UDK Royalty-Free limit raised

[Phopojijo]

Mark Rein announced a couple of days ago (yeah I kept forgetting to post it... coming in here then getting distracted by Battlefield 3 and Starcraft 2) that UDK will not demand royalties until 50000$ revenue... this is up from 5000$. However the 99$ upfront cost is still in effect and unchanged.

Keep in mind this is YOUR revenue. If you publish on (lets say) Steam and they keep (lets say) 30%... Epic starts charging you royalties when YOU receive 50000$ (which would be 71428.57$ in actual sales)... and they charge you their 25% royalty on every dollar YOU receive after 50000$. The first 50,000$ is royalty free though.

Note that if you're using UDK internally and never releasing anything... (Like a business that uses it for internal training simulations or something)... Epic demands 2500$ per seat per year.

The official license is posted at Epic's website: http://udk.com/licensing
It's explained much more clearly there.

[Dwood]

At those prices I'd <still> rather develop an engine that suits my needs, and not have to license it. But that's just me.

[ejburke]

At those prices I'd <still> rather develop an engine that suits my needs, and not have to license it. But that's just me.Same. Epic has tricked people into thinking they need their tech and that's just not true. They aren't being generous here, they're just trying to feed into their own positive feedback loop and get everyone hooked on their brand of crack.

[Phopojijo]

It all depends on what you're doing of course.

And of course they're doing it to further UnrealEngine. That's pretty obvious. It's still awesome for those who it benefits.