959, Bennett would again fill in for The Perry Como Show, this time alongside Teresa Brewer and Jaye P. Morgan as co-hosts of the summer-long Perry Presents.

1954–1965: A growing artistry
In 1954, the guitarist Chuck Wayne became Bennett's musical director. Bennett released his first long-playing album in 1955, Cloud 7. The album was billed as featuring Wayne and showed Bennett's leanings towards jazz. In 1957, Ralph Sharon became Bennett's pianist, arranger, and musical director, replacing Wayne. Sharon told Bennett that a career singing "sweet saccharine songs like 'Blue Velvet'" would not last long, and encouraged Bennett to focus even more on his jazz inclinations.

The result was the 1957 album The Beat of My Heart. It featured well-known jazz musicians such as Herbie Mann and Nat Adderley, with a strong emphasis on percussion from the likes of Art Blakey, Jo Jones, Latin star Candido Camero, and Chico Hamilton. The album was both popular and critically praised. Bennett followed this by working with the Count Basie Orchestra, becoming the first male pop vocalist to sing with Basie's band. The albums Basie Swings, Bennett Sings (1958) and In Person! (1959) were the well-regarded fruits of this collaboration, with "Chicago" being one of the standout songs.

Bennett also built up the quality and, therefore, the reputation of his nightclub act; in this he was following the path of Sinatra and other top jazz and standards singers of this era. In June 1962, Bennett staged a highly promoted concert performance at Carnegie Hall, using a stellar line-up of musicians including Al Cohn, Kenny Burrell, and Candido, as well as the Ralph Sharon Trio. Carnegie Hall had not featured a male pop performer until then (only Judy Garland one year before that). The concert featured 44 songs, including favorites like "I've Got the World on a String" and "The Best Is Yet To Come". It was a big success and like Garland's, the concert was recorded for posterity, further cementing Bennett's reputation as a star both at home and abroad. Bennett also appeared on television, and in October 1962 he sang on the initial broadcast of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

Also in 1962, Bennett released his recording of "I Left My Heart in San Francisco", a decade-old but little-known song originally written for an opera singer. Although this single only reached number 19 on the , it spent close to a year on various other charts and increased Bennett's exposure. The album of the same title was a  hit and both the single and album achieved gold record status. The song won Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Best Male Solo Vocal Performance for Bennett. Over the years, this would become known as Bennett's signature song. In 2001, it was ranked 23rd on an RIAA/NEA list of the most historically significant Songs of the 20th Century.

Bennett's following album, I Wanna Be Around... (1963), was also a top-5 success, with the title track and "The Good Life" each reaching the  of the pop singles chart along with the  of the Adult Contemporary chart.

The next year brought the Beatles and the British Invasion, and with them still more musical and cultural attention to rock and less to pop, standards, and jazz. Over the next couple of years, Bennett had minor hits with several albums and singles based on show tunes; his last top-40 single was the number 34 "If I Ruled the World" from the musical Pickwick in 1965, but his commercial fortunes were clearly starting to decline. An attempt to break into acting with a role in the poorly received 1966 film The Oscar met with middling reviews for Bennett; he did not enjoy the experience and did not seek further roles.

A firm believer in the Civil Rights Movement, Bennett participated in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches. He performed in the "Stars for Freedom" rally the night before Martin Luther King's "How Long, Not Long" speech. At the conclusion of the march, Bennett was driven to the airport by Viola Liuzzo, a mother of five from Detroit, who was murdered later that day by the Ku Klux Klan.

Bennett refused to perform in apartheid South Africa.

1965–1979: Years of struggle

Ralph Sharon and Bennett parted ways in 1965. There was great pressure on singers such as Lena Horne and Barbra Streisand to record "contemporary" rock songs and, in this vein, Columbia Records' Clive Davis suggested that Bennett do the same. Bennett was very reluctant and, when he tried, the results pleased no one. This was exemplified by Tony Sings the Great Hits of Today! (1970), before which Bennett became physically ill at the thought of recording. It featured covers of Beatles and other current songs and a psychedelic art cover.

