Epic released Unreal Engine 3, for free! Thread

I just found out about this on the polygon forums, what a thing to see! I just cant wait to see the projects that are coming now, with Unity, UE3 and other great engines!

check the EULA, it's only free for non-commercial purposes.  They specify that if someone makes $$ off this in any way (even by using to in inhouse training videos that someone gets paid to make), you're a commercial license.

That would mean no "donate!" buttons on mod websites, selling CD/DVD's for cost, etc.  If you opt for the cheap license ($99), when you don't want to pay you must stop using what you've made.  That would be hard if you distributed it...

Edited by: TheHappyFriar

$2500 a seat?

Edit: whups, that's just what I'd have to pay for my use.

Edited by: Cryrid

99$? Really? Whats that get ya the license to? I assume you mean UE3 but that sounds way too cheap.

Edited by: ngs616

Amazing! Engines going free are so cool

I just posted the news: Moddb.com

I don't really understand the difference to before. It's still free for modding and if you develop commercial products you pay EPIC. What's the news? - Okay, it's the vamped up, newest version of Unreal, but that's all the news, or anything else?

ambershee wrote:The news is, it costs you nothing to do the development with the most up to date engine version

So if I felt like starting an Indie project now using the tool-set, and release it as a free project, I can do that now?
And if I make money off of that, I pay Epic.

Hopefully I'm reading this right?

I've been looking for a way to get involved with UE3 for quite some time.
Your going to see me on the UDK forums quite a bit. I already see you there.

Edited by: Ninjadave

Indeed, this has changed the game quite a bit, and when something like this happens usually it will force others (i.e. Crytek) to do the same. The winners in this situation are developers and PC gamers. The only people who might be a little disappointed with the news are the teams who chose to make their own engine / tools (i.e. NS2, Overgrowth). Because whilst having your own tools gives you absolute control (i.e. no licensing, no profit split, can re-licence to mod devs etc) is the time / risk worth it when you now have a proven engine available, with all the tools already built. Sure they may not operate as you like, but editing existing code is easier than working from scratch, especially when you consider what people expect of todays game engines. Now these devs which once had their engine as a competitive advantage no longer have that with many indies most likely now working with UE3.

I'd be interested to hear their response, can you justify building your own engine anymore? I guess if your game is a success you are MUCH MUCH better off with your own engine to do as you please, but the extra risk vs. everyone rapidly prototyping UE3 / Unity / etc etc games.

And to think we were going to offer engines as a MOTY prize, I'm not sure that is good enough anymore.

This is really an excellent news for the community, but I think that INtense! looks into wrong direction. Many devs who sell small-ish amount of copies prefer their own/free engine ( e.g. Cliffski: Kudos1&2, Democracy, Gratuitous Space Battles) and some ( I look at you again Cliffski) refuse to distribute trough digital distribution, because the service ( Steam, Impulse, D2D &c) will take their cut. Just to calculate the numbers: If you sell your game made on UE3 and you recieve more than $5000 and you distribute it through digital distribution (fair assumption I guess) - you'll pay a lot of money to Epic and DDService - in fact you'll probably pay somewhere in the neighbourhood of 30% of income to DDService and than 25% to epic which will leave you with 52.5% of your selling price - i.e. if you'll sell your game for $20 you'll get $10,5 and than you'll have to pay whatever taxes you're inclined to pay. No buying ferraries here children

Now - another thing I ask myself. Does this not mean that people don't need to posess Unreal any more in order to play Unreal mods? Or will it be missing libraries or why wouldn't this download work for playing mods, too?