2 ms·

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 w

by Fuxy 13y ago

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.

adventured 13y ago
$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.
jerf 13y ago
Even for Indie developers, if $19/month is not a trivial component of your budget, for something as foundational as this, you can't afford to be making games. Epic's marketing is correct here; if the engine is worth anything to you at all, it's worth way more than what they're asking here. If it can't save you $200's worth of time and effort in one year, it was a bad choice to ever go with it. (That's not rhetorical; there are certainly cases where this is the wrong engine and isn't worth it for your project, even free. Being industrial strength comes with its costs, and you may be better off with something that has traded power for ease-of-use and speed of development.)
hemancuso 13y ago
You're aware that the iOS developer program is $100/year right? People stopped complaining about that years ago.
raverbashing 13y ago
"you have just spent over $200 and still haven't made any money" Really? How much does the computers of these Indie Devs cost? Rent? Electricity? Internet? $200 is what a developer may spend in lunch in one month. $20 per month is a blip in the radar $200 per year is very affordable, even if you're in a 3rd world country, no kidding.
ctdonath 13y ago
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.

by Fuxy 13y ago

adventured 13y ago

$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.

jerf 13y ago

Even for Indie developers, if $19/month is not a trivial component of your budget, for something as foundational as this, you can't afford to be making games. Epic's marketing is correct here; if the engine is worth anything to you at all, it's worth way more than what they're asking here. If it can't save you $200's worth of time and effort in one year, it was a bad choice to ever go with it. (That's not rhetorical; there are certainly cases where this is the wrong engine and isn't worth it for your project, even free. Being industrial strength comes with its costs, and you may be better off with something that has traded power for ease-of-use and speed of development.)

hemancuso 13y ago

You're aware that the iOS developer program is $100/year right? People stopped complaining about that years ago.

raverbashing 13y ago

"you have just spent over $200 and still haven't made any money" Really? How much does the computers of these Indie Devs cost? Rent? Electricity? Internet? $200 is what a developer may spend in lunch in one month. $20 per month is a blip in the radar $200 per year is very affordable, even if you're in a 3rd world country, no kidding.

ctdonath 13y ago

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.