Unreal Engine 4

In Japan, you're one of the lucky few in Asia who can actually sign up to the UE4 deal. If you live in China, Singapore, HK etc, the country selector says "Coming soon!".

Strangely though, developers in Cambodia have no such issue - it will accept their credit card payments. WTF?

Anyway, it's probably a good thing. Playing with UE4 will take away precious hours from Unity development. I'll wait for the dust to settle and then decide whether to investigate UE4 based on early feedback. I'm glad I didn't preorder U5 now though (but pre-ordering the Oculus DK2 was a no-brainer!).

 

They removed FaceFX in UE4.

Likely with a catch, like up to 5k revenue per year or something. It's Crytek, after all.

The press release is just so bloody vague.

 

Yep, wouldn't be surprised a bit.

It is so obvious from the press release that this is just a knee jerk reaction from them.

 

Unity your getting close to a check-mate. The next few days shall be very interesting for the industry.

 

Does anyone have an idea what the hell is going on today?

 

Now we only need Valve to come out of the woods and say Source 2 is F2P.

 

I'm afraid going to sleep, I fear I could miss any news :O

 

Everyone got drunk at GDC and started making press releases one-upping eachother?

 

Too many pathways lighting up, my head is about to explode. Just pre-ordered the Oculus DK2.

 

That's how it must have happened!

 

As in Unity winning?

@ Koyima and noisecrime.

I'm not sure why many keep it secret? I'd say we are "Trying" to enter the AA market where not even approaching the AAA segment and that's how much were chucking at it to get done. It's different when you have what is essentially a house on the line . I've got a lot to loose and when I'm moaning and complaining that's why.. Not because I particularly enjoy slating Unity or other tools, it's because I need what I need to get the job done.

 

For those of you who are wondering why Unity never had revenue based model like Unreal does, here is your answer:

https://twitter.com/davidhelgason/status/398928427849224192

This also brings up another issue: now Epic Games will have access to an enormous amount of sales data. According to David it might be unreliable data, but I am a bit suspicious about how they might use this data. Would they be selling that to some one like Google does? How vigilant are they going to be in auditing gamedevs and sticking their noses into your business?

There is something to be said for Unity's model: I don't have to send them quarterly statements and risk legal threats if I make accounting errors. Not that I plan to. I think 5% for Unreal is fair (unlike the previous 25-30%) but always having Epic Games poking into my books seems a bit creepy. I'd sleep better at night paying Unity's subscription fee.

 

Ok I stand corrected.

There are still tons of features Unity 5 is lacking. The terrain editor alone is enough to get me into UE4.

Regarding Cryengine. I'm still not convinced about their offer. They were not really that indie friendly in the past. But let's see.

 

Wowwww.... This is seriously unexpected. Full source?! I might actually have to give Unreal another shot.

 

That wouldn't surprise me after all the stuff that happened in the past hours.

 

+1

 

Sadly no in my own opinion. Adding onto what people are saying, I think that their is a HUGE gap between INDEV features coming in U5 vs already implimented features in unreal 4. Unreal Engine 4 has almost all the "new" features except GI, which we all know is being worked on by both UT and Epic. I don't see how you can say Unity is almost the same because it "does" have things like phyically based shaders when it DOESNT; only announced. While UT works on the initial release Epic can be improving these systems.

 

I keep looking for the catch, it seems unbelievable. Not really finding one.
Subscribed, download, and will start checking out tonight.

 

How is this possible to not have a catch??

 

The catch is that you have to be very careful with your revenue reports.
If your game sells well and you try to lie or do stupid math errors on your reports they take more and more money from you.
Just do it all legal and right and there is no catch at all.

 

Unity just got bitchslapped in his face... with a sledgehammer!
No seriously, if they do not adapt to this, unity will be in serious trouble...

That can be also a big problem for people who makes money with the asset store...

 

Actually I believe that's exactly what's going to happen, maybe if you use it for free you can only sell trough Steam.

 

We might set the record for most posts in one thread in a day + most total forum posts in a day. Lol

 

Sell through SteamBoxes/-Machines.

 

If I ever actually finish a game, they can happily take 5% from me.....

 

From what I've read Source 2 won't be licensed at all, it will only be in-house. It makes sense though, since Valve hasn't pushed licensing at all in a while.

Oh and about the 5% royalty, you can still get a custom license from Epic (https://www.unrealengine.com/custom-licensing).

