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Unreal Engine adopts monthly $19 subscription model

Opens up full access to source code

Unreal Engine adopts monthly $19 subscription model

At a press briefing this morning in San Francisco Epic Games co-founder Tim Sweeney revealed that the company is now offering its popular Unreal Engine 4 on a subscription basis.

For $19 a month, developers can enjoy full access to the company's engine and present and future development tools, including the Blueprint development environment.

Royal deal

According to the standard terms of the arrangement, Epic will take a 5 percent royalty from the profits of every game made in Unreal Engine 4, though Sweeney stressed that it will still be possible to negotiate custom terms.

The move signals a more collaborative direction for the company. "We succeed with this only if developers succeed in making great games," detailed Sweeney.

To facilitate even greater transparency and collaboration, Epic has also made Unreal Engine 4's C++ source code available to every subscriber, to examine, copy, and modify freely.

"It reminds me of the shareware days," Sweeney said.


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