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Free Unreal Engine Release Planned
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]."
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.
God what a load of moaning minnies. Some people are only able to interpret anything in terms of how it relates to Open source. Ever heard of orthogonality?
Many people use the Unreal engine for non-gaming purposes - the scripting language that comes with it is about the best around and having a version without the game-specific content will be really useful.
The "get the gamers onside" model has been around for years, now Epic are doing the same with the architects, scientists, designers and so on. Good on em, I hope the miserable competition get off their butts and make something a bit better than feggin' Superscape. And maybe a few projects will save a bit of money they might have unwittingly blown on SGI.