UE4 3k price drop and democratization

Just thought I'd share the change to the UE4 EULA. You now only have to pay 5% royalties AFTER the first $3,000 per product per quarter. This is a HUGE game changer in my opinion and a massive help to the indie community. What's even better is the $3,000 is subtracted then calculated. So for example if you make $4,000 then your royalty is just $50, which is 5% of $1,000 as $3,000 is always subtracted.

Official answerhub Response regarding this from the CEO!:
https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/15056/need-some-clarification-on-the-5-royalty.html

New EULA:
https://www.unrealengine.com/eula

 

Well that is a good news for every Indie

 

Plus the per quarter deal which means you don't have to pay the 5% royalties if you are making 3000$ (or less) per quarter. For instance if you make 2500$ 3 times a year you are exempt of royalties which as Tim Sweeney said it's pretty good for low revenue developers.
Unity, what are you waiting for to strike back?

 

Well, this list...

https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/41-release-notes

I wish Unity would have such a list soon. Considering it's only a month ago since UE4 was released.

I wonder if I'll have explaining to do if I use this Visa to renew for another month...

 

Its scary how good and surprisingly easy UE4 is. I'm thinking of waiting on using it for a bit though, until a bit more is released. Let the others do the hard work/path finding for me.

 

Incredible deal for indies. How did Epic become the most indie friendly pricing? The royalty for indies is way less than 5% when you factor in 12,000 of revs less per year / $3000 per quarter. Yes games are usually spikey so you will likely only pay royalties on big months. I wonder if this is per title or across all titles you have added up? Need to dig into the terms.

EDIT: Terms section 4 Royalty says "5% of all worldwide gross revenue actually attributable to each Product" so it appears that would apply per title which is great. Rare quarters are indie titles above $3k for many quarters in a row, but across many titles it would always hit.

 

They're not losing anything on it, I think.

They're binding professional indies to UE and making it a sticky thing.

They realise that wannabes and amateurs like me are never going to make any money on games, and are satisfied with $20 from us.

Clever, clever. Epic is really playing hard-ball.

 

I am finding UE4 to be very user friendly. Most of the things that we have to pay for as assets are already under the hood in UE4. I was missing Mecanim but after one day of playing with Persona I found it to be user friendly also. The materials and system just to die for! Blueprint (kinda like uscript) is amazing.

I still love Unity and practice it everyday but my game project is moving to UE4 because I can afford it.

In all fairness I use Zbrush and 3D-Coat depending what I plan to design. UE4 and Unity have that same relationship to me. Unity hurt my feelings about the price but I got over it and still hope to have a Unity Pro license someday but UE4 is here and slam dunking for me now with all the bells and whistles. Im not on the sideline or having to sit in the could only afford the free version section. LOL!

I'm not go pay 2x$75 a month for something I can't own at the end. I'll get Unity Pro when I can spare the $3000 since they won't offer rent to own:-(

The Action RPG we are making will be made in UE4. We will use Unity Free for kids project for special needs children that can't speak words.

Here is what I did on the first evening and was able to get persona working to add the shooting motion.

[video=youtube_share;6maTTmud9RI]http://youtu.be/6maTTmud9RI

 

Its fantastic that there is a lot of competition compared to even 5 years ago. I think there will be even more in a few years. Its also good to see realistic pricing models for the everyday person too.

 

Epic just added Xbox One and PS4 Support as platform you can release to. There is no extra cost to be paid to Epic you or your studio has to have a license from MS or Sony and your good to go Of course this does not apply to me yet. One day I dream

https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?3532-Update-4-1-is-live!

 

They are clearly pushing out a boatload of training material as well.. It's sort of overwhelming how much they have published in such a short time. I've a 2d title that's perfect for UT. But to be honest, I have an existing 3D top down game, that I'm going to redo in UE4 over the summer.

 

The training videos and the written lessons are great and they add more every week it seems. Often times when we get stuck the Epic developer that prepared the lesson jumps in the thread with help along with the other users. Over a 3 or 4 day period I watched a thread where a newbie was trying get edge grabbing working and he got it working with a little help here and there. I don't know how they find the time but they are pumping out quality lessons on the regular and providing quick support.

 

OMG they did not even wait for the competition to respond. Only thing missing is comprehensive 2d support and I'm outta here! I can only say one thing to UT...

