Hi all,

This news will hurts Unity a lot :

Unreal Engine 4 is open for all for 19$ per months, 5% royalties !

https://www.unrealengine.com/

I really like the fact that they decided to open source this on GitHub (seems the repo isn't public yet, even though their site claims so...), I love spelunking through AAA engines; the tutorials look pretty great as well.

What I can't understand is if/where you are able to download the UE4 UDK without paying the fee (as the registration says you can continue to use it even with a cancelled sub, you just won't get updates), ie: if I just want to bugger around and don't plan on releasing anything, am I still due for a "once-off" $20 payment?.

EDIT: I think I get the github thing now, seems you need to register through the UE portal, then link your existing github account to the UE portal, for some reason I thought the page was showing people how to sigh up to github...

This news will hurts Unity a lot

I don't think it will hurt Unity, not by a lot anyway. Of course this is exiting for everyone even remotely interested in game development, and I can't wait for the "how do I do this in C++ with the unreal engine" that are likely to arise.

The reason why I don't think this will hurt Unity is simply because of the complexity involved in getting something to work in the unreal engine in contrast to Unity, just the fact that the unreal engine lets you use C++ makes the unreal engine "harder to use" as it will involve more to take into consideration. With unity, you can have a working game in just a few lines of code (so to speak).

I think this is more likely to cause a shift where the more serious people/studios that want to do some more advanced stuff with their game will end up having a favor towards the unreal engine whereas people/studios with little experience/expertise or just for small games will still benefit (or also prefer) unity. Or at least, I hope people understand how to use the right tools for the right job ;)

I'm curious to see where this is headed though!

I don't think that is really the case. The c++ source is just an added benefit. You can work with UE4 without touching any c++, as it has a noob friendly visual scripting system. By contrast, Unity requires C# or JavaScript knowledge. Also, Unity Pro costs $1500 or $75/mo (the free version lacks basic features) and with UE4 you get the whole shabang for $19/mo, which makes UE4 the clear winner in my eyes.

Also, Unity Pro costs $1500 or $75/mo (the free version lacks basic features) and with UE4 you get the whole shabang for $19/mo, which makes UE4 the clear winner in my eyes.

Unity Pro costs $1500 or $75/mo (the free version lacks basic features) and with UE4 you get the whole shabang for $19/mo, which makes UE4 the clear winner in my eyes.

Except that UE4 has the 5% royalties thing, and Unity only has that for consoles.

And it's not 5% on profits. Or 5% on revenue, even. It's 5% of sales, before store cuts.

"When releasing a product using UE4, you're signing up to pay Epic 5% of gross product revenue from users, regardless of what company collects the revenue. That means: If your game makes $10 on the App Store, Apple may pay you $7, but you'd pay Epic $0.50 (5% of $10)."

So it's higher than 5% profit or even 5% revenue. It's 5% of the store price before Microsoft, Valve, Apple, Kickstarter, or other publishers (and credit card companies) take their cut. That's 7% of your revenue, or even higher, depending on the store.

This 5% is nothing against the win of time you have with UE4.