Epic Games Offering Free Game Development Software for All
The video game industry is one of the most innovative and creative industries out there. In the past few years, there have been debates over a redundant question of whether or not video games are art. Games are an art form and so much more. There are games in nearly every facet of human life helping to educate, heal, and entertain the masses like never before.
The notion that games are more than trivial toys that waste time is a radical one and has been confronted with a lot of controversy. The efforts of teams of talented individuals are being recognized. These innovative approaches to game playing are now being followed by the actions of powerful companies in the game industry.
In the first week of March 2015, Epic Games released a statement that it would allow access to its software for free. Not a trial version. Instead of some half-cocked version of the game development software being available for students, developers, and hobbyists, Unreal Engine 4 is complete and free to everyone.
Epic Games has some stipulations so that it can still profit, which are only that when publishing a game it will then need a 5% royalty payment after the first $3000 made per quarter and credit given to them.
Development software is not cheap. Prior to this glorious move by Epic Games, developers had to pay subscription fees and an upfront cost to download. Tim Sweeny is the founder of Epic Games and stated the company’s new revolutionary business model is designed so that it will only succeed when the consumer does so.
Unreal Engine 4 is free and will impact games in education in an extreme manner. Not only can students be taught to build games on software used in the video game industry, but they can now publish their games for profit. Self funded Video game programs in high schools, and middle schools could be innovative moves in educating youths around the globe. Hopefully, Epic Games is paving the way for more business models like this in the future.
