6 ms·

The Unreal Engine has an interesting license. There is no upfront cost but there is a 5% royalty that starts after the first $3,000 of revenue per product per q

The Unreal Engine has an interesting license. There is no upfront cost but there is a 5% royalty that starts after the first $3,000 of revenue per product per quarter. Which is great for smaller shops, but seems like it would scare away the larger organizations.

jsheard 10y ago
Epic still offer completely upfront licensing with no revenue splitting, although the price isn't published. UE3 was supposedly in the $500k range so I imagine UE4 is similar. https://www.unrealengine.com/custom-licensing https://www.unrealengine.com/custom-licensing
socialist_coder 10y ago
Larger orgs never use that license. They all negotiate privately and secure a license for a fixed cost and no rev share. IIRC the cost for a AAA game Is around a few hundred thousand.
- michaelvoz 10y ago
  Source? Do AAA games even use that engine? Do most AAA games not have their own engine?
  - heartbreak 10y ago
    Yep there are quite a few on this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games
    - michaelvoz 10y ago
      I had no idea! Thank you.
  - ramy_d 10y ago
    you're kidding, right?
    - michaelvoz 10y ago
      No. I am quite ignorant of this area and wanted to learn more.
  - leetNightshade 10y ago
    Unreal Engine is the most used Game Engine in the industry (not counting indie/mobile games w/ Unity), especially for AAA games. HeartBreak shared the list. For professional development the Unreal Engine makes it possible to make amazing games with a small team of programmers, iteration time is fast making development a lot faster than before or trying to use a custom engine without well developed tools.
  - socialist_coder 10y ago
    One reason for this is because a game engine is so huge and complex that they have a massive learning curve, much more so than any web framework. If you use Unreal Engine / Unity, you have a pretty big pool of talent that is already proficient with the engine and can hit the ground running, rather than having weeks of learning the intricacies of your specific game engine.

jsheard 10y ago

Epic still offer completely upfront licensing with no revenue splitting, although the price isn't published. UE3 was supposedly in the $500k range so I imagine UE4 is similar. https://www.unrealengine.com/custom-licensing https://www.unrealengine.com/custom-licensing

socialist_coder 10y ago

Larger orgs never use that license. They all negotiate privately and secure a license for a fixed cost and no rev share. IIRC the cost for a AAA game Is around a few hundred thousand.

michaelvoz 10y ago
Source? Do AAA games even use that engine? Do most AAA games not have their own engine?
- heartbreak 10y ago
  Yep there are quite a few on this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games
  - michaelvoz 10y ago
    I had no idea! Thank you.
- ramy_d 10y ago
  you're kidding, right?
  - michaelvoz 10y ago
    No. I am quite ignorant of this area and wanted to learn more.
- leetNightshade 10y ago
  Unreal Engine is the most used Game Engine in the industry (not counting indie/mobile games w/ Unity), especially for AAA games. HeartBreak shared the list. For professional development the Unreal Engine makes it possible to make amazing games with a small team of programmers, iteration time is fast making development a lot faster than before or trying to use a custom engine without well developed tools.
- socialist_coder 10y ago
  One reason for this is because a game engine is so huge and complex that they have a massive learning curve, much more so than any web framework. If you use Unreal Engine / Unity, you have a pretty big pool of talent that is already proficient with the engine and can hit the ground running, rather than having weeks of learning the intricacies of your specific game engine.