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Whenever someone infringes the rights of independent developers to freely choose and combine engines, platforms, services (including, self-interestedly here, Ep

Whenever someone infringes the rights of independent developers to freely choose and combine engines, platforms, services (including, self-interestedly here, Epic’s own services!) the air raid sirens go off and we move quickly. I find that a bit dishonest tbh. Epic clearly sees the opportunity to gut punch it's competitor and use it to their advantage and lure devs away from Unity while getting good press in the process. Not so long ago Epic was selling their Engine for hundreds of thousands of USD while Unity was already way more accessible to indie devs. They are insanely rich from Fortnite fame right now, so for them this is peanuts.

acoard 8y ago
It's a false equivalency. Having high prices advertised transparently is not the same as what Unity has done.
- kayoone 8y ago
  Of course it's not the same, but he's talking about "freely choosing and combining engines". UE was never even an option for indie devs a few years ago. Besides, Unity clearly stated that Improbable knew about their TOS violation for at least half a year and Unity's reasoning also makes some sense, as Improbable is bundling Unity's SDK in their product. Problem is, that it's too late now because Improbable blew this up from their perspective omitting important information about what was actually going on.
  - dkersten 8y ago
    Freely choosing does not mean getting things for free. You can freely choose to combine technologies/tools, but you must still have licenses for said tools. Unity’s terms out right prevent you from using some tools, regardless of if you have licenses or not. As an analogy, I have the right to live anywhere I want in my country (where I live is a free choice), that doesn’t mean I can afford to actually do so.
    - da_chicken 8y ago
      No, Unity's terms state that you need an additional license if you want to use some tools because that's how it's monetized. Remember, Unity's licensing has to be more complex because it supports free usage as well as paid usage and does so all without royalties. Saying that Unity is wrong because they have complex licensing is just as misguided as saying that Epic is wrong because they charge royalties. Should Unity invest $25 million into a fund for "royalty-free game engines"?
      - dkersten 8y ago
        I was replying to Epic not supporting free choice in the past because “UE was never even an option for indie devs a few years ago.”, I should have quoted it to be clear. I also didn’t say Unity is in the wrong, necessarily.
      - mattigames 8y ago
        >Unity's terms state that you need an additional license if you want to use some tools because that's how it's monetized That's a bit dishonest, when they say "you need an additional license" for cloud platforms they mean a custom license that has to be directly negotiated with Unity, it not just something you can click and buy; meaning no transparency and pretty much a closed door.
        andybak 8y ago
        Are you saying there's no way Improbable could have partnered with Unity? I get the impression it was simply a disagreement about who got what share of the bounty.
        mattigames 8y ago
        We don't know the percentages of the disagreement, maybe Unity asked for 90% or something illogical for Improbable to accept.
        8y ago
jorvi 8y ago
> Not so long ago Epic was selling their Engine for hundreds of thousands of USD ? Hasn’t Epic always been quite mod/dev/indie friendly, giving away the Unreal SDK for free, publishing is free for non-commercial projects and as long as you weren’t an AAA dev/publisher you ‘only’ had to pay 5% of your profits once you made over $100.000
- y4mi 8y ago
  You're talking about unreal engine 4 i believe. The parent is probably talking about the previous engines. They were very expensive
  - gsich 8y ago
    ue3 had this too.
  - jon-wood 8y ago
    Extensive mod support has been present in the Unreal Engine since day one - it wasn't full source access to the engine itself, but people built some really impressive stuff on top of the Unreal games back in the day.
    - jorvi 8y ago
      Red Orchestra and Killing Floor come to mind, both with eventually have become full-fledged game series!
  - dkersten 8y ago
    UDK was Unreal 3 based. Prior to that, every AAA engine in existance was expensive, it took some time for that to change and Epic with UDK were part of that change. I remember UDK being the first up-to-date (ie not old engines like how id open sourced their old engines) big-name AAA engine that I could download and tinker with for free as a hobbyist.
- da_chicken 8y ago
  It's 5% of gross revenue per $3,000 per quarter per game [0]: > Once you ship your game or application, you pay Epic 5% of gross revenue after the first $3,000 per product per calendar quarter. [0]: https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/faq https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/faq
_pmf_ 8y ago
> Not so long ago Epic was selling their Engine for hundreds of thousands of USD while Unity was already way more accessible to indie devs. Please enlighten us as to why selling software is worse than giving it away for "free", then changing the definition of "free".
emdowling 8y ago
Markets change. During the early 2000's, the going rate for a AAA engine license started at USD$250,000. The three main ones at the time were Quake 3 engine (id tech 5??), Unreal and Lithtech. Unity wasn't the first engine to try to make this more accessible (anyone remember Genesis3D?), but it was the first to do it well. It also came into maturity at the right time to take advantage of the App Store. Unity has done an incredible job of making game development accessible. So much so that when I wanted an extra 30 days on their trial period, I reached out over Skype and was answered within minutes by the founder (who was CEO at the time) and issued a new license key. Unreal adapted to that market change - they didn't do it half-assed either, they did it properly and with conviction. Their success with Fortnite isn't a one-off, it's come from an astute market awareness and adaptability. The fact that they turned this fund into reality so quickly is exactly why Fortnite and the Unreal engine is a success.
- simias 8y ago
  >Their success with Fortnite isn't a one-off, it's come from an astute market awareness and adaptability. It's impressive that they managed to build that Battle Royale mode so quickly and efficiently (although obviously it was helped by the fact that they could build on top of their pre-existing Fortnite game) but I think you're downplaying the luck factor. Or rather, if you don't think it's a one-off, do you really think that they will be able to replicate this level of success "at will" in the future? And if so, why didn't they have the same amount of success and "market awareness" in the past? Remember Paragon? >Paragon was a free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena game developed and published by Epic Games. Powered by their own Unreal Engine 4, the game started pay-to-play early access in March 2016, and free-to-play access to its open beta started in February 2017.[1] Epic Games shut down its servers on April 27, 2018. I definitely think that the Fortnite people were at the right place at the right time, they saw an opportunity and jumped on it. They saw PUBG had great potential but was struggling to deliver a polished multiplatform experience. They had this brand new Fortnite game that they could mod a BR mode into relatively easily. They released it on platforms where PUBG was not available and on top of that they released it for free. It's clever but this particular combination of events do not occur every month.
HelloNurse 8y ago
Engine license fees, high or low, are known in advance and threaten only the optimists. The "accessibility" that is at stake is of a different nature: game developers expecting Improbable middleware to serve them as dependably as their game engine, without suddenly disappearing into thin hair because of a usage terms dispute and at the whim of Unity.
vectorEQ 8y ago
it's dishonest only because you have a certain opinion. which kind of doesn't reflect how honesty and dishonesty are meant to be used to describe things. if you are surprised or disappointed that a big business acts like one, then perhaps you should do some market research. epic had a fine licensing scheme before with udk which was modernised along with the market. as well as the additional services they now provide. without these services and the quality of games they produce they would have no fortune. They realise, in the market, you need to keep growing or go bust, so further developments and improvements are made. its not dishonest or unfair - tried running a business lately?
SeanBoocock 8y ago
They still sell their engine with royalty-free licensees for six to seven figures. Most large productions that use Unreal are opting for that. I assume they still make most of their licensing revenue from these sorts of royalty-free licenses, just as they did a decade ago.

