
Unreal Engine 4 is now available to everyone for free - doxcf434
https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/ue4-is-free
======
scott_karana
It appears they've backed off on the royalties, too: originally, it was 5% of
gross[1], and now it's 5% of gross _after_ $3000 sales per quarter.[2]

1 [https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/welcome-to-unreal-
engine-4](https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/welcome-to-unreal-engine-4)

2 [https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/ue4-is-
free](https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/ue4-is-free)

~~~
walru
I've always wanted to know how the 5% royalty is enforced.

Other, much lesser known, engines have attempted to do something of this sort
by acting as an intermediary eg. publisher, planning to pay developers after
they were paid by Apple. For obvious reasons that was immediately dismembered
by the community.

The only way I can figure is they'll ask for an iTunes connect login so they
can check on the numbers for themselves.

Speaking as a developer, it just sounds like something to be avoided from the
start.

~~~
drx
Lawsuits.

I imagine the revenue distribution would follow a power law here. So it would
only really make sense for Epic to go after non-compliant "whales", where the
unpaid royalties exceed the legal costs.

Also, the more profitable the project, the lower the non-compliance rate,
probably. It makes little sense to defy the royalty agreement if you have a
successful project.

~~~
cma
To handle noncompliers, they can get off of the various App stores with a
simple DMCA request, no complicated lawsuits required, unless the developers
appeal the take down, which probably involves a lot of "under penalty of
perjury" lying.

~~~
Finster
Why would breach-of-contract have anything to do with the DMCA?

~~~
timv
I assume _cma_ is suggesting that the contract would allow Epic to revoke the
license of anyone that failed to pay their 5%.

Once Epic exercises that right, any further distribution of the product would
be a violation of Epic's copyright and Epic could file a DCMA takedown.

------
outworlder
How does it fare against Unity?

My understanding, from previous versions, is that Unity offered a lot more
tooling than Unreal. Also, Unreal's SDK demanded a lot of C++ code, which can
be unappealing for small studios compared to Unity's Mono and several possible
(managed) language choices.

However, Unreal appears to be much more capable, and better performing.

Also, is Crytek still competitive? It used to be competitive with Epic's
offering, but was Windows-only.

EDIT: Unreal does have a comparison page for Unity developers:
[https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/GettingStarted/From...](https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/GettingStarted/FromUnity/index.html)

~~~
deelowe
It's hard to compare unity and unreal. To answer the question about c++, with
UE4, the blueprint system removes almost all of that. Entire games can be
written in their visual programming language. I also think there are ways to
use c# ([https://mono-ue.github.io/](https://mono-ue.github.io/)), if you
prefer that as well. C++ is needed if you want to extend the native classes.

Regarding the editor, unreal is pretty amazing. It really shines in the tools
department. Check out the landscape editor, materials editor, and animation
tools on youtube. Pretty fantastic stuff.

The game engine itself is better than unity in almost every way with a few big
exceptions:

1) multiplayer map size. unity can pretty easily support large online worlds
2) support for mobile/tablets. unity is the dominant platform on those
devices. 3) community support. unity has a much larger community, better
documentation, and a much more populous online store (though unreal is
catching up)

~~~
antiuniverse
[https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?52618-Large-S...](https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?52618-Large-
Scale-map-and-Multiplayer)

According to this thread, as of version 4.6, the maximum supported multiplayer
map size out of the box is 20km x 20km. Is this the limitation you were
referring to? That wouldn't accommodate an MMORPG or Minecraft, but otherwise
seems quite big.

~~~
Havoc
Never understood the concept of measuring map size in km. It's like measuring
distance on a map while ignoring scaling. Something like source's hammer units
make a lot more sense to me.

~~~
neckro23
In Source the scale is fixed (1 "unit" ~= 1 inch) and I imagine the same's
true for UE.

~~~
antidamage
1 unit = 1cm in UE, so 20km has some value as a measurement in game.

Of course, what matters more is what you do in that 20km, but it's also a
limit coupled tightly with distant mesh performance and float accuracy issues.

------
SloopJon
Very cool. I can now go from feeling guilty about not finishing a project in
Unity Indie to feeling guilty about not finishing a project in Unreal.
Seriously though, I'm kind of interested in using this as a playground for the
Leap Motion SDK.

------
gfodor
Smart. Their previous revenue model was contradictory. Now it makes sense,
they want to remove _all_ barriers for building your game on UE4, and focus on
making money if you are successful.

