Epic Games has announced a new PC, iOS and Android subscription/revenue share business model for the latest version of the company’s flagship Unreal Engine at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
Epic’s popular middleware engine has previously only been accessible to AAA game studios at licensing costs that could run into several million USD.
“It’s a bold new step for Epic, but we think it’s an appropriate one given the new style of the game industry,” said Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney. “It’s now grown into a very open and democratic form, where absolutely anybody can go out, develop a game, and ship it.”
The new licensing arrangement will provide PC, iOS and Android developers full access to Unreal Engine 4 for a monthly US$19 subscription and 5 per cent royalty fee on game revenues. In addition, subscribers will have complete access to the engine’s source code.
“Looking at the possibilities for the engine, we started from scratch and thought ‘How can we make the engine available to more people?’” added Sweeney.
US-based Epic Games was originally founded as Potomac Computer Systems by Tim Sweeney in 1991. Epic is best known for the company’s Gears of War and Infinity Blade titles, as well as Epic’s AAA game development software, the Unreal Engine.
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