
Crytek announces its CryEngine-as-a-Service Program - ace22b
http://www.cryengine.com/news/crytek-announces-its-cryengine-as-a-service-program
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matt_heimer
Sounds good until you notice that they are stopping development of the free
CRYENGINE SDK that allowed people to make non-profit games and making them
move to the service subscription if they want new features.

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chii
nothing wrong with trying to monetize their software.

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higherpurpose
Half the price per month of UE4 and zero royalty? That can't be right. What's
the catch?

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teamonkey
No source code

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warfangle
And no word on future WebGL / SteamOS support.

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ekianjo
I thought they were showing the Linux version at GDC?

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theandrewbailey
Yes.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7379813](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7379813)

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jmgrosen
Of course, the kicker is how they define "indies". Still, it seems like an
irresistible deal, especially considering they have a free version as well. No
source code like you get with Unreal Engine 4, but also no 5% royalty.

Anyone have experience using CryEngine?

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toki5
I do, and, honestly, I'm not a huge fan. The editor is fairly slick but the
code base is an absolute rat's nest. If I want the power of a full-blown this-
gen engine, I'd turn to Unreal; if I want rapid iteration and relatively
painless development while sacrificing some (not all!) power, I'd turn to
Unity.

But that's just me! Your mileage may certainly vary depending on what your
project needs.

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higherpurpose
If you want the best graphics, you're still better off with CryEngine, though.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H8u4NbDRxI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H8u4NbDRxI)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHGCkgaCZM0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHGCkgaCZM0)

I think Frosbite 2 beats Cryengine in terms of realistic graphics, but too bad
they're not licensing that to 3rd parties. Frostbite 2's color seems a little
off/too light in those demos, though, but UE4's color is _way_ off. Why does
everything look like it was put through an orange filter?

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snogglethorpe
I'm sure cryengine is great, but the methodology in those videos looks pretty
dodgy... It appears that they're comparing random completely different scenes
in each engine, whose only similarity is their general subject ("scene with
palm tree!").

There are a lot of variables that go into how the end result looks, only some
of which have to do with the capability of the underlying engine, and they
don't even seem to be _trying_ to account/adjust for such factors....

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tcarey83
Crytek is totally making this up on the fly to respond to Unreal. They may
have had something like this in the works, but they were totally caught off
guard by this. They have no site and no idea what the licensing will be.

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theandrewbailey
Competition is good. Things should only get prettier from here. Can't wait for
the 2048 port.

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ksec
Royalty free? So i wont be charged for Shipping the commercial game? Only the
developer fees?

I dont get it. Am i missing something?

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adventured
I'm guessing the hint is in their wording, CryEngine as a service. They're
looking to shift to making money off the engine from services they provide to
developers (eg a marketplace for assets, or any number of a dozen other
possibilities).

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eliang
After all this engine race to mass adoption, I'd focus on, 1\. Developing
assets (textures, sprites, sounds). 2\. Developing gameplay. 3\. Developing
game engine plugins. 4\. Hire all of the above and profit (I'm at 2). But, if
you're insisting in developing a new engine, please first read all the code
that's been released, and if you can, send them patches until they hire you.

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fmax30
So if i make my game in one month , release it . Then does that mean that i
will only have to pay them ~10 $ for that month right. I won't have to pay
them anything else right ?

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peapicker
$10/month, per user. Steeper than it sounds, unless the "user" is the indie
dev and not all of the indie dev's app users... or is it each developer who
works with the engine at the Indie dev shop? Not entirely clear in the
article.

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bagels
It's really vague who the 'user' is, you're right. Am I paying them $10 for
every copy of a game I ship?

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gregschlom
Well then it wouldn't be "royalty free" :) - agreed the sentence is poorly
written though. But yeah, it's per dev