 

A very interesting choice for Epic. About 50% of all games on the app store make <3k in their lifetime. Probably most hobby/indie game make well under 3k a quarter. They are essentially making it free (except for subs), for probably what will be their largest chunk of users. Not just free, but also less time spent tracking and sending checks to Epic for $2 every quarter. (this is also probably a big reduction on their costs to manage all those small accounts). Good move on their part to build userbase. Sounds more like they are focusing on subs as a revenue source.

 

Wow. The UE4 deal keeps getting better. Still no announcement from Unity about a comparable subscription option for Unity Pro.

 

Looks like they must of done well out of the subs, the one thing I can't believe is the rapid rate of change from Epic in all regards.. It's hard to hit a moving target especially if they have found sonic boots.

I want to know what Unity are going to do just out of curiosity.

 

Me too!

If Epic keeps going at this rate, Unity may be left in the dust very rapidly.

 

I to think that UT needs to wake up and take notice and react. The UE4 Market place has high quality demos that cover almost every genre with more being added all the time. Blueprint templates are popping up on the forum from the community as well. So are plugins from UE4 and other companies. Add all that to the fact that while you are waiting for the next engine update you can download the source as is along the way and try somethings out before they are officially released. UE4 is using that for feedback from the community. Every thing is happening at a fast pace with no noticeable loss in quality.

If they say a new feature is two weeks away it seems to come on time or sooner. How long have we been waiting for the Unity New GUI that seems more like a unicorn now or urban legend?

I was learning on Torque 3D and witnessed how GarageGames did not react to Unity and got left in the dust.

Nobody is talking about Unity on the UE4 forums unless it goes like this "I came here from Unity and this great thanks blah blah thanks Blue prints rock thanks!!!" There are no this versus that engine threads over there at all. The engine works and everybody has everything which seems to be the making of a stronger community.

An indie team is working on C# wrapper as well.

 

This probably reduces their financial/auditing workload by something like 95% while impacting their income very little at all. Without something like this imagine the amount of work they have to do as a result of games that are making bugger all income, and therefore aren't realistically worth their time from a financial point of view?

 

Epic has some smart management, this essentially is getting almost as good as Unity Free with that thrown in.

They must of looked at the definition for income that is defined below the poverty level in the US. 12,000 after the App Store 30% and US taxes would be between $7K - $9K I believe. 2014 if you don't make $11,670 in the US you are 'officially' poor (single person household). That's before taxes. You're never to poor to avoid taxes, although you can be too rich to pay taxes.

I'm surprised they didn't increase it to $23K to avoid bad press for taking money out of the wallet of a family of 4 or heck, be really good with the press and potential adopters and make it $39,688 for a family of 8. Once you exceed that though you are becoming pretty adept at making games / apps and probably could make a lot more going to a publisher.

When you think of it that way, why doesn't Apple and all the other app stores adopt a similar tact, outside of greed?

 

To be fair, a certain amount of caution is wise. UT business model has worked extremely well for the (especially without competitors), and has been growing non-stop. Epic has made a bold (and radical) change. But it made that change just after they sold off nearly half their company, lost a lot of key people and not shipping the amount of games they had in the past. They haven't haven been doing as well as they have done in the past. Drastically changing their model and audience is kind of hail mary. It may very well take them to the top. But it could fail as well. What if all this investment and extra cost don't pan out? It is a certainly a possibility. What if UT freaks and instantly tries to race to the bottom, and Epic fails? Epic's new model isn't proven yet, just generating a lot of buzz and excitement. Of course, waiting for too long clearly will be a fail too. If it was some new kid on the block they could just chill and rely on reputation, but that isn't the case, Epic brings a pretty impressive reputation to the table. It has to be a rough position and some tough choices ahead with a lot riding on it.

Though, ultimately no matter how it all plays out, users win.

 

Unfortunetly user don't always win.
If they all race to the bottom, investment will slow as well on both engine -> slow new feature.

UE4 expect like UT that user will compensate for their shrinked dev budget by letting people making plugin.

It's a good thing for users, when margin are shrinking without touching the investement budget.

 

And this is just the beginning, with more and more subscriptions they will surely rise this 3000$ per quarter limitations. No doubt about it.

 

True, there is that possibility.

 

I don't think UT will respond to the deal from Epic. If they were going to they would have by now. Quite disappointing that they have said nothing. Thought UT was more proactive. Epic means business and are impressing me more and more.

 

Why is it disappointing? If they are going to change anything as a result I'd much prefer it be a well planned and thought out change than a knee-jerk reaction.

