CryEngine Also Switching to Monthly Subscription Plan

[Enizer]

I'm very cautious about that crytek deal.
The unreal engine one is very easy to understand,
the crytek one however, I have a strong feeling I would want a lawyer to explain that contract to me, if I were thinking about licencing it
especially that part about 10$ PER USER, PER MONTH

If that's defined as the end user, then we will see indie games based on the cry engine, will never go below 15$ or so, and generally be more expensive then that.

If it's per programmer, then anything over one guy in his basement, the initial costs will be MUCH higer for licencing the cry engine
as I understand it, the 19$ fee for the unreal engine is "for access" not depending on how many users.
Indie devs with a small budget will prefer this, as they generally have a much easyer time paying royalties AFTER relsease, then to pay higher costs before release, which is a time when many indie devs have funding problems already.

And damnit crytek, 10$ is not the same as 10 euros,
it looks like epic realized this, you look quite greedy in comparison, to me at least
especially when you take into account the "PER USER" bit, where the 40% higher cost for europe will stack up FAST, again, making the unreal engine a better choice for anyone in europe

EDIT: just thought i'd add some math, see, UE4, is 19$ per month, and 5% roylaties later, regardless of company size, cry engine is 10$/eur PER USER
so a company with 100 programmers, in europe, pays:
UE4:19$ per month (and 5% royalties later)
CRY:1400$ per month.

 

[Strazdas]

Its in here:
https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/welcome-to-unreal-engine-4

and here:
https://www.unrealengine.com/register

Not bad, I guess it works for both depending on what type of game an indie dev wants to make.

Thank you. you were correct there and yes in this case i do think Unreal Engine is a really good option here.

 

[Th37thTrump3t]

Well, with UE4, you're actually getting a lot more with your sub fee plus 5%. Tech support, open access to the engine source, and a bunch of assets and such that can be made use of whichever way you want.

Not to mention Epic has years of their engines being used on hundreds of games going for them. Almost no one outside of Crytek has actually licensed the engine for their titles that I know of. That difference in support and tools development experience matters a lot.

Star Citizen is being made in CryEngine 3. Other than that though, I don't really know of many that use it.

OT: This is pretty cool. I may either sub to this or UE4 just so I could dabble in the engine and see what I can create.

 

[shial]

They may well mean "user of the engine kit/tools" (and in fact, they probably do, considering the price is absurdly high for a per-user agreement), in which case my worries are unfounded, but it stuck out to me as a bothersome detail. I could easily see it being a flat per-user rate instead of Epic's percentage rate. There's business advantages and disadvantages for both, and I could see CryTek going that route simply to differentiate themselves more from Epic's model.

The article neglected to include the first line of the actual press release where they refer to users of the toolset and giving them tools to develop. Seems pretty clear that they are referring to the developers as the users of the toolset.

CRYENGINE gives users access to the same award-winning toolset that was used to create Crytek's Ryse: Son of Rome, and equips them to develop outstanding games across all of today's leading platforms.

 

[Robert Marrs]

Easily the most exciting gaming news in years next to the unreal announcement. Reducing the potential development costs so drastically could mean getting so many great games we never would have gotten. It will also mean getting some really crap games but that's always going to be the case.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Do you have a source for this, because the escapist article on that said that your just getting acess to the editor, you know, the kind of thats free for UE3

Yep.

https://www.unrealengine.com/faq

Under this service, you can access Unreal Engine 4 in its entirety: the full suite of integrated tools, the features and the entire C++ source code, which includes code for the Unreal Editor and all the tools. Membership includes official documentation, tutorials and support resources, plus tons of free UE4 content. Download free template games, sample games and content examples from the Marketplace to quickly get on your way to building all sorts of fun things.