 

Phew.. i wanted to preorder U5 as it was made available yesterday, but didn't have the money on my paypal acc.
After todays Unreal Engine thing i'm quite happy about that, even though i tried UDK some time ago and didn't really get the hang of it, but a lot seems to have changed there.
Guess the best thing is to wait and see if there will be any more announcements from any side soon.

The only catch i could see are the 5% Epic wants, like having to keep an eye on this every month or whatever and let them have insight on the sales this way.
And in case someone would make like $100k a year (what unity pro is also for) 5% would be $5k already and in this case unity would be cheaper if you get like 3 pro licenses of U5 even without preorder bonus this could be Pro/iOS/Android and you got the same package as UE gives you but also including linux. A solution to this would be to slap 5% on your gameprice and you'd get around this.

Seems like a really tough decision right now wich one would be the right one for someone to chose.

Gotta lean back, drink some tea, watch the whole game dev community burn. Unreal Engines price will probably stay like this and there's enough time to still catch the U5 preorder discount if nothing changes and U5 seems to be the right choice.

Ah! I've also read Unity want's to make webGL export an extra license, maybe they should include it into pro, this would sure make it at least somewhat more interesting for some people, even though not everyone. But as an extra web player export was included in pro but is now dying i think it's a mean thing to make web deployment an extra license.

 

The support and asset base for unity it's way too large to simply discount it at this stage. Unity does have many features as third party that people seem to be discounting.

 

They seemed to have overhauled their overloaded bugridden editor with something very clean Impressive.

But did they also solve the issue that you need to restart the editor every time you change some code?

 

They did.

 

You can code while it's playing if you must (and edit blueprint). Big step up, plus the C++ is kind of protected in that you shouldn't need to mess with memory.

 

Now it's getting interesting.

 

b2b != b2c

 

I just noticed that Unreal Engine 4 has an OSX editor, and that's really making me consider using it for an upcoming project. Not my current one, mind, since I'm too far in to testing, but maybe my next one. It depends on how well implemented the new audio stuff in Unity is going to be and what the limitations of the free version of the audio system are.

 

Their FAQ suggests that freelancing, consulting, and all such "B2B" work as you have put it is exempt from royalties (underlines added):

 

That is a part of Unity's problem actually. You have to buy third-party solutions to get Unity on par with other engines. For example you get visual scripting, and a node based material editor out of the box in UE4. In Unity you have to buy that extra.

If you talk about 3d assets. Well you can buy them elsewhere. Not to mention that Unreal also got a Asset Store now, with lot's of proven industry veterans on their hand.

 

I'm shocked!

 

Though... to be honest I am not quite sure what these "Blueprints" are. Is this something like the MonoBehaviours you attach to GameObjects in Unity? (just assuming it, but maybe wrong).

 

It's a Visual Scripting system.

 

It is like Antares “Universe” from Unity Asset Store.

 

Takeaways from this, based on professional and personal experience:

1. The game engine market is a bloody, aggressive division of the game development industry. You are constantly trying balance proactive and reactive decisions. Every change, every press release, every community statement counts. When you have a passionate community following your every movement, competitor announcements like this seem earth shattering. However, it takes many things to bring down an entire company. Believe it or not, competition is just a piece of that. If you are waiting for a response from Unity, be patient and don't expect to hear exactly what you want to hear. It's GDC and they have a lot going on right now. When any kind of statement comes, it will be focused on Unity, the next update, and version 5.

2. If you are in the middle of a game, for the love of all things holy, try to finish it. A game engine is not your silver bullet. Your own discipline, commitment, and skills will see a project to the end. I don't know how many Unity users are in the middle of a project and now considering a switch, but it just needs to be said. Look at how many AAA projects have died or been delayed due to tech changes. Think about those teams with many artists, coders, and high end budgets and compare that to your endeavor. Finish what you start.

3. The grass is always greener. Yeah, it's cliche but it's true. If you drink the koolaid and get burned, you will only have yourself to blame. If you are thinking about an engine switch for your next project, do yourself a favor and test the waters. Weigh out features. Make a simple demo. Try to port an existing demo and see what happens.

4. As always, pick the best engine for the current project. There is no single engine that is best for every game idea. I will straight up have a marathon debate with you on this. Unity is great. Unreal is great. Torque is great. They are great for their own reasons and features, but it ultimately boils down to what you need for your current project. I myself currently have a Unity project, Torque 2D project, and custom-built project in the works. I picked the tech path for each project based on research, evaluation, and experience.

As a side note, this is why I love GDC. Companies hold onto their trump cards and use this event to blast the big announcements. It's exciting for gamers and game developers alike. I ultimately wish the best for all parties involved and look forward to getting hands-on time with the tech announced at GDC this year.

