Game Engine Discussion Thread

[Fairfax]

Unfortunate, but understandable. It takes a dedicated team, and that's expensive. Nowadays UE4 is the best option, but soon enough Source 2 is going to be a no-brainer, if you ask me.

 

[Nines]

Unfortunate, but understandable. It takes a dedicated team, and that's expensive. Nowadays UE4 is the best option, but soon enough Source 2 is going to be a no-brainer, if you ask me.

Unreal Engine was caught in a difficult situation. The big publishers figured out that it's easier to create your own technology, and re-use different parts of it in your projects. Like, for example, EA completely switched to their own in-house built Frostbite. And Unity right now is pretty much the king of the indie segment. I believe UE4 still will be used widely, but not as much as UE3.

Source 2 looks neat so far, but it is a dark horse. They're building their own physics engine called Rubikon to replace costly Havok, integrating Vulkan API (which is even a darker horse), and some other stuff. Also, it's being said that the main focus of Source 2 is user-generated content. Hard to say what will come out of it.

 

[Aoyagi]

UE4 is overrated as hell. It's an engine for weak consoles.

 

[Fairfax]

Unfortunate, but understandable. It takes a dedicated team, and that's expensive. Nowadays UE4 is the best option, but soon enough Source 2 is going to be a no-brainer, if you ask me.

Unreal Engine was caught in a difficult situation. The big publishers figured out that it's easier to create your own technology, and re-use different parts of it in your projects. Like, for example, EA completely switched to their own in-house built Frostbite. And Unity right now is pretty much the king of the indie segment. I believe UE4 still will be used widely, but not as much as UE3.

Source 2 looks neat so far, but it is a dark horse. They're building their own physics engine called Rubikon to replace costly Havok, integrating Vulkan API (which is even a darker horse), and some other stuff. Also, it's being said that the main focus of Source 2 is user-generated content. Hard to say what will come out of it.

The difference is that EA can afford it with ease, and it saves them a lot of money in the long run: 5% of revenue on all projects if they used UE4 or unknown royalties+very expensive CryEngine licence. Source 2's main selling point and advantage over the competitors is that there's absolutely no cost involved. You don't pay for the licence, no royalties, nothing. Only thing Valve demands is that the game has to be released on Steam, which is a given unless you're EA.

UE4 is overrated as hell. It's an engine for weak consoles.

It's that or Unity, and Unity sucks.

 

[Aoyagi]

very expensive CryEngine licence.

8 - 10€ a month with no royalties for the basic package isn't something that'll make a hole into someone's budget.

 

[Fairfax]

very expensive CryEngine licence.

8 - 10€ a month with no royalties for the basic package isn't something that'll make a hole to someone's budget.

Commercial releases using the EEAS pay 20% royalties and can't even be released on consoles. It's the worst deal of all for indie devs. CRYENGINE "Engine-as-a-Service" (EaaS) program – FAQ

 

[Aoyagi]

Commercial releases using the EEAS pay 20% royalties and can't even be released on consoles. It's the worst deal of all for indie devs. CRYENGINE "Engine-as-a-Service" (EaaS) program – FAQ

First sentence, mate...

Here at Crytek, we want to give people the opportunity to work with and enjoy our cutting-edge CRYENGINE technology without paying additional license fees or royalties.

and

By ruling out royalties we are aiming to make CRYENGINE the best choice for everyone

Later they mention 20% royalties when going from the free SDK (which the 10 € a month is not).

Don't know about the console stuff though. From what they say it looks like it's just PC and Linux off the EaaS.... I guess.

 

[Nines]

The difference is that EA can afford it with ease, and it saves them a lot of money in the long run: 5% of revenue on all projects if they used UE4 or unknown royalties+very expensive CryEngine licence. Source 2's main selling point and advantage over the competitors is that there's absolutely no cost involved. You don't pay for the licence, no royalties, nothing. Only thing Valve demands is that the game has to be released on Steam, which is a given unless you're EA.

