Epic Games has revealed details of upcoming price changes for Unreal Engine, and in doing so kept its promise to keep things the same for game developers.
During last year's Unreal Fest 2023 conference, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney announced that the company would start charging for use of Unreal Engine outside of video game development.
Sweeney promised at the time that this would not change for game developers, and this has now been confirmed.
Game developers can currently use Unreal Engine for free until their released products earn $1 million in lifetime gross revenue. At that point Epic will start taking his 5% cut.
However, Unreal Engine has a variety of non-gaming applications, such as manufacturing, and many of these uses do not result in video game royalties, so Epic currently does not earn any revenue from these users.
When Unreal Engine 5.4 is released in late April, the same conditions apply to developers working on video games. This means that for his first $1 million in revenue per product, he will still be able to use it for free, and after that he will get 5%. Royalty.
However, companies in industries other than gaming must switch to a “seat-based” licensing model if their annual gross revenue exceeds $1 million.
The annual cost is $1,850 per “seat.” This means that companies must pay that amount annually to every employee who uses Unreal Engine.
“If you are developing a non-game application that is licensed to third-party end users and relies on Unreal Engine code to run, you will be required to pay royalties just like game developers,” Epic said in a statement. Ta. “He will pay a 5% royalty on products for which his lifetime gross revenue exceeds $1 million.”
Epic's decision to keep its promise should come as a relief to the development community. The development community took a hit last year with Unity's announcement that it would start charging developers for every install of a game that uses Unity's engine.
Despite subsequent apologies and subsequent attempts to reverse some plans, many in the development community were unhappy with the change to Unity's terms of use, with some saying at the time that it would impact future projects. there was.
