Unreal Engine will no longer be free for all
creativebloq.com
creativebloq.com
The licensing changes target big commercial usages outside of game development. (With revenue thresholds, similar to how it already works right now for game development.)
For example, up until now Unreal has seen use in vfx for movie and tv production. The licensing model for Unreal was primarily oriented for game development, which meant that this wasn't generating any revenue for Epic unless that company opted into the optional support plan.
Unlike the crazy situation with Unity, these changes are being announced in advance without affecting usage of previous versions of Unreal.
(Not saying I like or care for subscriptions for software. But context helps understand what's going on here.)
I'm surprised they didn't make this change sooner.
The headline doesn't specifically say outside of games, but I don't think that makes it misleading, especially because the "for all" makes it clear that it's only about some cases. And people generally know that games pay.
Being announced in advance, not affecting previous versions... none of that is implied otherwise by the headline.
Unreal was never "free for all". For game development, there has always been revenue thresholds.
The new licensing is around commercial use outside of game development, and will also be revenue threshold based. Meaning, just like with game development, if your project is making you money over X threshold, then the licensing kicks in.
The title is misleading.
If you look at the title and think of a different company, that's not the headline's fault. It doesn't even try to reference Unity.
Also what I said in my previous comment is relevant here.
> Unreal was never "free for all".
I accept that it's bad wording, but I don't see how that misleads anyone unless you thought the engine was completely free.
Things don't happen in a vaccuum. The Unity fiasco is still fresh on everyone's mind. For any company anywhere in the gaming sphere to change their prices so soon - is going to draw comparisons to Unity. The fact multiple people are discussing this with you should prove that.
Headlines don't have a lot of space!
And as I said in a different comment, the subheading seems to address the main complaints, and in most situations you'd see the headline and the subheading together.
If it's the former then I think that absolves the author.
I do not think the author was purposefully being misleading. I do not think they need absolution for anything. I think it may be interperted as misleading by some (as it did for the original commentor) based on the reader's recent experiences with Unity and the latest drama; which is not a property of the article, the headline, or the author - but the reader.
"Unreal Engine starts charging for non-game development".
It's not about space, and we know it's all too easy to bury the lede and leave the internet to lash out as it is oft to do. But I don't blame the author. I know in larger sites editorial will make the title without context of the writing independent of the contents in order to maximize traffic.
Exactly. Surprised that argument was coming from an 2010 account.
That's how i understood it, was surprised, clicked the thread to find out more.
Sample size of 1, but I was (maybe accidentally) misled.
For your personal reference, here is how the dictionary defines the word "misleading". (Cambridge and Merriam Webster, respectively)
> causing someone to believe something that is not true
> to lead in a wrong direction or into a mistaken action or belief often by deliberate deceit
> to lead astray : give a wrong impression
I would say that the title manages to hit on all 3 of these definitions, with a possible note that perhaps the author "misspoke" rather than intentionally creating a deliberate deceit.
Being aware of current events and how they may shape how people come to conclusions is a skill that not everybody possesses I suppose.
The headline is most definitely misleading and poorly worded. A better headline would be "Unreal licensing change targets tv production use cases" or something like that.
As the other user pointed out, Unreal Engine was never free for all. So wording it like this misleads the reader into thinking about the most commonly talked about use-case, video game development. And when they read "no longer be free for all" it leads them to believe that people that currently don't pay for Unreal Engine may now have to. Hence the title being "misleading." But hey, journalism is a skill that you work on over time. The editor should have caught this.
Please explain how this headline connects to Unity at all?
Yes we can assume a lot of people reading the headline will know about it... but I don't see this blatant connection. Would they have to explicitly say it's not like Unity in the headline to escape this?
They even put "non-gaming creatives" in the subheading. Maybe whoever posted should have copied that? If you post the link on most social media you'll automatically see the headline and the subheading.
Clickbait can only be analyzed in terms of the title, not the sub header or content. Because the title is what gets reposted and makes people follow a link.
It's like saying (to use the classic example), "I will no longer beat my wife." I never did, just like Unreal was never free for all.
In-house development doesn't suffer from this issue, and you'll have full control over the code.
Unreal doing this around the same time Unity pulls its shit isn't a coincidence.
