All these engine can make games on multiple platforms. With Unity 4 and all new platforms each priced $1500 I wanted to just compare objectively the cost of each license for each competitors. Up to you to decide what is best for you.
Unity:
Once was the challenger… supports many platforms with a price of $1500 per platform and no royalties if the source code is not needed.
$0 upfront for Unity free for commercial games! But limited, splash screen, no shadows, no full screen shaders, etc…
$3,000 upfront for PC/'MAC/Web + one Mobile Platforms for commercial games, fully featured.
$6,000 upfront for all platforms PC/MAC + iOS + Android + Flash + Unix + Web .
UDK:http://www.udk.com/licensing
Once was too expensive, but have changed their price to become the most affordable.
UDK cost upfront is$0,limited version where you cannot have C++ access and cannot create your own shaders.
$99 for commercial project (individual), you can sell up to $50,000 without paying anything to UDK.
If you make +$50,000 you give them %25 royalties.
or:
UDK cost $0 for non-commercial purpose, limited version, no access to source code, no possible to create your own shaders etc…
$2,500 per seat and no royalties to give. That’s for PC/MAC/iOS
$0 upfront for non-commercial project. Cryengine 3 fully featured with no limits.
%20 of the sales for commercial projects. That’s for PC only.
Gamebryo:Gamebryo
Hilton of video games, some say it is a nightmare to work with. But many big companies are using it.
Very hard to get info about this popular 3d engine. Apparently cost is $250,000 per game. Hum, big companies are using it and it works on XBox, Wii, iOs, Pc, Mac. But apparently they are not interested by Indies.
Claim to be average $30,000 per project but I heard some negotiated $3,000 per seat for Indies. They are a small companies, better contact them directly
Marmelade:http://madewithmarmalade.com/buy
Very popular multi-platform engine. Probably more popular than Unity now as many games are released using this very stable engine.
$0 for non-commercial. No limits, all platforms.
$149 per seat for iOs and Android only. No royalties. Marmelade splash screen limitation.
$499 per seat for all platforms (PC/OSX/iOs/Android/Symbian/Blackberry/Bada/LG Smart TV and HTML5!!!)
Unity free is for commercial games as well as non-commercial games. It’s only the non-commercial student editions and trial versions that are strictly not for commercial use. Also, you forgot the $400 for basic licenses (Flash, iOS, or Android) and $1200 for Mac/PC/Web + iOS + Android + Flash (and Linux coming soon)
This isn’t a good list at all in my opinion. I wish i could use UDK my computer cant handle it ATM
Everyone complains about the 50,000+ royalty fee but IMO if you make more than 50,000 you wouldn’t mind because you should be well on your way to developing another big game/hit game. That is not much of a big deal to me and I would still use UDK to develop commercially and when/if I could afford it I would buy the actual Unreal Engine License
Could all you people now please stop with this freaking license thing?!?!?!
No its not, you don’t have C++ access and this is terrible, since UScript is nowhere near Unity Script with C#… (feature set alone)
Yeah right. Its like offering a formula one racing car drive for 99$ and if you (because you are really great, no one expected this upfront) make it to the next super market, you get ripped off. This is just a farce. There no successful Indie-Games made with UDK, at least not from indie developers who worry about 1000 EUR Unity license costs. And this won’t change.
That’s a shitty trade. Never would I ever trade Unity against UDK 3. Well if UDK 4 was out for 2500 USD they could probably get me ;), but only if there are no royalties and no important features stripped off. But then again, hardware for UDK 4 needs to be invented first.
Wrong again. CE3 comes with a number of limitations, most importantly you can not have your own shaders. And there are some other more technical limitations I forgot already. Besides CE3 is even harder to get than UDK since it practically has no community and no documentation whatsoever.
Well and your other engines don’t really can take up the challenge can they ^^?
