I made a video to help Unity devs quickly navigate things before they make decisions. Watch is not necessary I copy paste my video description below with all the links I shown in video. If you like to hear my thoughts or opinion then watch I don't mind, I don't use youtube video to make a living.
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This is not tutorial video, also not video to tell you to use UE. It is a video that tell you the information you might need to start and make a decision for yourself. There are plenty of other better tutorial content creator than me, feel free to search for those.
TL;DW: Just click through the links if you don't want to spend 30+ mins hearing me talking about it.
1:06 Migration Doc: https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.0/en-US/unreal-engine-for-unity-developers/
2:18 License Portal: https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/license
Standard License: https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/eula/unreal
EULA Change Log: https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/eula-change-log/unreal
8:16 UE Features: https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/features
9:46 Setup Visual Studios: https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.3/en-US/setting-up-visual-studio-development-environment-for-cplusplus-projects-in-unreal-engine/
10:46 D3D Crash: https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.0/en-US/how-to-fix-a-gpu-driver-crash-when-using-unreal-engine/
14:04 Good Sample Projects to start
17:42 Show Lyra, talk about Blueprint, C++, making your thing in plugins
20:35 Convert Blueprint Project to C++ project.
21:15 Create your own plugins
24:24 Deal with Experimental, Beta features
27:07 Market Place free content and restriction
29:00 UEFN: https://dev.epicgames.com/community/fortnite/getting-started/uefn
30:28 Show UEFN, example island UEFN Doc: https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/uefn/starting-out-in-unreal-editor-for-fortnite
32:41 Verse Doc: https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/uefn/learn-programming-with-verse-in-unreal-editor-for-fortnite
34:27 Creator Economy 2.0: https://create.fortnite.com/news/introducing-the-creator-economy-2-0?team=personal
Option 3 is correct, unless you are doing F2P, unreal is going to be more expensive in almost all cases, I don't think you need to dig very far into the numbers to see that.
I don't see the point of your last paragraph? Yes, 100k is less than 3m, but it's still more than 20k, and every penny counts as an indie. Additionally I don't think Unreal offers anything more than Unity for a majority of Indies to justify the extra cost.
Well, I guess I have to congrat for your game's success and hopefully Godot also fill your need.
In my head if any of game < 3 team members made over 3M in that option 3 case, I'd call a meeting and plan a retirement path for all team member. ( depending on area and cost of living you can totally retire with 500~750k in proper investment. ) But if it's around 10~20 people team then yep 100k vs 20k is no brainer cause 100k would have paid for around 1 person's salary, and it would be pretty tight after all the platform cost, business expenses, etc.
That's why I asked for more detail in the first place, cause the context and how the company is operated matters a lot. (like the 108% revenue calculation someone posted on reddit after the unity fee change, formula does matter. )
You're not going to be retiring off 3m in gross revenue, I've been mostly one person and living modestly, but I'll be running out of money sooner rather than later. Running costs will eat it up before you can invest, and wars and pandemics will eat the rest.
The 108% calculation will never apply. You have to be F2P, stubbornly refuse to upgrade to pro or make a deal with Unity, and it also depends on what the shit they mean by "installs".
hmmm, so as mostly solo dev made over 3m in one game and your cost averse nature tells me you did not hire people that are good with financial to plan what to do with extra surge of money. If that's the case and you do all your own tax, etc, I strongly suggest you seek advice from some local company that are doing well and ask if they can refer you to their accounting firm. Even in my self-employed era, hiring accountant saved me 5k+ per year by paying her ~250, so it's net positive. In your case it would've saved way more and they can help you plan the year to year thing. Incorporated would probably be different contract but it will save you money by hiring good financial people.(Because they make a living by navigating the tax laws and prevent you making stupid mistakes and helping you do all the paper works.) And I hope you do it before you sit on the pile and then actually watching it drain while trying to make another success. That's why most lottery winner didn't actually retire in peace since guess what, general population is very much financially illiterate.
Believe it or not, I study for about 3~4 months in my spare time regarding how to invest my gov retirement account(the pre-tax money one) etc and then find out I made really bad financial decisions in my early careers. If I did what I do now(starting about age 26 instead of 34, regular contribution and using left over to buy whenever there is a market panic drop), I could have probably speed up my retirement plan by 10 years.(so retire around 50~55, compare to now it's 60~65 like everyone else, maybe earlier/later depending on the market. note, everyone's retirement cost of living is very different.) I am not going to tell you what to invest, etc, or you have to do blah blah other than the please hire a good accountant above. I strongly suggest you put aside time and learn about investment and tax-saving tools you actually have. If your country does not have a good regulatory body since you mentioned war/pandemics, still talk with an reputable accountant and they are more experienced with money and can offer you good advice/plans. And there are countries that welcomes retired expat and offer quick visa/permanent resident paper work if that's something you would consider. (if you live in high cost of living area, it makes sense to move to low cost of living place for retirement given that the infrastructure is adequate. )
edit: context, I am 45 now.
Btw, the 108% case is using the pro license.
I appreciate the tips and concern, but I'm doing fine, I've been holding on for over 10 years and I have an accountant. I live in a high VAT/tax area, so that just eats up a lot. I've outsourced investments to my bank, which has done a really great job up until the recession.
I'm not trying to defend Unity on this horrible fee, but outside of F2P, the Unity deal is going to be better than Unreal, and I think the non F2P crowd are the ones most likely to switch from Unity to Unreal, so they should be properly informed about the actual costs and Unity is always going to be a better deal if they're making more than 1m on a premium game.