It appears that we are all doomed to drown under a tsunami of zany offers this season, so grab your life jacket and brace yourself for the news that Rock, Paper, Shotgun and about a million other Websites have been spurting out recently: there now exists an Unreal dev kit which can be used for free. Non-commercially, mind you, but that’s still free enough for me and probably free enough for the gazillions of hobbyists who want to just get in there and play around. And there’s some interesting conditions bundled with this if you care to read on below.
Aside from meaning oodles for the modding community, the dev kit proposes an interesting idea for people who want to try monetising small-scale projects: you’re charged US$99 up front for a royalty license (dirt cheap for something like this), followed by a 25% royalty charge for any money earned after your first US$5000. This can work out to be a pretty steep cut in the long run, but it’s generally more accessible than standard, up-front cough-uppery. It’s a viable option for teams with low starting capital, and presents some interesting opportunities. We’ll see if it works out.
My head’s spinning from all of these cool free things recently. Are there any other offers that readers are currently aware of? I’d hazard a guess and say that we’ve dropped something somewhere recently. Tell us some good news and we’ll post about it!