I want to try UE4

Community Community & Industry Discussion
1

Hello everyone!

I am wondering if its possible to just try out the UE4 engine. I dont see a demo option, but with the $20/mo subscription, I could pay for one month, try it out, and cancel if I decide I’m not going to be able to stay focused on making anything (I have a bad motivator unit). I do have some experience coding in C++, php, and a few other scripting languages, but have only finished one project, years ago in college. I have been watching a few of the introduction videos to level editing and just started the BluePrint videos and it has gotten me pretty excited. So before I go ahead and spend the money on a subscription I have a few questions…

  1. Is it possible to make a full game entirely within UE4, with BluePrint? I do not have a copy of visual basic for coding, and don’t have funds to purchase one.

  2. The Unreal Engine FAQ states “When you cancel your subscription, you won’t receive access to future releases of Unreal Engine 4, however your login will remain active, and you are free to continue using the versions of Unreal Engine 4 which you obtained as a subscriber under the terms of the EULA.”

Does that mean that I can pay for one month, cancel, and then continue to play with the engine after that month? Just without updates and support? Then if I decide to start a project with intent to finish, I could re-subscribe? From my understanding of the EULA, it doesn’t look like I would need to resubscribe to release a game, but would still need to pay epic the 5% of gross income. Tho honestly I think it’d be pretty silly not to re-subscribe.

2

  1. Yes.

  2. You got it right. You can subscribe for one month only, cancel, use that version forever and even release your game with it. Subscribing again later on is up to you. And you’ll pay the 5% royalty when you earn more than $3000 of course.

3
  1. It’s called visual studio, and there is a free edition. Visual studio 2013 express for Windows desktop
4

This is incredible, for EPIC to be setting up the licensing like this. Huge thanks for making such a great engine and making it so accessible!

5

Hold up, so if we cancel our subscription can we still use the unreal launcher thingy to use our version of unreal, or do we have to download the source code and compile it in visual studio to keep using unreal?

6

If you were to pay right now, you could download Unreal 4.4. If you then cancel your payments, you will still be able to download 4.4 in five years time through the launcher. You never have to pay Unreal another subscription ever again, even if you release a game (!).

The only downside is you can’t get a more recent version than when your sub expired. If you want to get 4.9, you’ll have to re-subscribe. :slight_smile: