No bias. If you sell a Unity game, the fee to Epic is 12%. If you sell an Unreal Game, the fee would have been 12% for the store plus 5% for engine royalties for a total of 17%, which would strongly dis-incentivize developers from using Epic's own engine. Epic is simply waiving that 5% engine royalty so that its store is game-engine-agnostic.
No, they are not. The Epic store takes 12% whatever engine you use. They are simply waiving the 5% unreal engine royalty to unreal developers so they don't pay more than 12%.
Unreal Engine:
+$200k
-$24k 12% epic store fee
-0 5% epic fee (would be $10k)
------
$176k income
Unity Engine:
+$200k
-$24k 12% epic store fee
-$3.6k 3 copies of unity pro for $200k budget game
------
$172.4k income (-4.6k vs unreal)
So yes, they are.
If you publish on Steam then the numbers change
Unreal Engine:
+$200k
-$60k 30% steam fee
-$10 5% epic fee
------
$130k income
Unity Engine:
+$200k
-$60k 30% steam fee
-$3.6k 3 copies of unity pro for $200k budget game
------
$136.4k income (+6.4k vs unreal)
Unity is royalty-free altogether, you pay a subscription for the development tools (think Adobe CC or MS Office365) and get all upgrades during your subscription. You can alternatively not pay a subscription fee at all, and accept certain restrictions on your engine's capabilities, mostly on the use of enterprise-level features an indie developer wouldn't have the resources to use anyway.
So, by eliminating the 5% engine royalty for its own store, Epic is making Unreal also free and thus engine choice is not a deciding factor in whether to use Epic's store.
IOW/tldr: Unity and Unreal cost the same amount of money to use and license if you sell through the Epic store.
> You can alternatively not pay a subscription fee at all, and accept certain restrictions on your engine's capabilities
Just fyi: that is not how the unity license works. Unity's license is if your company makes >= $100k a year you're required to buy the $400 per seat license. If your company makes >= $200k year you're required to by the $1500 per seat license. Period. So for example if you're employee of Google and in your 20% time you download Unity you are not allowed to use it for free. Google makes X billion a year. That's greater than $200k a year. All employees of Google who download Unity for work related purposes are required to have the $1500 per year seat license.
This has nothing to do with whether or not you publish a game. Unity is sold similar to Photoshop. It's a subscription. The only difference is unlike Photoshop, Unity has a free tier for people and companies that make less than $100k a year.
From the unity site
Free version eligibility: I or my company generate annual revenues or raised funds less than $100k
Plus version eligibility: I or my company generate annual revenue or funds raised of $200k or less
You're not required to buy the $1500 license unless your company has already made $200k. If your first game goes bonkers and sells $1 million on the free version, you do not have to pay $1500 for the Plus version unless you make DLC or a new game after your bonanza. The license is prospective, not retrospective.
Other than that, you've just restated what I already said. Unity provides the tools on subscription, but does not charge a royalty anymore.
