CryEngine, and all the powerful game-making tools that come with it, can now be yours via a Steam subscription.
Crytek announced last week that its engine and all-around development suite, CryEngine, would be moving to a subscription model. Sure enough, CryEngine has just been made available for download – and exclusively on Steam, no less. Prospective developers can add the engine to their Steam library for a monthly rate of $9.90.
Steam may seem like an odd choice as the sole distribution platform for Crytek’s service, but Valve’s sizable market is an undeniable boon. “We wanted to ensure that when we released CryEngine to subscribers, it would be in the best place to address today’s indie gamers and developers,” says Carl Jones, Crytek’s director of business development. “Steam is the best place right now for developers to create their games, show them to a huge community and even release them directly to market.”
Jones isn’t wrong – Steam’s audience is filled with would-be and amateur developers, and Crytek’s business model is perfect for that market. CryEngine is Steam’s first (and currently only) fully-featured game development engine, and comes with a generous package of documented source code, references, and pre-made demos to help budding developers learn the ropes. Once indie developers create something worth publishing, the subscription even lets them commercialize their game with no royalties or license fees.
Epic Games may have broken new ground when it released Unreal Engine 4 on a subscription model, but Crytek is shaping up to be a very strong competitor.
Source: Crytek
