Unreal Engine will no longer be free for all • Hacker News Board

Re: Unreal Engine will no longer be free for all

#91

Post by nrb » Fri, Oct 06, 2023, 6:23 PM UTC

zlg_codes wrote: post #87

dragonwriter wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it doesn't affect game developer hobbyists (actually, if anything, it makes them more secure, since Unreal would have a broader pool of paying clients and less beed to squeeze low-revenie games before they can afford it.) Unless you mean, e.g., movie-making hobbyists where they go from never having to pay to having some (probably, as currently exists for games, based on a revenue threshold) some condition where t…

What incentives are there to learn Unreal if the money you make with it will be dipped into? That percentage is subject to change, too. I don't want the success of my game to ride on paying my game's protection/engine licensing fee. It's hard enough to make money with a game and Unreal makes it harder.

Unreal can make your game possible in the first place depending on your required functionality, timeline, and budget. That can be a mightily powerful incentive.

Re: Unreal Engine will no longer be free for all

#92

Post by johnnyanmac » Fri, Oct 06, 2023, 6:24 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #73

pests wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you look at the title and think of a different company, that's not the headline's fault. It doesn't even try to reference Unity. Things don't happen in a vaccuum. The Unity fiasco is still fresh on everyone's mind. For any company anywhere in the gaming sphere to change their prices so soon - is going to draw comparisons to Unity. The fact multiple people are discussing this with you should prove that.

Do they need to explicitly contrast the situation with Unity in the headline to avoid being misleading? Headlines don't have a lot of space! And as I said in a different comment, the subheading seems to address the main complaints, and in most situations you'd see the headline and the subheading together.

>Headlines don't have a lot of space!

"Unreal Engine starts charging for non-game development".

It's not about space, and we know it's all too easy to bury the lede and leave the internet to lash out as it is oft to do. But I don't blame the author. I know in larger sites editorial will make the title without context of the writing independent of the contents in order to maximize traffic.

Re: Unreal Engine will no longer be free for all

#93

Post by johnnyanmac » Fri, Oct 06, 2023, 6:26 PM UTC

taway1237 wrote: post #75

Dylan16807 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The title, especially in light of the stuff that went on with Unity, makes one think that this will affect a much wider group of people than it actually does. If you look at the title and think of a different company, that's not the headline's fault. It doesn't even try to reference Unity. Also what I said in my previous comment is relevant here. > Unreal was never "free for all". I accept that it's bad wording, bu…

> I don't see how that misleads anyone unless you thought the engine was completely free. That's how i understood it, was surprised, clicked the thread to find out more. Sample size of 1, but I was (maybe accidentally) misled.

It was very much intentional, don't blame yourself. Or I don't know, blame yourself for not reading the article? Either way, this is why an accurate non-click sit headline is necessary, there are many many more people like you and some like to shout and spread misinformation on social media.

Re: Unreal Engine will no longer be free for all

#94

Post by lamontcg » Fri, Oct 06, 2023, 6:26 PM UTC

diggan wrote: post #88

lamontcg wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saying this pricing change doesn't add any value. I would be literally impossible to argue that UE doesn't add any value, which is why I'm not making that argument.

I'd say they already added the value but never charged for it, until now. Seems fair to me.

Which still means that this change doesn't add any value. I'm uninterested in if it is "fair" or not.

Re: Unreal Engine will no longer be free for all

#95

Post by johnnyanmac » Fri, Oct 06, 2023, 6:30 PM UTC

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #19

tomschwiha wrote: post #3

The headline may be better less clickbaity by clarifying "not free anymore for vfx or movie users".

Movie VFX budgets are often in tens of millions anyway. Not sure that "not free" will kill them. I've heard it sad that "The three most expensive are wars, space programs and making movies".

I'm not worried at all about Disney paying more licenses. I'm honestly shocked to realize that the Madelorian was made and the engine behind it got nary a penny for it.

Re: Unreal Engine will no longer be free for all

#96

Post by zlg_codes » Fri, Oct 06, 2023, 6:30 PM UTC

johnnyanmac wrote: post #90

zlg_codes wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than make excuses for more revenue, I think it's apparent that programmers cannot trust commercial engines or their business models to not up and change one day to suit Epic's revenue. In-house development doesn't suffer from this issue, and you'll have full control over the code. Unreal doing this around the same time Unity pulls its shit isn't a coincidence. As an aspiring game dev I kinda want nothing to do…

It isn't a coincidence. But the situation is larger than unreal nor Unity. It's the beginning of Q4/end of Q3 and this tends to be when companies make new initiatives and it's been no secret that big businesses's low interest rate borrowing has been done for months now. Same reason why we have yet another flurry of layoffs happening. >In-house development doesn't suffer from this issue, and you'll have full control o…

I am in 2D for now, so anything SDL based is enough. But, part of what's put me off of 3D is the business side. Modeling tools are difficult to use and take years to learn adequately. I'm not interested in paying for a sub while I'm learning, and terms in a license that are subject to change do nothing to inspire confidence in any particular solution. This is a social and ethical problem imo.

As you pointed out, doing it correctly requires experienced developers who will stick around. I think that's a more rewarding and better cost to spend money on. At least the worker won't try to modify the terms of what you're building on.

I'll check out that project sometime. 3D is still a ways out for me but any libre software that can make it easier to learn sounds great.

