cryengine-3-sdk
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Crytek unveils $10 per month CryEngine developer subscription plan
Crytek may be known for its Crysis and Far Cry series, but the developer also makes a pretty penny by licensing out its proprietary tech for game development, CryEngine. Crytek will now offer a subscription-based model for the latest version of its engine, charging $9.90 USD/euros per month for each CryEngine licensee. The "Engine as a Service" plan starts in May and won't affect the free, non-commercial software development kit offered by Crytek. Epic Games announced its own subscription model for Unreal Engine 4 yesterday, a plan that amounts to $19 per month plus 5 percent of gross revenue from any commercial product developed with the engine. While Crytek will unveil more details about its subscription plan in the future, its announcement noted that the Engine as a Service version of CryEngine will be "royalty-free." The latest version of CryEngine features Linux support as well as "Physically Based Shading," a Geometry Cache feature to calculate cache-based animations for elements like cloth and fluid dynamics and an image-based lighting system. An alternative to these subscriptions for some independent developers are middleware development tools like GameMaker: Studio and MonoGame. Sony announced PS4 exporting solutions for those pieces of development software yesterday in addition to PS3, Vita and upcoming PS4 solutions for Unity users. [Image: Crytek]
CryEngine 3 SDK hits 100,000 downloads in just five days, we expect 100,000 new games to play
It hasn't even been a week since Crytek announced the availability of a free (for non-commercial use!) CryEngine 3 SDK and already the German developer is touting over 100,000 downloads. With everything you need to make a great looking game, Crytek's gamble is that by lowering the barrier to entry, it will increase the number of developers comfortable with its technology. The worst (best) case scenario is that if a developer strikes it rich using the freely available tools, they need only license the technology for a 20% cut of the revenues. It remains to be seen if this approach will result in seeing more CryEngine 3-powered AAA games on retailer's shelves, but with steady (and ubiquitous) competition from Epic's Unreal Engine and its oh-so-similar free-for-commercial-use UDK, Crytek is at least staying competitive. Now, let's see if we get 100,000 beautiful indie games anytime soon.
Over 250 universities sign up for CryEngine 3 educational license
Back in November of 2009, Crytek detailed plans to offer free licenses to universities wishing to work with CryEngine 3. Apparently quite a few showed interest -- more than 250 different institutions over the last year, to be exact. A missive on Crytek's site reads: "Academic institutions in a wide variety of fields including physics, computer science, architecture, film-making, art and design use Crytek's all-in-one game development solution for their projects." This should ensure that not only will future video games feature gun-wielding super soldiers in billion-dollar nanosuits, but also movies, paintings, science projects, book reports, fashion magazines and all of the skyscrapers downtown. [Thanks, Andreas]
Crysis 2 editor coming this summer, CryEngine 3 SDK in August
Cevat Yerli, CEO of Crytek, has posted an extensive open letter to Crysis 2 modders on Crymod.com laying out an impressive future for the CryEngine mod scene. First and foremost, Yerli confirms that a Crysis 2 editor is coming this summer, but that news is overshadowed by the announcement of a free CryEngine 3 development kit, which Crytek is making available in August. Essentially, anyone who wants to will be able to download "the latest, greatest version of CryEngine 3," and go to town with everything from the engine code to actual game sample code (from Crysis 2), scripts and all of the tools Crytek used to make Crysis 2. This is big news for modders, as it presents a viable, no-cost alternative to Unreal Engine 3 (which has a similar plan available) and access to all of the shiny features for anyone interested -- though developers who wish to release a game commercially will still have to license the engine. [Thanks, Jackal]
