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[Snakey]

http://www.udk.com/

It appears that Unreal Engine 3 has been released as a binary only version that is free for game developers! Royalties apply when you want to sell the game but that's still damn well amazing.

Looks like my dreams came true after all! 

[Alex May]

Pretty interesting... this in response to Unity do you think?

[Farbs]

I um... I...

[Don Andy]

Would be pretty cool for indie devs if this whole thing would become a trend now.

[Hideous]

I um... I...

Captain Tournament?

[Juha Kangas]

Anyone got predictions about how this will affect Unity? I for one am certainly considering this instead since I only recently started using Unity, so I don't feel fully commited to it yet.

[Jolli]

DOWNLOADING

[Don Andy]

Anyone got predictions about how this will affect Unity? I for one am certainly considering this instead since I only recently started using Unity, so I don't feel fully commited to it yet.

I haven't worked with the Unreal Engine 3 itself, but I'd say that Unity is considerably more leightweight and has this whole browser and iPhone thing going for it.

[ChevyRay]

Holy shit! Everything is free nowadays. I am loving this new trend!

  Just wait until I get my greedy fingers on all of this.

[Mike Lee]

Sweet! I don't know if its been mentioned but its looks like its free to distribute for noncommercial and academic purposes.

Of course, for indies looking to sell their games it's still slightly untenable. $2,500 per seat is pretty pricey.

[team_q]

This is cool. I think this is a good trend, the more people that know how to use your software, the better off you will be when those people go to get jobs.

[Eclipse]

Sweet! I don't know if its been mentioned but its looks like its free to distribute for noncommercial and academic purposes.

Of course, for indies looking to sell their games it's still slightly untenable. $2,500 per seat is pretty pricey.

well not for U3, it's cheap as hell

[Saker]

Of course, for indies looking to sell their games it's still slightly untenable. $2,500 per seat is pretty pricey.

O_O , you can NOT complain when you hear news like this .

[Kekskiller]

Holy shit, THAT'S something! Damnit, I need to download it.

[Don Andy]

Of course, for indies looking to sell their games it's still slightly untenable. $2,500 per seat is pretty pricey.

If I understand their license correctly you only need to pay $2,500 per seat when you're NOT selling the product, but install it on computers in-house (their example is a in-house safety training simulation for employees) or at least something like that, I'm not really good with this whole legalese.

If you make a game with it and sell it you don't have to pay anything outright (although maybe those $99 in royalty bearings I guess) but need to start shoveling them money once you've reached a certain revenue, with revenue being "sales, services, training, advertisements, sponsorships, endorsements, memberships, subscription fees, rentals and pay-to-play".

Their example:

A team creates a game with UDK that they intend to sell. After six months of development, they release the game through digital distribution and they earn €15,000 in the first calendar quarter after release. Their use of UDK during development requires no fee. After earning €15,000, they would be required to pay Epic €2,500 (€0 on the first €5,000 in revenue, and €2,500 on the next €10,000 in revenue). On subsequent revenue, they are required to pay the 25% royalty.

[Mike Lee]

Of course, for indies looking to sell their games it's still slightly untenable. $2,500 per seat is pretty pricey.

O_O , you can NOT complain when you hear a news like this .

Not complaining at all, it's great Epic is taking the initiative here. It's a great way to get people to play around and become familiar with the engine. The royalty structure definitely is intriguing and the basic description is that you pay $0 upfront, keep the first $5000, and then anything afterwards Epic retains 25%. I misread the per-seat license thing, that only applies to specific internal usage of the Unreal 3 engine.

I don't necessarily think this is as big a deal as Epic is making it out to be though (it is big news). 25% over the entire lifetime of sales for a game is a lot to give up for using the engine. It's an intriguing setup no doubt but I need to spend a little more time looking at the full breakdown to come to a complete decision.

[Mike Lee]

Of course, for indies looking to sell their games it's still slightly untenable. $2,500 per seat is pretty pricey.

If I understand their license correctly you only need to pay $2,500 per seat when you're NOT selling the product, but install it on computers in-house (their example is a in-house safety training simulation for employees) or at least something like that, I'm not really good with this whole legalese.

If you make a game with it and sell it you don't have to pay anything outright (although maybe those $99 in royalty bearings I guess) but need to start shoveling them money once you've reached a certain revenue, with revenue being "sales, services, training, advertisements, sponsorships, endorsements, memberships, subscription fees, rentals and pay-to-play".

Yep Don, misread the terms initially. The example clarifies things a lot, but I still think that's a rather big chunk of the pie for Epic to take.

Edit: I realize now that this is very similar to the iPhone development model with Epic taking a share of the game sales much like Apple takes a cut. The difference here though is that unlike the iPhone (where Apple is the only one taking a cut because they are essentially the distributor) Epic is taking a cut like they are a publisher, but they only provide an engine. Realistically you're still talking about a bunch of other people taking their own share of sales when you release a game and Epic is just another person on that pile. Additionally developing a game with the Unreal 3 engine is probably an order of magnitude costlier than developing an iPhone game.

[Bree]

So, as an artist, I'm curious to find out how good either of these engines are for content creation. Has anyone tried out either Unity or U3 yet?

[moi]

Yeah I think Unity is a better deal, 25% is way too much.
The unreal engine is great but there are alternatives.

[Tiny]

So, as an artist, I'm curious to find out how good either of these engines are for content creation. Has anyone tried out either Unity or U3 yet?

I'm working on a UT3 mod and we've been using the editor for more than a year now. As an artist you'll love it. I really doubt it you'll find better tools to work with. I'm a coder and I really like more coding freedom but I could never get the artists in my group to switch