Re: Unreal Engine will no longer be free for all

#97

Post by jlarocco » Fri, Oct 06, 2023, 6:39 PM UTC

zlg_codes wrote: post #87

dragonwriter wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it doesn't affect game developer hobbyists (actually, if anything, it makes them more secure, since Unreal would have a broader pool of paying clients and less beed to squeeze low-revenie games before they can afford it.) Unless you mean, e.g., movie-making hobbyists where they go from never having to pay to having some (probably, as currently exists for games, based on a revenue threshold) some condition where t…

What incentives are there to learn Unreal if the money you make with it will be dipped into? That percentage is subject to change, too. I don't want the success of my game to ride on paying my game's protection/engine licensing fee. It's hard enough to make money with a game and Unreal makes it harder.

Looking at it from the otherside, what incentive is there for them to pay teams developers to build Unreal Engine, and then let you use the technology for free and get nothing when your product takes off?

By all means, if you don't like the terms don't use the engine, but it's hard to take it seriously when you make it sound as if you're doing them a favor using their engine for free.

Re: Unreal Engine will no longer be free for all

#98

Post by JamesLeonis » Fri, Oct 06, 2023, 6:40 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #45

JamesLeonis wrote: post #12

[flagged]

Using the word "enshittification" is a great way to get a comment pinned to the top of an HN thread, but this is not that. This is Cory Doctorow's definition of enshittification [0]: > Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. The…

Here's Epic's Enshittification Journey as a platform. Let it be known that it didn't have to be this way. Epic (Mega)Games was a mild-mannered game development company that sold a popular engine used in many AAA games.

Act I; Users lured, moats built: Epic pivoted towards Games-as-a-Service. They took investment [0] and guidance from Tencent to the tune of 40% of the company. Fortnite and the F2P Unreal Tournament reboot were developed and released in this timeframe. These free titles would bring in the gamers into the Epic ecosystem.

Act II; Users exploited, business customers courted: Fortnite adds subscriptions in 2017 (Battle Pass Season 2 [1]) and makes money hand-over-fist. At the same time, the Tencent deal allowed them to relicense their engine away from the high upfront cost to "Free" until a certain point [2]. They also charged a far less cut than Steam, used hundreds of millions of dollars of their own investment to bring other developers to the ecosystem, as well as publishing a number of games that used the engine. This lured developers to the platform with their own dreams of Fortnite revenues. More investment poured in.

Relating this back to the original article here, in 2019 Epic gave a grant of $1.2 million to Blender [3] to develop their tools to integrate Unreal Engine, including those for visual artists and film.

Act III; Everybody is shafted: See my original comment.

[0]: https://www.investopedia.com/news/how-tencent-changed-fortni...

[1]: https://fortnite.fandom.com/wiki/Season_2

[2]: https://fortune.com/2015/03/03/epic-games-unreal-tech-free/

[3]: https://www.blender.org/press/epic-games-supports-blender-fo...

Re: Unreal Engine will no longer be free for all

#99

Post by iyasu » Fri, Oct 06, 2023, 6:40 PM UTC

zlg_codes wrote: post #85

lholden wrote: post #26

Very misleading article title. The licensing changes target big commercial usages outside of game development. (With revenue thresholds, similar to how it already works right now for game development.) For example, up until now Unreal has seen use in vfx for movie and tv production. The licensing model for Unreal was primarily oriented for game development, which meant that this wasn't generating any revenue for Epic…

Rather than make excuses for more revenue, I think it's apparent that programmers cannot trust commercial engines or their business models to not up and change one day to suit Epic's revenue. In-house development doesn't suffer from this issue, and you'll have full control over the code. Unreal doing this around the same time Unity pulls its shit isn't a coincidence. As an aspiring game dev I kinda want nothing to do…

>In-house development doesn't suffer from this issue, and you'll have full control over the code.

Proprietary engines suffer from plenty which you haven't stated - can be a mess to read or understand; many hacks done to accomplish a certain feature because it helped ship X feature

- tons of tribal knowledge. If you've worked with a proprietary engine before, you already know documentation will be lackluster and to little fault of the engineers - there's so much to know about the engine that developers don't have the time to chart out what everything does in the engine while pushing out fixes and features.Often, you need to poke the principal programmer who's been with the studio since its inception to understand how a certain long-existing feature works. That's a major point of weakness for the studio!

- Engine limitations! Ask the bethesda devs on their experience building multiplayer for Fallout 76[0]. Imagine building multiplayer in an engine that has never needed to support it. That's a huge refactor and a ton of time spent doing that when it's already handled by Unreal Engine. Developers will need to maintain that engine in the future so the pain doesn't stop after the game gets shipped!

Your post sounds like someone who hasn't worked in game development before. I advise listening to GDC talks, noclip documentaries, and more if you want to get a better understanding of what game development actually looks like. It's a lot more complicated than "your change in price policy makes me mad" (by the way, most AAA studios already have contracts/price agreements with these engines given the amount of revenue they generate for Unity/Unreal).

[0]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi8PTAJ2Hjs

Re: Unreal Engine will no longer be free for all

#100

Post by elteto » Fri, Oct 06, 2023, 6:44 PM UTC

zlg_codes wrote: post #85

lholden wrote: post #26

Very misleading article title. The licensing changes target big commercial usages outside of game development. (With revenue thresholds, similar to how it already works right now for game development.) For example, up until now Unreal has seen use in vfx for movie and tv production. The licensing model for Unreal was primarily oriented for game development, which meant that this wasn't generating any revenue for Epic…

Rather than make excuses for more revenue, I think it's apparent that programmers cannot trust commercial engines or their business models to not up and change one day to suit Epic's revenue. In-house development doesn't suffer from this issue, and you'll have full control over the code. Unreal doing this around the same time Unity pulls its shit isn't a coincidence. As an aspiring game dev I kinda want nothing to do…

I mean, why would you expect them not to charge you money for something they clearly spend tons of money in developing? They are a business.

The bait and switch is real, but after N of them we have to start asking ourselves whose fault is it if we fall for the N+1th one.