As an aspiring game dev I kinda want nothing to do with these tools that want to jerk you around on pricing and aren't absolutely crystal clear on costs.
Blender is free and can do a ton.
Same reason why we have yet another flurry of layoffs happening.
>In-house development doesn't suffer from this issue, and you'll have full control over the code.
Yet many AAA studios have at least dabbled with Unity/Unreal. A few have switched entirely. Engine programmers aren't cheap to keep in house and it's much easier to have entry level workers come in with existing engine knowledge than teaching them on the job. Even if this all feels shitty, full control for a business may not necessarily be the answer.
>As an aspiring game dev I kinda want nothing to do with these tools that want to jerk you around on pricing and aren't absolutely crystal clear on costs.
I wish you the best of luck. That's my endgame. But I'm not at a point where I can disengage from big corporate and I have bills to pay. I'm laying the groundwork slowly but maybe in a decade.
>Blender is free and can do a ton.
Blender isn't a game engine. And lender's attempt at making a game engine is exactly why it can be harder to switch from big corporate than it should be. It's a lot of moving parts and is hard to maintain. Open source's biggest weakness is interest, since there is no financial incentive to keep supporting a free product.
That said, look into UPBGE as a spiritual successor if you rely a lot on Blender for development.
As you pointed out, doing it correctly requires experienced developers who will stick around. I think that's a more rewarding and better cost to spend money on. At least the worker won't try to modify the terms of what you're building on.
I'll check out that project sometime. 3D is still a ways out for me but any libre software that can make it easier to learn sounds great.
Proprietary engines suffer from plenty which you haven't stated - can be a mess to read or understand; many hacks done to accomplish a certain feature because it helped ship X feature
- tons of tribal knowledge. If you've worked with a proprietary engine before, you already know documentation will be lackluster and to little fault of the engineers - there's so much to know about the engine that developers don't have the time to chart out what everything does in the engine while pushing out fixes and features.Often, you need to poke the principal programmer who's been with the studio since its inception to understand how a certain long-existing feature works. That's a major point of weakness for the studio!
- Engine limitations! Ask the bethesda devs on their experience building multiplayer for Fallout 76[0]. Imagine building multiplayer in an engine that has never needed to support it. That's a huge refactor and a ton of time spent doing that when it's already handled by Unreal Engine. Developers will need to maintain that engine in the future so the pain doesn't stop after the game gets shipped!
Your post sounds like someone who hasn't worked in game development before. I advise listening to GDC talks, noclip documentaries, and more if you want to get a better understanding of what game development actually looks like. It's a lot more complicated than "your change in price policy makes me mad" (by the way, most AAA studios already have contracts/price agreements with these engines given the amount of revenue they generate for Unity/Unreal).
The way AAA studios make games and do business puts me off as well, so pointing to them as an example doesn't really change my outlook. I already don't buy their games and disapprove of their business models.
If I was interested in being exploited for my passion I would consider entering that industry, but as it stands I will be going solo dev.
No game dev company out there seems to treat its staff well during a game's development, so even if I wanted to work on a game as part of a team, I'd be looking at a poor work/life balance and a stressful work environment. I'm too old for that kind of BS.
If I can't build and release the game myself, then it simply isn't good enough to release. I cannot trust collaborators to not take control of my projects, nor would I entrust creative ideas to a for-profit entity without my cut.
Long story short, I might work in the industry if it was a healthy one. Because it's not, and I still want to make a game, it falls to me and only me to make it happen. That's kind of comforting, knowing your failure or success ride on your own action instead of someone else's. Nothing is more disappointing in a group project than failing because of someone else's fuck up.
I'd beg to differ on this point. Lots of changes have been made in game development culture including less crunch culture[0]. Worker protection/unions aren't exactly something that's afforded to many white collar jobs in the first place, not sure why that would be an expectation here. Even so, there have been improvements to this - e.g. the Game Workers Alliance. I encourage you to ask developers this question today.
>No game dev company out there seems to treat its staff well during a game's development, so even if I wanted to work on a game as part of a team, I'd be looking at a poor work/life balance and a stressful work environment. I'm too old for that kind of BS.