Years later, Bennett would recall his dismay at being asked to do contemporary material, comparing it to when his mother was forced to produce a cheap dress. By 1972, he had departed Columbia for the Verve division of MGM Records (Philips in the UK) and relocated for a stint in London, where he hosted a television show from the Talk of the Town nightclub in conjunction with Thames Television, Tony Bennett at the Talk of the Town. With his new label, he tried a variety of approaches, including some more Beatles material, but found no renewed commercial success, and in a couple more years he was without a recording contract.

Taking matters into his own hands, Bennett started his own record company, Improv. He recorded some songs that would later become favorites, such as "What is This Thing Called Love?", and made two well-regarded albums with jazz pianist Bill Evans, The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album (1975) and Together Again (1976), but Improv lacked a distribution arrangement with a major label and by 1977, it was out of business.

As the decade neared its end, Bennett had no recording contract, no manager, and was not performing many concerts outside of Las Vegas. He had developed a drug addiction, was living beyond his means, and had the Internal Revenue Service trying to seize his Los Angeles home.

1979–1989: Turnaround
After a near-fatal cocaine overdose in 1979, Bennett called his sons Danny and Dae for help. "Look, I'm lost here", he told them. "It seems like people don't want to hear the music I make."

Danny and Dae's band, Quacky Duck and His Barnyard Friends, had foundered and the former realized he was not musically talented but had a head for business. His father, on the other hand, had tremendous musical talent, but had trouble sustaining a career from it and had little financial sense. Danny signed on as his father's manager.

Danny got his father's expenses under control, moved him back to New York City, and began booking him in colleges and small theaters to get him away from a "Vegas" image. After some effort, a successful plan to pay back the IRS debt was put into place. The singer had also reunited with Ralph Sharon as his pianist and musical director (and would remain with him until Sharon's retirement in 2002). By 1986, Tony Bennett was re-signed to Columbia Records, this time with creative control, and released The Art of Excellence. This became his first album to reach the charts since 1972.

Henry Mancini's theme song "Life in a Looking Glass" from the Blake Edwards motion picture "That's Life" (1986), sung by Bennett, received a nomination at the Oscars for Best Original Song.

1990–2006: Established career
Danny Bennett felt that younger audiences who were unfamiliar with his father would respond to his music if given a chance. No changes to Tony's formal appearance, singing style, musical accompaniment (The Ralph Sharon Trio or an orchestra), or song choice (generally the Great American Songbook) were necessary or desirable. Accordingly, Danny began regularly to book his father on Late Night with David Letterman, a show with a younger, "hip" audience. This was subsequently followed by appearances on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Sesame Street, The Simpsons, Muppets Tonight, and various MTV programs. In 1993, Bennett played a series of benefit concerts organized by alternative rock radio stations around the country. The plan worked; as Tony later remembered, "I realized that young people had never heard those songs. Cole Porter, Gershwin—they were like, 'Who wrote that?' To them, it was different. If you're different, you stand out."

During this time, Bennett continued to record, first putting out the acclaimed look-back Astoria: Portrait of the Artist (1990), then emphasizing themed albums such as the Sinatra homage Perfectly Frank (1992) and the Fred Astaire tribute Steppin' Out (1993). The latter two both achieved gold status and won Grammys for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance (Bennett's first Grammys since 1962) and further established Bennett as the inheritor of the mantle of a classic American great.

As Bennett was seen at MTV Video Music Awards shows side by side with the likes of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Flavor Flav, and as his "Steppin' Out with My Baby" video received MTV airplay, it was clear that, as The New York Times said, "Tony Bennett has not just bridged the generation gap, he has demolished it. He has solidly connected with a younger crowd weaned on rock. And there have been no compromises."

The new audience reached its height with Bennett's appearance in 1994 on MTV Unplugged. (He quipped on the show, "I've been unplugged my whole career.") Featuring guest appearances by rock and country stars Elvis Costello and k.d. lang (both of whom had an affinity for the standards genre), the show attracted a considerable audience and much media attention. The resulting MTV Unplugged: Tony Bennett album went platinum and, besides taking the Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance Grammy award for the third straight year, also won the top Grammy prize of Album of the Year.