BTW CE3 and UDK are totally wrong choice for Indies, even if they were totally free for Indies you would have no fun with them, I can guarantee you this…
I guess Unigine isn’t that bad if you have a lot of people on the project, but then again it’s per project so even if you had 10 guys with Unity licenses at 6k each(every platform), that’s 60k, but it’s not per project so you can make more games for that cost…
CryEngine is headed into Unity market space. Looking at CryMono, it’s almost identical syntax to C# in Unity. But probably years before their documentation is anywhere filled out enough for me to use it at least.
UDK heading full C++ in 4.0, and will probably remain the industry standard for larger games from large studios.
CryMono Raycasting:
RaycastHit rayHit;
var rifleBarrelPosition = new Vec3(12, 50, 128);
var numHits = Ray.Cast(rifleBarrelPosition, new Vec3(0, 0, 100), out rayHit);
// Check if we hit something
if(numHits > 0)
{
// Draw a red sphere at the hit point for three seconds
Debug.DrawSphere(hits.Point, 0.3f, Color.Red, 3.0f);
}
First of all this is really starting to annoy me everyone claiming UDK’s Licensing is a rip off, I’d love to know how? Especially when they give you every feature of their engine up front and only ask you to pay 25% if you make over $50,000 while 25% is a little steep its not unreasonable for all that their engine offers. Secondly I doubt more than 5 people(if that) made $50,000 using unity. If they did congratz but honestly when it comes to serious game development UDK is more than a reasonable choice. I’m not a UDK fan boy I don’t have a favorite engine I use the tools that get the job done and right now that is unity. I just wish everyone would stop bashing UDK because you dont feel its reasonable, your getting to use a great engine $0-$100 for commercial what more could you want? if you make $50,000 developing with the UDK chances are your revenue wont stop at $50,000 so 25% isn’t a big deal. So quit it with the dumb complaints.
Yeah but it doesn’t really make sense. If you have a lot of people they generate tens the amount of costs each month you have to pay for the unity license (downscaled to a per month cost).
Hey cool ;). Didn’t know that. But still, without custom shaders this sucks.
Lol… Almost any Indie developer who makes serious games with Unity must make that to survive. They just don’t post it in these forums, if they post here at all. I think they got better things to do than to complain.
I said it already. They offer it cheap but no one can use it. And if someone happens to get something done (who thought of that?) then they rip them off with 25% royalty. I mean its not really fair, because they can buy the real license at any time but then I kinda wonder how this compares to Unity in a positive way?!
THEY DON’T, DAMMIT…
You don’t seem to get it. No one that can’t pay the 1000 USD Unity license will get anything done with it ever… We are not talking about professional teams who made it their destiny to produce a great game with UDK, which certainly is possible. We are talking about the average Joe who can’t afford a Unity license… LOL And now tell me what he want’s to do with UDK ^^.
I was unaware that UDK has a license that is only $2500 with no royalties… I read the licensing page you provided and I don’t see anything stating that fact, but it is possible I missed it. The above is not the same as making a commercial product, and only applies really for internal company training/use. Plus you have to pay the $2,500 every year which would be the same or more expensive then the current Unity upgrades which don’t come every year.
Where did you see this? If it was true, then I would highly consider UDK… Currently I am still hesitant paying $2500 for upgrading all my Unity products. I am finding it harder to make money in the app market and it isn’t worth it to me at this point in time.
@ unity3dx: Where do you get the Unigine $0 for non commercial, fully featured from? I don’t think this is true. Yes, you can ask for an evaluation licence (if you pretend you are a company but it’s not available to ‘everyone in their bedroom’), but this doesn’t come with everything the SDK does?
Well do you have a link? They didn’t last time I looked at it and it was pretty recently. They allow you to LINK against C++ libraries but they don’t offer access to their C++ API. Which is what I meant of course. Access to the ENGINE, which you don’t really have with UScript.
What the fuck? Are you sure you know what you are talking about?
You are massively underestimating the number of people or companies that are able to make great games with Unity and turn a profit. Please don’t project your inability to create successful games with Unity on the rest of the community.
HTML5!!!)