Today, the Unreal Engine 4 was officially released... with a bombshell.

[Streetwind]

https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/welcome-to-unreal-engine-4

We're talking about a triple-A gaming engine with decades of pedigree, which previously cost six digit figures to license. And it just came out in its latest version. What does it cost you to license now?

Why, about $19 a month, plus a 5% revenue share if you actually release something and make money off of it.

This bold move instantly shoves an engine that indie devs couldn't even dream about using, right to the forefront of their options. A one-man studio with a $10k budget who's expecting to move a couple thousand copies only can now make his game using the same engine that titles like Mass Effect used - in a newer, more powerful version.

I for one can't wait to see the games we'll have because of this in a year or two.

(In before "What if KSP ran on Unreal 4")

[Ambulatory Cortex]

What if KSP 2 ran on Unreal 4?

[Streetwind]

...Okay, you win.

[The Destroyer]

It would be like this:

Hey, look at this picture of my rocket launched!

-How did it perform in flight?

...This is the flight.

[Swifty]

I use unity… once I've finished this project I'll be using Unreal, its down to games engine quality and licensing terms/price - unreal wins on both. I hope they migrate KSP into Unreal, though maybe thats an idea for KSP2.

[The Destroyer]

That is only for KSP2. Engine switching is on the "NOT doing" list.

[MartGonzo]

https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/welcome-to-unreal-engine-4

We're talking about a triple-A gaming engine with decades of pedigree, which previously cost six digit figures to license. And it just came out in its latest version. What does it cost you to license now?

Why, about $19 a month, plus a 5% revenue share if you actually release something and make money off of it.

This bold move instantly shoves an engine that indie devs couldn't even dream about using, right to the forefront of their options. A one-man studio with a $10k budget who's expecting to move a couple thousand copies only can now make his game using the same engine that titles like Mass Effect used - in a newer, more powerful version.

I for one can't wait to see the games we'll have because of this in a year or two.

(In before "What if KSP ran on Unreal 4")

Really?

last time I checked UE3 was free and they took a percentage of any profits over a certain figure (I think it was 10K)

it's a shame they only rent it out now, it will hurt the modding community.

[Dispatcher]

Interesting. One thing to note is that both Unity and UnrealEngine use the PhysX physics engine. (So does Esenthel game engine.)

Unity Pro costs $1500 to $5000 USD; no royalties. UE4 is basically $20 per month ($240 per year) plus 5% royalties. (Esenthel costs basically $200)

All of the above support multi platform development.

All of the above will have an integrated store.

I'm not clear on which engines collaborative development is supported, or unlimited sized worlds, or GUI editing. Another thing to consider is the frequency of updates to the engine.

Edit: Esenthal source code access costs $50,000. To sell at their site costs about another $30. Comparison source: Esenthal site. I wonder what the CryEngine devs will do now, as a license was maybe $1,000,000?/Edit.

Given that Unity does not require royalties, why would Squad switch to UnrealEngine4?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it, ah say.

Edited March 19, 2014 by Dispatcher

[Nemrav]

forgotten unity indie ? as I recall there's hardly anything that pro has that it doesn't (soft shadows, big deal) and they only force you to get pro if you make a certain sum of money, which is well past what pro costs anyways...

From what I see and hear this sums up the arguments of the KSP devs and the few players who dream of ksp2.

ksp2 wishers : look at this great engine, they advertise a lot, it must be so much better ! also it has much better graphics, look at all the repetitive shooters that have been made with them !

devs : it was considered using another engine, but after trying some of the more popular ones, we found unity to be the best, its much easier to compile, do quick tests and adjust things, we will never move to another engine

^{just watch me get a whole lot of criticism for saying repetitive shooters}

[Nuke]

i personally miss the days when game studios actually wrote their own game engines. these days its all but an impossibility unless you can afford a huge dev team for about 5 years before putting out a product you can license (and were talking just the engine, not an actual game). modern game engines are really complex. but back before that was an issue, smaller studios just put out better games, you dont have to make a game and pander it to the everyman, you can aim for a specific type of gameplay and dont have to worry about what the masses think.

