Epic Games has announced that it is moving away from its subscription model and making its Unreal Engine 4 available to everyone for free.

While it did cancel its US $19/month subscription model which was announced last year and will be giving a partial refund to those current subscribers, including a US $30 credit in the Unreal Engine Marketplace, as well as offering its Unreal Engine 4 free to anyone that wants it, there is still a minor catch.

According to Tim Sweeney, you can download the engine and use it for anything you might like, including game development, education, architecture, visualization to VR, film and even animation but when you ship a game or application, you will need to pay a 5 percent royalty on quarterly gross revenue after the first US $3,000. According to Tim Sweeney, this is a simple arrangement where Epic Games get payed only when and if you succeed.

This will push a lot more developers to use the Unreal Engine 4 and and according to Tim Sweeney: "The state of Unreal is strong, and we've realized that as we take away barriers, more people are able to fulfill their creative visions and shape the future of the medium we love. That's why we're taking away the last barrier to entry, and going free".





Source: UnrealEngine.com.