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Unreal Engine 4 goes upfront free, backed by a 5% royalty fee

"Epic succeeds only when creators succeed"

Unreal Engine 4 goes upfront free, backed by a 5% royalty fee

Epic Games has announced that its flagship Unreal Engine 4 is now free to everyone, along with all future updates.

Abandoning its original price tag, as well as the somewhat short-lived paid subscription plan, the engine will now make its money based on a 5 percent royalty on developers' gross revenue.

These royalty payments will only be collected after the first $3,000 per product, per quarter, meaning that less lucrative developers will not be expected to relinquish a cut of their takings.

"The state of Unreal is strong, and we’ve realized that as we take away barriers, more people are able to fulfill their creative visions and shape the future of the medium we love." said Epic founder and CEO Tim Sweeney.

"That’s why we’re taking away the last barrier to entry, and going free," he continues.

"Whatever your development aspirations, Epic stands with you, both as a technology provider, and as a fellow game developer counting on UE4 to power our own games.”

You can read the full blog post from Tim Sweeney on the Unreal Engine website.


Features Editor

Matt is really bad at playing games, but hopefully a little better at writing about them. He's Features Editor for PocketGamer.biz, and has also written for lesser publications such as IGN, VICE, and Paste Magazine.