Epic have announced a ten-times increase on the royalty cap for games created with the Unreal Development Kit. The free software kit is powerful enough to let anyone create a game using Unreal Engine 3. Before now, games earning profits of more than $5,000 would have to make royalty payments to Epic. The royalty cap now stands at $50,000, making it easier for new developers to get started.
Vice President of Epic Games, Mark Rein, made the announcement was made on the Epic forums . He says "we're really excited about folks making some amazing things with UDK and we realize that a lot of you are just started in the business so not having to pay royalties on your first $50,000 should help you get a financial footing toward building a quality game development business."
The release of the UDK, in combination with the Make Something Unreal contest, has given a headstart to a number of small developers. The most recent success story was The Ball, which was the runner up in last year's Make Something Unreal contest, and recently released a full retail release on Steam . If you're interested in creating something using the UDK, it's available to download for free from the Unreal Development Kit site.