Edited March 20, 2014 by Nuke

[NovaSilisko]

I hate, hate, hate, HATE the subscription-based method that everyone seems to be going for now. You don't own the software, you just rent it, and have to pay that subscription fee til the end of time... Also, is it just me or have Epic more or less retconned UDK out of existence? I tried to find it a bit ago and can't seem to anymore.

I'm more anticipating Unity 5, personally...

[Streetwind]

(You can cancel the Unreal Engine subscription at any time you want, and get to continue working with what you have. You just don't get to see the newest engine updates anymore.)

Wow, a really eventful GDC, all in all:

- The aforementioned Unreal Engine license model change

- Unreal Engine now supports Linux natively

- The CryEngine also introduced a subscription license model, for only $10/month (that means that practically overnight, we suddenly got two triple-A engines made affordable to indie devs)

- CryEngine aims to support AMD Mantle natively

- CryEngine rumored to announce native Mac support in the coming months

- Unity 5 announced

- Microsoft will announce DirectX 12 today, which aims to follow the closer-to-hardware road that AMD Mantle paved

It's a great time to be a games developer. (...I wish I was one.)

And by extension, a great time to be a gamer.

[NovaSilisko]

(You can cancel the Unreal Engine subscription at any time you want, and get to continue working with what you have. You just don't get to see the newest engine updates anymore.)

When you cancel your subscription, you won’t receive access to future releases of Unreal Engine 4, however 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.

There has to be a massive catch, here... what's to stop someone from paying 19 dollars once, then cancelling the subscription and making everything from there? That would destroy the whole setup if it were possible.

[Streetwind]

The catch is that you still have to pay the 5% revenue share if you make money off of something using the Unreal engine, whether you are subscribed or not.

Basically Epic is aiming to generate the majority of its income via this licensing fee. The monthly subscription is just a service subscription for the community features (latest updates, guides and sample games, public content library etc). You are not required to partake in the community features in order to develop and release a game, but you must license the usage of the engine the moment you start making money with it.

[Pds314]

i personally miss the days when game studios actually wrote their own game engines. these days its all but an impossibility unless you can afford a huge dev team for about 5 years before putting out a product you can license (and were talking just the engine, not an actual game). modern game engines are really complex. but back before that was an issue, smaller studios just put out better games, you dont have to make a game and pander it to the everyman, you can aim for a specific type of gameplay and dont have to worry about what the masses think.

Minecraft?

[Pds314]

My big question is what the advantage of a given engine is. Having seen Unreal and Unity in action quite a few times and having used Unity, I'm not sure that either is really much more efficient to code in or efficient during runtime. Cry Engine might be notably more efficient, but that is pretty-much alien as far as I'm concerned.

[Camacha]

There has to be a massive catch, here... what's to stop someone from paying 19 dollars once, then cancelling the subscription and making everything from there? That would destroy the whole setup if it were possible.

If I am honest, I do not think that those 228 dollars a year really matter a lot if you are creating and probably publishing a game. Sure, every dollar is nice, but if that is going to make the difference between making money on your project or not, I would strongly suggest doing something else for a living (or see it as a hobby).

Minecraft?

To be fair, that is not a terribly complex engine. If I am to trust my more informed peers, a pretty badly written one too, but that is another story.

[Nuke]

Minecraft?

im more talking about games that came out in the 90s. minecraft (not my cup of tea) is different in that no engine existed to accomplish what the developer wanted, and left no choice but to design his own. actually things were much like that in the 90s. game engines were bought and sold back then (half life for example was based on the quake engine, and there were several doom engine games, the mechwarrior 2 engine was used for interstate '76), but it was still fairly feasable to build one in house from scratch without a massive development team or a huge amount of money.

it was just the games with in house engines generally had better developers, the games had fewer bugs, because they were experts on their own code base. they dont have to work around problems that they have no control over. you dont have everything hidden behind an api and you could dig in and do asm level optimizations if you wanted to. when you have an in house engine, you can always upgrade it and use it for future games. also they tend to be more cutting edge. when you lease an engine there is a good chance that someone else has already released a game with it, so you dont see anything new tech wise.

the other side of it is having an engine to lease opens things wide open for people who just want to make a game and not have to dabble in a lot of very technical stuff. you end up with gameplay oriented developers, much like what squad is doing. those games tend to be really fun, but usually lag behind in technology and performance.

Edited March 22, 2014 by Nuke