Am I allowed to be using UE4 if I am starting entirely from scratch?

This is probably a ridiculous question, but here it is! I have absolutely no coding, or 3D modeling, experience. I’m also not in school for any of this. I’m more of a self taught, type of person. More hands on learning. I’ve recently become interested in learning the ways of game design (and yes, I am aware that it is NOT easy), but am also in a position where I am unable to go to college. So, seeing that this was free, I kind of just hopped right on it! However, I have a bit of confusion about certain details within the licensing agreement. Is someone, in my situation, even allowed to use UE4 without breaking any specific regulations, within the agreement? I’m also concerned about the whole “royalty” thing. Am I expected to pay something, later down the road, even if I simply just want to use this for personal learning purposes? Or is royalty only ever required if I were to ever, one day, decide I wanted to release a game? Certain Legal/Licensing agreements really get my anxiety going because they aren’t always the most easy things to understand >.< lol. That, and I’m far too broke to be getting any surprise charges! lol. So, if anyone could please help clarify these things, for me… much would be appreciated! :slight_smile:

UE4 is 100% free with a huge amount of free contents including characters animations models effects you can find in marketplace

go ahead and enjoy the most powerful creation engine.

Alright! Thank you very much for the affirmation! :slight_smile:

Or is royalty only ever required if I
were to ever, one day, decide I wanted
to release a game?

You will need to pay 5% royalty fee if your game earns more than $3,000 per calendar quarter. And only the excess is taken into consideration. If you make $10k, you’ll owe them 5% of $7k.

As Epic’s FAQ says:
“UE4 is free to use, with a 5% royalty on gross product revenue after the first $3,000 per game per calendar quarter from commercial products.”

Unreal Engine 4 is the best engine for hobby or starting developers, it’s easy to learn and understand blueprint system.
By that you will not need to learn a tons of code, so that means much faster game development. And you can also start C++ project, if you want more possibilites.
Also, UE4 have full open source C++ code, this means you can add, edit, or fix things as you want. For example, Nvidia added to UE4 their techonolgies, like WaveWorks, Flex, Flow, HairWorks, etc.

Agreeing to the EULA is a prerequisite of using the engine. As others have stated, you’re free to use the engine for learning purposes all you like. As for whether a royalty is due, that depends on whether your game is a Product. Basically if you used UE4 to make it, a royalty is due.

So, if I were to create a finished game, without intention of ever selling it, just for learning and such, I would still have to pay royalty? I mean, I guess, if I’m learning, I don’t necessarily NEED to finish a game, but still. I’m just trying to be extremely cautious.

No, because in that case there is no revenue. If there is no revenue, there is no royalty.