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Crytek has switched its flagship game engine CryEngine to a subscription model out of a desire to attract more indie developers.
The Frankfurt-based studio has outlined a new tiered service at GDC for its game development engine which has been used in the creation of Ryse and Crysis.
Starting from this May, indie developers will be able to use all of CryEngine’s features for a monthly subscription fee of $9,90 (€9,90) per user, royalty-free.
Features include the engine’s recently announced physically-based shading, geometry Cache and Image-Based Lighting – an upgrade already shown in action by Crytek at this year’s GDC in San Francisco.
“When we announced the new CryEngine this was our first step towards creating an engine as a service,” Crytek’s director of business development Carl Jones.
“We are happy to announce now that the latest update of CryEngine will soon be available to all developers on a subscription basis. We are really excited to make CryEngine available to hundreds of thousands of developers working with Crytek to make awesome games.”
More details about Crytek’s new programme, which its is referring to as ‘Engine-as-a-Service (EaaS)’, will be revealed in the near future.
The CryEngine free SDK will continue to be available under its current terms but developers wanting to take advantage of the new features of CryEngine will need to subscribe to the new EaaS programmer.
Crytek’s switch to a subscription model for its engine has been mirrored by Epic Games, which has also announced changes to its Unreal Engine 4 sales model.
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