Link here
Maybe Cocos team could learn some experience from their codes?
Unity3d now in trouble btw.
Saw that. Glad that I no longer have to pay the subscription fee! Now I don’t feel bad spending money just to test out Unreal every so often to see how it works. I like the idea that maybe you could create a core data or logic library and possibly use in both Unreal and cocos2d-x 
Level creation, Pathfinding, Character Stats, etc.
I don’t think Unity3D is in trouble, however. Unreal’s 5% cut is definitely reasonable and an obvious win-win for devs. On the other hand Unity3D has a capable free version and you get to keep all profits to yourself (after the initial $1500-15000 depending on distributing platform and team size). Being free now will help adoption and growth which Unreal needs (and I bet that’s in part why they changed it to free).
Will be fun to see whether Unity3D 5.0 pricing stays as it is now or if they change it.
The problem for Unity is that many people do not have the initial cost.
With a (better) engine that does not charge initial $, most developer can work on it without any payment. They need to pay for UE 4 only if their product is success. 5% is completely fair price for that.
Well Unity is now free for the most part until $100k sales including features that were nice to have like static batching, much better lighting and shadows. I would say go with what you know combined with which toolset/features you feel work best with the game you want to make. This includes looking at cocos2d-x and other engines when evaluating. Open source is a nice feature of UE4 and cocos2d-x, but it’s not necessary for some.
I agree with you that the 5% is totally reasonable (some don’t) and if you aren’t making profit giving 5% away then you’ve made too many deals or cuts elsewhere (app store, publisher, etc). I see all pricing announcements today being win-win-win for developers.
what does this mean? You mean examine the code and improve our code based upon theirs?
Maybe learn…straight out copy and call it ours…no
Link
Unity 5 Professional customers who earned/received more than $100,000
in revenue/funding in the previous fiscal year must purchase iOS Pro
and/or Android Pro deployment add-ons to deploy to these platforms. The
iOS and Android Pro add-ons enable deployment without the Personal
Edition splash screen.
Unity 5 Professional customers who earned/received less than
$100,000 in revenue/funding in the previous fiscal year can deploy with
included iOS and Android support with the Personal Edition splash
screen.
Competition between game engine companies. Game developers win.
But Unity is not open-source.
I haven’t try Unity. And I have no idea if you could write your own components (such as Google Player Services) or required to purchase them in their marketplace.
Well, I don’t agree with that, as the 5% is a per-game lifetime fee. Does the engine make your game a success? I don’t think so. It’s the game itself(idea, implementation, execution, marketing etc.). The engine is just a tool.
Would you agree to a 5% fee, if Adobe would have such a model? Giving away 5% of revenue for every picture you will draw with that tool?
Your game will maybe run on Windows and you are using Windows Tools and APIs. How about a 5% for Microsoft?
I think indie game developers are to easy to get blind on one eye here, if it comes to such announcements. Of course it is a great tool and the drop for the monthly fee is a welcomed step, but it is still a lifetime fee. Many developers think that 5% is fair, but do they really realize what they pay for?
How does the company behind UE4 collaborate in the game? Not at all. E.g. the game developer is making the game a success, and they get paid for contributing nothing(regarding making the game).
Isn’t it like paying the manufacturer of a trowel a lifetime fee, just because you have used that for building your house?
The cuts the platform holders take, are way to high regarding the fact, that you don’t have any freedom.
How can any developer supposed to be forced to use the IAP infrastructure of the platform holder? If you don’t agree, you are kicked out of the store. This is just to enforce their 30-40% share. If some developer does not use their services in any way, they still take the same cut! It’s like: you could have used our services, but you didn’t, so it’s your own fault. 30% cut please!
I thinks a developer should ask himself the following:
Should I count on user awareness about the game in the stores and give the platform holder a 30-40% cut or should I use a 3rd party store, propaganda, guerilla marketing or whatever and keep 100% of the revenue?
Which would be illegal anyway.
I guess what he means is, that you could find inspiration in digging through their code-base. How you could/should implement/not implement things and features.
That being said, anyone should read their fine-print/TOS/terms and conditions about what you are allowed to do with the source code access.
