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FREE CryEngine 3 SDK to be released.

Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 12:51 pm
by Duper
Cevat Yerli @ Crytek wrote: Be Free... Be Creative... Be the Developer

An open letter to the Crytek Modding Community.

Hello to all of you.

Here at Crytek we value our community, and we love what you do with our engine. In recent times our focus has been heavily on the development of Crysis 2, however our modding community has been, and remains, very important to us.

So, I wanted to tell you about our plans for supporting you in the future with some really exciting news, which I want to share with you now. Modding with the most powerful game engine is coming back!

We want to see what you guys can do with CryENGINE 3 and we hope we'll be as amazed with the things you create as we have been over the past few years. This time around, we're going to do things in a different way - offering you the right tools to achieve your vision.

First of all, we will be launching an Editor for Crysis 2 early in summer. This will allow you to build new maps, items and more custom content for Crysis 2. For teams looking for even more creative freedom, we have another option: The free CRYENGINE SDK.
Be Free

In August 2011 we will be launching a free CryENGINE SDK. If you want to use it for fun, like all our previous MOD SDKs it will be completely free of charge, to anyone who wants to play with it! You just register, download the SDK with a personalized license key and you're good to go!
Be Creative

We'll be giving you access to the latest, greatest version of CryENGINE 3 - the same engine we use internally, the same engine we give to our licensees, the same engine that powers Crysis 2.

This will be a complete version of our engine, including C++ code access, our content exporters (including our LiveCreate real-time pipeline), shader code, game sample code from Crysis 2, script samples, new improved Flowgraph and a whole host of great asset examples, which will allow teams to build complete games from scratch for PC.
Be The Developer

With all this power in your hands - we know you're going to do some amazing things with the engine, so we're working out how best to support you.

We'll also be sharing our documentation with you, which is written by the developers of the engine, and we'll be giving you a new and improved crymod.com. We'll update the Free CryENGINE SDK regularly, to make sure you have access to all the advances we make to CryENGINE 3.

If you want to use it to make a game to launch commercially, we'd like to help you with that. If you want to take your product down a traditional commercial route, we will offer an innovative low cost licensing model if you want to release your game digitally.

If you're looking to use CryENGINE for non-gaming purposes, we'll have a per-seat business model for the engine - please enquire at mycryengine.com for further details.

So to go over the details again:

Our next release will be the Crysis 2 Editor, this is for those of you who want to create content for Crysis 2. In August 2011, we will launch our Free CryENGINE SDK for all of you who want to create totally new content on CryENGINE 3. If you just want to make fun, free projects, you can do that free of charge. If you want to try and commercialise your game, we'll be here to help you with that.

I truly value the contribution you have all made to our company and I hope we can continue giving back to you in future.

All the best,



Cevat Yerli

CEO & President of Crytek
Source

Now, if anyone wants to make their own game....... you have nearly free run of CryEngine3 much like you do with the Unreal Engine 3 business model.

Cheers.

Re: FREE CryEngine 3 SDK to be released.

Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 3:01 pm
by snoopy
Here's my question:

Why is this a good business model for them? Are they going to name recognition? How do they make money on this?

I'm not saying that I think that there are strings attached, (maybe there are?) I'm just wondering why the VP's approved this.

Re: FREE CryEngine 3 SDK to be released.

Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 3:36 pm
by Duper
Only serious users will go anywhere with this. This is the SDK not the Sandbox editor.

Thus, if your project makes money beyond "X" amount, you have to pay royalties and at some stage of revenue, you may be required to purchase the suite. (I'm guessing, I haven't read the agreement)

That way as a fledgling start-up group, you're successful and so is Crytek. They get the exposure which spawn new sales of the full suite and you make some money and even possibly a job at Crytek. This also makes a very excellent resume tool for them. The guys that worked on the Living legends project got job offers from Crytek. (a number of them did at least.)
If you see your project out, then it's a win/win situation.

If you do a game for free, say a Descent or Freespace mod, you might just get a job. ;) And again, Crytek get the exposure.

Re: FREE CryEngine 3 SDK to be released.

Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2011 10:09 am
by dwlpunk
from my experiences with cryengine 3, its not much different from the ladder. more comfined. great tool though,

Re: FREE CryEngine 3 SDK to be released.

Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2011 6:29 pm
by Thenior
snoopy wrote:Here's my question:

Why is this a good business model for them? Are they going to name recognition? How do they make money on this?

I'm not saying that I think that there are strings attached, (maybe there are?) I'm just wondering why the VP's approved this.
Think about it this way - lets say 1 in 1000 indie developers have a really good game. They could never develop it on the Crytek platform, since they can never afford it. But now, they can develop it, and if they do well, Crytek gets a piece of the pie.

Very good business.

Re: FREE CryEngine 3 SDK to be released.

Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 3:57 pm
by Aggressor Prime
I really hope someone from this community uses this to make a Descent mod. Was hoping it would happen with the last editor, but I don't think anything happened. Seeing a Pyro GX blast through mines in today's graphics and physics would be awesome.