Epic Games has announced its plans to release Unreal Engine 4 at a price of $19 a month and a 5% royalty fee on all published games. The new model is said to provide access to everything the engine has to offer, with nothing at all locked away.
Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games, explained why the move was important not just for his company but for the industry at large.
“We’re working to build a company that succeeds when UE4 developers succeed,” he said. “Anyone can ship a commercial product with UE4 by paying 5% of gross revenue resulting from sales to users. If your game makes $1,000,000, then we make $50,000. We realize that’s a lot to ask, and that it would be a crazy proposition unless UE4 enables you to build way better games way more productively than otherwise.
“Epic’s goal is to put the engine within reach of everyone interested in building games and 3D content, from indies to large triple-A development teams, and Minecraft creators as well. For $19/month you can have access to everything, including the Unreal Editor in ready-to-run form, and the engine’s complete C++ source code hosted on GitHub for collaborative development.”
You can watch the Unreal Engine 4 in action in a newly released trailer fresh out of GDC.
