Full Unreal Engine 4 Developer Kit $19/MO + 5% / Why can't Unity Offer the same!

I agree. Nothing is going to happen before Unite. And Unity free is a great product that you can do a lot with.

Unity Pro does now seem expensive compared to UE4, but I don't want to march their offer as royalties would prove a mess for Unity and their customers. I certainly don't want to get involved in more accounting. I would rather they did some thing like "$19 is only half the cost, royalties being the other, so $38 a month without royalties".

The Asset Store success shows that a lot of people are willing to pay small amounts. I think that increases the chances of Unity taking a risk on lowering prices to increase the numbers buying Unity Pro (or some other product they announce).

 

"$19 is only half the cost, royalties being the other, so $38 a month without royalties".
Only If you can stop and restart subscription any time like UE4 to grab updates when you want only.

 

And I would rather my rent and bills were cheaper...

The thing is, if you remove the royalties you take away the part of Epic's model that scales up with success. At the moment if a game makes, say, a million bucks then Epic make ~$50k from it. That's where they're planning to get the big wins in the long run, not from the subscriptions.

How long does a team of, say, 10 guys have to subscribe for to make the same amount of money at just $38/month? A bit over ten years, assuming they pay the sub every month for every developer, and not accounting for the $19/month they'd have been paying anyway. (So realistically quite a bit longer!). If you've got a studio making games for that long I think it's safe to assume that they're reasonably successful, too...

So the question is, is it better for the vendor to make a little more up front from everyone, or to make entry cheaper and take a bigger slice where success comes?

And you really can't answer without fully understanding the fixed and variable parts of the pricing structure, which randomly picking "half" (probably) doesn't adequately do.

 

Some bunch of people saying me for 20$ i should at least test it, so here is my impressions after using it :
Some quick bad points :
Texture generated procedurally from shader depending on how it's done can produce visible white pixel points in screen or visible artifacts, only temporal AA can correct the problem. Another big bug, publishing big Shooter project in publish mode failed after two tries.
Good points :
The Launcher is really friendly, and the Editor is very polished and has manycontext sensitive help or introduction panels when you open tools for first time , and some clever context menus for many things like show FPS and many others.
About BluePrint, that's really a big plus, very deep, they put almost all possible things each component could need, i got a tps character movement and firing projectile plus interactive elements in some hours of learning.
They put many things to help debug could it be on BP or other things, like raycast lines been drawn (persistent or not) , just select a debug mode in the Raycast component of BP.
PB Shader are very easy to use ,i'm not shader programmer but as i usei use substance designer, it was almost identical way of working.
Many full screen effects like temporal anti aliasing,tone mapping and many others you could need my 3D models; looked awesome in UE4.
FBX import is well supported , so it is really open to indies now.
Small detail , you can hide/show any components or object in the editor with a click very helpfull on big projects.
Big world with good shadowing compatible with day/night system seems in the works.
Testing some demos like Shooter or Rally, the frame rate keeps stable around 30 frames sec most of the time with medium settings (Radeon 6700) ,but even adding more stuff it seems to not lower , and they are many ways proposed to optimize your stuff (even on shader material with a component quality switch).

As using UT Free, Pro was always too expensive , like many amateurs that don't know if they will sell something. And we find Free version is really lacking in term of graphics. For 20$ we can have all full screen rendering and all intuitive tools with full BP integration.
The questions are : do you go for realistic graphics or do you need advanced effects and tools or not ?What about Royalties if selling something for a good price would reach the limit for Royalties payment ? For many indies selling PC games at low price or making free games it can be a great deal.
For more serious companies or teams another point is do you need C++ , that must be some more complicated than BP with longer learning curve.
I don't say UE4 is the best , all projects have their own graphics and technical level requirements low or highter , but UE4 is made in a way to even be used for non programmers, it gives you advanced editable graphics, and using it i just found it really as easy as UT to use.
For 20$ it worthes it, the black point that remains is Royalties for bigger and more serious projects.

 

I'm impressed with what you get with UE4, I don't think anyone can deny it's a lot of bang for your buck (initially anyway).

