UDK devs making $75k only give 1% to Epic

A developer using UDK would only pay Epic $700 from a game that makes $75,000, new data shows.

Epic Games vice president Mark Rein sent the equation to Develop in a bid to clarify the company’s pricing model. That, and a second equation, can be found below.

The Unreal Development Kit costs nothing for developers to download and create content with. A one-off $99 fee is paid to Epic if the user wants to sell a title.

Epic said it will not take anything from a UDK game’s first $50,000 in sales. Instead, it takes a 25 per cent share of subsequent revenues after the threshold.

However, Epic only calculates its 25 per cent after seperate charges from a game’s digital distributor.

Apple and Google, for example, both take 30 per cent revenues from App Store and Android games.

It has been misconceived by some that Epic takes a 25 per cent cut from total sales – an equation which would mean Apple takes 30 per cent, Epic takes 25, and the developer is left with just 45.

The equation found below, however, shows how in some cases Epic will charge as little as one per cent of total retail sales.

In the second equation, Epic shows how it will will take just 9 per cent in total sales from a game that makes $150,000.

Epic added that, if a game sells to $250,000, developers should get in touch with the engine vendor for further discussions.