Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Welcome to Unreal Engine 4

unrealengine.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 168 posts

Re: Welcome to Unreal Engine 4

#91

Post by bambam12897 »

cmyr wrote: post #74
devindotcom wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been saying there will be a huge middle man market for assets for years. A whole studio specializing in different models for boxes - every era, every state of decay, every material. A studio dedicated to the most realistic rain effects possible - at the lowest price and graphics overhead. You don't have to worry about the "Wilhelm Scream" of boxes or rain effects though because there will be a lot of choice, a l…

This sounds nice from the point-of-view of somebody looking to put something together in a hurry, but this sounds awful from the point-of-view of the guy getting hired to model boxes all day. Maybe that's not a huge difference from what a lot of people are doing at AAA studios anyway, but my god.

That's more of a management issue. If you decide to be (or are assigned to be) the "box guy" then it may be mind numbing. However, reasonable management would shift you around to different projects to keep work stimulating.

Re: Welcome to Unreal Engine 4

#92

Post by enjo »

sixothree wrote: post #37
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.

This seems like an attempt to cash-in on the next Minecraft more than anything else. They want to come along for the ride when someone hits the jackpot. That's the whole point.

Re: Welcome to Unreal Engine 4

#93

Post by bambam12897 »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #63

This could be huge for indies who want to use something other than Unity. $19 per month is a very low barrier to entry. And 5% isn't much compared to every other AAA engine. And access to source code for this price? Damn. I'm still going to stick to my open source tools (for now), but this just put Unreal Engine on my radar...

"And access to source code for this price? Damn"

That's pretty standard. I spoke to a guy working with the Cryengine, and he said that it was so full of unfinished features and bugs that you were absolutely forced to work on the engine's codebase.

Re: Welcome to Unreal Engine 4

#94

Post by venomsnake »

math0ne wrote: post #83

Looks cool, but I don't understand the 20$ a month fee, I don't think it will make them any money and it will hurt adoption.

5% of Minecraft, LoL, Candy Crush is pretty good moneymaker. If you catch early the next indie breakout hit ... you could look at millions down the road. You also make sure that any indie is well acquainted in the engine - so if the studios get aquihired ... you have your own free sale force on the inside.

Although I would really like Unity or Carmack to make an engine that is potent enough to threaten UE. The unreal homogenization is probably not that good in the long term. Healthy competition is a must.

Re: Welcome to Unreal Engine 4

#96

Post by ctdonath »

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.

As others have noted, even the FAQ basically says you can pay $19, get the source code, cancel, and develop away without further subscription fees. The /mo part keeps you up to date, and you'll still be on the hook for giving them 5% of any revenue based on that code.

$240/year for full access to a state-of-the-art graphics engine is cheap. Your cable TV probably costs more than that.

Re: Welcome to Unreal Engine 4

#97

Post by zanny »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #21
mattzito wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had to guess, it's designed as a threshold barrier so they don't have to deal with trying to track down thousands of "projects" where the developer is someone who had big plans to build a game but got bored a week in. At least now, presumably the $19 at least covers the operating costs of tracking all the people you might need to be collecting license revenue from.

Actually, they only care about 5% of the big successes, just like any good investors. Or at least that's what they should be caring about.

They they should have added stipulations like "5% of all sales over $10k" and they could have put a cap of like $5 - 10 million for the real big titles as well.

Re: Welcome to Unreal Engine 4

#98

Post by ctdonath »

callesgg wrote: post #14

What happens when one stops selling the game? Can one then say it is free? Would one still be required to pay them 19 USD per month, one cant actually take the software back, it is already out there using the engine and all.

FAQ: When you cancel your subscription ... your login will remain active, and you are free to continue using the versions of Unreal Engine 4 which you obtained as a subscriber under the terms of the EULA.

$19/mo is for code updates. What they really want is 5% of your revenue, which ends when you stop making money from it.

Re: Welcome to Unreal Engine 4

#99

Post by _delirium »

nacs wrote: post #89
Kronopath wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the reason they made their engine and IDE free is to cater to indie developers, hobbyists, and students. Unity is to these people now what Flash used to be ten years ago—an initially simple but ultimately powerful game-making tool. And the small percentage of those that graduate beyond just doing it as a hobby or experiment end up sticking with the tools they know. It's a very bottom-up approach to the market. Re…

I know, I actually started developing with the Unity engine for a side project about 6 months ago (I'm primarily a web developer with no previous game-dev experience). The fact though is that you can publish commercially (even to mobile app stores) without a Pro license. The reason why making the base version free is commercially viable for them (aside from their hope that some users upgrade to Pro) is because of the…

It'd be interesting to know what proportion of their revenue the Asset Store accounts for. My own guess is very little compared to the revenue from licensing Unity itself. When a 20-person company licenses Unity Pro with iOS/Android support and the Asset Server, that's either $100,000 in licenses up front (plus upgrades later), or $2450/mo for the subscription option. And there are quite a few companies that size (not to mention bigger). I would be surprised if Asset Store revenue is really rivaling that. Hence my guess is that the free version of Unity is mainly intended as a "freemium" product to drive later sales of the Pro version.

Re: Welcome to Unreal Engine 4

#100

Post by pwthornton »

A lot of mobile games and apps could make use of this. So, while the price seems cheap for a Triple A studio, it's a price that individuals and small mobile devs can test out. More mobile games and apps with an incredible engine behind it is good for all of us.
Post reply on HN