I'd probably say Unreal has the least realistic rendering set up I've ever seen out of an engine, unless you work really hard to push it in another direction (like the realistic rendering demo). Not to say it doesn't look damn good because it does, also they realise the engine is only as strong as it's weakest link. With VFX (Particles) post etc. it's consistent and high quality...

Well forgetting that you have to learn a new API (Which isn't so bad if you came from UDK), I'd say 9/10 times Unity still has massive workflow advantages, depends how much time you spend with it and where you're going. CryEngine is pretty simple to get the basics flowing and looks damn amazing.. It's how deep you dig.!

What concerns me mainly is time, could you become well versed in UE4 and take advantage of all it's tools by the time Unity 5 is released? This all depends on a specific projects status of course.

Now we are switching to a PBR setup, UE4 is starting to make much more sense. So it might be time to renew and test it out again.

 

Yeah, UE4 and Unity aren't very realistic. People need to get off that. A nature documentary is realistic, a tone-mapped, DOF lens flared Avengers with Thor battling a pile of glowing CGI isn't realistic. UE4 is the latter.

Realism isn't typically desired as it's not very exciting. You can go outside for that

 

@zenGarden

That royalty thing is amusing me most of the time. Only because is 5%. So, we pay 30% for store (we don't even comment, because there is no other way, you pay that or you are out), we pay TAX between 15-25% and that's around 50% already, so 5% more means nothing. If you really want to save money, move you company to a fiscal paradise and pay 5% TAX, problem solved. Also individuals hopping to make 1 million over night...

 

I haven't seen any hint of those here...

 

Well forgetting that you have to learn a new API (Which isn't so bad if you came from UDK), I'd say 9/10 times Unity still has massive workflow advantages depends how much time you spend with it and where you're going. CryEngine is pretty simple to get the basics flowing and looks damn amazing.. It's how deep you dig.!
First time i use UE engine and that's really different from UDK 3 i think, where all users people told you that you would need C++ and that it was a nightmare. As many amateurs i stay in the visual programming with BluePrints, i don't need to write very specific functions, and like Playmaker in UT, you can create a complete project using BluePrints.
If you are a team or go for very complex like MMo or really complicated AI indeed you'll have to dig code, but most non pro indies will stay at a more simple level like BP (that already allow to do a lot).

What concerns me mainly is time, could you become well versed in UE4 and take advantage of all it's tools by the time Unity 5 is released? This all depends on a specific projects status of course.
I found UE4 fast to learn, perhaps because i'm not bad at lmearning tools ?
But tools in UE4 are not really different from UT, Animations management is same philosophy, creating materials as simple, using BP to create gameplay is really better than Playmaker. Shader editor is very like Substance , Particle editing is very common , and more like like LOD tool, automatic creation tool for collision mesh on dynamic objects.
Some people using Unity put more than a year to learn programming and all tools in their spare time to make simple stuff , so sometimes it really depends on your knowledge, free time and motivation.

Making a TPS action, no need to code in C++ , BP has all common Raycasting , collision and other functions you could want. If you make a big world RPG with lot of stuff going on like independant NPC behaviour and many custom needs, using UE4 sure C++ will be needed or simply wait UT5 for the graphics upgrade.
I don't preach UE4 at all, i'm just some hobbyst like many others that will prefer Hobbyst price for all features. UE4 is not perfect , example like it is a demanding engine in terms of GPU , after playing with the demos, not sure it could produce good graphics games for a large PC range. In some tools UT can be more easy to learn perhaps for some other people.

Yeah, UE4 and Unity aren't very realistic.
Indeed, and that's not what i search, let's say most of people that will use PBS will be tempted to create let's say something with a realistic appearence could it be UE4 or UT. Using materials such as wood, stone , metal, even stylized materials and full screen effects it will have a better look.

That's simple for hobbyst as making game is not our job unfortunatelly , we go for the cheapest software. With UT Free you don't have render ot texture , full screen AA or Bloom , looking at games using Pro, the difference is visible. Now UE4 proposes for 20$ only, to have all that with better Blueprints and more tools in the package, and we have gorgeous graphics now.
For people that work most of the time on the graphic side UE4 is better than UT Free today.

