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[Spyxos]

A week after laying off almost 900 employees, Epic Games announced that it's increasing the price to use Unreal Engine—just not for the game development community.

Sweeney explains that developers using Unreal Engine in the film, TV, automotive, and other industries can expect to start paying a per-seat licensing fee.

He claimed that the pricing model will not be "unusually expensive or unusually inexpensive," and that its pricing structure will be similar to subscription services like Maya or Photoshop. Sweeney said he wanted to announce these changes now in the name of "transparency."

Apparently Epic Games began running into "financial problems" about 10 weeks ago, meaning that the company was facing some sort of financial downturn from late July through September.

Epic Games to update Unreal Engine pricing for devs outside game industry

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney says the company began running into financial problems "about 10 weeks ago."

www.gamedeveloper.com

 

[mansoor1980]

hey unreal.......................................

 

[Black_Stride]

Took them long enough.



I wonder how they will "catch" smaller architecture and virtual production firms, cuz I know one of my client firms is highly highly unlikely to cough up for another renderer license........one of the main reasons we even started working with Unreal was because it was fast and free.

Might go back to RedShift, just so I can squeeze ask them to upgrade my PC to 4090 if they decide RedShift is the answer.

 

[justiceiro]

Let's see if they manage to do this better than unity.

 

[Success]

Unity's sacrifice was made so that non-gaming media will now take all of the costs.

 

[Kacho]

Tim! Port Alan Wake 2 to Steam and it will solve all of your financial problems. I promise.

 

[Black_Stride]

Tim! Port Alan Wake 2 to Steam and it will solve all of your financial problems. I promise.

Port?

 

[Elder Legend]

Makes sense. Current model is way too generous, I was surprised how generous it was. I think this could be fair, but let's see the pricing first and the rules before we celebrate.

 

[Bernardougf]

Financial problems you say ?

 

[Del_X]

Fucked around with Apple and lost, now you pay.

 

[Kacho]

Port?

Just shitposting

 

[Wooxsvan]

paid too much for exclusive games on their store. just lighting money on fire

 

[DR3AM]

Unity 2.0

 

[kiphalfton]

Tim! Port Alan Wake 2 to Steam and it will solve all of your financial problems. I promise.

Or stop giving crappy, free game away. Most the stuff they give away is shovelware, but I assume it costs them something.

 

[SJRB]

How the fuck does Epic run into money problems? Doesn't Fornite make like a bazillion dollars?

That game brings in like 8 BILLION dollars a year. Just Fortnite!

 

[ReBurn]

Fucked around with Apple and lost, now you pay.

We all lost that one. At least the EU is trying to take a crowbar to that walled garden.

 

[BennyBlanco]

EGS getting the axe next

 

[Holammer]

Get the media industry hooked on your tools and start charging money.

 

[dotnotbot]

Financial problems you say ?

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

It's weird how so many gamers have (in recent past) defended the industry and claim it's very healthy and popular, thriving and "better than ever" and yet we've been hearing so many reports lately of firings and layoffs and retirement etc.

Just makes me think the gaming industry is very fragile, and that there are those who either believe in a dream vision of how they'd like to believe things are, or they purposely put up a facade like those awful tv commercials we see everywhere we look.

 

[Braag]

How the fuck does Epic run into money problems? Doesn't Fornite make like a bazillion dollars?

That game brings in like 8 BILLION dollars a year. Just Fortnite!

Those Epic Store exclusivity deals don't come cheap.

 

[FearlessBelgian]

Amazing, so it is the end of Epic trash store exclusivity ?

 

[64bitmodels]

i hope the company closes down and all the IP gets sold to Valve.

 

[FearlessBelgian]

How the fuck does Epic run into money problems? Doesn't Fornite make like a bazillion dollars?

That game brings in like 8 BILLION dollars a year. Just Fortnite!

Fortnite is dying... The game is full of bots because sometime there is no enough player to play...

 

[Kacho]

Fortnite is dying... The game is full of bots because sometime there is no enough player to play...

Wait is this actually true?

 

[Bkdk]

Unity will be back for some big price hikes as well. Gaming development will become more expensive and many indie studios will either be shut down while the remaining ones will be drastically raising their prices. After all there are only 2 widely used game engines so it's not like consumers have much choice here.

 

[SCB3]

How the fuck does Epic run into money problems? Doesn't Fornite make like a bazillion dollars?

That game brings in like 8 BILLION dollars a year. Just Fortnite!

Not to mention all the games that use UE as their engine, Unity I think was a close second as well

 

[Robochobo]

Financial problems you say ?

