Oh, PS:

Bioshock 2 isn't being developed by the same exact studio that made Bioshock. 2k Marin is making BS2...They did the port for Bioshock to PS3, but did not create the game itself. 2k Boston/Austrailia made Bioshock.

However, it seems that 2k Marin is made up of former Boston/Australia employees, so I wonder what percentage of the staff worked on Bioshock.

And a neat factoid: Irrational (who made Bioshock) had previous experience with UE2. They made Tribes: Vengance and SWAT 4 using it. Chalk up another point for 'developer experience = great UE game'

Oh yeah... Engines can be very versatile.

I do believe all of EA's sports games use the same engine.

As for UE3. I doubt it. We didn't even get solid UE2 numbers till after UE3 released.

UE2 still costs like 500K i belive


SE plans to use crystal tools for basically all the games they make that they didn't use the UE on i believe.

No mention of Unreal Tournament 3???? Another game developed by Epic using the UE3...

I actually think Microsoft needs to do something radical to help third-parties.

One way would be to reduce their licensing fees significantly (possibly by $5 per DVD). This would give 360 games a $15 premium over Wii games which would help negate lower development costs.

Another would be to provide game engine support to third-party developers directly. This could help reduce costs significantly for third-parties (at least those that chose to make 360/PC exclusives).

And finally they might consider setting aside about $1 - $2 billion dollars to provide low interest loans to companies making games for the 360.

Likely the cost for any of that would be exclusivity - at least timed anyway. But they do sound like good ideas, especially the cheap loan and UE3 ones.

Curently they provide: Substantial testing support and co-advertising support for third parties with exclusive 360 games. The support is one reason why Epics figure for Gears of War may be understated by 3-5 million, Epic even had coding help provided by Microsoft which im not sure was on the books.

@Mrstickball: Two things:

1. The Unreal Engine 3 gives developers a chance to get a working model of their game quickly to pitch to publishers or work on their core game concepts.

2. UE3 costs less than 1,000,000 depending on the royalty scheme the developer chooses. The more they pay initially, the lower the royalties and vice versa.

*claps* Well done stick, awesome read to.

There are no numbers, but some developer forums have supposedly had leaks(i.e. rumors) about pricing. If I remember correctly, the pricing was alluded to as double the cost of UE2 with no change in the royalty fee. It would read like this if true:

non-refundable, non-recoupable license fee paid on execution of agreement: US $750,000

$100,000 for each additional platform(meaning the second and third platforms, no cost for single platform development)

3% royalty fee(no change from UE2)

UE2 Terms

A non-refundable, non-recoupable license fee is due on execution of the agreement. The cost is US $350,000 for one of the available Unreal Engine 2 platforms, plus US $50,000 for each additional platform. A royalty of 3% is due on all revenue from the game, calculated on the wholesale price of the product minus (for console SKUs) console manufacturer fees. In the case of massive-multiplayer online games, the royalty is also due on the additional forms of revenue including subscriptions and advertisements.