There are game companies that do treat their staff well! I don't think it's fair to make blanket statements like this when there are a ton of studios with a ton of varying cultures. It's not like solo development isn't stressful or immune to crunch either, even if you choose your own hours. Solo development calls for highly varying skills - it's one of those things you underestimate until you've actually tried it.
>If I can't build and release the game myself, then it simply isn't good enough to release. I cannot trust collaborators to not take control of my projects, nor would I entrust creative ideas to a for-profit entity without my cut.
Nothing good in this world gets built in a vacuum. A hyperbole, potentially (e.g. Stardew Valley, Rainworld), but game development really is a road best driven with a team - people to help out in different disciplines, lighten the load on others. Finding a good team is hard, but once you do, it's hard to want to forgo them. I don't think I can convince you on this front, but the vast majority of solo developers who don't release a game should be proof enough.
No hard feelings from me - I just wanted to clarify what the game industry is actually like today. The Kotaku articles can be frightening, but talking to people in the industry today and getting thoughts from different roles (e.g. producers, designers, engineers, QA, artists, etc.) and different industries within game dev (indie, AA, AAA studios,etc.) would help form a more informed opinion.
[0]: https://twitter.com/GrantPDesign/status/1402325020890652672
A team can't bring that satisfaction to me. Kudos to those who enjoy working in groups. For me, I end up doing more than my share of work and correcting others' mistakes. At that point, you may as well make it yourself. People are more of an obstacle to my progress than they are an enabler.
The bait and switch is real, but after N of them we have to start asking ourselves whose fault is it if we fall for the N+1th one.
It shouldn't be normal to expect to be exploited imo.
In other words, a company giving you a "free" product like Unreal should be assumed to be a loan that you will have to pay in the future.
Wow. I was typing "It is fairly recent behavior, at least it wasn't like this before 2014."
Then I realise that was nearly 10 years ago......
Same here, I thought they were also earning big money from TV and Hollywood. As they have been constantly improving non-gaming usage in every release.
I'm also confused how Epic Games has become unprofitable suddenly. I think I read somewhere it was in the last 10 weeks but I could be wrong about that.
They own 40%, the only bigger stakeholder beeing Tim Sweeney, Epics CEO and founder. [1]
Assuming Sweeney wouldn't be the one causing it, Tencent is the party that would be able to cause the most financial headaches.
[1] https://www.fool.com/investing/how-to-invest/stocks/how-to-i...
They probably overhired during 2020-2022 period like everyone else did.
Additionally, AFAIR there were tax rule changes going in play this year that would change the accounting balance sheet. [0]
But, the biggest one in my mind, realities of inflation/shrinkflation are setting in. I'd have to guess that my food cost has gone up enough that I could have theoretically purchased at least one or two skins with the extra money I'm spending on the same or less food [1]. I think this is a factor that is easy to be insulated from in tech, however my friends in various luxury service industries are feeling the pinch; folks cutting down on "spa days" and fancy restaurant trips.
[0] - I know earlier this year a bunch of changes around how Capital Expenditures/R&D were allowed to be deducted, and in some cases it would lead to a large increase in the cost of engineers.
[1] - I don't do Fortnite so I have no clue what stuff costs, broadly speaking however 10-20$ a week is a light estimate.
Sweeney has now clarified that there will be minimum revenue thresholds for commercial projects that have to pay for a subscription and that student and educator use of Unreal Engine will remain free.
I've heard it sad that "The three most expensive are wars, space programs and making movies".
But yeah, "a small part" of a few $10 million budget would not trivial to Unreal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StageCraft
I see that I accidentally a word above. It's the word from the quote that I wasn't sure of ... "The three most expensive - One of (endeavours, enterprises, occupations, hobbies, pastimes, things) are"?
Another problem I see in adoption of Unreal in animation is that the entertainment industry historically hasn't valued its engineers in the same way that Silicon Valley does. Unless you're working directly for a company like Unreal or Autodesk, why would a software engineer go work on some shitty duct-taped pipeline for a studio that will inevitably pay them less and make them work more hours, unless said engineer is particularly enamored with movies or shows? Based on what I know, I believe that the entertainment industry struggles to find and hold on to engineering talent, and not in the cliche way we hear from every company out there.
However, if Unreal reaches the same level of ubiquity and vendor lock-in within VFX that Autodesk has, for instance, then it would be a humongous cash cow for them. They want to keep their engine free to that industry for that reason, and it's a big incentive considering the exorbitant costs typical to VFX software.