 

[Deerock71]

How the fuck does Epic run into money problems? Doesn't Fornite make like a bazillion dollars?

That game brings in like 8 BILLION dollars a year. Just Fortnite!

Fiscal irresponsibility.

 

[Dirk Benedict]

A week after laying off almost 900 employees, Epic Games announced that it's increasing the price to use Unreal Engine—just not for the game development community.

Sweeney explains that developers using Unreal Engine in the film, TV, automotive, and other industries can expect to start paying a per-seat licensing fee.

He claimed that the pricing model will not be "unusually expensive or unusually inexpensive," and that its pricing structure will be similar to subscription services like Maya or Photoshop. Sweeney said he wanted to announce these changes now in the name of "transparency."

Apparently Epic Games began running into "financial problems" about 10 weeks ago, meaning that the company was facing some sort of financial downturn from late July through September.

Epic Games to update Unreal Engine pricing for devs outside game industry

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney says the company began running into financial problems "about 10 weeks ago."

www.gamedeveloper.com

LMAOOOOO! Watch, if it hasn't yet, the infinite games money hat is going to either get less appealing or stop altogether.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

It's weird how so many gamers have (in recent past) defended the industry and claim it's very healthy and popular, thriving and "better than ever" and yet we've been hearing so many reports lately of firings and layoffs and retirement etc.

Just makes me think the gaming industry is very fragile, and that there are those who either believe in a dream vision of how they'd like to believe things are, or they purposely put up a facade like those awful tv commercials we see everywhere we look.

This problem is not exclusive to gaming.
The whole world-economy is a hot mess.

 

[SirKicksalot]

Well there's only one Unreal 5 game out. It's been touted as the standard for this gen when that rock landscape demo came out. Three and a half years later all we have is a shooter that bombed. They're not getting any money from that one lol

 

[Black_Stride]

i hope the company closes down and all the IP gets sold to Valve.

No you dont.

Say what you will about Tim but Epic has been a godsend for the industry in the last few years.
Basically every company they have absorbed they have made their tools and assets free to indies and/or "cheaply" licensable.
Plagues Tale Requiem likely doesnt even come out without Epic games, that alone makes Epic worth it.

We never even got a Source editor from Valve, it had to be community made.
If Valve gets all of Epics properties I guarantee you all those companies close down or downsize and become near impossible to license unless you are one of the big boys.

Charging other industry seat licenses makes sense, im actually just surprised it took them so long to figure out theres millions of dollars on the table, cuz near every firm Ive worked with has shown an interest in Unreal engine or has outright integrated Unreal somewhere in their pipeline.

 

[Black_Stride]

Well there's only one Unreal 5 game out. It's been touted as the standard for this gen when that rock landscape demo came out. Three and a half years later all we have is a shooter that bombed. They're not getting any money from that one lol

This has nothing to do with games......and
Its about other industries making a killing off Unreal and never needing to pay a license cuz the product they produce never gets sold to the public so Epic cant get a revenue share from the product.
You can even circumvent the Quixel "license" by simply never releasing your product as a game, but you get access to all those assets anyway.



P.S I dont think they are too worried about the engine side of things, its gonna start printing money sooner rather than later:

 

[Killer8]

It's weird how so many gamers have (in recent past) defended the industry and claim it's very healthy and popular, thriving and "better than ever" and yet we've been hearing so many reports lately of firings and layoffs and retirement etc.

Just makes me think the gaming industry is very fragile, and that there are those who either believe in a dream vision of how they'd like to believe things are, or they purposely put up a facade like those awful tv commercials we see everywhere we look.

It's not been in a good place for a long time. People have just been head in the sand in regards to the problems.

It's "very healthy and popular" for the wallets of a few very large corporations. For many people who work in the industry though, it's a low pay revolving door. Why fight tooth and nail for work in game dev which could be taken away in a couple of years when you could earn 2-4x the wage in the tech industry with some real career stability?

Maybe one day, when dissecting the next AAA game that inevitably fails, gamers will put 2 and 2 together and realize that the industry turned itself into the Ship of Theseus and the real talent is being cut out for cheap temp labor.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

So many gaming companies are running into financial problems these days.

 

[64bitmodels]

No you dont.

Yes I do.

Unreal Engine 5 has proven itself to be a better engine for pretty tech demos than actual games. Everything that has come out with it in use has come out a stuttery unoptimized jankfest on both PC and console.

They basically shelved all their other properties for fucking Fortnite and hardly even make what could be considered games. And unlike Valve they don't have the added benefit of making hardware to make up for their gaming software deficiency.