Following his comeback, Bennett financially prospered; by 1999, his assets were worth $15 to 20 million. He had no intention of retiring, saying in reference to masters such as Pablo Picasso, Jack Benny, and Fred Astaire: "right up to the day they died, they were performing. If you are creative, you get busier as you get older." He continued to record and tour steadily, playing a hundred shows a year by the end of the 1990s. In concert, he often made a point of singing one song (usually "Fly Me to the Moon") without any microphone or amplification, demonstrating his skills at vocal projection. One show, Tony Bennett's Wonderful World: Live From San Francisco, was made into a PBS special. He conceptualized and starred in the first episode of the A&E Network's popular Live by Request series, for which he won an Emmy Award. He made cameo appearances as himself in films such as The Scout, Analyze This, and Bruce Almighty.

In 1998, Bennett performed on the final day of a mud-soaked Glastonbury Festival in an immaculate suit and tie, his whole set on this occasion consisting of songs about the weather. His autobiography The Good Life was also first published in 1998. A series of albums, often based on themes (such as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, blues, or duets), met with largely positive reviews.

For his contribution to the recording industry, Bennett was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1560 Vine Street. Bennett was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1997, was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001, and received a lifetime achievement award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) in 2002. In 2002, Q magazine named Bennett in its list of the "50 Bands To See Before You Die". On December 4, 2005, Bennett was the recipient of a Kennedy Center Honor. Later, a theatrical musical revue of his songs, called I Left My Heart: A Salute to the Music of Tony Bennett was created and featured some of his best-known songs such as "I Left My Heart in San Francisco", "Because of You", and "Wonderful". The following year, Bennett was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame.

Bennett frequently donated his time to charitable causes, to the extent that he was sometimes nicknamed "Tony Benefit". In April 2002, he joined Michael Jackson, Chris Tucker, and former President Bill Clinton in a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee at New York City's Apollo Theater. He also recorded public service announcements for Civitan International.

Danny Bennett continued to be Tony's manager while Dae Bennett is a recording engineer who worked on a number of Tony's projects and who opened Bennett Studios in Englewood, New Jersey in 2001, now shuttered due to the downturn of major label budgets combined with skyrocketing overhead. Tony's younger daughter Antonia is an aspiring jazz singer who opened shows for her father.

2006–2021: Later years and final album
On August 3, 2006, Bennett turned 80 years old. His record label celebrated by releasing reissues, compilations, and the album Duets: An American Classic, which reached his highest chart position ever and won a Grammy Award. Concerts were given, including a high-profile one for New York radio station WLTW/106.7; a performance was done with Christina Aguilera and a comedy sketch was made with affectionate Bennett impressionist Alec Baldwin on Saturday Night Live; a Thanksgiving-time, Rob Marshall-directed television special Tony Bennett: An American Classic on NBC, which went on to win multiple Emmy Awards; receipt of the Billboard Century Award; and guest-mentoring on American Idol season 6 as well as performing during its finale. He received the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' Humanitarian Award. Bennett was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Award in 2006.

In 2008, Bennett made two appearances with Billy Joel singing "New York State of Mind" at the final concerts given at Shea Stadium, and in October released the album A Swingin' Christmas with The Count Basie Big Band, for which he made a number of promotional appearances at holiday time. In 2009, Bennett performed at the conclusion of the final Macworld Conference & Expo for Apple Inc., singing "The Best Is Yet to Come" and "I Left My Heart In San Francisco" to a standing ovation, and later making his Jazz Fest debut in New Orleans. In February 2010, Bennett was one of over 70 artists who sang on "We Are the World 25 for Haiti", a charity single in aid of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. In October, he performed "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" at AT&T Park before the third inning of Game 1 of the 2010 World Series and sang "God Bless America" during the seventh-inning stretch. Days later he sang "America the Beautiful" at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, D.C., which he reprised ten years later in a segment on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

In September 2011, Bennett appeared on The Howard Stern Show and named American military actions in the Middle East as the root cause of the September 11 attacks. Bennett also claimed that former President George W. Bush personally told him at the Kennedy Center in December 2005 that he felt he had made a mistake invading Iraq, to which a Bush spokesperson replied, "This account is flatly wrong." Following bad press resulting from his remarks, Bennett clarified his position, writing: "There is simply no excuse for terrorism and the murder of the nearly 3,000 innocent victims of the 9/11 attacks on our country. My life experiences, ranging from the Battle of the Bulge to marching with Martin Luther King, made me a life-long humanist and pacifist, and reinforced my belief that violence begets violence and that war is the lowest form of human behavior."

