Epic launches $5m Unreal grants

Unreal Engine creator Epic Games has launched a new grants scheme with $5m available to developers using their technology for their games.

The scheme follows feedback from the Unreal Engine 4 community where many devs, while working on interesting and innovative projects, lack the funds required to finish and commercially release a game.

"We know this first-hand, as Epic’s early projects were built on shoestring budgets funded by such sources as my lawn-mowing earnings, and Mark Rein’s credit card – before they took it away from him," writes Epic boss Tim Sweeny on the Unreal blog.

The grants scheme is open to any dev building games with Unreal Engine 4. Providing they have reached the working prototype stage of development, studios can nominate themselves for a grant of between $5,000 and $50,000.

"There are absolutely no strings attached," Sweeney promises. "Your project remains yours, you own your IP and publishing rights and you can spend any grant funds however you like. Epic’s goal is simply to help UE4 developers succeed because when you succeed, we succeed."

To find out more about the fund, head to the Unreal Dev Grants information page or visit Epic at GDC next month at Booth 1024 in the GDC Expo.