Engine vendor wants to shoot down 'circling-vulture' claim
A developer using UDK would only pay Epic $700 from a game that makes $75,000, new data shows.
Epic Games vice president Mark Rein sent the equation to Develop in a bid to clarify the company’s pricing model. That, and a second equation, can be found below.
The Unreal Development Kit costs nothing for developers to download and create content with. A one-off $99 fee is paid to Epic if the user wants to sell a title.
Epic said it will not take anything from a UDK game’s first $50,000 in sales. Instead, it takes a 25 per cent share of subsequent revenues after the threshold.
However, Epic only calculates its 25 per cent after seperate charges from a game's digital distributor.
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Apple and Google, for example, both take 30 per cent revenues from App Store and Android games.
It has been misconceived by some that Epic takes a 25 per cent cut from total sales – an equation which would mean Apple takes 30 per cent, Epic takes 25, and the developer is left with just 45.
The equation found below, however, shows how in some cases Epic will charge as little as one per cent of total retail sales.
In the second equation, Epic shows how it will will take just 9 per cent in total sales from a game that makes $150,000.
Epic added that, if a game sells to $250,000, developers should get in touch with the engine vendor for further discussions.
This is very misleading, they are only talking about the first game you sell. If you go on selling a second game and you make 100k then you will have to pay the full 25% wich is 25k there no more 50k from them.
if you look at the wording here it implies that its on a game by game basis: "Epic said it will not take anything from a UDK game’s first $50,000 in sales" It does not say from a developer's first 50k, it says from a games first 50k. This should be confirmed, but if this journalist didn't misquote the terms then you are ok with multiple games
Interesting how ppl got worry for what they will *eventually* pay, while obviously even didnt start to develop a game... It's hard work that better respect than theoretically massage numbers and make false statements.
When we started out there was no unreal engine and quite frankly I would jump at this.
Using an engine like this really gives indies a shot at competing even with the big boys on larger scale projects something until now was very hard with what else is out there.
I have to agree with John, Marc and Teodor on this. Epic has raised the bar by allowing indies to use the power of Unreal Technology for a fraction of what it would cost to develop something remotely close to it and as bluntly as Teodore put it...try making a game first before worrying about what it will cost to use this engine (especially without it).
10 people, 10 months, 8-9hours, 20-21 working days or 150+ working hrs... in the first example, you'll be making 3.45/hr.
the second example is that much better, it's like 6.00/hr.
so how can these indie teams make it through ???
I'm a bit shocked about the App Store and it's 30% charge. What is bundled in the App Store? Advertising? Managing downloads? Which clients?
Hope this was just some figure they used for explanation, otherwise you'd propably be more safe to pick your own servers to distribute your games.
And paying a small fine for using an engine that gets constantly developed on (saying it is maintenanced by Epic's experts) and without having the trouble of creating your own might propably be worth it.
First of all, it is a per game basis, if each game you sell only makes $49k then you're fine. Second of all, what are people crying about? So you only make $15k on a game because the app store took 30% and say Epic took a full 25%, who gives a crap, you made 15k doing something that you love to do, some people don't make that in a year and hate their job. DEAL WITH IT!
