Mark A. Rein is a Canadian entrepreneur and the

vice president A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is o ...

of video game and software development company

Epic Games 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, ...

. He is also a co-owner of the

NHL The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

Carolina Hurricanes The Carolina Hurricanes (colloquially known as the Canes) are a professional ice hockey team based in Raleigh, North Carolina. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference ...

. Rein often gives assessments of the progress of his company and gives a monthly update in the magazine '' Game Developer'' where he also provides a updates on the state of the

Unreal Engine Unreal Engine (UE) is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter game '' Unreal''. Initially developed for PC first-person shooters, it has since been used in a variety of genr ...

. He resides in

Raleigh, North Carolina Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the South ...

, though he was raised in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most pop ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

Career

Rein first got involved in the video game industry when he got in touch with

John Romero John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Seco ...

, who at that time worked for

id Software id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: game programmer, programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer T ...

. Since Rein was a fan of the previous '' Commander Keen'' games, Romero got him to playtest the then under development ''Commander Keen 4''. Rein was then brought in to handle the business side of id as its "probationary president". He then negotiated a deal with FormGen to publish a retail ''Commander Keen'' game, '' Commander Keen in Aliens Ate My Babysitter''. This business relationship with id lasted until '' Spear of Destiny'' (which again, he negotiated as a retail version of '' Wolfenstein 3D''). During the development of ''Wolfenstein 3D'', he was later let go from id after a difference of opinion with the rest of the staff. He was also later joined at Epic by Jay Wilbur, id's ex-business manager, and Rein's involvement in id did mean that he was briefly mentioned in the book '' Masters of Doom''.

References

External links

* Year of birth missing (living people) Canadian emigrants to the United States Living people American technology company founders Place of birth missing (living people) Video game businesspeople Epic Games {{videogame-bio-stub