I also will wait UT5 annoucement and prices, Free Vs Pro with interest like many other people, we don't know when it will come. Each engine will have it's strong and weak points like any product , only the user will take the right tool for it's own specific needs.
Like it is said here http://blog.digitaltutors.com/unity-udk-cryengine-game-engine-choose/
It’s ultimately up to you to decide which one works best for your project

As not having a game to sell i don't have any advantage in using UT or UE4 like many others, that's just for 20$ for many people the package really worths it.

 

I perhaps didn't get my point across by saying "something like". I chose a random number as an example, the point was to avoid royalties.

Yes, royalties do mean those who earn more, pay more. But collecting royalties from such a large user base will be a nightmare. I can see big problems ahead for UE4 with it.

 

Why? They've been doing this for years now with UDK. It's not like this is a new thing.

 

5 million users, some of which release games on various platforms, across hundreds of different stores (more than 200 Android stores in China, that is just 1 platform in 1 country). Some of which will be successful.

Does Unity track all those users (practically impossible)? Or rely on the users to report (some will not understand, some will forget, some will avoid, some will make mistakes, all will have more administrative work to do)?

 

If you don't file your royalty reports, Epic can (and will) audit the S*** out of you.

https://www.unrealengine.com/release

It's really less complicated than you're making it out to be.

 

You are right Murgilod, the only issue is the manpower needed to track all of that and then get attorneys involved to get your sales reports to audit you. I'm sure different countries have different laws too. It isn't going to be something as simple as hitting a button and getting the info.
But then again who knows what Epic has in place for this type of issue when (and it will) happen.

 

This is the sort of job you typically outsource to another company, typically a collections handling agency. There's loads of them and people use them all the time.

 

So I'm looking at 4.3 some beautiful updates in it, playing with the world builder solution amazing stuff. My main concern with UE4 as it stands right now and has been before performance. Ours is a heavy game at the best of times and we can get 35 - 45 FPS in Unity on an I3 and Nvidia / 260GTX as a testing platform.

Min specs for UE4:

NVIDIA GeForce 470 GTX or AMD Radeon 6870 HD series card or higher
8 GB RAM

To me the 470GTX is pretty powerful card, to be exacerbated by the shear amount of terrain scope etc. I think using UE4 with a fully kitted out game you'd need at least a HD7950 and / or 660TI. Thinking forward to the time of release which is 2016 then it might not be too bad. But I'm very concerned about cutting a lot of potential sales with spec restrictions.

 

I suspect that's the purpose of the $3000 minimum before royalties kick in. They aren't bothering to collect royalties from people who aren't going to cover the cost of collection.

 

Ours is a heavy game at the best of times and we can get 35 - 45 FPS in Unity on an I3 and Nvidia / 260GTX as a testing platform.
With UE4, i get not above 30 FPS and need to deactivate many things ot make it better. Global Illumination and others effects must be shut down if you need high frame rate.

To me the 470GTX is pretty powerful card, to be exacerbated by the shear amount of terrain scope etc. I think using UE4 with a fully kitted out game you'd need at least a HD7950 and / or 660TI. Thinking forward to the time of release which is 2016 then it might not be too bad. But I'm very concerned about cutting a lot of potential sales with spec restrictions.

I agree, going for larger market and less demanding games, UE4 is not the best choice, it's dedicaced to good and last PC Hardware. making a small game and publishing it is possible ot make one running fast on more hardware ? Not sure.
UT5 will need also more GPU with new systems, will it propose simple graphics alternative for simple 3D games ?
UT5 remains the more easy to pick up and more direct to use in some areas, let's see what features, price and performance it will bring ?

 

@zenGarden

That being said, as a tool base UE4 is evolving and improving at such a rapid pace. It's making the Unity 5.0 announcement seem a little... errr limp, all dependant on project of course.

After messing around with 4.3 I'm finding it more difficult to choose. Factoring in it'll probably be UT 5.1 until everything gets going properly.

 

Shadow...
Eventually, and that's what I predict, you're going with UE4, I tell ya.

Regarding sales vs. computer specs. That is something I wouldn't worry about. Especially if you aim for 2016.

Look at Divinity: Original Sin on Steam right now. That is the best selling game since over a week. For 40 bucks... And it has quite high requirements, especially if you want it to run in it's full glory.

 

Well, it really depends on your target audience, right? Plenty of people won't bother upgrading their computer between now and then, but do those people matter to you?

