Epic offers up $5m in grants for Unreal devs

Epic Games has announced it has put together $5m for no strings attached” funding of indie devs who create games using Unreal Engine 4.

Games Beat reports Epic will be awarding participating developers between $5,000 and $50,000 each, and interested parties can send their project info to unrealgrants@epicgames.com – the firm has clarified projects must be in a working prototype” stage to secure funding.

Epic also noted it won’t seek take in any IP that receives funding, and that funded developers are free to explore other funding methods – such as crowdfunding – to supplement their grant.

"When a developer succeeds with the Unreal Engine, we succeed," Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said. "We are trying to make developers more successful more quickly. We have heard pervasively that money is a real issue. The goal of this is to help people develop more games without having to mow lawns."

"It is not just aimed at high-end games. We are wide open. They don’t even have to be games. For the next six months, we’re also looking for awesome virtual reality projects.”

Sweeney added that Epic will look at proposals for animated features, architectural visualizations, and marketplace content as well.