[pertinhower]

Absolutely. In the 2000s the Unreal Engine had a price tag of half a million dollars up-front plus royalties (I don't remember the percentage) on the back end. That these companies are giving their engines—even their source code—away essentially for free indicates either that (1) engine sales was never a very lucrative line of business or that (2) the promise of establishing your technology as a defacto game engine standard—the Panavision of games—is even more appealing than immediate revenue.

[maaku]

Licensing engines was insanely lucrative, until Unity. Then everything changed -- you could go out and get a good engine with decent framework tools for a few hundred bucks. Why pay six figures up front and X% of revenue when a few hundred bucks for Unity did the job just fine?

[Zenst]

I suppose once you've done all the big sells then not that many come along and gradually scaling the price down to increase base of users comes naturally one way or another in whatever market. This and competition gradually edge each down.

Still, it takes one company of note to make that big move and the rest end up following in the same direction.

But today it is not all about having great tools, it is about users knowing how to use those tools that drive demand and establish standards.

As for Steam, well, most games will also be sold upon there store, so win win.

Either way, maybe schools can now expose students in tools that are not just for games but have users and functionality that transcend many fields from modeling, CAD like mock up's and a level of detail and control a bit more than the popular Minecraft, which is in many ways a much simpler form of what these game-engines are today.

So demand is there and opportunity as well. Be interesting how this pans out for game prices long term. As with anything, when supply at a comparable quality hits a level then the only way to stand out is price and lower running costs to get started and investment. Impact upon established studio's could be interesting, if anything it makes what they do more competitive and beyond franchise work, which your cheap startup is not going to be grabbing, then not much will make them stand-out if they stay as is. I see many opportunities for consultancy work and also a increase in the talent pool. Solely due to increased numbers of people able to learn the tools and sue them.

As for which one becomes a standard, well, once we settle down upon one operating system for everything is when such matters are close, but far from today on so many levels that there will always be competition for a long time to come.

[talmand]

Engine sales used to be lucrative, quite a few companies have been based solely on that business model for years. But just like most things, the market changed over the years. High quality alternatives started to appear, big publishers started making or buying their own tech, and easier entry to market are among some of the reasons.

In my mind, the biggest contributor is simply competition.

[stevehawk]

This is a very good point. In all honesty, id Software really moved from 'making games' to 'making tech demos' with Quake 2 and Quake 3: Arena. The same is pretty much true for Epic and the Unreal Tournament games.