Still... at the "which engine do I choose" level it really shouldn't be a consideration, keeping in mind that you're talking about "computer specs" on an engine that's meant to work on phones. Ultimately it should come down to what you do with the engine rather than what engine you pick.

 

How can I whine about Unity if I'm using UE4? , although it's looking that way with our Unity subs are up for renewal soon and it wouldn't take us long to transfer as were swapping all the artwork over to PBR. Oh and were pretty much doing nothing with the actual world building portion.

@angrypenguin

It's a massive consideration not to be taken lightly, sure you can run small 2D games on decent mobile platforms. I take the small cut down reflections scene running on Tegra with a pinch of salt, especially as it's well known the elemental and other tech demos have to be stripped right down to even run on this generations consoles (even then it's a little hit and miss) I have other projects with PS4 and UE4 and it's not pretty.

There's not a cat chance in hell a large open world 3D game would run on anything but mid to high end equipment.

What do you suggest, spend hundreds of thousands on a game to cut the ROI in half? Does that really make sense?

I'm seriously interested in your background, what do you actually develop game wise? Reason I ask is it's interesting to see where your opinion is coming from. You might know much more about developing large games in UE4 than we do.. Because aside from the basics I've nowhere near spent the same amount of time with it as I have with Unity.

 

According to zenGarden's info. it seems that:

If an indie have budget of $19 and pay once, he can create high quality graphics game with UE4 blueprint for all platforms, without any limitation on tools or performance.
If all the games he made fail in the worse case, he lost only $19.

Could we do this with UT? Or is UT still suitable for indies to use?

 

What, me? No, I've barely touched UE4. I plan to check it out, but am very conscious of not letting things distract me mid-project, and I'm currently mid-project. I'm very interested in it, though at this stage I'm not sure it's much of a fit for the kind of projects I typically do.

I wouldn't at all suggest you cut your ROI, because that indeed makes no sense at all. I was actually saying the opposite - I wouldn't jump to something with higher requirements to get access to shinier things unless I knew it was a match for my goals anyway. When I said it "shouldn't be a consideration" what I really meant was "it's silly if it has to be a consideration" - if both engines genuinely do scale down to suit phone handsets then surely any reasonable desktop hardware should be fine?

I'm in the same boat as you insofar as I've spent bucketloads of time in Unity. Game wise Master Thief is the only thing I've released from my hobby stuff. Professionally I've worked on a huge range of things, mostly simulations and "serious games". Most of my feedback on this topic has been fairly generic business and/or project management advice. Unity is an excellent fit to the work I do. I can also see that UE4 (and other engines) would suit other types of work extremely well, and I'm always keen to use the right tool for the job.

 

By "UT" do you mean Unity? Unity has a free license, so you could get it for even less than $19.

Having said that, it costs $25 to be able to publish on Google Play, and $99/year to be able to publish on Apple's iTunes. Can't remember about the Windows Store, that might actually be free. Steam/Greenlight has a fee. Mac App Store has a fee. Plus, you really need devices to test on to release on most of those.

Even at the extreme low end of the spectrum, engine licensing isn't the whole picture.

 

Haha good joke.
To make a high quality 3d game, you need a bit more than just twenty bucks. Thus you lose a bit more than just twenty bucks.

Seriously people, get real!

 

This fee is independent of game engine. You must pay for this.
If you count this fee too, it becomes:
UE4: 19+25+99 = USD 143
UT: 1500+1500+1500+25+99 = USD 4624

 

@angrypenguin

There is the issue, Unity has IMO easier and initially has rapid workflow but it lacks tools and polish. It's currently not equipped to house the newest generation of 3D games, but there is a release to fix this. Fiscals are probably lowest on the priority, getting the game actually released is number one but still Unity has a higher initial outlay and UE4 has a bigger sting in the future.

Performance is better with Unity, but you'll suffer potential sales due to it's capabilities or staff costs will drain the project trying to upgrade the engine to match UE4, but you might cut the amount of sales due to min spec requirements using UE4. UE4 is available now and Unity 5 won't be out for ages and will require polish after that, but still doesn't contain the same level of tools or the same rapid engine development.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

The main thing is after years using Unity I don't want to just start again, even though I've used UE4 (on the odd occasion) since last year I think now. Apart from that their is little holding me to Unity bar a promise that Unity 5.0 could be a match for UE4.

