The Unreal Engine is very well known in the games industry. This package is incredibly versatile, allowing for creation of games from 2d hand drawn looking platformers up to cinematic almost movie like experiences. They’ve charged into virtual reality head-on and support the latest technologies natively. There is a built in marketplace where you can find and purchase assets to include in your projects and a very large community sharing tutorials and inspiration.
| Points of Interest | Unreal Engine |
|---|---|
| Cost for game publishing | 5% royalty after the first $3,000 or revenue per product per quarter. No royalty for film projects, contracting and consulting projects such as architecture, simulation and visualization. |
| Cost of software | Free |
| Platforms | All platforms, mobile to console to OS. 15 types of systems. |
| Graphics | Simple 2D to high-end visuals, 3D and VR |
| Coding | C++ engine and editor source code. Blueprint visual scripting alternate to programming. |
| Assets | Marketplace - sample games and scenes, art and audio, ranging from $10 to $80 on average. Hundreds to choose from. |
Over the last several years, Unity has grown from a plucky little startup to go toe to toe with the likes of the Unreal Engine. The upcoming release of the first major commercially available VR headsets has only helped level the playing field as Unity has been aggressively courting this community. You can download Unity and begin building VR environments immediately with no prior experience.
| Points of Interest | Unity 3D |
|---|---|
| Cost for game publishing | No royalty. But pay $1500 for every platform you publish your game on. Some revenue caps exist but the minimum is $100k. |
| Cost of software | Personal = Free. Plus & Pro & Enterprise are paid versions. Paid versions are obligate to pay for subscription period/usually a full year. |
| Platforms | All platforms, mobile to console to OS. 27 types of systems. |
| Graphics | Simple 2D to high-end visuals, 3D and VR |
| Coding | C# and JavaScript |
| Assets | Asset Store - very large array of content. In the thousands. Ranging from $10 to $50 on average. |
CRYENGINE makes the learning curve less steep with clear tutorials, detailed documentation, and a strong development community. The marketplace provides you with a wide range of assets ready to use in your projects.
| Points of Interest | CryEngine |
|---|---|
| Cost of game publishing | No royalty fees, no matter how much you earn |
| Cost of software | Free. Pay as much as you want. This involves membership and/or enterprise fees. Some cancellation restrictions for paid services. |
| Platforms | Oculus Rift, Windows PC, Linux PC, Xbox One, Playstation 4. |
| Graphics | High-end 3D visuals |
| Coding | C++ and C# available. In version CE 5.3, Schematyc, a node based visual scripting language, is introduced in beta form. |
| Assets | Marketplace BETA - Small collection of assets. From 3D models, materials, texture, sound effects to full projects. Prices range from Free to $15 on average. |
You can use Amazon Lumberyard to build rich and engaging games with the highest ceiling of quality through its comprehensive and proven toolset, and runtime performance that has been highly optimized over many years. With Lumberyard, you get a full-featured editor, native code performance, stunning visuals, and hundreds of other features like performant networking, character and animation editors, particle editor, cloth physics, UI editor, audio tools, weather effects, flocking AI, perception handling, camera frameworks, path finding, and more. You also have full access to Amazon Lumberyard source code, making it easy to customize the technology to create differentiated gameplay.
| Points of Interest | Lumberyard |
|---|---|
| Cost of game publishing | There is no cost. You pay only for the infrastructure resources (Amazon Web Services) you choose to use. They don't even require that you publish your game on Amazon Store. |
| Cost of software | Free. There are no seat fees, subscription fees, or requirements to share revenue. |
| Platforms | Lumberyard currently supports PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, iOS(iPhone 5S+), and Android (Samsung Note 4 and equivalents). |
| Graphics | High-end 3D visuals. |
| Coding | C++. |
| Assets | Just a couple of Asset packages at the moment. Find them here. |