In September 2011, Bennett released Duets II, a follow-up to his first collaboration album, in conjunction with his 85th birthday. He sang duets with seventeen prominent singers of varying techniques, including Aretha Franklin, Willie Nelson, Queen Latifah, and Lady Gaga. Bennett appeared on the season 2 premiere of the television procedural Blue Bloods performing "It Had To Be You" with Carrie Underwood. His duet with Amy Winehouse on "Body and Soul"—reportedly the last recording she made before her death—charted on the lower reaches of the Billboard Hot 100, making Bennett the oldest living artist to appear there, as well as the artist with the greatest span of appearances. The single did well in Europe, where it reached the top 15 in several countries. The album then debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, making Bennett the oldest living artist to reach that top spot, as well as marking the first time he had reached it himself. A model of Koss headphones, the Tony Bennett Signature Edition (TBSE1), was created for this milestone (Bennett having been one of the early adopters of the Koss product back in the 1960s). In November 2011, Columbia released Tony Bennett – The Complete Collection, a 73-CD plus 3-DVD set, which although not absolutely "complete", finally brought forth many albums that had not had a previous CD release, as well as some unreleased material and rarities. In December 2011, Bennett appeared at the Royal Variety Performance in Salford in the presence of Princess Anne.

In the wake of the premature deaths of Winehouse and Whitney Houston, Bennett called for the legalization of drugs in February 2012. In October 2012, Bennett released Viva Duets, an album of Latin American music duets, featuring Vicente Fernández, Juan Luis Guerra, and Vicentico among others. The recording and filming for the project, in Fort Lauderdale, was co-sponsored by the city. On October 31, 2012, Bennett performed "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" in front of more than 100,000 fans at a City Hall ceremony commemorating the 2012 World Series victory by the San Francisco Giants. He published another memoir, Life is a Gift: The Zen of Bennett, and a documentary film produced by his son Danny was released, also titled The Zen of Bennett.

In September 2014, Bennett performed for the first time in Israel, with his jazz quartet at the Charles Bronfman Auditorium in Tel Aviv, receiving a standing ovation. He also made a surprise cameo appearance on stage with Lady Gaga at Hayarkon Park, Tel Aviv, the previous evening. The performance took place days before the release that month of the two stars' much-delayed collaborative effort and resultant Grammy-winning album, Cheek to Cheek, which debuted at number one on the Billboard charts, extending the 88-year-old Bennett's record for the oldest artist to do so, which earned him the Guinness World Records for "oldest person to reach No.1 on the US Album Chart with a newly recorded album", at the age of 88 years and 69 days. In October 2014, Bennett and Lady Gaga released the concert special Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga: Cheek to Cheek Live!, and at the end of the year, they kicked off their co-headlining Cheek to Cheek Tour. The pair also appeared in a Barnes & Noble commercial.

On September 25, 2015, he released an album of songs composed by Jerome Kern, featuring Bill Charlap on piano, called The Silver Lining: The Songs of Jerome Kern. On November 1, 2015, Bennett, joined by the choir from the Frank Sinatra School, sang "America the Beautiful" before Game 5 of the baseball World Series between the Kansas City Royals and New York Mets at Citi Field.