Also their is you guys, the forums.. I love the Unity community, for all the battles and silly bickering it's a great place to be and Unity forums as well as Unity as a product feels like home. I find UE4 infuriating even though I know in my head Unity is the inferior product for this kind of project (Especially with UE 4.3).

 

Please don't pretend that you don't know some important features (LOD, profiler, shadow, nav etc.) can't be used...

If your budget is only $20 and no more, how will you start as a indie or a hobby?

 

Peter to truly take advantage of an engine like this, you're going to need some bad ass art tools. At least bare minimum z-brush and substance designer that sort of thing. To make sure someone takes notice of your game, you'll sink money into promo and above all you need time and time is money.

Engine costs are generally the least of your worries, especially if you utter the word "staff".

For the hobbyist with $20.00 a month spare, it's a bit of a no brainer IMO.

 

@ShadowK: Thank you.

This is true for UT and UE4.

 

@ShadowK: I'm not really understanding you regarding the system specs for your game. Why are you assuming that the minimum specs for the ue4 editor will be the same in your final product?

You provided some fps with the Unity build, the best would be also to show results with the unreal build.

This way we could have some solid facts. Everything else is somehow pointless.

zenGarden had by far the most informative reply recently.

And I'm still waiting to hear what for issues hippocoder had with lightmass.

 

In terms of indie, to my understanding, staff means 1 or 2 man only, maybe without payment and just personal saving. He/she sometimes creates all programs, art, music, design, promotion, etc.

 

Because I added an FPS / latency counter and built test demos? Also I've run tests on PS4. I don't say these things and pull random statements out of my backside you know. On the whole UE4 does not perform as well as Unity, but it's like comparing apples to trees as the engines whilst similar in a lot of ways couldn't be more different.

I understand slate has a LOT of overhead for the GPU and the build runs far better than the editor, I ignore the inbuilt reporting tools.

Oh as for lightmass, several instances of shadow positioning breaking after upgrades. Weird artefacts and some bleeding in areas. Plus the constant need to re-bake is a pain in the ass..

There is some method in my complete madness

Also there is nothing "pointless" about addressing concerns, no matter if I'm right or wrong. Also Zengarden re-iterated a few of my statements.

 

The 470 GTX came out on March 26, 2010. That is a four year old card. I don't think that is out of line to use a four year old card as the min spec.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_400_series

The 260 GTX came out on June 16, 2008. That is a six year old card. When you ship your game in 2016, that 260 GTX is going to be eight years old. Eight years is a long time in GPU tech.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_200_series

I run a 780 (and I assume you probably do as well). I don't personally have interest in playing games designed to run well on a 260 GTX. I am not saying every game needs to push the limits of a 780 to be fun to play, but I don't want to see games crippled just so somebody with a dinosaur GPU can play.

My gut feeling is that you would lose more sales by crippling your game to run well on a 260 GTX than you would by giving up on the 260 GTX. I have no hard data to back that up, but my gut feeling is that serious PC gamers won't be running a 260 GTX in 2016. In 2016, the 780 will be merely a mid-range card.

 

I'm just wondering a About if I have more then one person helping me and we are done how do we put it all together

 

No, it doesn't. You can wipe out $4500 of the dollars you've got attributed to Unity there. More importantly, though, who cares about fees being independent of engines? If you're not thinking about the entirety of the project you're shooting yourself in the foot before you even start.

Hehehe. Use Unity's free license and spend the $20 on something entirely different? That's what I'd do if I only had $20 spare...

 

Nobody said otherwise.

In both engines it takes a lot time, money and effort to make a high quality 3d game, or triple A game, or however you wanna call it.

So it makes not much of a difference whether you pay $1500 upfront, or $20 a month if you go that big.

If you're realistic and create small games, as one man band however, the price indeed matters. But then you can start out with Unity free, which is still cheaper than UE4

Oh and btw. Germany won the World Cup. Yeahhh!

 

but the important features .................................can't be used
Why others start learning to run with 2 legs, while we must start with 1 leg?