acoard 8y ago

It's a false equivalency. Having high prices advertised transparently is not the same as what Unity has done.

kayoone 8y ago
Of course it's not the same, but he's talking about "freely choosing and combining engines". UE was never even an option for indie devs a few years ago. Besides, Unity clearly stated that Improbable knew about their TOS violation for at least half a year and Unity's reasoning also makes some sense, as Improbable is bundling Unity's SDK in their product. Problem is, that it's too late now because Improbable blew this up from their perspective omitting important information about what was actually going on.
- dkersten 8y ago
  Freely choosing does not mean getting things for free. You can freely choose to combine technologies/tools, but you must still have licenses for said tools. Unity’s terms out right prevent you from using some tools, regardless of if you have licenses or not. As an analogy, I have the right to live anywhere I want in my country (where I live is a free choice), that doesn’t mean I can afford to actually do so.
  - da_chicken 8y ago
    No, Unity's terms state that you need an additional license if you want to use some tools because that's how it's monetized. Remember, Unity's licensing has to be more complex because it supports free usage as well as paid usage and does so all without royalties. Saying that Unity is wrong because they have complex licensing is just as misguided as saying that Epic is wrong because they charge royalties. Should Unity invest $25 million into a fund for "royalty-free game engines"?
    - dkersten 8y ago
      I was replying to Epic not supporting free choice in the past because “UE was never even an option for indie devs a few years ago.”, I should have quoted it to be clear. I also didn’t say Unity is in the wrong, necessarily.
    - mattigames 8y ago
      >Unity's terms state that you need an additional license if you want to use some tools because that's how it's monetized That's a bit dishonest, when they say "you need an additional license" for cloud platforms they mean a custom license that has to be directly negotiated with Unity, it not just something you can click and buy; meaning no transparency and pretty much a closed door.
      - andybak 8y ago
        Are you saying there's no way Improbable could have partnered with Unity? I get the impression it was simply a disagreement about who got what share of the bounty.
        mattigames 8y ago
        We don't know the percentages of the disagreement, maybe Unity asked for 90% or something illogical for Improbable to accept.
        8y ago

