query: place_of_birth tim sweeney 
supports: Video game development is the process of creating a video game. Development is undertaken by a game developer, which may range from one person to a large business. Traditional commercial PC and console games are normally funded by a publisher and take several years to develop. Indie games can take less time and can be produced cheaply by individuals and small developers. The indie game industry has seen a rise in recent years with the growth of new online distribution systems and the mobile game market. Tim Sweeney ( born in 1970 ) is an American computer game programmer and the founder of Epic Games , being best known for his work on ZZT and the Unreal Engine . Sweeney established Epic as a shareware company while he was a student majoring in mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland . He said that he had been interested in game development and computer programming since he was 10 years old , and finally started making games out of his parents ' basement where he lived . Epic got its start when Sweeney created ZZT , the company 's first game , released as a shareware in 1991 . In interviews Sweeney has credited that game success with fueling the early growth of his company . Sweeney worked on Epic 's Unreal Engine , used in the Unreal series of first - person shooters and multiple other video games . In 2005 , Sweeney attended Wake Tech Community College Digital Game Xpo as a guest speaker . He showed a demo of the Unreal Engine and talked about 3D Buzz 's book `` Mastering Unreal Technology : The Art of Level Design '' . On February 9 , 2012 , Sweeney was inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences ( AIAS ) Hall of Fame for his technological innovations in the gaming industry . On July 10 , 2013 , Tim and the co-founder of Epic Games , Mark Rein , were named Development Legends at the Develop Industry Excellence Awards . A game engine is a software framework designed for the creation and development of video games. Developers use them to create games for consoles, mobile devices and personal computers. The core functionality typically provided by a game engine includes a rendering engine (renderer) for 2D or 3D graphics, a physics engine or collision detection (and collision response), sound, scripting, animation, artificial intelligence, networking, streaming, memory management, threading, localization support, scene graph, and may include video support for cinematics. The process of game development is often economized, in large part, by reusing/adapting the same game engine to create different games, or to make it easier to "port" games to multiple platforms. Cary is the seventh largest municipality in North Carolina. Cary is in Wake and Chatham counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located almost entirely in Wake County, it is the second largest municipality in that county and the third largest municipality in The Triangle after Raleigh and Durham. The town's population was 135,234 as of the 2010 census (an increase of 43.1% since 2000), making it the largest town and seventh largest municipality statewide. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the town's population to be 151,088 as of July 1, 2013. Cary is currently the second most populous incorporated town (behind only Gilbert, Arizona) in the United States. According to the US Census Bureau, Cary was the 5th fastest growing municipality in the United States between September 1, 2006, and September 1, 2007. Cary is often considered one of the safest places to live in the US, due to its extremely low crime rate at just 84 violent crimes per 100,000 residents. Charlotte, the largest city in North Carolina, has a violent crime rate of 648 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, almost 8 times higher than Cary. A video game is an electronic game that involves human or animal interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device such as a TV screen or computer monitor. The word "video" in "video game" traditionally referred to a raster display device, but as of the 2000s, it implies any type of display device that can produce two- or three-dimensional images. Some theorists categorize video games as an art form, but this designation is controversial. C++ (pronounced "cee plus plus") is a general-purpose programming language. It has imperative, object-oriented and generic programming features, while also providing facilities for low-level memory manipulation. The Unreal Engine is a game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter game "Unreal". Although primarily developed for first-person shooters, it has been successfully used in a variety of other genres, including stealth, MMORPGs, and other RPGs. With its code written in C++, the Unreal Engine features a high degree of portability and is a tool used by many game developers today. Tencent Holdings Limited is a Chinese investment holding company whose subsidiaries provide media, entertainment, internet and mobile phone value-added services and operate online advertising services in China. Its headquarters are in Nanshan District, Shenzhen. First-person shooter (FPS) is a video game genre which is centered on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through a first-person perspective; that is, the player experiences the action through the eyes of the protagonist. The first-person shooter shares common traits with other shooter games, which in turn fall under the heading action game. From the genre's inception, advanced 3D or pseudo-3D graphics have challenged hardware development, and multiplayer gaming has been integral. ZZT is an ANSI character-based video game, created in 1991 by Tim Sweeney of Potomac Computer Systems, which later became Epic MegaGames in 1992 and finally Epic Games in 1999. "ZZT" itself is not an acronym for anything; its title was chosen so it would always appear at the bottom of newsgroup listings. Epic Games, Inc. (formerly Potomac Computer Systems and later Epic MegaGames, Inc.) is an American video game development company based in Cary, North Carolina, partially owned by Tencent. Founded in 1991, they are best known for their Unreal Engine technology, which has powered their popular in-house "Unreal", "Gears of War" and "Infinity Blade" series of games.
candidates: best cary cee chatham china gilbert industry media mobile north carolina of potomac shenzhen time wake county
answer: potomac