They say that there is no such thing as a free lunch in this world, but it looks as though there is such a thing as a free game engine. Epic has just announced that they will make the Unreal Engine 4 totally free for anyone and everyone to use. Unreal Engine 4 happens to be the most recent version of the game engine developed by Epic Games, which means that this is an extremely generous move.
Unreal Engine 4 was first launched in March last year for “early adopters”, where it was based on a subscription model that charged a monthly fee of $19, in addition to a royalty fee of 5% when it comes to sales. In the past, other iterations of the Unreal Engine had targeted large development teams that churn out game titles that have blockbuster-sized budgets, not to mention accompanying costly licensing fees due to the technology. Epic Games claims that this move is to open up Unreal Engine 4 to a wider audience.
Not only is Unreal Engine 4 now free to download, you will also be able to obtain the rest of the future updates for free. Just pay Epic a 5% royalty on gross revenue above $3,000 per product, each quarter, and that’s that. [Press Release]
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