 

Thanks for information regarding lightmass, but I assume those bleedings are not that regular? Other projects doesn't seam to have such problems.

And please don't get me wrong. I accused of pointlessness because only providing the fps in unity and stating the system requirements of the ue4 editor in some kind of comparison is... odd.

 

Well, to me, I wouldn't want to upgrade Unity to "match UE4". They're different tools for different jobs. To me that's a perfect example of not using the right tool for the job. If I was doing a project where I needed something like UE4... why would I not just use UE4? It's right there for the taking.

This is a huge part of why it's project specific to me. My own skills, and those of my team, have to be taken into account. If something could be done reasonably well in either engine, we're going with what we're familiar with (and have already paid for).

But if UE4 is a clear winner for some reason or another, we're not going to re-invent an expensive wheel if we can avoid it. At the end of the day, while we're getting pretty darn excellent within Unity, a lot of game development knowledge and experience is pretty well transferrable. Yes, there'll be drop in productivity as we re-familiarise, that's just one factor that has to be weighed in. But considering the amount of time and experience both UT and Epic have invested in their tech, we're not going to attempt to play catch-up with either of them.

Honestly... if you objectively know it's inferior, why are you sticking around? I don't think you'll be ousted from the community just 'cause you picked a different tool for one project, and I'd personally be disappointed if that's what happened. Everyone should be cool with the idea of working in or with multiple toolsets during their career, anything else is blatant fanboyism, not to mention counter productive.

Having said that, if you're sticking to Unity because you've already done a huge chunk of the work in it, that could be a good reason to stick with it. (It could also be the Sunk Cost Fallacy at play... do estimates for project completion for both engines. If UE4 will get you there faster, cheaper, or in a similar time with a significantly better result...)

 

Well some of these projects were upgraded from the Beta last year, not sure what sort of effect that could of had on the whole process?

It is kind of odd, but I don't have any stats off the top of my head as before today (messing around with 4.3) I've not used it in a while.

@ShilohGames

Whilst it's a gut feeling, I can't help but agree with you. Basis comes from the AAA space, after testing the results seem well skewed slightly...

Some fairly recent AAA's said there games would run on something like an ancient 9800GT, which roughly translates to the game will start and run like a guy swapping out photo frames. So we decided to set the bar, our game would run above 30FPS on a GTX260 and we expected UE4 to do the same.. Then again everything looks much better in UE4, so their has to be a trade off not forgetting we have to port it to a PS4.

So if we were to use UE4 I might have to reset the bar, I'm probably over concerned with the whole matter. But it's something that has to be taken into account when evaluating engines.

 

Because if you can't make a good game without render textures, you won't be able to make a good game with them either!

Seriously, don't blame your tools. There are some types of games that Unity's free version aren't cut out for, sure. But they're honestly not the kind of game I'd suggest learners start with in any case.

 

You're making a large open-world 3D thing, right?

This is pure hunch here, no research at all, but considering what you can get out of a $99 video card here in Australia and the target audience I assume you have, I don't think you necessarily have to worry about supporting tech that old.

 

Originally we were testing out engines, the first one we used was CryEngine and whilst we loved the LPV / shader tech and TOD / Post / Ocean. It was difficult to use / decipher and when you hit a problem nobody had heard of, it was game over. So we tried Unity next (well I did) liked it and decided to use it as a base, this was before UE4 was even being handed out as Eval beta.

The plan was to match CryEngine rendering in Unity, as I've worked on engines before I thought hey this would be simple. Turns out I was flat out wrong and it's been a point of contention ever since..

So in summary UE4 wasn't originally part of the picture and by the time UE4 got released we had already gotten deep into the project (well the concept anyway).

Now that's my mistake and you are for all reasons correct.

I wish it was objectively, some of the core components (Level streaming / 64-bit editor) pretty much required to make these sort of games is missing from Unity right now. Reason I'm sticking around is Unity 5 and that alone, not only due to preference but due to experience.. Also we have a lot of code for the game already made.

But when the artwork is done, I'll have to make a decision and Unity 5 had better give me a damn good reason to stick around. Just that feeling of years learning Unity going bye in an instant is something holding back the reigns. That is if Unity 5 comes out this year..

