Unreal Dev Kit free for non-commercial use.

#41 Argh! Post got eaten! Anyway, I agree with what Ronny just said. The modders have the best chance at making out like bandits with this deal...

#42 The two best things about T3D are

Web Deployment
Mac support

No other engine can produce the quality that T3D does for these two areas.

#43 Anyone tried to get some art into it yet? I think that has been the major question. I believe some blender options are out there, but haven't really tried it or seen a solid response yet. Changes the math a lot if you have to use something else.

#44 Yeah I just tried out this UDK... The editor is very hard to use and totally unintuitive. You have to do everything what seems to be the hard way. Heres what im talking about:

I want to import my model-
Unreal imported the collada file after i spent an hour looking at their "documentation" that is out of date and is very poor.
Well it didnt import any materials
then it imported each object as its own mesh.. Great not what i wanted lol

So i had to move all of the pieces in their correct place (after clicking on each individual object and dragging it, cant do all at once)

Now i have to recreate all of the materials and figure out how to actually apply them to their proper location.... Hmm...

I stopped there and decided that its way too much work and extremely cumbersome to use. Torque is way easier. The end of smaller engines? Hmm yeah no so much.

#45 @Steve:

Quote:What is so murky about 25% of the sales after the first $5000 in sales?

It's not the structure that's murky, it's that you are not looking at a commercial EULA anywhere on their site. There's a set of terms, but it's not a license. The non-commercial EULA is there for you to review and FWIW, that looks pretty okay. It does what you'd think it does. No making money, directly or indirectly, from using UDK. Any license that lets you commercialize your project you can only look at once you email them. This isn't uncommon btw. We do this with console stuff and / or non-standard EULA requests, but there's a world of difference between what's being offered on the UDK site and what's being offered from Unity or us.

@eb: I'll definitely post my thoughts, along with official word on a lower entry point for Torque 3D. We're not blind of course and for sure, Unreal doing anything in this space makes waves. I give them credit on an awesome launch here. I don't like the EULA. Those are publisher rates, not typical of back-end royalties for licensed middleware, but if people will swallow pay it to use Unreal to make Windows only games, they probably aren't who we are making Torque for.

#46 @Ted -- your points are well considered, and must be a part of anyone's decision process. I do agree that in many circumstances T3D is the way to go! I just don't think the UDK royalty structure is murky. I am pretty sure I understand it, and I'm pretty sure anyone who takes time to consider it can too.

And, I believe that in all but the very most successful of games, 25% would be less than the flat fee it used to take to license Unreal. Am I wrong on that?

I own T3D and I intend to continue with it, but I do believe that many people who don't own it, will have to pause and consider their options now.

#47 Thanks Brett and Josh. That is the sentiment I was looking to find. I suppose I am able to assume that T3D will continue on to it's "planned destination". - I hope the plans remain that way even after your bosses bosses bosses(etc) have analyzed the situation.
- I'll keep my fingers crossed for everything here to remain as normal as possible.


I have some tough questions to ask at this time. I also think it is best that I keep these questions out of the forums due to people interpreting words when they should be read my posts at verbatim. I think I will write Brett an Email over the weekend. Thanks again for the focused reply.

#48 @Brett -- well maybe you are right. Perhaps it is a bit murky then. I took it at face value. Thank you for clarifying what you meant.

@Eb -- I wish you would reconsider keeping your questions private. You are a respected member of the community, and your opinions are always well thought out ... neither fan-boyish nor unwarranted attacks, just bluntly honest which is how it should be. I suspect many of your questions are shared by others. Please think about it.

#49 @Steve, much appreciated. I will definitely think about that. I will wait until after the weekend ..so that the dust can settle.

------
Brett mentioned: ""...lower entry point for Torque 3D"".
- More new users will license T3D for less than us loyal Torque customers/QA helpers, paid ? .. Well, that is..simply irritating.

#50 @eb: No, I don't think so. There's no way we're going to do a source license like Pro for free.

#51 erm, huh ?

#52 @eb: clarification...

Quote: More new users will license T3D for less than us loyal Torque customers/QA helpers, paid ? .. Well, that is..simply irritating.