jorvi 8y ago

> Not so long ago Epic was selling their Engine for hundreds of thousands of USD ? Hasn’t Epic always been quite mod/dev/indie friendly, giving away the Unreal SDK for free, publishing is free for non-commercial projects and as long as you weren’t an AAA dev/publisher you ‘only’ had to pay 5% of your profits once you made over $100.000

y4mi 8y ago
You're talking about unreal engine 4 i believe. The parent is probably talking about the previous engines. They were very expensive
- gsich 8y ago
  ue3 had this too.
- jon-wood 8y ago
  Extensive mod support has been present in the Unreal Engine since day one - it wasn't full source access to the engine itself, but people built some really impressive stuff on top of the Unreal games back in the day.
  - jorvi 8y ago
    Red Orchestra and Killing Floor come to mind, both with eventually have become full-fledged game series!
- dkersten 8y ago
  UDK was Unreal 3 based. Prior to that, every AAA engine in existance was expensive, it took some time for that to change and Epic with UDK were part of that change. I remember UDK being the first up-to-date (ie not old engines like how id open sourced their old engines) big-name AAA engine that I could download and tinker with for free as a hobbyist.
da_chicken 8y ago
It's 5% of gross revenue per $3,000 per quarter per game [0]: > Once you ship your game or application, you pay Epic 5% of gross revenue after the first $3,000 per product per calendar quarter. [0]: https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/faq https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/faq

_pmf_ 8y ago

> Not so long ago Epic was selling their Engine for hundreds of thousands of USD while Unity was already way more accessible to indie devs. Please enlighten us as to why selling software is worse than giving it away for "free", then changing the definition of "free".

emdowling 8y ago

Markets change. During the early 2000's, the going rate for a AAA engine license started at USD$250,000. The three main ones at the time were Quake 3 engine (id tech 5??), Unreal and Lithtech. Unity wasn't the first engine to try to make this more accessible (anyone remember Genesis3D?), but it was the first to do it well. It also came into maturity at the right time to take advantage of the App Store. Unity has done an incredible job of making game development accessible. So much so that when I wanted an extra 30 days on their trial period, I reached out over Skype and was answered within minutes by the founder (who was CEO at the time) and issued a new license key. Unreal adapted to that market change - they didn't do it half-assed either, they did it properly and with conviction. Their success with Fortnite isn't a one-off, it's come from an astute market awareness and adaptability. The fact that they turned this fund into reality so quickly is exactly why Fortnite and the Unreal engine is a success.

simias 8y ago
>Their success with Fortnite isn't a one-off, it's come from an astute market awareness and adaptability. It's impressive that they managed to build that Battle Royale mode so quickly and efficiently (although obviously it was helped by the fact that they could build on top of their pre-existing Fortnite game) but I think you're downplaying the luck factor. Or rather, if you don't think it's a one-off, do you really think that they will be able to replicate this level of success "at will" in the future? And if so, why didn't they have the same amount of success and "market awareness" in the past? Remember Paragon? >Paragon was a free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena game developed and published by Epic Games. Powered by their own Unreal Engine 4, the game started pay-to-play early access in March 2016, and free-to-play access to its open beta started in February 2017.[1] Epic Games shut down its servers on April 27, 2018. I definitely think that the Fortnite people were at the right place at the right time, they saw an opportunity and jumped on it. They saw PUBG had great potential but was struggling to deliver a polished multiplatform experience. They had this brand new Fortnite game that they could mod a BR mode into relatively easily. They released it on platforms where PUBG was not available and on top of that they released it for free. It's clever but this particular combination of events do not occur every month.

HelloNurse 8y ago

Engine license fees, high or low, are known in advance and threaten only the optimists. The "accessibility" that is at stake is of a different nature: game developers expecting Improbable middleware to serve them as dependably as their game engine, without suddenly disappearing into thin hair because of a usage terms dispute and at the whim of Unity.

vectorEQ 8y ago

it's dishonest only because you have a certain opinion. which kind of doesn't reflect how honesty and dishonesty are meant to be used to describe things. if you are surprised or disappointed that a big business acts like one, then perhaps you should do some market research. epic had a fine licensing scheme before with udk which was modernised along with the market. as well as the additional services they now provide. without these services and the quality of games they produce they would have no fortune. They realise, in the market, you need to keep growing or go bust, so further developments and improvements are made. its not dishonest or unfair - tried running a business lately?

SeanBoocock 8y ago

They still sell their engine with royalty-free licensees for six to seven figures. Most large productions that use Unreal are opting for that. I assume they still make most of their licensing revenue from these sorts of royalty-free licenses, just as they did a decade ago.