Unreal Engine Made Free By Epic Games

Written by Michael Larabel in Linux Gaming on 2 March 2015 at 12:24 PM EST. 54 Comments
LINUX GAMING
The Unreal Engine 4 is now free to everyone along with all future Unreal Engine updates!

However, before getting too excited, Unreal Engine 4 isn't becoming free software by the definitions of the FSF & Co. Rather, UE4 is free to everyone but once making revenue off any products shipped on the engine, Epic Games wants their cut.

Unreal Engine 4's C++ source code is "100% free." Tim Sweeny of Epic explained, "Our goal is to give you absolutely everything, so that you can do anything and be in control of your schedule and your destiny. Whatever you require to build and ship your game, you can find it in UE4, source it in the Marketplace, or build it yourself – and then share it with others."

In terms of Epic's compensation, "When you ship a game or application, you pay a 5% royalty on gross revenue after the first $3,000 per product, per quarter. It’s a simple arrangement in which we succeed only when you succeed." Previously there was a $19 per month cost.

More details via this Unreal blog post.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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