Epic Games licenses the Unreal Engine to experienced professional game developers. It is priced reasonably relative both to the development budget of a typical console or PC retail title and to the development time and cost savings that it can provide during the course of developing such a title.
Audience
We generally only do business with groups that have a registered corporation and physical business address. If you're not an industry heavyweight with a commercial development history, we will additionally ask you some questions prior to licensee discussions:
Where is your business located?
What products has your company shipped in the past?
For startups, who comprises the core of your development team, and what products have they shipped in the past?
Do you have a publisher lined up for your project?
How is your project funded?
Unreal Engine 2 Licensing Terms
Representing years of development and powering numerous best-selling titles on multiple platforms, the Unreal Engine 2 technology is available for license on a per-platform basis. Three platforms are available: PC, Xbox, and PlayStation2.
A PC platform license is only required if you intend to ship a retail PC game. If you are developing a console-only title, you may freely use the PC code for development, testing and for its back-end game-server components (for multiplayer games). Note that a PC license includes the right to ship your game on all personal computer operating systems, including Windows and Linux, as well as and MacOS X; by paying once for the PC platform license you may ship on any or all of these operating systems at no additional cost.
Royalty-Bearing License - For retail console & PC products
A non-refundable, non-recoupable license fee is due on execution of the agreement. The cost is US $350,000 for one of the available Unreal Engine 2 platforms, plus US $50,000 for each additional platform. A royalty of 3% is due on all revenue from the game, calculated on the wholesale price of the product minus (for console SKUs) console manufacturer fees. In the case of massive-multiplayer online games, the royalty is also due on the additional forms of revenue including subscriptions and advertisements.
Custom License Terms - For non-traditional products
The Unreal Engine has been used in the development of many non-traditional products, ranging from mass-market educational games to custom training applications and the non-retail America's Army game developed by the U.S. Department of Defense. For custom applications that only require script access (rather than full C++ source), and only require redistribution to a small set of clients, the Runtime Edition is available and may be more suitable than a full Unreal Engine license. Where either full source code and support or widespread redistribution is required, please contact licensing@epicgames.com to discuss custom license terms.
Unreal Engine 3 Licensing Terms
Unreal Engine 3 is available for license now, and is aimed at game developers who are targeting next-generation consoles such as Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, as well as DirectX 10-based PC's. Several Unreal Engine 3 projects are already underway; however, pricing has not been publicly announced. If you are looking to develop a next-generation game, please contact us at licensing@epicgames.com to begin discussions.
Contacting Us
Interested? Intrigued? Want to schedule time to visit our Raleigh, NC office to see a demo; want more information; or just want to talk about licensing the best game engine technology available? Please contact licensing@epicgames.com.
