At Unreal Fest in New Orleans, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has announced that the company will soon begin to charge for using Unreal Engine for non-gaming applications, such as virtual production and the creation of digital twins.
Currently, in gaming, they operate a revenue sharing model. Elsewhere, use of Unreal Engine is free, though, deep down, everybody knew that couldn’t last forever.. No details of the new licensing model were announced, so the picture remains sketchy.
Writing on LinkedIn, Ahren Morris of Dreamscreen Aistralia in Melbourne says of the move, “… as one of the consumers of Unreal in non-gaming, I have to say I view this as fundamentally positive step. As someone who’s negotiated with Enterprise Software suppliers for some decades, it’s actually a little scary to be building a business around a vendor who doesn’t charge for their product”.
Epic have a responsibility not to damage good work that they and their game engine’s users in films and other screen-based media have already done, but the markets where it’s used have to be strong, viable and commercially attractive to ensure they get Epic’s focus.
One would expect that having straightforward commercial relationships where there’s accountability and where value can be measured should be a good thing. It will help everybody to understand and respect their position regarding the use of this powerful and ubiquitous tool.