I'm not sure if I understood the licensing terms correctly (not enough sleep I guess) but does it mean, if you create a commercial game using the UDK you do not have to pay anything until you earn more than $5000? Then you pay 25% of your income to Epic? If so, holy crap.
That's a really good deal for small independent companies. They get the access to one of the most popular and best documented engines and don't have to face any costs during the production.
While they would still have to give away a good share of their income to Epic and digital distribution companies such as Valve, for developers who are not able to fund the costs of the development it might be certainly a good deal.
There are of course alternatives, such as Unity engine - but unfortunately I am not aware of its full capabilities.
I'm not sure if I understood the licensing terms correctly (not enough sleep I guess) but does it mean, if you create a commercial game using the UDK you do not have to pay anything until you earn more than $5000? Then you pay 25% of your income to Epic? If so, holy crap.
That's how I read it too, pretty awesome for indie projects.
Yep, very cool. This time around UDK has a commercial use path. Hopefully with all of the free engines now available new studios will sprout up all over the place.
It's also nice to see game engines such as Unreal being made readily available to other industries, it might eventually lead to a healthier job market for real time 3D artists and programmers.
Phew, so it turns out my reading abilities are not as bad as I thought.
Indeed, for indie projects it might work like a charm - no costs until you exceed the $5000 dollars mark = amazing.
I wonder how many of the UT3 mods being currently in development (Airborn, Warm Gun, etc.) will jump onto the ship.
Even if they are not going the make commercial games, they still can expand their user base as they won't have to require UT3 or GeoW to run the game.
An impressive move there Epic.
Does it mean we can expect more PC games now? It pretty much means indie devs can now make games without ANY up-front costs at all - as long as they use open source software to make the content.
Is this the updated UE3 engine, compared to the one that shipped with retail. I'm wondering if it would be better to download this and work off this for future projects?
Is this the updated UE3 engine, compared to the one that shipped with retail. I'm wondering if it would be better to download this and work off this for future projects?
Thats what I was thinking, well I'm downloading it anyway so I guess I'll find out soon lol. It does mention in the features section Lightmass and SSAO so fingers crossed.
YES FINALLLLYY!
And yes this is the uptodate totally awesome version with everything, I'm pretty sure they'll update this monthly just like the Dev builds.
Is this the updated UE3 engine, compared to the one that shipped with retail. I'm wondering if it would be better to download this and work off this for future projects?
Yup it seems to be one of the newer versions with SSAO and lightmass, hopefully they will keep releasing new versions of the free UDK aswell. This is complete awesomeness btw!
WHOA! What would this mean for someone who wanted to use Unreal for a project that isn't going to generate any profit/be given away? Can you just go for it now?
wooooow really surprised, I want to make games right now! still I know I dont have the skills yet to use half the tools but this and unity is awesome news
edit - ah so it is free if you dont actually sell a game? but if you do its at least $2500?
If you wanna sell the game you make with it, you pay them 2500 year, if your total revenue exceeds 5000$, they want 25% of what you're making.
Ged, Nah, He's just misleading people in return
If you are creating a game or commercial application using UDK for sale or distribution to an end-user or client, or if you are providing services in connection with a game or application, the per-seat option does not apply. Instead the license terms for this arrangement are $0 (zero) up-front, and a 0% royalty on you or your company's first $5,000 (US) in UDK related revenue, and a 25% royalty on UDK related revenue above $5,000 (US). UDK related revenue includes, but is not limited to, monies earned from: sales, services, training, advertisements, sponsorships, endorsements, memberships, subscription fees, rentals and pay-to-play.
Wow, that's is an impressive move, I'm amazed. Just a couple of years back people would be laughed at for threads asking how much to buy unreal/source for their indie project, and now this?! O.o
Now go make some cool shit :P To answer someone's question earlier in the thread this has up to date features including content browser, lightmass, SSAO and other stuff that has been developed since the announcement of those features.
Kept locking up on the install here on Win7 64bit.
