If you've ever been interested in game development, animation, or digital visualization, the complete Unreal Engine 4 suite is now free for anyone to download and use.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt86Ab4_TnA

Today Epic Games, made it possible for anyone to become a game developer with Unreal Engine 4. The Unreal Engine has been used to develop games on almost every platform there is, including Windows, OS X, Linux, Xbox, Playstation, iOS, and Android. Now you can download and use it for free and get all future updates for free as well. The small catch is that you have to pay a 5% royalty on gross revenue after the first $3,000 per product, per quarter, of whatever you make. Considering how versatile the engine is, though, it's a small price to pay for complete access to their software with no upfront licensing fees. You can download Unreal Engine 4 at the link below.

https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/ue4-is-free

source: http://lifehacker.com/unreal-engine-4-is-now-free-for-all-budding-game-develo-1689019522

 

Really glad they're doing this. It will open the door to a lot of small studios and uncover a lot of talent as well!

 

bit late...everyone uses unity now lol

 

Small studios and solo projects with small revenue are a perfect fit for the new licensing model though:

-No need to pay for a full version of the engine, unlike Unity

-No need to pay just to port to another platform, which is very handy these days considering the indie market regularly targets many desktop and mobile OSes, even indie-friendly consoles.

-No additional licenses for each developer in your team

-you can make 12,000$ per year, distributed evenly in each quarter, and still won't need to pay a dime to Unreal. After that, it's a 5% cut on everything that goes over this mark.

If you're certain you'll make it big, get Unity and be prepared to pay a lot upfront. If you're realist, get Unreal Engine, enjoy the better tech, have fun and if your experiment ever gets big, a 5% cut won't stop you from buying that new Lambo.

 

Unity Pro not yet free ( )