And don't forget the updates at regular intervals they're planning to release as well although Crytek might do that too. The cool thing for Epic though here is that, as Scrumpmonkey just said, they may get developers to actually write improvements to their engine for them.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

EDIT: just thought i'd add some math, see, UE4, is 19$ per month, and 5% roylaties later, regardless of company size, cry engine is 10$/eur PER USER
so a company with 100 programmers, in europe, pays:
UE4:19$ per month (and 5% royalties later)
CRY:1400$ per month.

While looking at it that way, it seems like the CryEngine is more expensive. But that's only half the story.
What if you sell 300k copies of the game?

How much you pay for Unreal Engine:
12 months development time - 12*19=228
300k copies sold at a profit of $30 per copy - 300000*30*0.05= $450000

Total: $450228

How much you pay for CryEngine:
12 months development time - 12*1400=16800
300k copies sold at a profit of $30 per copy - $0

Total: $16800

While Unreal is cheaper at the start, it's way more expensive in the long run. The more you sell, the more it costs you.
I took $30 for profit because we're talking about a team of 100 programmer, which means it's a rather big team so it's not a $10 indie title.

 

[Weaver]

I do have concerns about CryEngine's flexibility compared to Unreal and Unity.
Can I make a 2D shmup in it just as easily, for instance? Or are we really only doing FPS games?

 

[Vivi22]

While looking at it that way, it seems like the CryEngine is more expensive. But that's only half the story.
What if you sell 300k copies of the game?

How much you pay for Unreal Engine:
12 months development time - 12*19=228
300k copies sold at a profit of $30 per copy - 300000*30*0.05= $450000

Total: $450228

How much you pay for CryEngine:
12 months development time - 12*1400=16800
300k copies sold at a profit of $30 per copy - $0

Total: $16800

While Unreal is cheaper at the start, it's way more expensive in the long run. The more you sell, the more it costs you.
I took $30 for profit because we're talking about a team of 100 programmer, which means it's a rather big team so it's not a $10 indie title.

This is kind of nitpicking, but the distinction does matter and the accountant in me won't let it go: Epic takes 5% of gross revenue, not profit. So if you're selling you're game at retail at a price of $60 per copy, you're paying Epic $3 on every copy. Sell 300,000 at that price and you're paying them $900,000. Their cut is based on what the game sells for before accounting for things like Steam/app store's share, or publisher payments. So it's actually more than if you just calculate the 5% on the developers profit, or net revenue from the sale.

That said, I don't think it's necessarily a bad deal. You get an engine with better support history, a more proven tool set, and it costs a pittance up front which is often where indies are most cash strapped. Paying 5% on your gross revenue is pretty small, so if the game takes off, you're still going to make a lot of money. If not, you're still not really losing a whole lot since you're only paying when you get more money from sales.

Even with a relatively small team of a handful of people, some Indie's may not have the cash flow prior to the games release to pay $10 per user. Hell, unless they find a publisher or can manage the near impossible and get a loan, they may be scraping for every penny to get by during development. So these agreements both have their ups and downs, but I think for many indies, it's a bit safer to go with the license that only costs you a whole lot when you've made it.

 

[Enizer]

The unreal engine may be more expensive in the long run, more expensive then I thought, I will admit.

The difference however is that unreal gives the developer a bigger bill, but only once they have started making some money, CryEngine costs much less in total, but that bill comes at the start, before the project has made any money back.

A lot of developers are very starved for cash untill the moment the game is out,
I have heard stories from the developers of a few games I liked, that admitted that in the last months, they did not really have enough money to pay their employees wages.

So it still seems like, for smaller developers(or anyone without a publisher paying for things for them) choosing UE4 will increase the chance of getting the game finished, because it dosnt hurt their budget nearly as much.
For those that can afford the higher initial bill, CryEngine will let them keep more of their profit in the end.

However a bigger question is the quality of the product, the engine itself.
Is the project better suited for one engine or the other?
Which engine is easyer to work with?
Which one has better support from the creator?
Here I must admit I dont have a clue, I don't have experience with either, nor do I know anyone personally that does.