Starting now, Epic has made Unreal Engine 4 free to use for colleges and universities. The engine can be installed and used on all school owned computers, and personal copies can be provided free of charge to all students enrolled in accredited video game development, computer science, art, architecture, simulation, and visualization programs.
In addition, schools and their students will receive regular updates as if subscribed, but without having to pay the $19 monthly fee. Launch of commercial products is still subject to the 5% royalty. For complete details, please see the FAQ.
How are you guys going to check to see if the students are still students? Will students just need to get new licences from their teachers every 3 years or something like that?
How restrictive are the categories of students able to get free licences? I’m a student nurse and I’m happy paying for my personal licence to develop educational healthcare apps, but it’d be amazing if I could get some other people on my course to at least try it for free. UE4 has a game changing level of approachability I think could enable a hell of a lot more people and professions than just the typical gaming/visualisation crowd.
“personal copies can be provided free of charge to all students enrolled in accredited video game development, computer science, art, architecture, simulation, and visualization programs.”
Okay so i just bought yesterday 2 seats for Unreal Engine 4 as a student (need it for my project). And now your telling me that its free…any chance i can get my money back?
I saw that, the point is courses might have incidental modules where UE4 would be of great value without the overall course being in those areas. And Epic may have a restrictive or permissive view of what counts for those categories. If I create a communication training app for nurses, it looks like an RPG and could be described as a simulation. Does that count? It’s hard to tell from what’s been said so far. If it doesn’t count, I’d suggest Epic are looking at this too narrowly.
Hi, that’s great news! I’m a teacher in French school Ludus Academie, and I’d like to get licences for my students. However, the (quite poor) school’s website (http://www.ludus-academie.fr/) doesn’t have an URL mentioning anyone as “administrator/faculty/teacher” as is required on the form. Is it possible to send another proof? I have an International Teacher Identity Card issued by the school that proves I’m a teacher there, or I can ask the manager to send any kind of document required. Please let me know how I should proceed.
Thanks!
First you will want to make sure that your school is requesting and distributing codes to its students. Then, you are welcome to contact billing@unrealengine.com to discuss the situation with us.
Hi Stephen,
Just to check if you got my message Just waiting for instructions to do whatever is required, whether it’s contacting the school’s administrators to ask for a solution or mailing billing@unrealengine.com directly or anything else! Thanks in advance
Hi Thomas. Sorry for the delay. We did see your original message and are evaluating the situation. We are still working to improve how we handle unique cases, and we thank you for your patience.
It’s unfortunate that this is only for Colleges/Universities and not schools. We contacted and were sadly turned down. Still the $19/mo price point is still reasonable compared to other alternatives.
The studio’s jaws drop every week with a new ArchViz demo, but they’ve effectively made the process much more affordable. Before UE4, most of the software you needed was in excess of $6,000 for the first year, and then about $3,500 in subsequent years to keep them up to date…
Aside from the one-off fee of $249 for World Machine, UE4 and SpeedTree can help architects achieve the same results for just $456 a year
Just waiting for instructions to do whatever is required, whether it’s contacting the school’s administrators to ask for a solution or mailing