UDK Commercial Terms
The UDK is FREE for educational use. Feel free to use it in your school’s curriculum. Educational institutions can use the UDK for free even though they're charging tuition. No additional license is required for faculty or students. Your students are encouraged to use UDK inside or outside of school to learn game development.
The UDK is also FREE for non-commercial use. Feel free to use the UDK to make any application (game or otherwise) for free distribution. No additional license (beyond the EULA) is required. Just go for it.
NOTE: We are extending the US$50,000 royalty-free revenue benefit to all existing UDK commercial licensee. Please click the license link in the license acceptance email we sent you to see the updated terms of your license.
If you use UDK in your business, sell a game or application created using UDK, sell services or training and in connection with that business, distribute an application you've created using UDK, or use UDK in any way to generate revenue, directly or indirectly, in addition to your agreeing to the UDK EULA, you are required to sign a UDK Commercial Use License Agreement.
A summary of the current terms of this license are as follows (note that the below terms are only a summary – the actual terms appear in the UDK Amendment):
If you are using UDK internally within your business and the application created using UDK is not distributed to a third party (i.e., someone who is not your employee or subcontractor), you are required to pay Epic an annual license fee of US$2,500 per installed UDK developer seat per year. This license fee only applies to UDK seats used for development; no license fee is required for hardware where only the resulting applications are installed.
If you create a games or commercial applications using UDK for sale or distribution to an end-user or client, or if you are providing services in connection with a UDK based game or application, the per-seat option does not apply. Instead the license terms for this arrangement are US $99 up-front, and a 0% royalty on you or your company's first US$50,000 in UDK related revenue from all your UDK based games or commercial applications, and a 25% royalty on UDK related revenue from all your UDK based games or commercial applications above US$50,000. UDK related revenue includes, but is not limited to, monies earned from: sales, services, training, advertisements, sponsorships, endorsements, memberships, subscription fees, in-game transactions, rentals and pay-to-play. You or your company will only need one commercial license to cover all the UDK based games or commercial applications you develop.
Here are some examples:
- A warehouse company uses UDK to create an application for employee safety training. They develop it on one computer and then install the resulting application on two computers for their internal employees to use. They require a single UDK development seat license for a total cost of US$2,500 per year, for as long as they use UDK to develop and/or maintain the application.
- A team creates a game with UDK that they intend to sell. After six months of development, they release the game through digital distribution and they earn US$60,000 in the first calendar quarter after release. Their use of UDK during development requires no fee. At some point prior to the UDK Application’s release they will need to secure a royalty-bearing commercial UDK license with its US$99 license fee. After earning US$60,000, they would be required to pay Epic US$2,500 (US$0 on the first US$50,000 in revenue, and US$2,500 on the next US$10,000 in revenue). On subsequent revenue, they are required to pay the 25% royalty.
- An architecture firm uses UDK to create a live walk-through presentation for their customers. They charge their customers a fee of US$500 for each walk-through. Before they begin to charge customers for the walk-through, they would pay Epic US$99 for a royalty-bearing commercial UDK license. They sell walk-through presentations to 100 customers in the first quarter, bringing in US$50,000 in revenue. No royalty payment would be required to Epic for that first US$50,000. In the second quarter, they sell another 100 walk-through presentations, bringing in another US$50,000 in revenue. They are required to pay US$12,500 to Epic. On subsequent revenue, they are required to pay the 25% royalty.
The UDK Commercial Use License may be executed by an individual or a corporate entity. If an unincorporated team wishes to license UDK, we recommend setting up a simple corporation or partnership for the team before contacting us for a license. If that is not feasible, please designate a single individual to contact us who will be responsible for executing the license and fulfilling the terms.
A note to developers under the age of consent (minors): Please have your parents contact us for a UDK Commercial Use License, as we cannot enter into a license agreement with a minor.
If you have any questions about licensing UDK or require custom license terms, source code licenses, or use on consoles please email udklicensing@epicgames.com for more information.
Gears of War 3
If you are looking for Gears of War 3 product support, please contact Microsoft Xbox Support at http://www.xbox.com/support or by phone at 1-800-4MYXBOX.