------
jokoon
How really easy is it to set up a beginner's project with this engine ? I mean
it's a commercial engine, it has all the bells and whistles, but how easy is
it to learn it ? Does it require one to use the editor to use the engine, or
can I start with a simple bit of code and start going from there ?

What I hate about unity is the whole interface editor thing, it's big and you
must use everything to use it. Is this Unreal Engine more earth to earth when
it comes to programming ?

If it's a powerful 3D renderer but it's hard to use for simple things and it's
not easily extensible, it's not really worthwhile.

I see it's very powerful, but I'm still wondering about the real utility of an
"engine" versus a library.

For example, if you have some new idea and you are a programmer, and you want
to be able to experiment and not be constrained by the design of the engine, I
doubt such engine would really be relevant. Programmers need simple tools and
frozen platforms.

I guess this engine is great for small studio who want to make a real 3D game
quickly, if their programming style fit well, but if you're an indie or a
demoscener and you're just experimenting, this engine is just too powerful.

I mean it's great to have such great and powerful tools (if they can last at
least 5 year and not make projects obsolete) for free, but I don't see
becoming a standard in the game programming community, and I don't know why...

~~~
ffn
In my opinion, if you're just a hobbyist programmer who want to experiment
building games on the side, it makes more sense to build your MVP demo using
humble html5 canvas (I personally use pixijs, but things like threejs or
whatnot might be more appropriate depending on your idea). This is because
building a good indie game is a big commitment requiring lots of time (which
is money), and unless you're building this game for your grandchildren, it
makes sense to test the market with a MVP and try to raise money for it on a
kick-starter site before you commit to building it on a powerful engine like
Unreal (or Unity).

In addition, worrying about powerful graphics as an indie game dev is like
worrying about distributed database scalability as a minor e-commerce startup.
Your priorities are messed up and, just like how you can just get away with
mysql on a free heroku instance as long as you have interesting junk to sell
on your ecommerce startup, so too can you get away with a shoddy 2d engine
with box2d physics as long as your story is engaging (or your mechanics are
fun).

~~~
greggman
It really depends on what type of game you're planning to make. Go to any game
jam and look at the amazing games prototyped in Unity over a weekend. Compare
the html5 games. It's often night and day. The amount of stuff you can get
done in an engine you're familiar with so many tools and plugins at your
disposal is a huge force multiplier.

Of course do whatever you want. Most of my projects have been HTML5. But at
the same time I recognize that free importing of nearly any format of 3d
assets into unity and built in animation, collision, physics, ability to edit
nearly all parameters at runtime, even code. Is a huge boost once you get used
to it.

------
jrlocke
A demo of the astounding capabilities for those who haven't seen:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6PQ19BEE24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6PQ19BEE24)

~~~
archivator
This is my favorite Unreal 4 demo -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOvfn1p92_8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOvfn1p92_8)
(sadly missing the wonderful quote "I light my level by dropping a sun in.")

I'm completely in awe of the feedback loop here. It even compiles and swaps
code while you're in the game!

~~~
dmauro
Unfortunately that demo is outdated. They dropped a lot of that GI tech
because it was never made performant for medium spec machines.

------
cdnsteve
Update: think you need to register first:
[https://accounts.unrealengine.com/register/index](https://accounts.unrealengine.com/register/index)

Is it just me or is the source not public yet?
[https://github.com/EpicGames](https://github.com/EpicGames) \- No public
repos

[https://www.unrealengine.com/ue4-on-
github](https://www.unrealengine.com/ue4-on-github)

~~~
ryanseys
Why would they not just make the repo public by default? I can't see the major
advantage to doing it this way making developers jump through hoops to access
your source code. If I don't have a GitHub account this means I have to create
2 accounts just to gain access. Seems unnecessary.

~~~
djur
GitHub doesn't allow private forks of public repositories. If you read the
licensing terms, you aren't allowed to distribute modifications of the UE4
source to anyone who isn't already licensed. In addition, a lot of users of
UE4 would not want to make their changes public.

Also, they would be required to allow GitHub users who weren't UE4 subscribers
to create forks, which is a violation of their licensing terms.

Public GitHub repos just aren't really suited for projects that aren't open
source.

------
nailer
For someone who's actually using UE4 as an artistic break for web dev, I
thoroughly recommend it. It allows you to create great environments with
beautiful lighting. 4.7 can export to HTML5 too.

------
mattdotc
Wow, this is great. I really have no excuses now to not be playing with this
on my downtime.

~~~
vlunkr
They're probably hoping that's what everyone will think. They're losing their
monthly profit but also dropping the barrier of entry to almost nothing.

------
bladedtoys
I'm very glad of course but...

...technically all they did was lower the price by $19 a month.

...and bought a lot of press for that

...and a lot more shots at the 5% revenue.

It's really great of course. But better yet, it's really very clever.

