You make money with it, you give them a fair share. Entry cost is $0. They'll ignore the first $3000 gross because hassling lots of "little people" for under $150 isn't worth the hassle for anyone.
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.
Specs on that are really low. 2gb of ram with a single core processor? That kind of rig is probably best for 2D development, where something like Unreal or Unity would be way overkill.
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:
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.
> For developing with UE4, we recommend a desktop PC with Windows 7 64-bit or a Mac with Mac OS X 10.9.2 or later, 8 GB RAM and a quad-core Intel or AMD processor, and a DX11 compatible video card. UE4 will run on desktops and laptops below these recommendations, but performance may be limited.
"Recommend". If you're trying to develop as close to "free" as possible, "performance may be limited."
(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.)
I think the point is that it is going to be worse than just laggy UI, it's going to be very painful if you try to use that computer for developing using UE4.
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.
Yeah; the initial title said "is now Free", suggesting by lack of capitalization of "now" and capitalization of "Free" that it was being open-sourced. I'm glad that the edited title uses lowercase for that word.
As in beer, so, the product. Having source code is great, but when I'm trying to get something done I don't really care about e.g. the EFF's moral stance.
Free until you take more than 3000 sips from the glass per quarter. So still likely 100% free for all but the successful indie devs and larger studios.
I don't see the reason for downvotes. The parent's sentiment is pointed, but has merit. It's initially doesn't cost anything, but if you want to charge for a game, it costs you. You also don't get many freedoms along with it, you gain no rights on the code and are bound to whatever Epic comes up with later.
> It's initially doesn't cost anything, but if you want to charge for a game, it costs you.
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.
Is the source code actually free though? For example, could I redistribute the source code myself and not take any revenue from the people I distributed it to? Could I make some changes to the engine and redistribute it? How would the revenue sharing work if I did something like that and someone using my version of the engine started making money using it?
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.
Sorry, I should have clarified; I didn't use the capital-F "Free" because I was speaking strictly in terms of money. I honestly don't have a clue what the redistribution rights are either, I just think it's cool there's a professional level, tried and tested, modern game engine available to build games that target GNU/Linux. I'm excited to see what comes of it over the next few years.
I probably couldn't, but he's still right: link says "available to everyone for free", which isn't exactly what it happens to be. It's not about being greedy or something, it just about fair headlines.
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.