While attending Midway's recent Gamers Day event in Las Vegas, I had the opportunity to sit down with Epic associate producer Tanya Jessen and discuss a number of assorted topics.

Want to know if the upcoming Xbox 360 edition of Unreal Tournament 3 will include mod support? The possibility of an Epic game on XBLA or PSN? The studio's thoughts on complaints that the lead characters from Gears of War and UT3 look alike?

What about the possible effects of Valve's Portal on Gears of War 2? And just what does Epic think of the UE3-powered wet t-shirt contests in Surreal's This Is Vegas? Read on to find out.

Shack: Will there be mod support in the Xbox 360 version of Unreal Tournament 3?

Tanya Jessen: Quite simply, we aren't doing [mods] for the Xbox 360 version. This is because, Xbox versus PlayStation 3, Xbox is a closed platform. That's the big reason we're not doing it on 360.

Whereas PS3 is an open platform, that makes it a lot easier to bring the mods to the platform.

Shack: Epic Games VP Mark Rein had previously stated that if need be, Epic would release some of the mods as Xbox Live Marketplace downloads. Is that still in the plans?

Tanya Jessen: Microsoft, as far as I know, is very interested in the potential of the mod community. So it is a possibility always, but it would require some upfront process and things set up by Microsoft for how they would do it.

They're very concerned about the security of the hardware. They would want to make sure that whatever was put out on their platform would meet all of the requirements that they have.

We're looking forward to being able to bring mods eventually, but there's a lot of business decisions that need to be made.

You have so many pluses and minuses to having that kind of system. You have so much good stuff, like Xbox Live Arcade and Microsoft is totally invested in getting that out there. But at the same time, you have a quality bar that has to be reached before anything can be put out.

Shack: And then there's this whole XNA community games thing...

Tanya Jessen: I know. I'm really curious to see what they do with XNA, because I think that XNA could be the answer to the mod community.

Shack: Chris Satchell was saying something similar, that the XNA thing will lay the ground work for user-created mods. Still, there are a lot of specifics that Microsoft hasn't discussed yet.

Tanya Jessen: It's one of those things where, at least, it's getting the ball rolling. All it takes is for someone to take the ball and run with it.

Shack: I can see that. Just compare Xbox Live now to when it first launched.

Tanya Jessen: I think [XNA] will definitely build itself, it's the way of the future. [The user community] is such a big reason why we are so attuned to what people on our forums are saying. We know that what the community says is cool is what they want, and the mod community knows that better than anyone.

We're always looking forward. That's why we do the Make Something Unreal contest, because we really want to see just what our users come up with and bring to the table.

Shack: Do you have any thoughts on the use of Unreal Engine 3 to power the wet t-shirt contests of Surreal's This Is Vegas?

Tanya Jessen: This is the games industry, right? Whatever people want, they should get. If there's a market for it...there's a market for it, right?

Personally, I'm in no way offended by it. I think it's really interesting that they're using our engine for it. It looks great. I was watching it and I kept saying to Dana, our PR person, "You know, if I could play as a woman in this game and do all these exact same things, this would be incredibly awesome."

To me, [This Is Vegas] reminds me of The Sims, but with raunchy mini-games.

Shack: I was just playing it a couple minutes ago. In the game, you save some old guy and ask him if he's alright. He responds, "Fuck you kid. I eat meat and shit bullets."

Tanya Jessen: [Laughter] That's awesome. You know, games kinda are a function of our society and the things that we want, our fantasies, our desires, the way we see ourselves.

Shack: So what's next after UT3 and Gears of War 2? More Unreal? Something new?

Tanya Jessen: We've got a few secret projects that will be talked about I'm sure in the coming time. We love the Unreal franchise and I assure you there's more to come.

The guys are working really hard to continue to support it because this, I mean, Epic wouldn't be Epic without Unreal. This is definitely something that we're continuing to work on and continuing to improve.

But Gears 2, yeah! Our company is really focused on it right now.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Shack: Speaking of that, when the Unreal Tournament 3 trailers started coming out, a lot of people saw the tag line "From the makers of Gears of War" and took that as a sign that Epic was abandoning its PC heritage and old die-hard fans.

Tanya Jessen: Gears is a game that we all worked on and that we're phenomenally proud of. It's hard to really describe, but when you spend 16, 18, maybe 20 hours a day on this game to get it out on time, knowing that it would do well because it was awesome but not ever expecting it to reach the level [it did]--you can expect that we want to bring UT to the same people that loved Gears.

That was one of the things for us. We don't want to alienate anyone. As much as we love our hardcore [fans], we want to bring [UT3 to] the rest of the people that have never played Unreal, that never grew up with Unreal.

Turn the page for word on the similarities between the lead characters of Gears and UT3, Epic's love for Portal, and the prospect of an Epic-produced XBLA or PSN title.