Can some of us come with an agreement with UE4 so that instead of 5% royalty , we can instead but the engine lets say for 1500$ ? Tell me what you think!
I seriously doubt you would be able to buy a no royalty license for as little as that.
your not even close in price, even with still a royality its at least 15 times that price, why do you think everyone thought the subscription was almost a gift
why would anyone care about 5% tax? unless you are a greedy corporate crook that is.
I hope epic sells you the engine for $100 Million US if you want it.
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As posted, you can contact Epic via the form in the link, and our sales team will be glad to discuss custom licensing options with you.
Cheers
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why would anyone care about 5% tax? unless you are a greedy corporate crook that is.
I hope epic sells you the engine for $100 Million US if you want it.
At a certain point, 5% becomes far higher than what you would ever pay outright for a license. For instance, if a AAA game company was using it, and they did fairly well and sold 3 million copies, at $60 then that would be $9,000,000 that they would owe Epic. That would be compared to $1 million or less that a license for that type of thing would normally cost. (license cost depends on the scope of the project though)
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if a AAA game company was using it, and they did fairly well and sold 3 million copies, at $60 then that would be $9,000,000 that they would owe Epic.
And if they sold all that on Steam they would owe Valve $54,000,000. I’m pretty sure that any AAA studio would negotiate a custom license on day one anyway. The subscription model is clearly designed for small indie teams and individuals.
I’m just saying, there may be a point where the 5% royalty would be more than what Epic would charge for a royalty-free license. Even for small developers.
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Can some of us come with an agreement with UE4 so that instead of 5% royalty , we can instead but the engine lets say for 1500$ ? Tell me what you think!
To explain it further for new UE4 users. Noob friendly.
- Pay $19
- Choose to subscribe or cancel
- If you choose subscription you get new updates each month
- If you choose cancellation you get to keep your current version and previous versions, use it to develop your game, and publish
- When publishing you pay Epic 5% royalty fees on each sales.
This is how their Royalty works:
- Every Quarter of the year you don’t make $3,000 or more you don’t pay Epic any royalty fees. You can get away earning $12,000 without paying any royalty fees this is only every quarter you must submit to Epic games. To break it down a bit further you must submit every 3 months of 12 months since you publish to Epic games.
- You submit every three months to Epic and if you make $3,000 more you pay them 5% fee.
- Let’s say your team made $10,000 (from sales made on UE4) for the first year quarter you only pay Epic $500 and you still keep $9,500
OR
- If you sell a game for ($10) $10 x .05 = $0.50 this is how much you’ll be paying Epic Games ($0.50) each.
I’m pretty sure EpicGames is reasonable with their EULA
Now if you don’t see Unreal Engine 4 as your game engine then there other Engines to use.
- Unity Pro $1,500 no royalty fees
- CryENGINE $9 a month no royalty fees
- Unreal Engine 4 $19 a month 5% royalty fees
I chose Unreal Engine 4 because a) I get to unsubscribe b) get to use my current version to study c) 5% royalty fee is not bad in my case c) I am not paying subscriptions just to use an Engine I won’t get familiar of using or have time to get familiar because of time consuming learning curves.
Why I chose Unreal Engine ?
- Blueprint is EASY to learn
- Uses full C++ source code
- Unlimited usage of their Unreal Engine 4 if you choose to cancel
- Get new updates if you choose to stay subscribe
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To explain it further for new UE4 users. Noob friendly.
- Pay $19
- Choose to subscribe or cancel
- If you choose subscription you get new updates each month
- If you choose cancellation you get to keep your current version and previous versions, use it to develop your game, and publish
- When publishing you pay Epic 5% royalty fees on each sales.
This is how their Royalty works:
- Every Quarter of the year you don’t make $3,000 or more you don’t pay Epic any royalty fees. You can get away earning $12,000 without paying any royalty fees this is only every quarter you must submit to Epic games. To break it down a bit further you must submit every 3 months of 12 months since you publish to Epic games.
- You submit every three months to Epic and if you make $3,000 more you pay them 5% fee.
- Let’s say your team made $10,000 (from sales made on UE4) for the first year quarter you only pay Epic $500 and you still keep $9,500
OR
- If you sell a game for ($10) $10 x .05 = $0.50 this is how much you’ll be paying Epic Games ($0.50) each.
I’m pretty sure EpicGames is reasonable with their EULA
Now if you don’t see Unreal Engine 4 as your game engine then there other Engines to use.
- Unity Pro $1,500 no royalty fees
- CryENGINE $9 a month no royalty fees
- Unreal Engine 4 $19 a month 5% royalty fees
I chose Unreal Engine 4 because a) I get to unsubscribe b) get to use my current version to study c) 5% royalty fee is not bad in my case c) I am not paying subscriptions just to use an Engine I won’t get familiar of using or have time to get familiar because of time consuming learning curves.
Why I chose Unreal Engine ?
- Blueprint is EASY to learn
- Uses full C++ source code
- Unlimited usage of their Unreal Engine 4 if you choose to cancel
- Get new updates if you choose to stay subscribe
You also mentioned Unreal Engine after saying there are other engines other than Unreal Engine 4 
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Why I chose Unreal Engine ?
- Blueprint is EASY to learn
- Uses full C++ source code
- Unlimited usage of their Unreal Engine 4 if you choose to cancel
- Get new updates if you choose to stay subscribe
, think you should seriously consider UE4 ! No doubt 
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, think you should seriously consider UE4 ! No doubt
I included UE4 because its one of the current top Engine I could think of yes I would of listed TorqueEngine and Ogre3D both of these are free and royalty free.