~~~
puranjay
$19/month isn't much to you, but to a 15 year old tinkerer, or the 19 year old
college freshman, it's good money.

Throughout its history, the best innovations in gaming have come from such
people, the most recent being Palmer Luckey.

~~~
daemin
Unreal Engine was free for students since at least October last year (2014).

------
rl3
I just subscribed two days ago. The $19 subscription fee wasn't a big deal,
but even so, I now have a $30 Unreal Engine Marketplace credit.

What a great way to handle it.

~~~
rl3
Oh wow, just noticed this in my e-mail:

 _" If you have paid for a subscription on or after January 30th, you will
receive a pro-rated refund for your latest month's payment after March 12th."_

So not only do I get most of my money back, but also the $30 credit.

Epic rocks.

\---

EDIT: I see now it also says as much in the announcement, if only lacking the
specific details.

------
johntaitorg
It's available at no charge, but it's not free.

~~~
ctdonath
You make money with it, you give them a fair share. Entry cost is $0. They'll
ignore the first $3000 gross because hassling lots of "little people" for
under $150 isn't worth the hassle for anyone.

Pretty amazing, really. I've been in graphics since just drawing a line on the
screen of a $6000 (2015 dollars) computer was a big deal for a beginner; now
you can get a seriously robust graphics engine for _no cost_ , develop on a
week's-pay cheap computer, and publish for $50 per $1000 revenue _after_ you
make enough to bother paying for.

No reason to whine, save for the sake of whining. You can still start with gcc
if you like.

ETA: per another current thread, you can get a suitable Linux workstation for
$89 [http://symplepc.com/blogs/news/16853255-symple-introduces-
th...](http://symplepc.com/blogs/news/16853255-symple-introduces-
the-89-planet-friendly-ubuntu-linux-web-workstation) Tack on a USB monitor for
another $89, and you can write the Next Big FPS for $178 plus 5% of meaningful
revenue.

~~~
gnufied
> For developing with UE4, we recommend a desktop PC with Windows 7 64-bit or
> a Mac with Mac OS X 10.9.2 or later, 8 GB RAM and a quad-core Intel or AMD
> processor, and a DX11 compatible video card. UE4 will run on desktops and
> laptops below these recommendations, but performance may be limited.

~~~
ctdonath
"Recommend". If you're trying to develop as close to "free" as possible,
"performance may be limited."

(I'm often puzzled that when I suggest a nigh-unto-free solution to a problem,
someone usually complains some form of "but that's not optimal!" Of course
it's not optimal if you're not willing to put substantial resources into it.
Just because the solution isn't perfect doesn't mean there isn't one; do what
you can with what you've got, and you'll make progress toward perfection.)

~~~
esrauch
I think the point is that it is going to be worse than just laggy UI, it's
going to be very painful if you try to use that computer for developing using
UE4.

Which isn't to discourage people, there is a lot you can do with that kind of
mid tier machine, but you are probably much better off trying to something
else than UE4.

------
antihero
I'd be interested to see how the royalties work when UE for is not the primary
part of the product.

Say, hypothetically you had an advanced visualisation component that you
wanted to build in UE, or a virtual tour part of a much larger app. Or even
using it to provide some sort of AR experience, however this was just one
feature of a much much larger project, which revenues could be in the
millions. Does that mean they get 5% of the whole thing? Or just the part that
directly relates to the game engine?

