PS5 == Unreal Engine ;)

I wonder how much of unreality engine's success is due to their licencing policies? This one seems like a big deal for small teams

https://www.roadtovr.com/unreal-engine-royalty-free-first-1-million-revenue/

5% isn't that much money but it's a lot less hassle book keeping wise. Once you pay something there is some real sales going on.

 

Yea we are seeing similar convergence on MS side towards UE as well.

it seems like the game world is settling down on unreal and unity. Crytek is sort of out there. Not doing too great in that market. Not sure if ID tech is free to use. Game maker continues to see some success and a couple others that are dedicated towards sprite style games.

Ubisoft has its own several engines they continue to update. But I think very few companies will be rolling new engines enlighten of these now. I think Ubisoft and 343i are the only ones that made completely new engines from scratch in the last while. Speaking of Ubi, expecting an announcement from them in July. Not sure if they will be announcing on MS stage or their own, but the pressure is on for them to finish this title for launch early 2021.

unity and epic are hiring massive amounts of talent and have significant investment and pricing methods that are attractive for devs

 

Do you remember the old days when any single game add it's bespoken engine, and unreal was considered cheap and stinky?

 

Well, 5% of your total revenues (not profits!) isn't exactly cheap. It's like having a very, very expensive shareholder who wants a HUGE dividend on all your earnings, if I understand how this deal works correctly. I'd understand 5% of the profits, but rev? That's huge. Or maybe I'm just cheap.

 

5% of 1M is 50K.
Seems reasonable honestly considering how fast one can get up and go. When you’re clocking multi billions of revenue like GTAV, you’re punching yourself

 

And it's half a mill if you make $10M. I'm not saying they shouldn't do it, of course Epic needs to get paid, but 5% of your REVENUES is a lot. Don't make me get my accounting goggles out!

 

I think typically IIRC if you license big time you’re looking at several million to use. Like 1-6 million. I believe the older methods was pay per user etc.

So provided your titles aren’t making more than that after 5% you’re saving money I guess. But runaway success will be brutal. Which might be why those studios will use in-house engines I think knowing they are going to sell blockbuster amounts.

 

That's still less than the cost of 1 Full Time Engineer over the development timespan of the game. What you get far exceeds the price. It's a super bargain.

 

I mean, I really don't know what the average profits for a game are, but in many industries 5% is your profits, if you even make a profit! So to spend that - as a flat rate - on the engine is not little, that's all I'm saying.

 

Didn't mean to derail this thread. Sorry for that. So let me push even more to the wrong direction. Cut steam/apple store/google store/... far exceeds the 5% epic wants for their engine.

From my POV it would be no brainer to use unreal for some small game I develop. If I have to pay something then I'm already successful. If I flop terribly I don't have to figure out 5% of small number to pay to epic, optimize my taxes,... Just makes life easy(ier).

 

Depends on speed to market then. I mean you could build your own engine like Star Citizen but do you want to do that fulltime for 5 years or more before even spending any time on gameplay?

Also as manux said, the other game stores will take 30% of your revenue straight up.

 

I've plumped for using Unity for my own grotesque attempts at creation, but I've dragged my heels for so long getting on with properly learning it, and Unreal is now so ubiquitous and accessible that maybe that was a mistake.

Plus, C# doesn't have pointers. I miss pointers.

Otoh, I get to cheer for team sebbbi.

 

Just use delegates to get your fix of function pointers.

 

Go one step further, epic charges less on their store as welll. So the cost of store + engine is still less than the 30% cut.

 

The upcoming multiplatform OddWorld may be what they're (Unity) hoping for as a showcase.

 

Eh I chose unreal. It seems more robust for small devs trying to get into 3D work.