 

From a 3D artist and aspiring developers standpoint, my time so far with UE4 has been a breath of fresh air. It's only been about 6-7 hours since I started playing with it but so far I'm very impressed with the usability of it. I used UDK for a little while before I discovered Unity and all the things it does so well that UDK does so badly. From what I've seen so far the UE4 editor has all the simplicity of Unitys editor with much more powerful features exposed and ready to use at the click of a button.
I know it's a little superficial but the visuals out of the box are amazing! I've always wanted a solution for making my models look as good in engine as they do in Marmoset Toolbag and I got that immediately with UE4. The import workflow is as simple as Unitys drag and drop functionality, the material editor is as simple to set up as Unities with a massive amount of customization I've been chasing for in Unity. From an artists standpoint it's a joy to work with.
I briefly took a look at blueprint and so far I cant see any limitations that would prevent me using it for all the same things I use Playmaker for.

Im very curious of how Unity will counter this. This thread alone makes it clear that people want something big to come from Unity or they'll start looking at other options. As someone who's spent a lot of cash on Unity assets I do feel somewhat attached and I hope that Unity remains an option for me when I get out of college, but right now I'm thinking Unreal is the future for it's price, platform support and AAA feature set.

 

No, it's a HELL of a lot better.

 

I'd say Unity has til the end of the month to come up with a viable solution to keep the serious developers, I'm nearly finished with my current project so I have under a month to decide whether I'm going to abandon Unity for my next few projects as I have a few big intellectual properties that would fit in nicely with Unreal's engine. Unity still has alot of promise and there's still much life left to it if they rethink a model to compete with an engine that's shipped more successful games and is a respected leader in the industry.

 

Interesting, though my reading of that is pretty much the same as what I said before. As a work-for-hire you wont pay any royalties but the company you are working for who then releases the product will be liable for them. Where things get more interesting and confusing is the example they give for architects, since in that case you are rarely 'releasing' a product, just using it for a pre-vis to show to a client who is paying for the building design. In that case it seems like Epic are saying you don't pay anything beyond the monthly subs.

In my case I don't think it applies, I don't see how it could as i'd be saving huge amounts of money using UE4 and whilst that would be nice, Epic still want to get paid. I'm freelance, but get hired by various clients to produce a product/project from start to finish, so either I or the client have to take on the 5% royalties and though it would be nice to dump that onto the clients it is likely to push the overall project costs too high. However it gets even more complex as frequently my clients are the likes of exhibitions or Museums, where there is no profit related to the project, they aren't selling it like an app or a game, its an installation. Again in this case I would expect to have to pay the 5% royalty on my earnings through the project, but the part you quote seems to suggest I might not.

I should point out that i find it strange that Epic would exclude someone like myself from royalities since I grew up with many hundreds if not thousands of developers who work the same way as I do back in the days of using Director. Overall there is a considerable market for such projects and budgets, for Epic to simlpy do themselves out of such revenue seems strange. Obviously there is the $20 p.m. sub, but that's really not much in the scheme of things. I feel they are trying to emulate Adobe here in that they want to make a killing from the subs and the 5% royalties are a bonus on top.

Edit:
I'm so intruiged by this notion that I may not have to pay the 5% royalty for the type of work I do I've email Epic for clarification. I'll post any reply I get here.

 

Well, CryEngine responded :
http://www.crydev.net/newspage.php?news=121751&sid=eead47a411efa0942834e18087a7e539

This is interesting.

 

Three game engine CEO's walk into a bar after a conference...

David Helgason takes a sip of wine in his new popped collar and says "We offer Unity, at $75 per month per platform, our engine has the best workflow"

Tim Sweeney takes a few shots of Tequila, wipes his mouth and says "Bah.. that's nothing, we're going to offer Unreal Engine 4, at only $19.99 a month, with 5% royalties!"

Cevat Yerli comes stumbling out of the bathroom, after having had way too many shots of Raki, overhears this conversation, and blurts out.. "You guys are funny.. we're going to offer CryEngine at only $9.95 per month, with 0% loyalties"

All the game developers in the bar cheer...

 

One other point (unless it's been mentioned), the system requirements now list Windows OR MacOS. Far as I know, the previous version was Windows only? Looks like the editor is now available on MacOS...

 

Okay, Unity really has to fight their corner now.. Well- CryEngine, $10/mth and 0%roys' are the keypoints of all that needs to be said.

 

Yes the editor is now MacOS too. I have it open right now, messing around...
The overall interface style is so beautiful.