Unreal Engine 5 Devs Won’t Pay Royalties Until They Reach $1 Million
According to Epic Games, developers who use Unreal Engine 5 won’t have to pay royalties until they exceed $1 million in revenue. This next-gen engine will be available across all platforms and waiving the royalties is intended to help smaller studios find their niche in the industry. Developers are already at work utilizing the power of Unreal Engine 5 and waiving the initial royalties may be enticing to other devs who may have been using their own engines in the past. Xbox and PlayStation are both utilizing the power of Unreal Engine 5 for their next-gen games but a scaled down version of the engine is also available for current-gen consoles and mobile.
“You can download and use Unreal Engine to build games for free as you always have, except now royalties are waived on your first $1 million in gross revenue,” said an official statement from Epic Games. “The new Unreal Engine license terms, which are retroactive to January 1, 2020, give game developers an unprecedented advantage over other engine license models.” Epic Games has been extremely developer friendly with the Epic Games Store and waiving the initial royalties for teams that use Unreal Engine 5 is another way they’re encouraging developers to work with them.
The Unreal Engine 5 demo was initially showed off on PS5 hardware but it looks even better on high end PC’s. While we’re looking forward to seeing all of the creations utilizing UE5 on next-gen hardware, we’re also curious to see what developers use the engine on current-gen hardware leading into the release of the PS5 and Xbox Series X. Holding off on royalties in this way will help independent developers find their footing before they have to pay Epic Games for use of the engine.
Are you glad that Epic Games remains developer friendly with Unreal Engine 5? Let us know in the comments below!
Source: Gaming Bolt