Epic's Mark Rein Apologizes To Indie Dev For Being Rude

A few days ago, Epic Games’ Vice President Mark Rein caused a bit of a stir during an indie-gaming panel at the Develop conference. Speaking from the audience, Rein apparently chastised the assembled developers when the subject of interacting with customers in small-scale projects came up. According to a blog post from one of the panelists, Positech Games’ Cliff Harris, Rein said that doing so was “a waste of time,” before lecturing the panel.

Harris didn’t take kindly to the tone of the discussion, and dressed down the outspoken Rein online, saying that Rein was a jerk before ending his post with a succinct “f*** off.”

Rein has responded to Harris, issuing a lengthy e-mail apology, which he also passed along to Develop Online. The gist of it can be summed up in Rein’s words, “It's not like some great injustice was being done and needed commentary from me. I was just being a jerk.”

“I wasn't trying to talk down to you or anyone else there,” he concludes. “But clearly it didn't come off that way and, regardless of intentions, none of this makes up for my bad manners. So again I apologize and hopefully I've learned my lesson.”

With any luck, that’ll be the last we ever hear about this situation.