Hi Daniel,
I have some good news for you....
I apologize for not answering you earlier but I wanted to wait until I had more concrete information on a new version our engine before responding.
We're creating a version of our engine which can be licensed for non-gaming use with the following features:
It will include an Unreal Engine runtime and Epic's Unreal toolset such as UnrealEd, Karma Authoring Tool, UnrealScript IDE, UnrealScript Debugger and exporters for Max and Maya. The runtime will have a vanilla user interface suitable for loading maps and setting configurations. Our tools are strictly Windows based so that is the only platform we plan to support initially with this. If there is enough demand the runtime itself could be made available for Linux and Macintosh OS X as well.
The runtime will be a free download and free to use for non-commercial and educational use. It will include a sample level but no game-specific content. The download will be fairly small - maybe about 20Mb. You can think of it like a free version of UT2003 but without any of the gaming content or code. It will NOT be compatible with UT2003 however - levels created for this version will not run directly in UT2003 and vice-versa.
Companies that want to license the engine for commercial use will be able to do so and get a version in which they can put their own splash screen. We have not decided on exact pricing yet. It will be considerably less than the US$350,000+ we charge for game however we will NOT be including source code or providing significant amounts of technical support for it. Licensees will be required to submit a business plan so we can determine if (a) we're interested in our technology being used for the intended application or (b) what a fair revenue expectation is.
Licensees of this version will be able to get access to C++ headers specific to this runtime-version of the engine where required. There will be an additional license fee and NDA for this.
This product, currently called "Unreal Engine2 Runtime Edition" should be available within the next 30-60 days. We'll post information about this on our web site as soon as it is available so keep your eyes on
http://www.epicgames.comIf you're looking to get started working with our tech for now we suggest you pick up UT2003 and try your hand at the tools that come with it. There are tons of Unreal Engine tutorials on the web and over 150 hours of FREE downloadable video training modules for UT2003, that will be mostly applicable to the runtime version too, at
http://www.masteringunreal.com. We also provide general Unreal Engine documentation at
http://udn.epicgames.com.
Of course full source code Unreal Engine licenses, which include support, are also available and they start at US$350,000 plus royalties.
Mark Rein
Epic Games Inc.
Epic will be having a free for non-commercial-use version of their engine, same engine that powers Unreal 2, Unreal Championship and Unreal Tournament 2003.
As long as you don't plan to sell whatever you're making...its all good...so any mod/game developers out there should keep an eye on this, because the Unreal engine is...simply amazing