As has been noted, this is a pretty radical change on Epic's behalf. Plus, with changes like this it doesn't appear to have stabilised yet. So why rush into changed commitments? Anyone running major projects will be using a longer-term, ideally objective decision making process themselves, so Unity doesn't have to rush to keep those people happy... and the weeks might show that little or no change is actually required, or that any change might not have the desired result (as it's quite possible that both products are now quite simply cheap enough that the difference in price is no longer a deciding factor when the other differences are taken into account).

 

While I agree that UT need a well thought out plan of action and shouldn't rush its already been over a month with nothing said beyond a few moderators here saying they collated information from posts to send up the chain.

The problem as I see it is if Unity wait several more months before announcing anything they risk losing a large chunk of their current userbase, all be it the ones who primarily don't pay Unity anything (i.e Unity Free users), but also some paid Pro users too. So while on the face of it Unity wont lose much money initially, they will see shrinkage in the community. This in turn is likely to reduce revenue from those users through the Asset Store, not to mention the drop in word-of-mouth marketing, appealing to educational establishments and all the other peripheral aspects this impacts.

The concern for Unity that I have is how do they fight back? They can't simply follow Epic's lead as I seriously doubt it would be financially sound to do so as they 'down converting' existing paid Pro users to a cheaper option, yet they must offer something comparable at least for the very large low profit/non-profit/'I'm going to make a game' indie sector that Epic is now appealing to.

Obviously they need to address the Pro users/teams/studio's who may also be eyeing up UE4 too, but in terms of overall community size I doubt they factor as much, though they might be more important depending upon how much they interact with the wider community (e.g. making assets, answering questions on forums etc).



As for the announcement I'm not surprised. I always said I felt that Epic were banking on the subs as the main source of income from the majority of their users, with the few who make successful hits being the icing on the cake and giving a sizable boost in profits. The problem was, as others have pointed out, the amount of book-keeping and chasing up of developers they were going to have to do. Now with this generous exemption they remove this issue and make it even more appealing.

 

That's some clever thinking!

I love Unity and hope they wont make any rush decisions

 

UT is in denial:-(

 

If UT don't react quickly that's probably because Users don't leave the boat right now... So they don't need.
They have all the number they want to see if UE4 attract people or not.

See how many time some game has been boycott by people on forum saying they won't bought it if the dev don't do this or that etc...
And when the game is released they finally buy it anyway

UT probably wait to see all the card of UE4 before putting their.

 

UT are being reactive rather than proactive. If I was UT CEO (offer is on the table if interested) I'd probably also wait it out and see what happens. I suspect they will have to do something about it eventually whether that's redefining their niche or pricing or even actively going head to head with UE. Most businesses have to handle competition at some point so its something they have to work in to their strategic plan. I don't think U5 is the ace in the pack either.

 

Anything is possible but I think it’s unlikely as Epic now has Tencent behind it with a 40% stake. Tencent is a massive Chinese gaming and social networking conglomerate that is pushing for global dominance - it’s bigger than Intel, Cisco, HP, etc. With their support, it’s no question that Epic will be the leading engine in China within the next few years.

Tencent is making a bold move for global dominance, and Epic’s nuke at GDC - supported by Tencent’s new representation on the board of directors - was clearly a tactic to totally dominate the global indie and mobile markets over the next few years, while retaining AAA support.

It's unlikely to fail - it has a 150 billion dollar behemoth supporting it.

 

Well rich don't through money either. If they want total domination, it's to raise their price after the competition died. And they will recover all their loss at one time or another.

 

The only reason they did this is because they can't be bothered with any lower amount. If they could easily squeeze 3c out of someone they would. Apple does because they just need to subtract it from the sales automatically.

 

Anything is possible. I'm just highlighting that Epic going broke is extremely unlikely - we can take that one out of this discussion, because it seems to keep coming up.

 

Google, Apple and Microsoft control the distribution platform, so it's not difficult for them to collect tiny profits.

For Epic - and us developers - it's a headache to administer these minuscule inflows. That's the reason they're doing it: it's cheaper to administer, and it builds goodwill with the developer community.

 

It's not because a big player is behind you that it protect you from closing (it's probably more the opposite). But it gives you cash flow to cut the price and increase your market share.

