During the State of Unreal Engine keynote at GDC 2016, Epic founder Tim Sweeney announced Epic will be doling out another $500k in Unreal Dev Grants, a no-strings-attached funding program to support “really promising Unreal based products.”
“Indie developers pride themselves on running entirely on caffeine and ramen,” Sweeney said. “The truth is, some things in life cost money. Hardware, marketing campaigns, outsourced contract works. Lots of things … this year at GDC we just announced we are awarding $500k in new Unreal dev grants. That brings the total up to $1.2 million and we’re still running.”
In addition to the cash awarded to Unreal Dev Grants, Sweeney said Valve and HTC have pledged to give Epic 500 HTC Vive headsets to distribute to developers to encourage development of VR titles.
“Thank you very much, Gabe,” Sweeney joked, giving a nod to Valve CEO Gabe Newell. He said the program “aims to go wide” in its efforts to support projects based on merit alone, implying that commercial success and mainstream appeal won’t be barriers of entry for applicants as seen in the recent spate of education-based winners.
More than 100 projects have received funding through the program since it was announced in 2015. Epic has pledged a total of $5 million for the initiative, so Sweeney’s projections only account for about a quarter of the financial commitment thus far.
Epic plans to showcase some of these grant winners at its booth at GDC, and with the convention’s balls-to-the-wall VR approach it’s clear the development industry is prepared to throw real support behind the nascent VR revolution.
