First recipients of Epic’s Unreal Dev Grants deserve every penny

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Well, this is a nice way to encourage new game developers.

Epic Games, the studio behind hits like Gears of War and Infinity Blade, has announced at the Game Developer’s Conference the first recipients of it Unreal Dev Grants, with the winners receiving anywhere from $50,000 to $5,000 to help them develop and publish their game ideas created inside Epic’s (now free) Unreal Engine 4.

The winners are:

• Koola: He’s a French artist who focuses on creating realistic outdoor scenes, like the one below. He received a grant for $18,000.

• Nuren: The New Renaissance: This is a virtual reality rock opera from Jake Kaufman and Jessie Seely. They received a grant worth $18,000. Their project is on Kickstarter.
• Dead Static Drive: Mike Blackney describes as a horror-themed driving game. He received a grant for $15,000. You can watch him talk about his game below.

Epic’s grants come from a $5,000,000 development fund created help innovative projects created inside Unreal Engine 4.