Thanks for the reply! I think I'm starting to understand, two clarification questions:
1. Will there be a free version, like the UDK, for hobbyist/educational purposes?
2. Can I do the following?
a. Subscribe, download engine, cancel subscription.
b. Work with engine to develop game over the course of a year.
c. At the end of the year, decide that I need an engine update, renew subscription and download the new version.
d. Cancel subscription again, sell product at this point until new versions needed.
If the situation described in 2. is accurate, that does sound reasonable, like the UDK setup. However, if I may make some suggestions (I'm a bit of a fan of the UE3/UDK):
- I think Epic may run into situations like this thread where developers are confused by the subscription model, and how the cancel/renew/continued use options work. Plus, if complete source code is available for each new version, is there anything preventing people from illegally publishing the entire thing anyway?
- How often would the engine update? UDK updates became very rare over the last year or two, if I recall correctly. If the only reason to have an active subscription is to download new versions, I think Epic may run into some vocal user complaints if new versions release too rarely, or multiple times in a month. "Why did I pay for those months?! There was no new version!" "Maybe Epic delayed it so I have to pay the next month's subscription!"
- Granted, $20 a month is very little for a serious developer. But because of the potential for the engine source spreading anyway, and because of the potential for the userbase to be confused or upset about things like this, I think it would be very nice to have at least the option of some alternate payment plan -- perhaps $120 for an entire year package.
- A more drastic option might be to ask, how much money is going to be made from the subscription fee alone? If you assume X number of users will pay $20 once, and Y number of users are going to pay by the month, could that same amount of money (or more) be made back by doing something else? Maybe changing the royalty to 6-10% instead of 5%, and outright making the engine available for free like the UDK? This would get instant HUGE userbase access, be an advantage over other engines, and possibly result in more users selling games with the engine (which then feeds back into Epic with the royalties).
Thanks in advance for any answers! Just throwing out some ideas since I always felt like it was very rare to get the attention of anyone at Epic in the UDK forum days.