Not knocking it, I think it's a great model, but it does make for an
interesting problem. I think Unity is a better choice for this sort of
scenario, of course, but still.

~~~
frontier
Back when UE4 was first released I asked that question in relation to training
simulations within larger courses and the answer was that, as no software was
being sold, then no royalties would apply! (just the $20/mo subscription cost
at the time) Definitely contact EPIC and get a ruling on your specific case,
but I was blown away! In the end we didn't go ahead with those simulations as
the html5 support wasn't quite ready at the time.

------
sago
Nice.

Your move Unity. $4500 per seat up front or $225 per seat per month for all-
platform access is looking even less appealing for small Indies.

------
toufique
I'm hiring a technical Product Manager to work with the Unreal Engine. E-mail
me if you're interested in the space, toufique at Google's e-mail service.com

------
arca_vorago
I subbed as soon as UE4 came out, and have been loving it so far. I have had
extensive arguments with a fellow dev about Unity, but he has access to 5
while I don't want to pay the huge upfront cost just to have access to the
same pipeline to help him, and I feel like the cost of Unity is the main
barrier to me using it.

Epic is really getting ready to eat Unity's lunch I think. The graphical
quality of Unity 5 is comparable, but Epic is making huge updates on short
timeframes and they keep doing stuff like this.

For anyone interested, blueprints are great for prototyping, but once you have
too much complexity in a BP it can easily cascade inefficiencies to the point
it becomes very noticeable, so I would suggest using C++ with VS 2013
community edition, which now works with the plugin the Epic provides.

Also, there are some features that you can only access if you compile the
engine yourself, so that is probably also a good idea for anyone serious about
their project.

------
keyle
I always thought it would eventually be free, but I had never imagined it'd be
so quick! This is great news for the adoption rate.

However, while I like Blueprints and hate C++, I still think it needs
something in between such as Lua or C# (I'm fluent in both, both come with
pro/cons)

Also, with this news I'm a bit concerned about it being free, the growth that
may lead in a lot of trolling on forums and misinformation. By that I mean, if
you have a financial commitment to something, you're a lot less likely going
to bash it publicly since you've put your money down towards it. I hope that
they can keep the quality of the community to high standards like they have,
with clear questions and answers.

~~~
Arelius
> However, while I like Blueprints and hate C++, I still think it needs
> something in between such as Lua or C#

I'm actually a little curious about this, What does Lua or C# provide for you
that using C++ in the context of UE does not? or is it simply familiarity with
Lua and C#?

~~~
keyle
Yes and no memory management. Self management can be scary.

------
MrDosu
Is this because I now get a free proprietary game engine with every single
Kickstarter game sponsoring?

About time we stop the 500 monkeys reinventing 500 wheels in parallel (at
least it's concurrent monkeys, they smell nicer).

------
jstelly
Removing most of the business complexity around licensing an engine is a big
deal for small developers. This is good news.

------
legohead
Has anyone got it to install? I downloaded installer for Mac (57mb), and when
I launch/login, it says "No Engine installed", but no links on how to install
the engine. My profile has a link to download the engine, but it just
downloads the installer again.

~~~
winslow
You install the engine through the launcher. At least this is how it works on
windows I assume it works similarly on mac.

~~~
jscheel
Thanks for that! I thought I was a smart man, until I tried to figure out
where to download a daggum engine.

------
archagon
Has anybody done UE4 dev on lower-end computers? I want to make games that can
run on laptops with decent integrated graphics (Iris Pro). Does UE4 allow you
to turn down all the fancy effects in order to do this at 60fps?

~~~
Detrus
Last time I tried it on MacBook Pro with integrated graphics, which was 6
months ago, there was no way to turn down enough settings in the editor to
make it run acceptably. On Macs with a graphics cards it ran with lag.

Haven't found a list of games made with UE4 to try out the final output, but
the simplest demos here open but run at 0.2 fps on Integrated Graphics
[https://forums.oculus.com/viewtopic.php?t=11538](https://forums.oculus.com/viewtopic.php?t=11538)

And for phones you can't do much on older hardware. METAL is iOS8 only. So
this demo [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/epic-zen-
garden/id915975445?...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/epic-zen-
garden/id915975445?ls=1&mt=8) starts with iPhone 5S.

~~~
archagon
OK, I tried the latest version of UT4 in BootCamp on my Macbook w/750M
graphics, and it ran pretty well at 60fps with a scattering of High/Med/Low
settings at 1680x1050. I'd say that's pretty good for such an early product!

------
itsbits
Sigh!..they are refunding..renewed it just last week..

would love if they support WP8.1 as well..

------
bpg_92
This is such good news!!!!! I wanted to do something for VR and since I am
just one dev things seemed hard doing things the native way. This just made my
day.

------
LeicaLatte
I used to pay for UE4 and they have now provided me a 30$ coupon to use in the
marketplace. 👍 Epic thinks through everything nowadays.

------
sparaker
Awesome! I have always wanted to work on Unreal Engine 4, but have almost
always been a bit skeptical on the pricing.

------
zerr
I wish Xamarin had a similar license...

~~~
rplnt
I wish Xamarin had _any_ license accessible to hobbyists.

~~~
j_s
In case you are not aware, last fall they doubled the free edition size limit
and introduced a $25/month subscription option (eventually the same price at
$300/yr).

[https://store.xamarin.com/](https://store.xamarin.com/)

Xamarin is free for students.

[https://xamarin.com/student](https://xamarin.com/student)

~~~
zerr
How they measure the size actually?

