Migrate to Unreal Engine, License, Royalty, Useful Info, Your Options
I made a video to help Unity devs quickly navigate things before they make decisions. Watch is not necessary I copy paste my video description below with all the links I shown in video. If you like to hear my thoughts or opinion then watch I don't mind, I don't use youtube video to make a living.
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This is not tutorial video, also not video to tell you to use UE. It is a video that tell you the information you might need to start and make a decision for yourself. There are plenty of other better tutorial content creator than me, feel free to search for those.
TL;DW: Just click through the links if you don't want to spend 30+ mins hearing me talking about it.
I did support Blender Foundation from very early on and basically first batch of subs when they launched blender cloud(10 Euro per month for my current sub billing, starting 2014. I've also supported many older Blender film before the subs.) I will support Godot if it has similar foundation that drives/keeps the integrity of Godot's development. Godot is MIT and can be abandoned if the main devs are hired and can no longer contribute to this engine per their work contract agreement.
Now, let's talk about real world situation. There are patents, copyright/IP laws, DCMA, etc. Godot engine without a big backing like Epic or Blender Foundation is in a risky position. Basically, if any capital big enough file a law suit challenging that Godot contains some 3rd party code that some people stupid enough to copy paste something from other licensed contents. The repo and people use it with the "contaminated" branch can not protect themselves from lawsuits or patent trolls. It could take months of efforts to remove codes just to comply with a take down or audit process to prove that you are clean, and in the mean time anyone that used that branch is on the hook for collateral(especially if one game that use Godot goes viral and thus became target of patent trolls.)
I did not see anyone talked about this part and hope there IS a solution to this issue.
On the other hand, if you develop your own engine, it's the same issue if your game goes viral without any fund to defend yourself it's not even a joke. Studios/Manufacturers do go down from lawsuits in the past.
Using engines/tools owned by big corps though, you are on the hook for royalty subscription, etc, and maybe sneak unity move like this one. BUT, it is much easier to defend yourself in this situation(if unity devs kept their original TOS and present to court). And if patent trolls tries to sue your game for the tech you use, Epic/Blender/Adobe/Autodesk become your first line of defense since you use licensed tech and are not responsible for such infringement. They will have to win against them and settle before they can come after you. And if the provider did found something wrong, they will either pay or purge the infringed part from their tech.
Real world legal stuff is very harsh and you need trusty allies when you are fairly small and easy to pick.
A lot of non profits like this do have lawyers on staff, or at least on retainer. Ao3, which hosts fanfiction, has a small army to deal with issues
Also currently in the US you cannot copywrite bits of code, so copy pasting lined off stack overflow is not a legal issue
Also you and I both know the big Corp will try and blame anyone else for the issue and try their best to make it the devs problem anyway, at least with godot you can maybe get some community support or media pressure behind you
It does have it's own trap but fortunately less of an issue compare to the initial investment having to compile your own code.(it took me about a week or so to put together a plugin BP function that depends on another module not by default included in the plugin wizard. And I know how to program since 80286 era.)
I personally like the BP idea a lot for prototyping, and it certain can be done if you want to release a BP only game with smaller scale. (ie. a polished up prototype game idea.) Like yes it would take longer to wiring the nodes if you have similar proficiency compare to C# based game engine(that compiles on the fly and run on VMs when you are developing), but IMO the graph node natural leads to less headaches compare to coding error. ie. infinite loops, syntax errors, bad scoping/indentation, etc. So it's more beginner friendly and honestly they are running pretty fast as well after the nationalization was implemented.
Just remember to develop good habit to make your graph more reusable into macro/function/interface/etc. It's a lot of learning but they will pay off.
Worse?
It is very consistent, consider how many games shipped with UE on different platforms.
copy paste one of my comment I did on reddit.(yep, I go back to help the unity devs migrates and answer questions regarding to UE, same ID you feel free to check.)
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UE standard license quick break down(EULA up to today):
Per Game life time revenue < $1M you don't have to pay a dime.
Per Game life time revenue > $1M then you start paying 5% quarterly for the >$1M part.
Per Game quarterly if you make < $10k USD for that quarter then you pay nothing. If you make > $10k then you pay Epic Total = Quarterly Revenue * 5%
That's why one of the unity's UE cost break down on twitter is nonsense cause believe it or not, game sale income are very seasonal and corresponding to big title releases and promotion(steam sales, humble bundle, publisher sales, etc. ) And it's per game. Vast majority of indie developer will never need to pay Epic a cent.
On top of that, if you ever go viral etc.(say >1m revenue annually ) You can still negotiate with Epic for custom license terms. They might even buy your whole company.(ie. Rocket League, FallGuy )
Unreal is 1M lifetime, Unity is 1M in a 12 month window, also per game. If you make that much, unless you F2P, Unity will be cheaper. My total Unity expenses are < 20K and new fees won't affect me, Unreal would have been > 100K.
Unity's new fees are unacceptable, don't get me wrong, but I would still pick Unity over Unreal regardless. I'm favoring Godot atm, though.