Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, at GDC 2016.
Categories

Epic Games says Unreal Engine added 1.5 million users in past year

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

Epic Games has gathered momentum in the past year as it made its Unreal Engine for game development available for free, said Tim Sweeney, chief executive of Epic, at a session at the Game Developers Conference today.

Epic is an important company in the game ecosystem, not just as a leading game developer but as a provider of the Unreal game engine. A year ago, Epic made its Unreal Engine available for free, with royalties on the back end for commercial games. Since that time, the company has gained 1.5 million users, Sweeney said. Seven Unreal franchises have generated more than $1 billion in revenues each, to date.

Unlock premium content and VIP community perks with GB M A X! Join now to enjoy our free and premium perks. 

Join now →

Sign in to your account.

Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.