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Welcome to Unreal Engine 4

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Re: Welcome to Unreal Engine 4

#31

Post by jamie_ca »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #13

"5% of gross revenue resulting from sales to users." As others have pointed out, that is a huge amount, that is probably 25 - 30% of your "profit". The accounting is pretty easy though. Units * SRP * 0.05 == royalty. That said, it is a lot simpler than investing $25 - $30K up front while building the game, only to have it go poof because the market or your designer flaked out. Figure 3 year development at $20/month t…

Previous licensing was along the lines of 25% of net profit after $50k. Plus $100 for access to the dev kit.

I call it a wash, but the lower numbers (5 vs 25, 19 vs 100) make for some good marketing. And full access to the source is new and welcome.

Also I'm not sure if this change to their royalty scheme will make any difference to their flat $400k-per-game license that the big studios probably use.

Re: Welcome to Unreal Engine 4

#32

Post by drx »

This is huge. Unreal Engine 3 was used in a lot of AAA games, including the Arkham games, Borderlands etc. And this is the new version. Basically, the state of the art 3d game engine for 5% gross royalties.

Also, this gives you access to the engine source code, which for Unreal Engine 3 meant paying a fee on the upper scale of six figures (some engines are even more expensive, CryEngine costs over a million bucks).

5% (even considering it's gross) is really really competitive, considering what you're getting in return.

Re: Welcome to Unreal Engine 4

#33

Post by adventured »

Fuxy wrote: post #24
adventured wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They likely realize what they're doing. I'd wager it's a friction fee. Markets often have fees just to add friction to eliminate some problems that derive from completely free access. They clearly don't care about the $19, it's meaningless except for one plausible purpose.

It's not $19 it's $19/month that's a large friction fee. They would be making money even when the game is in development. Say your game takes 1 year to make well you have just spent over $200 and still haven't made any money. That's an unnecessary burden on indie developers.

$200 is a burden? You're serious?

It's not a meaningful fee at all. Particularly given the technology in question. You do realize how valuable this technology is, and how much it would otherwise cost? You don't build a serious UE4 based title with no budget.

If you have an interesting project and want to get started, but don't have $240 to cover a year: raise donations, try kickstarter, borrow $60 from your aunt to get started. At $19 the options are plentiful.

If you can't find $500 for your UE4 engine game over time, I'd argue you stand zero chance of ever completing it. UE4 is a beast of an engine, it's not a one man job to build and launch a serious game. So if you can put together a real team of developers to build a serious game, $200 or $500 is the absolute least of your worries.

And if you're just looking to learn, $19 is not a lot of money to have unfettered access to one of the best engines in gaming.

Re: Welcome to Unreal Engine 4

#35

Post by wernercd »

Tloewald wrote: post #5

The 5% is a bit misleading too because it's 5% of "sticker price" (what they call "gross revenue" which means purchase price not including sales tax). So for a $10 iTunes game they get $0.50 (5% of what Apple gets) and not $0.35 (5% of what you get). This is particularly bad for retail games where you're getting 30% or less of retail price (and that's hardly pure profit). Unity, in comparison, costs more per month (o…

Wonder where DLC comes in? 5% of that as well? Or advertising?

Game was free... DLC packs are $10 per. Sorry Unreal... no monies for you.

Re: Welcome to Unreal Engine 4

#36

Post by rkalla »

Everyone seems pretty focused on the pricing - I thought the inclusion of an asset-marketplace directly into the editing environment was brilliant.

You could imagine Adobe following suit very shortly here withs something similar and invalidate all those graphic/template/icon/texture/animation sites. You just open the "marketplace" inside of Photoshop and browse around for the assets you might want.

Same would go for video-editing. No more buying Action Essentials, just load up Final Cut and look for the perfect blood animation.

You could imagine at some point your IDE having a marketplace inside of it to allow you to purchase proprietary platforms directly and integrate them into your project without much hassle.

It's a really cool proposition, ripe for monopolization unfortunately, but surely convenient if executed on well.

Re: Welcome to Unreal Engine 4

#37

Post by sixothree »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #13

"5% of gross revenue resulting from sales to users." As others have pointed out, that is a huge amount, that is probably 25 - 30% of your "profit". The accounting is pretty easy though. Units * SRP * 0.05 == royalty. That said, it is a lot simpler than investing $25 - $30K up front while building the game, only to have it go poof because the market or your designer flaked out. Figure 3 year development at $20/month t…

I wonder if you can choose a different model if your game becomes more successful.

Re: Welcome to Unreal Engine 4

#38

Post by fotcorn »

callesgg wrote: post #34

Really missing linux support... But i think the pricing is fair and i like it otherwise :)

From the FAQ (https://www.unrealengine.com/faq):

What platforms can I access under the subscription plan?

If you access the source code, you'll see that there is early work on other platforms, including Oculus VR, HTML5 and Linux. You are welcome to extend and modify this code, and also build and ship games for these platforms.

Re: Welcome to Unreal Engine 4

#39

Post by croddin »

rkalla wrote: post #36

Everyone seems pretty focused on the pricing - I thought the inclusion of an asset-marketplace directly into the editing environment was brilliant. You could imagine Adobe following suit very shortly here withs something similar and invalidate all those graphic/template/icon/texture/animation sites. You just open the "marketplace" inside of Photoshop and browse around for the assets you might want. Same would go for…

Adobe already tried that. It was discontinued.

http://helpx.adobe.com/legacy/kb/stock-photo-service-being-d...

Re: Welcome to Unreal Engine 4

#40

Post by maaku »

rkalla wrote: post #36

Everyone seems pretty focused on the pricing - I thought the inclusion of an asset-marketplace directly into the editing environment was brilliant. You could imagine Adobe following suit very shortly here withs something similar and invalidate all those graphic/template/icon/texture/animation sites. You just open the "marketplace" inside of Photoshop and browse around for the assets you might want. Same would go for…

> Everyone seems pretty focused on the pricing - I thought the inclusion of an asset-marketplace directly into the editing environment was brilliant.

Well, they're playing catch-up with Unity here, which has had that capability for (3?) years now.

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