So many gaming companies are running into financial problems these days.

are we heading into a second crash?

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

are we heading into a second crash?

No, I don't think so. The gaming is just too big and diverse these days to crash. And even that 80s (or whenever it was) crash happened only in USA.

 

[Kataploom]

No you dont.

Say what you will about Tim but Epic has been a godsend for the industry in the last few years.
Basically every company they have absorbed they have made their tools and assets free to indies and/or "cheaply" licensable.
Plagues Tale Requiem likely doesnt even come out without Epic games, that alone makes Epic worth it.

We never even got a Source editor from Valve, it had to be community made.
If Valve gets all of Epics properties I guarantee you all those companies close down or downsize and become near impossible to license unless you are one of the big boys.

Charging other industry seat licenses makes sense, im actually just surprised it took them so long to figure out theres millions of dollars on the table, cuz near every firm Ive worked with has shown an interest in Unreal engine or has outright integrated Unreal somewhere in their pipeline.

Oh, so there are the financial problems. They should have charged for all of that, they're managing a business not saving the world from "evil capitalism" ffs

 

[Dream-Knife]

i hope the company closes down and all the IP gets sold to Valve.

Nah, Valve is better doing what they do. They don't need to ballon up to take care of such things.

Valve needs to remain private and independent.

 

[BootsLoader]

Yes they will lose some costumers but they will increase revenue.

 

[Black_Stride]

Yes I do.

Unreal Engine 5 has proven itself to be a better engine for pretty tech demos than actual games. Everything that has come out with it in use has come out a stuttery unoptimized jankfest on both PC and console.

They basically shelved all their other properties for fucking Fortnite and hardly even make what could be considered games. And unlike Valve they don't have the added benefit of making hardware to make up for their gaming software deficiency.

are we heading into a second crash?

SO you want Valve to take the properties and make them inhouse and/or only licensable by the likes of EA and other larger devs/publishers?

Cuz thats what Valve would do to Quixel and Unreal Engine you can all but guarantee it......hell i dont think they would even maintain Unreal engine, so that engines probably dead.....you do know Unreal Engine 5 only got production ready like last year......do you think it takes a year to make a game?
Quixel maybe they get bought by Adobe and join the Substance crew, and we pirate their whole database because fuck adobe.

Artstation likely just straight up closes down.
3Lateral probably gets sold to Unity, who then kill the company.
HyprSense and Cubic probably follow 3Lateral, unless some other company is willing to bail them out.
RealityCapture i just feel sorry for them if they end up at Valve, cuz what the fuck are they gonna be doing under Valve.
TwinMotion dies a slow death, if they are lucky they get bought by Maxon.

Epic selling its properties to Valve is a fate worse than death, legit it would be better if Nvidia got the properties and started integrating some of them into Omniverse.
Valve would just kill like 99% of them, or sell them off to someone worse than Epic.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

are we heading into a second crash?

Digital gaming will save us all, guys.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Is there a No Gamepass clause in there anywhere?

 

[The Fuzz damn you!]

Oh, ffs. People need to stop taking CEO PR statements at face value.

Epic is not “running out of money”. They are rationalising lay-offs and price-hikes in the midst of global interest rates rises. They are reducing expenses and increasing revenue - this is literally how businesses make money. Sure, they may be shifting from “expansion” to “exploitation” but it’s part of an expected cycle, not the end of the world.

 

[pqueue]

buying exclusivity is expensive, yo.

 

[BWJinxing]

Hopefully that exclusivity deal bs on PC dies.

Then we just let the superior platform win.

 

[Lucifers Beard]

I dunno, maybe if they made some fucking games, that would help? I’ve not seen much from Fortnite in a while so have no idea if that’s still a massive cash cow, sounds like it probably isn’t now at this point.

 

[ReBurn]

Yes I do.

Unreal Engine 5 has proven itself to be a better engine for pretty tech demos than actual games. Everything that has come out with it in use has come out a stuttery unoptimized jankfest on both PC and console.

They basically shelved all their other properties for fucking Fortnite and hardly even make what could be considered games. And unlike Valve they don't have the added benefit of making hardware to make up for their gaming software deficiency.

are we heading into a second crash?

I don't know that the problem is necessarily UE5, though. Aside from stuttery shader compilation issues that seem to plague a lot of games the drawbacks to UE5 seem to be that modern consoles and a number of older video cards can't make good use of it because they just aren't powerful enough to fully utilize the capabilities. Developers chose to use UE5 over UE4 for their game despite its current state even though UE4 runs better on weaker hardware.

 

[shaddam]

Time to make the Unreal remake/remaster