This won't happen.

#53 Sorry, I must have misunderstood you then.
- I won't bother to bombard you with asking for an explanation to your statement that I quoted 2 posts ago. It's simply not the time for me to bother you with things like that.

#54 Did anyone ever read "who moved my cheese"? I think it applies here, for everyone. Will be interesting to see how things go.

#55 My Fiancee has the book on her desk. I'll have to give it a read.

#56

Quote:
And, I believe that in all but the very most successful of games, 25% would be less than the flat fee it used to take to license Unreal. Am I wrong on that?

Yes. You are wrong on that. The licensing cost of the Unreal Engine has not changed. It takes that huge chunk of change up front, and royalties on the back.

You are not licensing the "Unreal Engine". You are licensing the UDK. Any game, from Shadow Complex to Borderlands, that was made using the Unreal Engine, was made using the source code version; not the UDK.

#57 @Pat

Quote:You are not licensing the "Unreal Engine". You are licensing the UDK.

...agreed.

Quote:The licensing cost of the Unreal Engine has not changed. It takes that huge chunk of change up front, and royalties on the back.

...agree and disagree. The licensing cost may not have changed, but I *believe* that if you pay more up front you can get the royalties waived. If you don't have the royalties waived, I *think* they are like 3%. ...that is what I read, but yes, it is from the internet, It's not like I ever actually met with the people at Epic. Nor is it really relevant here.

Quote:Any game, from Shadow Complex to Borderlands, that was made using the Unreal Engine, was made using the source code version; not the UDK.

Agreed, but is this because the only license offered included the source code? Or is because they *had* to have the source code? That is, can an indie development team make use of the new license for the UDK and make a viable game, or is it impossible without source?

#58 The EULA offered by the UDK is pretty much what you would have heard if you had called them up. Unreal has been offering negotiable terms for small companies for a while now, this is just in the form of a press release (Not saying the UDK launch = press release, it was obviously a calculated move they set in motion a while ago).

With Unreal, I would want the source, because the engine is designed to be used with the source. That isn't to say the mod tools aren't strong, but the main problem with no-source development is that it works great up until the point when it doesn't. If I wanted to do no-source development, I'd not pick Unreal because I feel as though other options have been designed specifically for non-source use.

I think the other critical difference is by "make a viable game" do you mean come up with an idea and ship it come hell-or-high-water? Or do you mean make a really fun mod that could probably take-off if the game it modded was wildly successful? Lots of really awesome mods exist, for games which already have huge distributions. Granted the authors are not allowed to sell them (and therefore can't really put marketing twords them) but I think that there is some level of confusion over how it is that a game makes money. The line of reasoning seems to be something like:
1. Get license to Unreal
2. ???
3. Profit!
This is not an unfamiliar line of reasoning, in fact it has been sinking studios for about 10 years now. Decisions seem to get made at both the board-room level, as well as the development level, which are based on the logic, "Well if we can just use Unreal we'll be fine," there's really more to it than that.

Ultimately I look forward to seeing what people come up with. Over the last 9 years I have been in the indy development space I've seen revolutions come and go with only the noise they arrived with. People like to make lots of noise. One of the first things up on the UDK forum was the thread complaining about documentation (do you really think the Unreal docs are bad enough that you can't ship a game?). I would be very surprised if, a few months from now, the hullabaloo over "free" Unreal is above a dull roar. The "internets at large" like very much to get excited over things, but when it comes to actually doing things, not so much.

#59 Yes, but Pat. Now they can fail for free while using professional-tools UDK. They don't need the $1000 Indy-tools T3D.
(this comment was just to say that GG marketshare of the hobbyist sector just dropped significantly. This is not to say that T3D should be free People can fail either way, paying or not paying for a package's use, is not magical in and of itself. Should I add more disclaimer here ?)


//EDIT: Dire Straights..
"Get your Engine for nothing and your Failure for free."

//Edit#2. this post was near completely pointless. Just mere conjecture is all. Ignore it if you want.

#60 Excellent post Pat, thank you. Just to echo: Yes, people like to make a lot of noise...