Legal Niches

Epic Clarifies UDK Licensing, Royalty Fees

By james_fudge

There is apparently a misconception that Epic charges a ridiculous royalty fee on games that use its Unreal Development Kit (UDK). So much so apparently that Epic Games vice president Mark Rein sent out several charts to various news outlets that break down just how licensing royalties work. The chart shows that, in some cases, Epic might only charge about 1 percent on a game that makes around $75,000.

The Unreal Development Kit costs nothing for developers to download and create content with, but when they are ready to sell a game, they have to pay Epic a one-time licensing fee of $99. Epic said that it does not charge anything for a game that makes less than $50,000. Once sales go above that number, Epic takes around 25 percent.. sort of. They take their cut after platform holders such as Apple or Android take their 30 percent. Read More

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Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on March 07, 2011 (boomark / email).