this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
668 points (97.9% liked)

Linux Gaming

15753 readers
225 users here now

Gaming on the GNU/Linux operating system.

Recommended news sources:

Related chat:

Related Communities:

Please be nice to other members. Anyone not being nice will be banned. Keep it fun, respectful and just be awesome to each other.

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I wouldn’t call Epic greedy

They have one of the more indie friendly Engines

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's a side effect, not the goal. The goal is to make a ton of money on microtransactions, that's why they have a revenue sharing licensing model, not a per seat model. They don't lose much by being friendly to smaller devs, because they're banking on raking in profits from the few that go viral.

I argue that until the recent change, Unity was the best engine for indie devs. You pay per seat and that's it, you keep the rest. And you don't pay until you make more than $100k, just like Unreal (Unreal is 5% after your first $1M). So if you earn $2M, you'll pay $50k to Epic or $2k/seat for Unity (assuming pro plan). If you expect to make >$1M, Unity will probably be cheaper for smaller studios. If you want support, Unreal charges $1500/seat/year for the Enterprise option, and you still need to pay for royalties.

So here's how I'd decide which to use:

  • Godot - most indie games
  • Unity - indie games with high revenue expectation (if it takes off), and studios with infrequent releases (you only pay if you're making >$100k)
  • Unreal - big 3D games with latest tech, or indie studios with lots of smaller games with lower average revenue targets

Most studios don't need the features of Unreal, so it's an odd choice for your random indie studio.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

indie studios with lots of smaller games with lower average revenue targets

This is most people

Also gamemaker/construct/stencyl fit in the worse space

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

In many of those cases, they wouldn't cross the threshold for income for either, so the choice of tool wouldn't matter. So use whatever you're familiar with.

But honestly, with Unity violating dev trust, I highly recommend indie devs use Godot. It's plenty good for the scale of most indie games, and there's no royalties or costs (though donations are recommended).