On August 19, 2016, shortly after his 90th birthday, Bennett was honored by the unveiling of an 8-foot tall statue in his likeness in front of the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. With Senator Dianne Feinstein, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and several San Francisco mayors in attendance, Bennett was serenaded by a young-adult choir singing "I Left My Heart in San Francisco". Bennett had first sung the song at the hotel in 1961. That same year, he performed at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on November 24 and the Rockefeller Center tree lighting on November 30. On December 20, 2016, NBC televised a special concert in honor of his 90th birthday, called Tony Bennett Celebrates 90: The Best Is Yet to Come. In September 2018, Bennett re-recorded the George Gershwin song "Fascinating Rhythm", after 68 years and 342 days, according to the Guinness World Records adjudicator, earning the title of "longest time between the release of an original recording and a re-recording of the same single by the same artist". The song appeared on the collaborative album Love Is Here to Stay with Diana Krall that was released on September 14.

Bennett's final album, Love for Sale, another collaborative record with Lady Gaga, was released on September 30, 2021. The record received generally favorable reviews, and debuted at number eight in the United States. Alexis Petridis called Bennett's performance on the album "pretty remarkable" despite the singer's age and health condition in his review for The Guardian. Bennett broke the individual record for the longest span of top-10 albums on the Billboard 200 chart for any living artist; his first top-10 record was I Left My Heart in San Francisco in 1962. Bennett also broke the Guinness World Record for the oldest person to release an album of new material, at the age of 95 years and 60 days.

Bennett's final live performances were on August 3 and 5, 2021, when he presented a pair of shows with Lady Gaga at Radio City Music Hall. On August 12, 2021, nine days after his 95th birthday, Bennett's retirement from concerts was announced by his son and manager Danny Bennett. Danny stated that though his father remained a capable singer, he was becoming physically frail and risked a major fall if he continued touring. A television special, One Last Time: An Evening with Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga debuted on November 28, 2021, on CBS, which contained select performances from the two final concerts. Bennett's last televised performance was also with Gaga on December 16, 2021, on MTV Unplugged. The special was filmed the previous July in front of an intimate studio audience in New York City, and included duets from Love for Sale.  A documentary called The Lady and the Legend, which will include footage from the making of Bennett and Lady Gaga's two collaborative albums is scheduled to be available on Paramount+ in September 2023.

Despite his retirement, as of early 2022, Bennett still continued to rehearse with his music director three times a week, Danny Bennett said in an interview.

Artistry

Painting
Bennett also had success as a painter, done under his real name of Anthony Benedetto, or just Benedetto. He followed up his childhood interest with professional training, work, and museum visits throughout his life. He sketched or painted every day, often of views out of hotel windows when he was on tour.

He  exhibited his work in numerous galleries around the world. He was chosen as the official artist for the 2001 Kentucky Derby, and was commissioned by the United Nations to do two paintings, including one for its fiftieth anniversary. His painting Homage to Hockney (for his friend David Hockney, painted after Hockney drew him) is on permanent display at the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio. His Boy on Sailboat, Sydney Bay is in the permanent collection at the National Arts Club on Gramercy Park in New York City, as is his Central Park at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. His paintings and drawings have been featured in ARTnews and other magazines, and have sold for as much as $80,000 a piece. Many of his works were published in the art book Tony Bennett: What My Heart Has Seen in 1996. In 2007, another book involving his paintings, Tony Bennett in the Studio: A Life of Art & Music, became a best-seller among art books.

Musical style
Regarding his choices in music, Bennett reiterated his artistic stance in a 2010 interview:

Awards and legacy
Bennett won 20 Grammy Awards (including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award), as follows (years shown are the year in which the ceremony was held and the award was given, not the year in which the recording was released):