Or, they can pay for a full license. I'm sure this option is present, but no one knows the price. I heard CryEngine cost around $1.2 million, and UE4 can only be more expensive.
Releasing your game on Steam means you will be giving 30% to Gaben anyway. Yes, you can release it anywhere else too, but Steam will be the main source of income.

 

[Fairfax]

Commercial releases using the EEAS pay 20% royalties and can't even be released on consoles. It's the worst deal of all for indie devs. CRYENGINE "Engine-as-a-Service" (EaaS) program – FAQ

First sentence, mate...

Here at Crytek, we want to give people the opportunity to work with and enjoy our cutting-edge CRYENGINE technology without paying additional license fees or royalties.

and

By ruling out royalties we are aiming to make CRYENGINE the best choice for everyone

Later they mention 20% royalties when going from the free SDK (which the 10 € a month is not).

Don't know about the console stuff though. From what they say it looks like it's just PC and Linux off the EaaS.... I guess.

"Work with and enjoy" is some odd wording. They mention a "commercialization agreement" in that page. A simple $10 subscription doesn't add up if you ask me. If that's the case, then it's definitely an extremely limited version of the engine.

The difference is that EA can afford it with ease, and it saves them a lot of money in the long run: 5% of revenue on all projects if they used UE4 or unknown royalties+very expensive CryEngine licence. Source 2's main selling point and advantage over the competitors is that there's absolutely no cost involved. You don't pay for the licence, no royalties, nothing. Only thing Valve demands is that the game has to be released on Steam, which is a given unless you're EA.

Or, they can pay for a full license. I'm sure this option is present, but no one knows the price. I heard CryEngine cost around $1.2 million, and UE4 can only be more expensive.
Releasing your game on Steam means you will be giving 30% to Gaben anyway. Yes, you can release it anywhere else too, but Steam will be the main source of income.

But you have to release your game on Steam to be successful on PC anyway, so all you have to do is something you'd already do regardless of the engine. UE4 doesn't have an upfront price to use it, their only cost is the 5% of revenue, which for indie projects only kicks in once it generates revenue past a certain point (I don't remember how much).
The 30% cut is fixed, and Valve gets that from every copy sold anwyay. Epic eats 5% of the revenue forever.Unless the Source 2 sucks at first, I wouldn't think twice.

 

[Nines]

But you have to release your game on Steam to be successful on PC anyway, so all you have to do is something you'd already do regardless of the engine. UE4 doesn't have an upfront price to use it, their only cost is the 5% of revenue, which for indie projects only kicks in once it generates revenue past a certain point (I don't remember how much).
The 30% cut is fixed, and Valve gets that from every copy sold anwyay. Epic eats 5% of the revenue forever.Unless the Source 2 sucks at first, I wouldn't think twice.

But of course it has an upfront price. It's the way they're dealing with major companies, and I doubt they would want to shoot themselves in their legs. You just need to contact Epic, and negotiate with them about terms. Of course they won't advertise this option, nor the price of it.

https://www.unrealengine.com/custom-licensing

If you require terms that reduce or eliminate royalty for an upfront fee, or if you need custom legal terms or dedicated Epic support to help your team reduce risk or achieve specific goals, we’re here to help.

Let's just say that even if Source 2 will be the greatest engine in the world, I don't believe it will be able to compete with UE4. This is the main business for Epic and it has built a large community around it over the years. Fees or not, Source 2 is just a side thing for Valve. I will be very surprised if it'll become more popular than Source 1.

 

[Fairfax]

A high upfront price is much better than royalties if you're making a AAA game, they probably negotiate these things a lot with big publishers. Take Fallout 4, for instance: 2.3 million copies sold on Steam. Epic takes 5% of total revenue, so on PC alone that would be 5% of ~$138 million = $6.9 million. No way Betheda would ever take that deal. 5% is alright for a small indie dev because most can't afford to develop their own and the revenue is much smaller, plys they also save money they'd spend getting Unity to work properly, buying assets, etc.
The thing about Source is that it was barely updated over the years and the tools were hard to work with. Valve is determined, now more than ever, to make their games run on as many PCs as possible, so I expect it to have great performance, at least. They said they're also focused on making it easy for amateurs and increasing user-generated content, which is great for mod-friendly games (great for RPGs).