 

Unlikely, but not unprecedented. Several years back a multi-billion dollar social networking conglomerate (IAC) purchased Garage Games with dreams of bringing console games to the web. They didn't know core gaming and the whole thing failed. Different time and different scenario, but the at the end of the day Epic was a very small investment for a company that large. (a surprising small price for 40% of the company). Conglomerates of that scale aren't afraid to shut something down or sell it off (its share) if it isn't profitable. Hopefully the subs/new model will add the revenue to keep it a valuable asset for Tencent.

 

Tencent is not an outsider though - part of its core business is game development. And it’s huge - it’s the fifth biggest Internet company in the world, after Google, Amazon, eBay and Facebook.

Having said that, you’re right, I do agree that they will just drop their stake if Epic is unprofitable (although Asian culture generally supports much longer-term investment than the west).

Interesting times ahead.

 

Going broke is highly unlikely. But at the time of all these radical changes, Epic wasn't the company it once was. A major shift in their strategy and market is unproven. There isn't even a similar situation else where to compare it to. It could be the most brilliant business move of the decade, or they could be struggling to pick up the pieces in a year. A company like UT has been very successful and constantly growing, it would an unwarranted risk to drastically change what is working based on a unknown. Also, what Epic's actual plan is only known to Epic, there may be a larger play at work, being tied to a larger company, maybe Tencent is going to launch a new network or competitor to Steam, and Unreal will be part of the infrastructure. The massive price change could be just to build a much larger developer base. Just wild speculation. But the point is UT doesn't have insight into Epics strategy, and rushing into competing at a price change may not pan out well. Certainly they can't avoid dealing with it, but I would be surprised to see any responses to it for several months. But I certainly could be way off base.

 

True, and they have a pretty good track record of making wise investments.

[/QUOTE]Interesting times ahead. [/QUOTE]
That part is certain.

 

I'd be very surprised if you don't see a Tencent-like partner in UT's future, surely it has to be on the table. If this is a battle over marketshare you have to have deep pockets to play, and that's exactly what Tencent brings to the table. I don't see them as looking at this as just buying a game company and tossing them some cash to get some ROI, since gaming is their business they're more likely as someone said to try to integrate UE4 products into their nextgen vision of gaming which probably involves a lot of different pieces/companies.

 

Interesting news I wasn't aware of this (the $3000 thing). Honestly I expected it though because they did something similar with the UDK. Their terms are sooooo indie friendly it is too hard not to bite.

They also are integrating fixes from the community at large. I think bout 20 fixes came from the community. Kind of blows my mind.

I'm very thankful that Unity exists. I believe it helped pushed these other AAA companies to innovate opening up so many wonderful opportunities to indies.

Cool video!!

 

Why Epic?!... Why??






Now, seriously. I'm 100% sure Tencent is behind all this eating popcorn and watching;
Look at where Riot Games is now, thanks to Tencent's strategists. For a company valued at more than 150 billion dollars, selling few UE4 licenses for 500k each is not a big deal for them. They know the masses are where the true money comes from, so if they can point Epic Games to the right direction I think at the end everybody wins

 

Yeah, but what would the reason be? I can definitely understand sticking with Unity if Unity offered a competitive subscription plan right now, simply to avoid learning a different engine. But once somebody get comfortable with UE4, what could Unity do to draw those users back to the Unity community? If Unity waits a few months before matching the price and terms of the UE4 subscription plan, then I honestly think it will be too late. Unity needs to react before people switch to UE4.

 

In my eyes they've both failed until they make the tools, they being Unity, Epic, and competitors, that allow truly artistic and original games to flourish and the sales of those easily exceed the big studio offerings. It should by easy to filter out Zombie, War or whatever niche you're sick of by now, but you can't and you should be able to. It's not like if I'm shopping for oranges I want to comparison shop all the onions before hand. Right now the gaming world is like a piece of green, moldy bread.

 

In my case, I've already made several games in the past with Unreal so I'm merely returning to my roots. Still plan to complete a project or two with Unity though. I enjoy learning mastering different technologies

 

Guess this news only matters if you have a need for everything it offers.

I would like to give UE4 a shot, but for me it makes no sense. For my next 3 to 5 games ideas I have, they are not graphically stunning in nature/concept, so everything that engine offers goes to waste. And yes, while many people don't make more then 3k a quarter, what if you do?

I like the current free license for UT and the final price concept for Pro. If I get lucky and something goes big? Guess what, with Unity, I am not sending them another cent with the Pro license.

Yes, the odds of making a big game is small, but tis still there and that's what I aim for.