{| class=wikitable
|+Grammy Awards for Tony Bennett
|-
! scope="col"| Year
! scope="col"| Work
! scope="col"| Category
! scope="col"| Result
|-
! scope="row" rowspan="3"| 1963
| I Left My Heart In San Francisco
| Album of the Year (Other Than Classical)
|
|-
| rowspan="2"| "I Left My Heart In San Francisco"
| Best Solo Vocal Performance, Male
|
|-
| Record of the Year
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan="2"| 1964
| rowspan="2"| "I Wanna Be Around"
| Record of the Year
|
|-
| Best Vocal Performance, Male
|
|-
! scope="row" | 1965
| "Who Can I Turn To?"
| Best Vocal Performance, Male
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan="2"| 1966
| rowspan="2"|"The Shadow of Your Smile (Love Theme From "The Sandpiper")"
| Record of the Year
|
|-
| Best Vocal Performance, Male
|
|-
! scope="row" | 1991
| Astoria: Portrait of the Artist
| Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Male
|
|-
! scope="row" | 1993
| Perfectly Frank
| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance
|
|-
! scope="row" | 1994
| Steppin' Out
| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan="3"| 1995
| rowspan="2"|MTV Unplugged
| Album of the Year
|
|-
| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance
|
|-
| "Moonglow" (with k.d. lang)
| Best Pop Vocal Collaboration
|
|-
! scope="row" | 1997
| Here's To The Ladies
| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan="2"| 1998
| Tony Bennett On Holiday
| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance
|
|-
| "God Bless The Child" (with Billie Holiday)
| Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals
|
|-
! scope="row" | 1999
| Tony Bennett: The Playground
| Best Musical Album for Children
|
|-
! scope="row" | 2000
| Bennett Sings Ellington: Hot & Cool
| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan="2"| 2002
|
| Lifetime Achievement Award
|
|-
| New York State Of Mind (with Billy Joel)
| Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan="2"| 2003
| Playin' with My Friends: Bennett Sings the Blues
| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album
|
|-
| "What A Wonderful World" (with k. d. lang)
| Best Pop Collaboration wth Vocals
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="2"| 2004
| A Wonderful World (with k. d. lang)
| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album
|
|-
| "La Vie En Rose" (with k. d. lang)
| Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals
|
|-
! scope="row" | 2006
| The Art Of Romance
| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan="2"| 2007
| Duets: An American Classic
| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album
|
|-
| "For Once in My Life" (with Stevie Wonder)
| Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals
|
|-
! scope="row" | 2008
| "Steppin' Out with My Baby" (with Christina Aguilera)
| Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals
|
|-
! scope="row" | 2010
| A Swingin' Christmas
| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="2"| 2012
| Duets II
| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album
|
|-
| "Body And Soul" (with Amy Winehouse)
| Best Pop Duo/Group Performance
|
|-
! scope="row" | 2014
| Viva Duets
| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album
|
|-
! scope="row" | 2015
| Cheek To Cheek (with Lady Gaga)
| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album
|
|-
! scope="row" | 2016
| The Silver Lining: The Songs of Jerome Kern (with Bill Charlap)
| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan="2"| 2019
| Love Is Here To Stay (with Diana Krall)
| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album
|
|-
| "'S Wonderful" (with Diana Krall)
| Best Pop Duo/Group Performance
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="5"| 2022
| rowspan="2"| Love For Sale (with Lady Gaga)
| Album of the Year
|
|-
| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album
|
|-
| rowspan="3"|"I Get a Kick Out of You" (with Lady Gaga)
| Record of the Year
|
|-
| Best Pop Duo/Group Performance
|
|-
| Best Music Video
|
|-

Bennett gained other recognition:

Works

Discography

Bennett released over 70 albums during his career, almost all for Columbia Records. The biggest selling of these in the U.S. were I Left My Heart in San Francisco, MTV Unplugged: Tony Bennett, and Duets: An American Classic, all of which went platinum for shipping one million copies. Eight other albums of his went gold in the U.S., including several compilations. Bennett also charted over 30 singles during his career, with his biggest hits all occurring during the early 1950s, and none charting between 1968 and 2010.

Books

Personal life

On February 12, 1952, Bennett married Ohio art student and jazz fan Patricia Beech, whom he had met the previous year after a nightclub performance in Cleveland. Two thousand female fans dressed in black gathered outside the ceremony at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan, New York, in mock mourning. The couple had two sons, D'Andrea (Danny, b. 1954) and Daegal (Dae, b. 1955). Bennett and his wife Patricia separated in 1965, their marriage a victim of Bennett's spending too much time on the road, among other factors. In 1969, Patricia sued him for divorce on grounds of adultery. In 1971, their divorce became official.