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I’m just saying, there may be a point where the 5% royalty would be more than what Epic would charge for a royalty-free license. Even for small developers.
No disagreement there! The trick of course, is figuring out in advance how many units your project is expected to sell and at what price. Only then would it be possible to make an informed decision regarding custom licensing.
I’ll explain it in simple business terms…
Selling the engine @ $1500 makes no sense since all AAA developers would choose that option and Epic would end up losing most of the revenue they make in the AAA market (where the engine is licensed for several hundreds of thousands of dollars). You can’t attach a fixed price to that since every developer is different, so special consideration is given to each company, hence the term ‘custom’ license. At the same time it makes no sense to request a 5% royalty from AAA developers since that would end up costing those developers in the millions.
Small indie studios on the other hand can’t easily negotiate custom licensing terms (though admittedly it has happened from time to time in the past). The subscription was created as a friendly license that pretty much covers the little guys. You don’t have to try and justify the game you want to create, don’t need to spend thousands in legal fees to negotiate licensing terms, don’t need a large sum of money up-front, and don’t even have to talk to anyone from Epic. Just pay the $19, accept the licensing terms, and pay the 5% royalties if you end up releasing a title.
Custom licenses are normally based on how big your company is and how much they project your title would be worth… Think of the 5% royalties as achieving the same goal. If your game is small and doesn’t make much, you might end up paying nothing extra (if it makes less than $3000/quarter), but if it is successful, you pay Epic additional licensing fees accordingly.
Why I think UE4 is the best option out there:
- Unreal Engine 4 is a full-source license. Both Unity and CryEngine are closed-source (unless you get a custom license).
- UE4 is very powerful, a true AAA studio quality engine in every way.
- UE4’s subscription includes support for ALL platforms, eg. PC/Mac/Linux/iOS/Android/PS4/XBOX ONE. Unity charges per-platform. CryEngine is PC only under the subscription model.
- UE4 has simple licensing terms that remain the same regardless of the platforms you release for. Even consoles!
- For UE4, you can cancel your subscription at any time and keep using what you downloaded under the terms of the EULA. If you use CryEngine and don’t keep paying, you can’t use the software either and the day they decide to no longer offer the subscription at all, the software would just stop working.
- It’s the full, complete engine with all features enabled - even experimental features that can be enabled if you choose to do so.
- UE4 has powerful systems in place for things like AI and user interfaces. In fact, most developers cringe when they hear they’re going to be doing some UI work on a game, but UE4 actually makes game UI building fun (yes, I did just say that!).
- UnrealEngine is the only engine you’ll need regardless of your project’s scope. As an indie dev, you can use it and learn it, if you’re ever involved in a AAA project, the same engine and tools could also be used - and Unreal Engine is widely used, so chances are, any experience you pick up now will be useful in the future too.
- Finally, there’s all the other benefits, UE4 has a lot of video training material. So it’s easier to learn. Great community, awesome staff that actually answer questions in the AnswerHub (private area for subscribers). Blueprint along with very powerful C++ support (as of 4.5, any C++ game changes can be loaded without restarting the editor). Many example projects that are freely available. Lots of useful info on the wiki, youtube etc.
Anyway, that’s how it is.
If it gets to the point where you are earning hundreds of thousands and it starts affecting you, get in contact with sales and re-negotiate. A position most of us wish we were in :)…
Why is it that there are some who look for ways to make a AAA game that does not cost them a dime to make?
Yes you could sell 3 million units, which is a if I won the lottery dream, or not have to pay for a million dollar single game license if it’s a complete flop.
The thing is until you do sell three million units you have nothing to negotiate and after you sell three million units you could probably write your own licensing terms and conditions that benefits you.
As it is Epic is taking on all of the risks banking on what might happen in the future.
the way i see it is, all i have to do is go to my day job for 1 hour a month to pay for my subscription. for the $19 you get a whole team fixing bugs and developing new feature’s. that lets me spend my free time after my day job and family responsibilities to develop my skills, game systems and content. i will/have be buying content on the marketplace because it’s saves me even more time. what you get is cheap, it really is.
Totally agree… I’m surprised how much some people want to try and avoid the 5% royalties when putting their game in a digital store already means they’ll lose 30% to apple/google/sony/whoever is selling their title.
To look at it another way, time = money, and if you think about the time you’ll be saving by using an engine like UE4, you’ll cut your development time shorter by a lot more than 5% and the end result will be better, a better end product means more sales, so you’ll not only save time, but probably end up making more than 5% extra in sales anyway.
On a personal note, I tried working with Ogre and also went down the path of writing my own engine in the past. In both cases the project looked terrible, and I wasted literally years of my life and have nothing to show for it today.
In conclusion, having an engine that’s ready to rock is worth the 5% royalties you’ll be paying.
You can try to negotiate, but I wouldn’t be holding my breath.
You can look at other engines & decided what is best for you. Thats what I did. After evaluating all well known options (by reading online, I never tried other, just be be fair), I picked UE4 (It helped that I used UDK for a shot period as well).
I can list the main reasons which are:
- Its a natural evlaution of UDK, actually it more revolutionary after picking up UE4.
- I know the community will be big & the engine will be well supported (judging by UDK)
- Resource & tutorials will be widely available over time. COnsidering its only 7 month old, the amount of resources & tutorials are already pretty impressive. Whats missing is step by step guide (book style with chapters), but I am sure we see them soon.
- The licence & royalites are mostly reasonable. (I said mostly as I still think things like skin packs & costum packs should be charged by Epic royalites, as they are mainly asserts done in 3D apps)
- Its rather user friendly. Far from perfect (but for sure will improve over time), but its not too bad.
- It is capable of high visual quality
- Support for major platform.