Free Unreal Engine Release Planned

Posted by simoniker on Sunday October 12, 2003 @06:06AM from the really-unreally-really-unreal dept.

Thanks to Beyond Unreal for pointing to an article revealing that Epic are planning a standalone, non-commercial release of the Unreal Engine. The previously un-noticed September email from Epic's Mark Rein reveals "...a free version of UT2003 but without any of the gaming content or code" is in the works, including a standalone executable and a full release of Epic's Unreal toolset. According to Rein, "The runtime will be a free download, and free to use for non-commercial and educational use", and commercial licenses for this forthcoming release are also possible, with limited Epic support, and "...will [cost] considerably less than the US$350,000+ we charge for [an Unreal engine license]."

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"Wow, useful" is right. by mcasaday · 2003-10-12 07:17 · Score: 3, Informative

No. This is clearly an attempt to compete with companies like GarageGames. I'm guessing that it will be met with a bit of fanfare. I can already see the ears perking and tongues lolling at the prospect of publishing a game using the Unreal Engine. This is tech that is largely out of reach for indie developers looking to sell their games due to the high price for a commercial license and now all of a sudden it's within reach.

"Wow, useful" is right, minus the cynicism.