What's Up with all these commerical engines being released for free

#1 The Unreal release seems more of a commercialization of it's modkit - though modkits these day are pretty much the same as the real designers use anyhow (eg: CoD tools). It's not like they are giving away UT3 for free. (ou est le sauce?)

As the vast majority of indie games never get made (we all have good intensions - but reality has hard edges) Epic probably felt that they had nothing to lose and everything to gain - huge publicity, more amateurs getting a taste of working with Unreal means less amateurs learning other kit, and a net quarter of anything which does make it.

Epic aren't losing out, the people who pay for a proper license will continue to do so, and right now, hordes of people who had never before looked at Unreal are downloading the devkit, making their product more ubiquitious. None of these people would have previously bothered with Unreal, simply because of the price - and though they probably won't succeed at anything - it will make UDK more established in peoples minds, people with money .... poeple with money looking to license an engine will say "what are the cool kids/big boys using" but also "what do people with limited experience (makes them cheap to hire and fire) know how to use?". Now everyone will be able to "know how to use" UDK.

As for Unity, offer the lowest option for free, which appears to be somewhat lacking in the things that you would want to be using to finish a game, encourages people to use it (a la Epic) and but also encourages people to pay for the Pro version.

It's all about making their product more ubiquitous - and getting shed loads of free publicity.

So yeah, it's a conspiracy peppel - go for the tinfoil hats now!

#2 I agree with Steve, UDK is nothing more than a modkit on steriods. It is cool however that you can make a mod with it, then actually go and charge money for it.

For me , I NEED access to the source code. so Unity and UDK are both tinker toys. nothing more, something to explore and play around with. but for game development, Torque all the way.

#3 Two words: Loss leader. Ever heard the expression "giving away the razors to sell more blades"?

#4 I honestly don't care so much for this going on. You don't get as much support as a paid product and get told to RTFM by the community when you start asking questions. Much like the Linux Community has been doing for the past 18 years.

#5 @XanthorXIII, obviously you don't know or understand the Unity support system nor their user base. I have supported the community for going on 2 years as a user, they have a great support system that is NON BIAS in any way, you send in an email to support and you get treated he same as everyone else and the problem gets looked into, they don't ask you if you are a pro owner or not, on top of that I have owned iTGE now for a year in January and it is a NON FUNCTIONAL product, doesn't work with Snow Leopard with no proof it will in the near future, Unity iPhone Basic has worked from day 1 and only gets better, is a few clicks to deploy an application, and yes I own it also.

There is currently I think only 1 product of Torques I don't own which is iTGB and I would proudly buy it IF it worked on Snow Leopard and IF it was as easy to deploy to the iPhone as Unity iPhone Basic is. Prior to jumping and making accusations about "RTFM" I suggest you get a free copy of the program and use it and use the SUPPORT system that they have if you have problems or questions. Stop judging what you do not know nor understand.

FYI did you ever notice you have to click on "SUPPORT" then "PAID SUPPORT" to get real Torque support here? You don't have to do that with Unity, never have, never will, so explain why that exists?

#6 @Jonathan:
I'm on Snow Leopard. T2Di runs just fine here (desktop version). iTGE not running is new to me, since I don't have it. Details?

#7 @Jonathan Wood - I was more thinking about Unreal than Unity at the time I wrote that post. Unity never gave me a problem with support. In fact when I was shopping for it, they were kind enough to answer a few of my questions on it coming out to Windows and had purchased a license in December 2008 to get the good deal they had going on at the time.
Sorry if I didn't make that more clear.

#8 @Ronny, not that anyone follows the private forum issues, but :
http://www.garagegames.com/community/forums/viewthread/102519

It is much easier to keep stuff in the right forums, problem is, I have so many issues with different products, and the private forums are looking more like a waste of time to use. I also have issues with the Adventure Kit:
http://www.garagegames.com/community/forums/viewthread/102337

If you want, I can recompile, again, and give a list of "all" errors, but that would be a huge list all in and of itself. It would take pages upon pages.

Thanks XanthorXIII for clearing that up.

#9

Quote:None of these people would have previously bothered with Unreal, simply because of the price - and though they probably won't succeed at anything - it will make UDK more established in peoples minds, people with money ....

The mere fact that the mod tools can be distributed along to nurse a possible community for ones application, without all the secrecy licence nonsense is making this an interesting thing none the less.
Agreed, full source is the top requirement, but -lets see ;)

Quote:You don't get as much support as a paid product and get told to RTFM by the community when you start asking questions.

That is something I have seen so many times in this community, instead of merely ignoring the noise the nobility 'had' to slap.

Regarding the OP; I think its a mixture, maybe global economy is handing a pressure on the really big engines, maybe all the indie engines are beginning to make a pressure too. Combine both, and you have a situation where, as Steve said, they have a lot of PR to win and not really anything to loose.

Now, lets see ifother engines tag along, this could be a new trend.

#10 RTFM?
Whats the meaning?

#11 Read The (bad word) Manual

#12 @Jonathan - "Fine" isn't a bad word. :-)