As for competing, yeah, I doubt it could ever match UE4 in the amount of business, community, tools, updates, etc, but everything about Source 2 sounds like a very good deal to me. We'll just have to see the first AAA games using it, probably L4D3 and Titanfall 2.

 

[Aoyagi]

"Work with and enjoy" is some odd wording. They mention a "commercialization agreement" in that page. A simple $10 subscription doesn't add up if you ask me. If that's the case, then it's definitely an extremely limited version of the engine.

Yes, it's limited. The cheap/free UE4 is also limited. It's not like they give you all the source just like that. Crytek did the pricing change specifically to be on the same level of UE in terms of pricing. But of course everyone will keep memeing about UE :D

I wish we could compare engine licensing conditions for Star Citizen and some high-profile UE4 game... (are there going to be any in the near future?)

 

[Nines]

The thing about Source is that it was barely updated over the years and the tools were hard to work with.

Actually it was updated significantly over the years, and there are at least five major versions of Source SDK (2004, 2006, 2007, 2010, and 2013).

 

[Fairfax]

FFVII remake is probably the most ambitious project on UE4, but there are many others: Gears 4, Crackdown 3, Street Figher V and EVE Valkyrie, for example.
Microsoft and Square are the only big publishers using any of these engines so far. Ubisoft uses their own (Anvil, Dunia, etc), EA has Frostbite, Zenimax moving to id Tech 6, then Sony and Nintendo using their own tech as well, etc.

As for CryEngine, it has Armoured Warfare (heh), Star Citizen and Kingdom Come coming up.

The thing about Source is that it was barely updated over the years and the tools were hard to work with.

Actually it was updated significantly over the years, and there are at least five major versions of Source SDK (2004, 2006, 2007, 2010, and 2013).

Nothing like UE3 or 4, really. UE4 is already at 4.9, for example, with countless improvements. Valve has to step up their game (and I hope they do).

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

So I open this thread and last 50 posts have square root of fuck all to do with Obsidian.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Mods, retardo last 50 posts TIA

 

[Nines]

Microsoft and Square are the only big publishers using any of these engines so far.

Capcom (SFV), Namco (Tekken 7), 505 (Adrift), Focus Home Interactive (Styx), WB (probably a new Batman game or whatever), Nexon (the new Cliffy's game), etc.

Nothing like UE3 or 4, really. UE4 is already at 4.9, for example, with countless improvements. Valve has to step up their game (and I hope they do).

Maybe not like UE, but not as you said "barely" either. The engine has received a number of significant upgrades over the years just like any other engine. It's not like it's abandoned or anything like that. If Valve wanted to step up their game they would release Source 2 around the same time with CryEngine 4 and UE4, but they're building Source 2 for a different audience and with a slightly different purpose.

So I open this thread and last 50 posts have square root of fuck all to do with Obsidian.

 

[Bester]

soon enough Source 2 is going to be a no-brainer, if you ask me

And you are..?

UE4 is overrated as hell

Unity sucks

but everything about Source 2 sounds like a very good deal to me.

some high-profile UE4 game... (are there going to be any in the near future?)

The cheap/free UE4 is also limited. It's not like they give you all the source just like that.

Spoiler

 

[Excidium II]

Aurora is the best of course.

 

[Aoyagi]

Spoiler

Oh? Well damn, I was misinformed, thanks for clearing that up. Then again, it makes sense since they collect royalties in any case (Edit: unless the developer gets less than 3k in sales as far as I know)

Now you could explain the other things, or I'll consider the other three deatclaws only pretending to be intelligent.

 

[Gerrard]

And Unity right now is pretty much the king of the indie segment.

In the land of the blind...