According to a story in the News Observer, Epic Games is expanding its offices in Cary, North Carolina. The developer of Gears of War and Unreal Tournament III recently acquired five acres on 600 Crossroads Blvd. for a cool $1.57 million right next to the company's main office. Epic is looking to double its office space on its corporate grounds near Jones Franklin Road at Interstate 40.

"We've pretty much run out of space here," said Mark Rein, vice president at Epic, to the Observer.

Currently, Epic employs 94 people and is expecting to continue at a growth of one employee a month for the next two years. The company also hires a lot of game testers part time, and these are the individuals that would occupy most of the new space. Epic has recently resorted to renting offices in Crossroads Corporate Park, but Rein says that having them right next door will help immensely.

"The feedback loop is better," says Rein. "We can sit in a room and say, 'Hey, here's a bug I saw. Can you recreate this and tell me what you think is causing it?' They're constantly playing through the game and testing every little level, and it takes a lot of people to test a game properly."