Another important thing - Xamarin.Forms should be in the free edition, if it
is aimed for starters.... Big studios or established companies can afford to
develop native UIs for each platform separately.

------
hosseingt
not everyone I can not see the website from IRAN unrealengine blocked our IP
!!!!

------
wampler
Current subscribers get a $30 refund and store credit. Good times!

------
kirillp
Awesome, thats the way it should be.

------
sillyryan
has anyone here tried it? What was your experience?

------
curiously
So my question is this.

Can you use UE4 to build large online worlds like those in Rust and The
Forest? Or is there a limitation like some people have suggested? What is the
specific limitation exactly it hasn't been clear.

Can you use UE4 to build cross platform games, on mobile and browser?

Does UE4 have something like Crytek's terrain editor? That's my one favorite
thing about Cryengine is their environment editor.

~~~
Gurkenmaster
Someone else in this submission mentioned this thread:
[https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?52618-Large-S...](https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?52618-Large-
Scale-map-and-Multiplayer)

>In 4.6 maximum size of map is 20km x 20km.

>Now to put it into perspective. Single continent on Azeroth in WoW (exluding
Northend and Pandaria) is something like 7x4km.

~~~
curiously
so from that thread seems like Altis from Arma 3 is roughly 16 X 16. I think
that is quite big enough. Maybe if one was building a MMO sort of map, you
would patch those 20x20 maps somehow.

I was thinking of creating a giant map like Altis and then putting players on
it to roam around and stuff. Cryengine makes this very easy I think but
haven't gotten to it.

------
benihana
Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.

The last barrier to entry to someone who's trying to explore game making with
Unreal has been removed. Thank you, Epic!

------
curiously
wow this will absolutely kill the cryengine unles they also go free.

------
PinnBrain
_mark_ _down_ `test`

~~~
PinnBrain
```other``` ``` test ```

~~~
PinnBrain
## markdown

------
valarauca1
The Unreal Engine is free neither as beer, or freedom.

Its free as in a mob protection money is given _freely_ , with a lot of
strings attached.

Overall a very smart strategy. Free Software Walled Gardens I highly believe
will start to become a common thing in the software industry. As you get most
the benefits of Free Software, without the normally feared industry risks.

~~~
drivingmenuts
It's free enough for most hobbyist game developers, many of whom will never
make enough (or anything at all, really) from their games to matter.

You want ideological purity? Go write your own system.

~~~
vezzy-fnord
"Ideological purity" is irrelevant. The point here is that people are abusing
terminology to create ambiguity. As we are talking about software, the term
"free" has specific connotations that differ from everyday language.

UE4 is a source-available, gratis game engine. This is fine. It is not open
source, nor is it free or libre.

~~~
zzalpha
Yes, you're right, the word "free" does have specific connotations. Those
include, but are not limited to:

\- not subject to or constrained by engagements or obligations

\- given or available without charge

So, is the product free, as in available without charge, as implied by the
clause "available for free"? Yes.

Is it free, as in not subject to or constrained by engagements or obligations,
something that is in no way implied by the content of the article? No.

Is your argument based on an excessively restrictive, ideologically motivated
definition of the word "free" that does not fully represent how the word is
used in practice?

Yes.

~~~
nightski
Except you are constrained by obligations. The obligation to pay a % of
revenue. I mean I think the model is great. But calling it free is ridiculous.

~~~
adventured
It's hardly ridiculous when you consider where we just came from, the era of
$250,000 - $500,000 source access engines.

You're not constrained by obligations if you choose not to make money with
your product. So yes, it can be free of charge and free of obligations.
Developers have to earn money somehow, unless you want Unreal to cease to
exist. This model not only makes perfect sense, the product can absolutely be
free in every sense of the word.

People whining about this are being ridiculous.

~~~
fuzar
It's conditionally free. If it were unconditionally free that would permit you
to use the term without question or having people call bullshit. When they do
call bullshit, which is to be expected, it's absurd to go around accusing them
of whining and being ridiculous. Get a grip.

~~~
pushrax
Isn't "conditionally free" still free?

~~~
fuzar
Yes, but when you don't explicitly state the conditionality, and particularly
so in the ad-line, then it's a version of free that one should expect to
incite calls of bullshit.

Think of it this way: it's on par with false advertising which companies do
get sued for. That's why companies make signs like "up to 30% off" and not
just "30% off" (when only some items are 30% off). It is considered, by most,
a mis-representation or false hood; a lie if you will.

