UDK March 2012 vs CryEngine 3 (for a Job in the future?)

Question

I'm getting into game development right now, and I want to do 3D games. I have been checking out UDK, Unity, and CryEngine 3 SDK. All of them, I can see, have their pros and cons. Unity, however, I am starting to rule out because I'm wanting to do Game Development as a job in the future. Since the Unreal Engine (which, as I understand, is 99% the same as UDK) and CryEngine 3 are the industry standards, apart from GameBryo etc.. (which I don't have money to buy as I'm 16 haha)

From what I understand the pros of UDK are:

• Simpler (In terms of Scripting)
• Runs on more computers than CE3
• Industry standard, used in MANY top-notch games.
• Kismet is really nice (for level-wide editing)
• Development for iOS is possible, and free (minus the $99 fee to become an "Apple Developer"
• Cross Platform (PC, Mac, iOS) for the UDK. UE3 (as I understand) is PC, Mac, iOS, PS3, Xbox360, and Android?
• $99 to sell games, first $50,000 in sales is royalty-free

The cons are:

• Must exit the editor to recompile the code every time you change the UnrealScript code.
• Worse workflow than CryEngine 3
• Soon to be replaced by Unreal Engine 4
• Crashes often.
• Not many tutorials.

The pros of CE3 is:

• AMAZING Terrain Generator
• True next-gen-top-notch graphics
• Best water ever seen
• Much better workflow than UE3
• Rarely Crashes

The Cons are:

• Must log in to use, if you lose Internet connection while editing, you won't even be able to save.
• Expensive if you want to make commercial games.
• Doesn't run on as many computers
• Only on PC, PS3, and X360
• More complicated scripting?

Is what I said the basis? Are there any pros or cons I have missed? Which do you recommend for a beginner (to game development, not programming in general. I am well versed in Python, know VB.NET, C#, HTML, and CSS) Is Unity a possibility for a game-development company to see potential in you?

EDIT: P.S. I thought I should mention this... I do not plan on making FPS as my main genre. I know it will be hard to do anything else with either UDK or CryEngine, but I don't mind. I need the learning experience. Mainly, can UDK AND CryEngine do this? I KNOW UDK can, but I'm only about 50% sure CryEngine can, I haven't seen many people ask this.

Answer 1

Just on the pricing of each, Read the notea correction to UDK pricing.

Here is the cost of each currently

Crytek: For Indy Developers

-"Crytek require only 20% of the developer’s revenues from the commercial launch of their game." -I find this more appealing for sheer simplicity's sake

UDK: -"US $99 up-front, and a 0% royalty on you or your company's first US$50,000 in UDK related revenue from all your UDK based games or commercial applications, and a 25% royalty on UDK related revenue from all your UDK based games or commercial applications above US$50,000*"

*Note there is this to,

-"If you are using UDK internally within your business and the application created using UDK is not distributed to a third party (i.e., someone who is not your employee or subcontractor), you are required to pay Epic an annual license fee of US$2,500 per installed UDK developer seat per year. This license fee only applies to UDK seats used for development; no license fee is required for hardware where only the resulting applications are installed."

Alright I am not the best but what this seems to be is if you are a small dev team you could get away with only one charge of 2,500 by listing every one under on "employer" but I am not even sure If it applies to indie devs.

LINKS: Cryengine: http://mycryengine.com/index.php?conid=43 UDK: http://www.udk.com/licensing

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Thanks for you post, Robert

Answer 2

I have played a little bit with UDK before and I think the pros and cons you mentioned are valid.

I don't know anything about the internal workings of game company recruitment, but I think for a beginner Unity3D is a choice worthy considering. Unity is not as powerful/productive/market-standard as UDK, but it does have some advantages:

1. C# scripting
2. Comprehensible documentation, tutorials and active community
3. Friendly and easy-to-use IDE, Script Editor and (most importantly) Debugging Tools.

Anyway, if you follow some tutorials it shouldn't take more than a few days to learn the basics of Unity and make some game prototypes. I would recommend it as a staring point even if you are going to migrate to another engine later.

Answer 3

I don't see where you get the idea UDK crashes often and "doesn't have many tutorials"?

You can also get away with having to recompile each script change with a system called "archetypes", I won't explain in detail, but you get the gist.

if you try to get anything outside of CE3 other than an FPS, you're going to have to dig into their C++ code which I can tell you now is the least documented, least commented, code to date.

Answer 4

I'm learning UDK at the moment. Click on the welcome screen to access online video tutorials. This Buzz3D dude makes the best tutes ever. Although he uses an older version of UDK, I'm able to keep up and I've learned heaps. UDK is a very exciting editor. I plan on checking out CE3 at some stage. Dunno much about Unity. Might be good for developing to the upcoming ouya console (which is a bit of a dark horse for the industry).