Tried it 5 times, then for some reason it installed fine on the next go......odd. Finally installed though. Quite surprised they've done this and released it in this way tbh.
Aye, you folks really do want to download this, the new features are great and seeing things lit with Lightmass is amazing; just remember to make your textures REALLY light and milky in order to make the most of it
Ah, really confused. Can somone help?
I got UT3 - Downloaded patches and also changed the unreal ed a little bit (noticed because of splash screen or loading screen - whatever it is) almost a month ago.
My mate is saying I have 2.5 and this new UDK is the free version of 3.... which one do I have? I mean....idk, really confused. It's essential I get it. I have loads of stuff I need to sort of to
Kept locking up on the install here on Win7 64bit.
Tried it 5 times, then for some reason it installed fine on the next go......odd. Finally installed though. Quite surprised they've done this and released it in this way tbh.
Worked here. Sure it stopped responding a few times but I left it alone to do what it wanted in the background and that worked out well.
Replies
sweet.
I'm not sure if I understood the licensing terms correctly (not enough sleep I guess) but does it mean, if you create a commercial game using the UDK you do not have to pay anything until you earn more than $5000? Then you pay 25% of your income to Epic? If so, holy crap.
That's a really good deal for small independent companies. They get the access to one of the most popular and best documented engines and don't have to face any costs during the production.
While they would still have to give away a good share of their income to Epic and digital distribution companies such as Valve, for developers who are not able to fund the costs of the development it might be certainly a good deal.
There are of course alternatives, such as Unity engine - but unfortunately I am not aware of its full capabilities.
That's how I read it too, pretty awesome for indie projects.
It's also nice to see game engines such as Unreal being made readily available to other industries, it might eventually lead to a healthier job market for real time 3D artists and programmers.
Indeed, for indie projects it might work like a charm - no costs until you exceed the $5000 dollars mark = amazing.
I wonder how many of the UT3 mods being currently in development (Airborn, Warm Gun, etc.) will jump onto the ship.
Even if they are not going the make commercial games, they still can expand their user base as they won't have to require UT3 or GeoW to run the game.
An impressive move there Epic.
Does it mean we can expect more PC games now? It pretty much means indie devs can now make games without ANY up-front costs at all - as long as they use open source software to make the content.
EDIT: Let's find out, downloading now...
Just one way to find out,DL and try it.
And yes this is the uptodate totally awesome version with everything, I'm pretty sure they'll update this monthly just like the Dev builds.
From
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DevelopmentKitBuildUpgradeNotes.html#October 2009
"Major changes to the engine since the release of Unreal Tournament 3"
global illumination for unearthly:)
If you wanna sell the game you make with it, you pay them 2500$per year, if your total revenue exceeds 5000$, they want 25% of what you're making.
edit - ah so it is free if you dont actually sell a game? but if you do its at least $2500?
If you are creating a game or commercial application using UDK for sale or distribution to an end-user or client, or if you are providing services in connection with a game or application, the per-seat option does not apply. Instead the license terms for this arrangement are $0 (zero) up-front, and a 0% royalty on you or your company's first $5,000 (US) in UDK related revenue, and a 25% royalty on UDK related revenue above $5,000 (US). UDK related revenue includes, but is not limited to, monies earned from: sales, services, training, advertisements, sponsorships, endorsements, memberships, subscription fees, rentals and pay-to-play.
They might have problems then, because I can only see them making more money out of this! I better contact them now and offer to store some of it
anyone up for making some games :P
Tried it 5 times, then for some reason it installed fine on the next go......odd. Finally installed though. Quite surprised they've done this and released it in this way tbh.
Can't wait to see folk showing off their scenes.
I got UT3 - Downloaded patches and also changed the unreal ed a little bit (noticed because of splash screen or loading screen - whatever it is) almost a month ago.
My mate is saying I have 2.5 and this new UDK is the free version of 3.... which one do I have? I mean....idk, really confused.
Also, is this just the same? I mean... Is the unreal editor 3 completley different from this UDK?