Epic Games Is Making A New Unreal Tournament

[GreatEmerald]

Yes, this is like all our dreams coming true at the same time. Except for one thing: to contribute to the game, you have to buy the UE4 license ($20 per month), even if you want to contribute for free. So basically you have to pay in order to be able to create mods or patch security issues or whatever (and a subscription, not a one-shot fee). Which is kind of backwards, because you're supposed to get paid for doing work for them, not the other way round.

Epic has noticed that it's a problem, but it seems that they are out of ideas about how to solve this. But they're serious about the community thing, so any ideas you can come up with to solve this problem would be highly appreciated! They will probably be heard! And the GNU/Linux community is probably the best place for brainstorming about it.

[Adarion]

An interesting approach. I'll definitely keep myself updated there.
Free as in beer game, parts even free as in freedom. You pay for the mods. 50% to the Epic people, 50% to the modder. Everything else (base game) free as in beer. Developed with community, so Linux is 100% sure. Sounds like a deal.

[ChrisXY]

Epic has noticed that it's a problem, but it seems that they are out of ideas about how to solve this. But they're serious about the community thing, so any ideas you can come up with to solve this problem would be highly appreciated! They will probably be heard! And the GNU/Linux community is probably the best place for brainstorming about it.

Just make everything open source, but not free software. Meaning: A "community license": Everyone can download and modify and share the source code, but not sell a game with it. For selling a game with it you would have to buy a "commercial license".

How much would they really lose?

[GreatEmerald]

I've been thinking along the same lines as you, ChrisXY. Though I think an outright dual-licensing model would work perfectly for them, and the Free Software community would benefit greatly as well.
I have suggested this on the forums now, so you can read the proposal and comment about it here: https://forums.unrealengine.com/show...-funding-model

[smitty3268]

Is Epic Games planning to make the game free as a large tech demo for showing off their engine and pay the development by licensing the engine?
Or are there other ways Epic Games gets the needed cash for this project?

I suspect Epic is largely writing this expense off as a tech demo to sell licenses for their engine, but i did see this over at Ars:

Epic will eventually make money off this effort via a Steam Community Market-style marketplace where "developers, modders, artists, and gamers can give away, buy, and sell mods and content," with Epic taking a cut.

So they're likely experimenting at the same time to see how successful they can be with that type of business model.

[arabek]

I don't care at all for multi-player FPS but give me a fully working (and updated to work with today's Linux ecosystem) Unreal 1 on Linux - preferably on Steam where I already own the game - without me having to track down a retail copy of a game that is no longer sold and I'll be happy as a puppy with a bully stick.

Buy it on God old games: http://www.gog.com/game/unreal_tournament_goty