This would mean Godot would be the thing worth investing for.
Unless you mean, e.g., movie-making hobbyists where they go from never having to pay to having some (probably, as currently exists for games, based on a revenue threshold) some condition where they would have to pay, which might drive some of them to a different toolchain, though if it is setup similar to gaming, it won't affect most hobbyists unless they have way unexpected success, so probably shouldn't rationally affect hobbyiat choices much.
Lots of enterprise customer paid before already anyway for Epic's (questionable) support
I don't want the success of my game to ride on paying my game's protection/engine licensing fee. It's hard enough to make money with a game and Unreal makes it harder.
By all means, if you don't like the terms don't use the engine, but it's hard to take it seriously when you make it sound as if you're doing them a favor using their engine for free.
Businesses should study their markets. Sadly, many people in the market are completely fine giving away things to get shiny, even giving up revenue. So until standards of customer treatment rise, we'll be dealing with various levels of SaaS.
Except some of us just aren't buying anything, due to the terms and lacking perceived value.
If Unreal works for you that's fine. Why do I have to like or buy it?
Unreal is starting to get traction as a 3d model tool (free unlike the pricey: Cinema4d or Maya). It was used on set for "virutual rooms" used in productions like the madolorian. This use of Unreal wasn't being charged for.. But now it is.
But Godot seems to have a lot of traction for game dev anyway. It seems to be a lot of places.
Unreal is a big giant tool, with tons of leavers. They have a robust marketplace of assets and such that makes life easier for companies and such.
I mean, I get what you mean, but seems needlessly pedantic to just "forget" the thing that is being charged for and because there was no other changes made with the new price being added, the change itself isn't adding any value.
Regardless, I get what you mean, no value for you that they start charging. True.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/28/epic-games-is-eliminating-16...
Even with the success of UE and Fortnite they're still a money losing business. They've probably been surviving off of cheap debt since 2009 but that has now ended. Multiply that by all the businesses in the Russell 3000 or whatever that have been doing exactly the same thing.
Will also be interesting to see how well subscription-based software fares when people start tightening their belts due to inflation and rising interest rates.
You have cases where companies jack up the prices out of pure greed but i would not count this as one. Why should studio not pay a license fee for high quality software like the unreal engine?
I'm making a macroeconomic comment, you're assuming I'm arguing about the morals of the microeconomic decision making here.
Arguing about the morality or ethics or greed involved isn't useful. Just like it wasn't useful to argue about greed involved in our recent spike of inflation.
This fairly large company is still just another cog in the macroeconomic machine and their behavior is almost deterministic.
The more interesting question to me is what it indicates about the macro climate and if there's stormclouds on the horizon or not.
Understandable but could introduce a revenue limit too.
Unreal Engine Pricing Changes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37774917 - Oct 2023 (51 comments)
SAAS is rent-seeking at its worst. It’s predatory, anti-consumer and downright annoying. I hope this backfires on Epic.
Not all software subscriptions are SaaS. See, e.g., here: https://www.dataversity.net/saas-and-subscription-complement...
SaaS means someone else runs the software and your access to it is mediated by their service (usually a networked service).
Some SaaS tests:
If you can keep running it when your subscription runs out, it's not SaaS. If it runs on your own hardware, it's not SaaS.
This concept creep elides the extraordinary level of alienation inherent in SaaS, which is exceptional even for proprietary software. This overly broad usage of the term can make the tradeoffs involved¹ in actual SaaS seem less severe than they are.
--
1: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s...
Sign me up.
I smell dishonesty. SaaS is aligned solely to the business's interest. They control the code, they control whether you even access it after paying, etc. The customer gets no rights or considerations, so it's a one-sided transaction.
Just like Netflix and friends. I only do one subscription service and it's to play online with my niece and nephew. The rest of the subscription world can suck it, they want rent for Internet-bound software that spies and tells on you so they can sell data on top of your subscription.
Business cannot get software sales correct. Game makers did back in the 80s, 90s, and 00s before DLC became a thing.
One purchase, one perpetual license, no phoning home. Too hard to do for the modern commercial developer, it seems.
So, which interests of mine would a SaaS satisfy?