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Unreal Engine will no longer be free for all

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Re: Unreal Engine will no longer be free for all

#101

This would probably drive all the hobbyist to learn something open source like Godot, wouldn't it? This would mean Godot would be the thing worth investing for.

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…

For everyone else it indicates that Epic is willing to change the terms on you when it suits them.

Re: Unreal Engine will no longer be free for all

#102
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So if someone builds something of value but doesn't charge for it until 2 years later, you'd say that they aren't providing value with this change?

I mean, I get what you mean, but seems needlessly pedantic to just "forget" the thing that is being charged for and because there was no other changes made with the new price being added, the change itself isn't adding any value.

Regardless, I get what you mean, no value for you that they start charging. True.

Re: Unreal Engine will no longer be free for all

#103

Seems like every company these days are trying to figure out how to increase the rents that they collect. No actual value add, just trying to optimize to make that top line number go up. It feels very end-of-business-cycle.

Yup. A good time for open-source alternatives to re-assert themselves in the market. Low interest rates made commercial software unnaturally cheap for a long time.

Will also be interesting to see how well subscription-based software fares when people start tightening their belts due to inflation and rising interest rates.

Re: Unreal Engine will no longer be free for all

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh I understand it's a business. I'm just making it clear why I'm not biting, on the off chance Epic employees are here.

Businesses should study their markets. Sadly, many people in the market are completely fine giving away things to get shiny, even giving up revenue. So until standards of customer treatment rise, we'll be dealing with various levels of SaaS.

Except some of us just aren't buying anything, due to the terms and lacking perceived value.

If Unreal works for you that's fine. Why do I have to like or buy it?

Re: Unreal Engine will no longer be free for all

#105
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What does Unreal provide that other engines can't?

Re: Unreal Engine will no longer be free for all

#106
post #99

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…

>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 li…

Game development is not exclusive to business, but you are correct I have not worked for a firm to make a game. Nothing about that arrangement attracts me, especially given the abusive nature of the industry and the frequency that they go through crunch, lack any real worker protections, no unions, etc.

The way AAA studios make games and do business puts me off as well, so pointing to them as an example doesn't really change my outlook. I already don't buy their games and disapprove of their business models.

If I was interested in being exploited for my passion I would consider entering that industry, but as it stands I will be going solo dev.

No game dev company out there seems to treat its staff well during a game's development, so even if I wanted to work on a game as part of a team, I'd be looking at a poor work/life balance and a stressful work environment. I'm too old for that kind of BS.

If I can't build and release the game myself, then it simply isn't good enough to release. I cannot trust collaborators to not take control of my projects, nor would I entrust creative ideas to a for-profit entity without my cut.

Long story short, I might work in the industry if it was a healthy one. Because it's not, and I still want to make a game, it falls to me and only me to make it happen. That's kind of comforting, knowing your failure or success ride on your own action instead of someone else's. Nothing is more disappointing in a group project than failing because of someone else's fuck up.

Re: Unreal Engine will no longer be free for all

#107
post #100

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…

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.

In my case I haven't fallen for anything, but this community seems to have a problem with pointing out it's mostly businesses doing this behavior. If you stay away from commercial software, this crap disappears.

It shouldn't be normal to expect to be exploited imo.

Re: Unreal Engine will no longer be free for all

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that they suddenly became unprofitable, it's that they're (partially) owned by Tencent, and Tencent is calling in their dues. Epic took their money to try and unseat Valve, which clearly did not work. Now the economy is taking a dip, so they need money.

Why do you feel this is Tencent's doing if they're not the majority shareholder?

Going with the theory this is caused by a shareholder:

They own 40%, the only bigger stakeholder beeing Tim Sweeney, Epics CEO and founder. [1]

Assuming Sweeney wouldn't be the one causing it, Tencent is the party that would be able to cause the most financial headaches.

[1] https://www.fool.com/investing/how-to-invest/stocks/how-to-i...

Re: Unreal Engine will no longer be free for all

#109
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So if someone builds something of value but doesn't charge for it until 2 years later, you'd say that they aren't providing value with this change? I mean, I get what you mean, but seems needlessly pedantic to just "forget" the thing that is being charged for and because there was no other changes made with the new price being added, the change itself isn't adding any value. Regardless, I get what you mean, no value…

What I'm saying is that in the aggregate that as more companies are doing that it begins to look like the proverbial "rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic" or "everyone looking for their seats before the music stops". This is because macroeconomically everyone's sales numbers are someone else's expenses. You can get down into the weeds where even though this is just resource allocation of capital that it is doing useful work in the economy to correct a misallocation of capital, but my point is more that this is a late-business cycle signal. Businesses are looking at their finances and looking at the interest rate environment and trying to squeeze more sales out of their existing customers. That is an indicator that the financials at Epic Games probably weren't trending in a good direction. And I'm unsurprised to find this fairly recent news article:

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/28/epic-games-is-eliminating-16...

Even with the success of UE and Fortnite they're still a money losing business. They've probably been surviving off of cheap debt since 2009 but that has now ended. Multiply that by all the businesses in the Russell 3000 or whatever that have been doing exactly the same thing.

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