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At what margin? There's more revenue in gaming than engine licensing, but once you have the engine, I can't imagine it costing much to license it.

• psykotic 16y ago
  > At what margin? There's more revenue in gaming than engine licensing, but once you have the engine, I can't imagine it costing much to license it. When you license UE3, you receive technical support from the programmers who implemented the engine. That's part of the sales pitch. Epic's marginal expense cannot be covered by just hiring more random hackers; it's mainly an opportunity cost. The engine is also in continual development, so you can't think of marginal revenue after the initial R&D investment as pure profit. An alternative licensing model was followed by id Software back when they were still in that business. You sign the contract, pay the license fee, get a full day of face-time with Carmack, and then you're all on your own. There were other reasons that id's licensing business collapsed but the non-support was a contributing factor. But there are also strategic technical issues that discourage Valve from chasing Epic's engine marketshare. Building an engine that's fit for many genres and platforms takes longer and is fraught with compromises compared to catering solely to your own needs. It's a good business but there are reasons Valve focuses their attention elsewhere.