Epic reveals subscription service for Unreal Engine

Epic Games has announced major changes to Unreal Engine’s business model, allowing developers to forgo the one-time licensing fee and instead offering a monthly subscription service.

Epic CEO Tim Sweeny announced the news yesterday – explaining that under the new model, developers pay $19 a month and 5 per cent of all gross revenue a project makes. In return, subscribers get total access to the Unreal Engine toolset and source code, along with the option to modify and share code with others.

"Our whole business model is structured so that we succeed with this only if our developers succeed in making great games," Sweeney said.

The program already offers PC, Mac, iOS and Android support, with the groundwork for Linux, SteamOS and HTML 5 support already laid as well.

"It gives absolutely every developer on earth economical access to everything we have when we develop a game internally," Sweeney added.

Epic’s founder mentioned that he’d also like to extend the deal to consoles, but a bevy of non-disclosure agreements stand in the way of the studio being able to freely provide the source code for its console engines. He added that the company hopes to work with Sony and Microsoft to find an acceptable solution in the near future.