It's available at no charge, but it's not free.
Pretty amazing, really. I've been in graphics since just drawing a line on the screen of a $6000 (2015 dollars) computer was a big deal for a beginner; now you can get a seriously robust graphics engine for no cost, develop on a week's-pay cheap computer, and publish for $50 per $1000 revenue after you make enough to bother paying for.
No reason to whine, save for the sake of whining. You can still start with gcc if you like.
ETA: per another current thread, you can get a suitable Linux workstation for $89 http://symplepc.com/blogs/news/16853255-symple-introduces-th... Tack on a USB monitor for another $89, and you can write the Next Big FPS for $178 plus 5% of meaningful revenue.
A small step up would be something with a proper graphics card and a quard core processor. You can get a very nice computer for $450 nowadays:
http://www.gamersnexus.net/pc-builds/1786-cheap-gaming-pc-bu...
Also, not being able to test on Windows would be a major problem as that's going to be the lion's share of your sale. If you're budget conscious, I'd spring for a 3 year old laptop that came with an AMD or NVIDIA chip. That would be a low end desktop today, but can probably be had for $200-300 or so. Toss in a $80 SSD, and off to the races. I find laptops depreciate fast and that most people haven no idea how valuable that NVIDIA or AMD sticker is on their laptop. That's the difference between being able to play 70% of the games on Steam and being able to play 10% of the games on Steam.
(I'm often puzzled that when I suggest a nigh-unto-free solution to a problem, someone usually complains some form of "but that's not optimal!" Of course it's not optimal if you're not willing to put substantial resources into it. Just because the solution isn't perfect doesn't mean there isn't one; do what you can with what you've got, and you'll make progress toward perfection.)
Which isn't to discourage people, there is a lot you can do with that kind of mid tier machine, but you are probably much better off trying to something else than UE4.
I know this probably isn't the place, but I am fairly sure they mean income, not revenue.
income, especially when of a company or organization and of a substantial nature.
It doesn't matter what the word means outside this sphere. Otherwise, "engine" usually refers to something like a car engine.
Also, the US isn't the land of the cheap sakes, which kind of doesn't fit "for most".
That's just it though; if you wanted to use this to make a completely free GNU/Linux game, you could, without ever paying a cent to Epic. If you do decide to make a game for profit, it's only when you "make it" that you have to pay for your tools. I see it as a fair and equitable arrangement, where both sides profit if and only if the developer is successful.
I'm glad there's another no-cost video game engine available, but I don't think it qualifies as free software in the Free Software Foundation sense of the word free. I haven't seen the actual license though, so maybe it is actually free. It would be awesome if it was.