Not to mention copycat which is illegal, it is valuable to learn how they handle jobs such as entity-components model/cross platform deployment/etc. You could implement them in your own way
That’s development cost that you need less human resource/time/etc on development. You could either pay it, or write everything your own.
If you deploy your app in Apple Store/Google Play, you also need to pay 30% cut.
Sure, but keep in mind that the code is written for a different target: “AAA” games and non mobile platforms. The fact, that hundreds of programmers are behind such an Engine, should also be considered. The algorithms may be a perfect fit for them, as they are designed to fit perfectly into their code/engine structure, but not for you.
Besides all that, who says it’s THE WAY to do it 
No need to write it on your own. You could just use an engine without life-time fees 
Yes, and I think it’s not ok! Based on your region it’s even up to 40%. You don’t have to pay the cut, if you don’t deploy to the stores. People can still install the game.
Regarding fees and cuts: did you know, that the UE4 fee is to pay on the consumer prices and there is also a 2% late fee? It’s NOT after the Apple/Google cuts.
Another interesting thing is, that you even have to pay the 5% on revenues from Kickstarter/Crowdfunding campaigns…
Why not to be as cocos2d-x revenue model ? the 5% is still psychologically blocker …
what is cocos2d-x revenue model?
Because Epic is an Engine company. They are making money with the Engine and selling/renting/licensing the Engine is their business model.
There is no revenue model. It’s a free open.source Engine. The developers/maintainers are not making money out of it.
@IQD
Well there is parent company that is founding the development of cocos2d-x and eventually every thing is Business you know …
Sure, but there are many VCs involved in the company developing/maintaining the engine. They wanted to IPO and what not. So, yeah, hard to tell what the cocos2d-x revenue model really is or is going to be in the future.
Business like this?
Yes, I actually learnt a lot from unreal.
So, Unreal to me is competition, which is good for EVERYONE involved. From developers using the engines to the employees writing them
I wil admit. I took a look at their documentation and I totally churned over it yesterday to see how I can make ours better. I feel like improving documentation is a never ending cycle. The PG is the best we have ever had (in my opinion 
) and we can still improve.
So, who wants to help get us documentation like Unreal?
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I’m not going to argue too much, but want to clarify a couple things. Our team (and myself) use cocos2d for some projects because it’s open source and Unity Free version for others due to 3D scene editor and capabilities, so I’m not arguing for using Unreal.
My point is only that some people or projects will find it a good choice to use it free for 3-4 years of development and only pay $$ after launch with the 5% revenue cut. Yes they take it from gross (ie: any revenue earned for that project) so if you’re going with crowdfunding it would be tougher to recommend it. I’m fine letting Apple take their 30% cut, not pleased, but fine with it. Do I think it should be lower, yes. Do I wish it was lower, yes. If I decided to use Unreal it would be because I’m fine with the 5% cut. I’m just saying that it’s not inherently a bad choice to go with Unreal.
Cocos2d-x has changed the technical copyright holder, but it remains with an MIT license, so until that changes all the code written/created up until that point is open and free to use in your game or engine. (Let me know if I’m wrong on this one.)
Competition is great. Lower prices today compared to yesterday is great.
We’re all on the cocos2d-x forum, so it’s likely we chose it in part because it’s free and/or open source, which is also great!
Personally I think UE4 is a great tool. I think people agree with the terms and the 5% cut, because their games revenue is not that high and they get a quality engine relatively cheap.
This example is of course a little exaggerated:
revenues per year: 100k | 5% cut: 5000k. So, yeah, it was a great deal.
But it is a total different story, if your revenues are getting much bigger. Let us assume you made some candy-crush revenue game:
revenues per year: 100 millions | 5% cut: 5 million. Pretty damn expensive for an engine per year…
So, yes, it totally depends on how the revenues develop over time, but it’s hard to re-deploy the game with a new engine after the revenues are going through the roof.
You are totally correct. The copyright owner cannot change the license of source code retroactively. It’s only possible to change it for new code, but then he has to consider code contributions by others. If they don’t agree to a license change, the copyright owner cannot change it for the contributed parts.
And because it’s the better choice for making a mobile game.
I never got the idea of using AAA engines like UE4 or similar for a mobile game.