Bennett had become involved with aspiring actress Sandra Grant while filming The Oscar in 1965. The couple lived together for several years and on December 29, 1971, they quietly married in New York. They had two daughters, Joanna (b. 1970) and Antonia (b. 1974), and moved to Los Angeles. The two were married until 1983.

In the late 1980s, Bennett entered into a long-term romantic relationship with Susan Crow, a former New York City schoolteacher.

Bennett and Crow founded Exploring the Arts, a charitable organization dedicated to creating, promoting, and supporting arts education. At the same  time, they founded (and named after Bennett's friend) the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Queens, a public high school dedicated to teaching the performing arts. The school opened in 2001 and has a very high graduation rate. On June 21, 2007, Bennett married Crow in a private civil ceremony in New York that was witnessed by Mario Cuomo, the former governor of New York.

Illness and death
In February 2021, an article in AARP Magazine revealed that Bennett had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2016, though he continued to perform and record until the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. He briefly resumed performing in 2021 for his farewell performances. Bennett's twice-weekly singing practices are thought to have kept his brain stimulated and spared him from symptoms such as disorientation, depression, and a detachment from reality. His neurologist told AARP that, prior to the pandemic, the singer's touring schedule "kept him on his toes and also stimulated his brain in a significant way". Bennett recorded tracks with Lady Gaga from 2018 until early 2020 for their 2021 album Love for Sale, despite at times being "lost and bewildered" during recording sessions.

In announcing Bennett's retirement in August 2021, Danny Bennett stated that the Alzheimer's was mainly affecting his father's short-term memory and that he would often forget he had just performed after a concert; his long-term memory remained intact and he could still fully remember all the lyrics to his repertoire when performing.

Bennett died at his home in New York City on July 21, 2023, following a seven-year battle with Alzheimer's disease. His family said he kept singing to the end, lastly "Because of You". He was hailed as the "champion" and "legendary interpreter" of the Great American Songbook.

Bennett was interred alongside his parents at Calvary Cemetery, Queens.

See also

 List of best-selling music artists

References

Bibliography

Further reading
Willis Conover. "20 Years with Tony". Billboard. November 30, 1968. pp. T1-T40.
Dorothy Andries. "Tony Bennett; 'Life's Been Good to Me'". The Milwaukee Sentinel. November 14, 1980. p. 3.
Peter B. King. "Tony Bennett; 'I just have to paint, and I have to sing'". The Pittsburgh Press. February 10, 1986. p. C6.
"Tony Bennett: Half a Century and Looking Forward". Billboard. December 20, 1997. pp. 37–65. Pullout section includes multiple articles, including:
Irv Lichtman. "Tony Bennett: The Billboard Interview". pp. 38–39, 52 and 56.
Tom Vickers. "Tony and Columbia". pp. 40 and 58.
Don Waller. "When It Comes to Good Works, Bennett Does a Great Job". pp. 42 and 54.
Paul Sexton. "Bennett Over There". p. 44.
Mark Rowland. "Essential Bennett". pp. 46 and 48.
Richard Henderson. "Bennett Brushes Up". p. 50.
"Backbeat: "Happy 80th, Tony Bennett!". Billboard. August 19, 2006. p. 61.
Jim Bessman. "Tony's Long Haul: Strategic Partnerships Fuel Big Sales for Bennett's 'Duets' Album". Billboard. November 11, 2006. p. 24.

External links

 Tony Bennett Interview at NAMM Oral History Collection (1986)

1926 births
2023 deaths
20th-century American male artists
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Tony Bennett


"Music! Music! Music!" is a popular song. The best known version was by Teresa Brewer, recorded in 1949. The song became became #1 and a million seller in 1950. Some radio stations would not play the song because of the lyric "I'd do anything for you/Anything you want me to". That lyric was often thought to be indecent.

One version of the song was done by Petula Clark, also around 1950.

Brewer made several versions of the song. The one for the Coral label had a stronger beat and orchestra arrangement.

Pop songs
1950 songs
Teresa Brewer songs
Bill Haley songs
Peggy Lee songs
Bing Crosby songs
Ray Charles songs

Music! Music! Music!