A tale of two educational software downloads

Thanks for your time in reading ,

Software One, was requested about 8 days ago. The submission required the creation of two different accounts, and one verification email, that was sent to a .edu email address. One of these newly created accounts is for a digital distribution service that serves over eight million people.

Software Two, was requested yesterday. The submission required the creation of one account, and one verification email, that was sent to a free .com email address. The software request asked for the school’s name and web site, and the following step allowed for the software to be download through a variety of methods (p2p, cloud, direct). In approximately three hours I had made the the request for an educationally discounted software, received an email with an activation code, downloaded, installed, and was working with the software.

While it’s obvious what software one is. What not obvious is the reason for the delay. Is it Epic wanting to limit the access? Is it a subscription/monetary problem? Is it a bandwidth problem? Is it a Github problem? Those are rhetorical questions, as I don’t deserve, or even need an explanation on what maybe internal issues. But, what it does make me wonder about is the customer service that is provided by Epic and/or Github. Would I be treated way if I was a paying customer and had an?

Are you are trying to access the GitHub Developer Pack (that includes other software) or was request made using the submission form on Erlernen Sie den Einsatz der Unreal Engine, der leistungsstarken Echtzeit-3D-Entwicklungsplattform for students/teachers?

The GitHub Developer Pack is controlled entirely by GitHub, some users are reporting very long wait times at the moment, 1 month + for some users. Epic has recently attempted to speed up the process but it is out of their control unfortunately.

Can you confirm for us which of the two ways you submitted your info? Thanks!

I had originally went to Lernen Sie die Unreal Engine einzusetzen, eine leistungsstarke Echtzeit-3D-Entwicklungsplattform as that was where the epic/unreal website lead me to. But that page (access point) is labeled as being “for teachers and administrators only”. Not wanting to portray myself as something I wasn’t, I went with the student option. The only option for students appears to be the GitHub Student Developer Pack.

Honestly, I am not interested in the student pack, as most of that seems to be bloatware, with the exception for MS visual studio. Which any student can get for free at https://www.dreamspark.com/Student/Software-Catalog.aspx.