Unreal Engine Licensing

Document Summary: Details for licensing the Unreal Engine.

Document Changelog: Created by Michael Capps. Maintained by Richard Nalezynski.

For the latest Unreal Engine news, visit http://www.unrealtechnology.com.

For the latest Epic Games news, visit http://www.epicgames.com.

Unreal Engine Licensing Terms

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:

• 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 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 PCs. 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.

Unreal Engine Support

Epic Games provides not only a comprehensive multi-platform 3D engine to licensees, but also a vast array of support resources, ranging from a document-based support site styled after the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) to mailing lists with searchable archives and direct access to the Unreal Engine development team.

Epic Games provides great support resources for paid Unreal Engine 3 licensees. The Unreal Engine support resources include the following...

An On-Site Training Visit

We provide on-site training for first time licensees – at your location for content creation training, and our location for engineering. We come to you to show your content team how to best work with our tools and content pipeline, and invite your engineering staff to visit our Raleigh, NC offices to meet with our entire engineering staff to answer questions and provide overviews of current subsystems and the future roadmap. Depending on availability, our doors are open for visits throughout the development life of your project.

Email Support Direct from the Unreal Engine Developers

Support mailing lists are available for programmers and content creators, with all questions receiving direct answers from the Unreal Engine development team, as well as frequent participation by other teams using the Unreal Engine. For confidential questions, we are always happy to provide help via private email. At Epic, we don't employ any support intermediaries; teams receive support straight from the Unreal Engine development team – the folks who wrote the code and know it the best.

Unreal Developer Network support site

The Unreal Developer Network (UDN) is a vast, professionally maintained online library of support materials. UDN contains hundreds of documents encompassing subsystem overviews, content creation tutorials, example files, video training modules, and searchable support mailing list archives. Fewer than half of the documents on UDN are visible on this public site; licensees have access to hundreds of private pages of information.

Video Training Modules

Epic's close partner 3D Buzz provides a vast collection of video training modules with tutorials covering many topics such as level design, texturing, AI pathing, and importing all kinds of content from external tools.

Direct Source Control Access (Unreal Engine 3 only)

Teams licensing Unreal Engine 3 receive an account with direct access to Epic's Perforce source control system, for checking out our work in progress, obtaining bug fixes and code updates, and monitoring revision history to keep abreast of day-to-day development activity on Unreal Engine 3.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which Unreal Engine version is appropriate for my project?

Two generations of the Unreal Engine are currently available and fully supported:

• If you're developing a title for current-generation PC, Xbox, or PlayStation2^?, then Unreal Engine 2 is the way to go. It has shipped in many leading-edge games including UT2004 and Splinter Cell. Unreal Engine 2 is very stable, and several code bases are available including the code powering UT2004; the code powering Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict; and a PlayStation2^?-optimized version.

If you're starting on a forward-looking title aimed at next-gen consoles such as Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, as well as DirectX^? 10-based PCs, then Unreal Engine 3 is for you. Its core subsystems have been architected from the ground up, designed to take maximum advantage of shader programs, per-pixel lighting and shadowing, multithreading, and next-generation content creation tools.

Can you tell me more about licensing the Unreal Engine?

We license the Unreal Engine to experienced professional game developers. Licensees receive full source code for our engine, tools and most recent games. Support is provided directly from the Unreal Engine development team, which has shipped multiple million-unit selling titles and won many Game of the Year awards; you can't get better support and real-world, success-backed, game development advice than that! Licensees receive access to upgrades and support for up to one year from the first public release of their game.

If you're an experienced professional game developer and you're interested in finding out more about licensing the Unreal Engine, please contact us at licensing@epicgames.com for more information. If you're looking for a way to evaluate what the Unreal Engine can do, you can start by picking up a copy of Gears of War (Unreal Engine 3), Unreal Tournament 2004 (Unreal Engine 2.5), or Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict (Unreal Engine 2.X) at your local software retailer.

For content creators, the full Unreal Editor that we use to build our game environments is included with Unreal Tournament 2004. Other tools include a version of the Maya Personal Learning Edition with a plug-in that allows seamless export to the Unreal Engine; a character painting tool; and much more. For programmers, UT2004 includes UnrealScript^? source code for in-game objects, the UnrealScript^? compiler, the UnrealScript^? IDE and the UnrealScript^? Debugger.

I'm confused – which engine is which?

The Unreal Engine encompasses three generations of technology, each focused on a major generation of console platforms and PC hardware.

Unreal Engine 1 powered Epic's original Unreal and Unreal Tournament games.

Unreal Engine 2 powered Unreal 2 and UT2003; Unreal Engine 2.5 – an enhanced version of Unreal Engine 2 – powered UT2004; and Unreal Engine 2.X – an Xbox-exclusive enhanced version of Unreal Engine 2 – powered Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict.

Unreal Engine 3 is the current technology, aimed at next-gen consoles such as Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, as well as DirectX^? 10-based PCs. UE3 powered Epic’s Gears of War, as well as Unreal Tournament 3.

What is the Unreal Developer Network?

The Unreal Developer Network (UDN) is a repository of knowledge, documentation and tutorials for the recent builds of the Unreal Engine, providing sections for public news, licensee news, and tutorials and guides for content creation and programming. UDN also includes a search engine covering the complete archives of our content and programming mailing lists which have thousands of entries on thousands of topics. The full slate of UDN content and functionality is only available to Unreal Engine licensees. However, a subset of the documentation and tutorials relevant to mod makers has been made available to the general public. You can visit UDN and see the public documentation by clicking here.

What is the Integrated Partners Program?

Epic Games has established the Integrated Partners Program (IPP) for the purposes of having a formal business relationship with selected companies making cross-platform technologies which integrate with, and are complementary to, Unreal® Engine 3. Under the IPP program Epic provides continuous Unreal Engine 3 source code access and full technical support to IPP members. Companies who join the IPP agree to provide a high level of technical support for UE3 licensees through Epic’s established support channels, keep their implementations up-to-date with the latest UE3 versions, and work with Epic on potential promotional and co-marketing efforts. The IPP program will make it easier for Unreal Engine 3 licensees to incorporate 3rd party middleware solutions from IPP vendors into their games.

Please contact us at ipp@epicgames.com for more information or click here.

Who is Epic Games?

Epic Games, Inc. was founded in 1991 and is a leading independent developer of 3D games and core technology. Located in Raleigh, North Carolina, our 55-person team is responsible for the Unreal series of games, which have sold over 7 million copies worldwide on 6 platforms.

Epic's Unreal Engine has powered over 50 titles selling a cumulative total of over 16 million copies, including Splinter Cell and Rainbow Six 3 (Ubi Soft); Deus Ex and Thief 3 (Eidos); Lineage II (NCSoft); Harry Potter and Ultima X (Electronic Arts); and America's Army (US Department of Defense). Unreal Engine-powered games have shipped on Xbox, PlayStation2^?, GameCube^?, DreamCast^?, Windows and Linux PCs, and Macs running MacOS^? X.

We at Epic have always taken pride in our hands-on support, both of our partners developing commercial games with the Unreal Engine, and of the vast community of mod developers and academics taking advantage of Unreal for research and enthusiast game development. This large and growing talent pool of thousands of professional game developers with Unreal experience – and tens of thousands of aspiring pros – is one of the Unreal engine's greatest assets.