 

It depends on situation. That good game may present better if render textures are used.
If you can make a good fps (frame per second) game with LOD, you won't be able to make a good game without them either.

What type of games should be avoided for free version ?

 

That means if one invest a lot on UT, one should stick without it.
Otherwise, without this consideration of investment, you may think about other choices?

 

Anything where the free version exclusions are fundamental requirements.

Sure, it might, but it's already "good", so I stand by what I said. I can not think of a game where the difference between it being "good" or "not good" is render textures. After all, there were plenty of good games around before render textures were even a thing.

 

Should you know that there is great difference of fps between having LOD and not having LOD, besides render textures?
Games created by free version can't compete with those powered by UE4 full version .
Could you name some games (not tools) by free version that have very good sales figures since it released?

 

Look at Divinity: Original Sin on Steam right now. That is the best selling game since over a week. For 40 bucks... And it has quite high requirements, especially if you want it to run in it's full glory.
Running good on a bit old Radeon HD 6700 in 1360 resolution with good effects and good fps. I had to go 800*600 using HD Intel 4400 to have fluidity. So it's demanding but should run on mid and mid/low 3D cards perhaps.Old Titan Quest using normal maps display lot more ennemies at screen even very old PC, Sometimes it depends on what tech is used and how it is optimised for the game.


UE4 is more demanding but it's ok for what it proposes : global illumination, tone mapping etc ...running rally or shooter projects with solid 35 fps disabling features.
Their cave demo for example was too slow on my hardware like 0.5 to 2 fps, too much particles and effects demanding for what it is, i had to desactivate stuff to jump up fps (but i seen many non optimisations also like a brick wall made only of individual bricks objects only).
There is optimisations tools even in shaders with quality swicth component. They are improving, and will bring new system lightening for big terrains , and they have their own problems like others :
forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?7759-Black-shadows-along-landscape-seems

Crysis was made form beginning for big terrains, so it had the right tools and a best solution to handle big terrains, where UE4 and UT have some work to do , but it is far from firendly.

In both engines it takes a lot time, money and effort to make a high quality 3d game, or triple A game, or however you wanna call it.
Ok for that category people making big games only.
On the other side don' t forget so many indies publish simple games or stylized graphics on Steam. UE4 cartoonish leveldemo i tested is just really good . I seen a Pacman or a ball platform game on cubes using big graphics , particles , why not if you could only make cubes.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=faQiRU8-R90#t=51
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjC39ec7Wmg#t=104
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFLRKeYdjuc#t=34
www.youtube.com/watch?v=77oVEp6yDFQ
Even a simple TPS can look good if you can make or buy some good 3D assets
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD8-Wa-xH9o

(I just don't understand people keeping motion blurr activated all time , looks not so good and i would not play long time with it activated)

There is the issue, Unity has IMO easier and initially has rapid workflow but it lacks tools and polish
Yes, UE brings directly graphics , physics , particles and some tools a level above but not as easy to take. UE4 and BP are also easy but asks learning and some coders will prefer simple code access than having to deal with visual nodes spaghetti. It's C++ can be understood throught examples but it will really need lot more C++ tutorials for newbbies choosing that.
ww.youtube.com/watch?v=hYuOI9pwiaE
Still not as simple as UT.

what is the right tools ? depends on what game size and complexity you target , what range of hardware.For big worlds, sometimes you have to put efforts on middleware to have better results and taget more hardware.
http://twvideo01.ubm-us.net/o1/vault/GDC2014/Presentations/Bushnaief_Jasin_Solving_Visibility_In.pdf

Actually , i seen a project on UT (Sands of Nor) having to cut the level in 3 parts caus , the entire level just crashed each time , it was not Mmo world , just a terrain level. In this point i'm pretty sure UE4 would display easy the entire level without crashing.
https://forums.unrealengine.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=6377&stc=1

About big levels , and all things to manage on complicated ones, another question is what are the 3D engines really using multi thread on different parts ?
UT is able to target really old 3D cards, will it be possible always with new version ? Will we be able to switch BPS to simple shaders for non demanding games ? when UT5 will be out ? months, year ?

As hobbysts many of us using UE today have now pushed graphics, particle, physics with UE4, no limitations (as users of Free version), that's a big difference.