Following on the heels of several major acquisitions including Quixel, ArtStation, RAD Tools and Capturing Reality, Unreal Engine creator Epic Games have announced the acquisition of Sketchfab. Sketchfab is the largest online repository of 3D models, with over 4M assets available, both free and commercially.
From the Epic Games announcement, existing users of competing engines have nothing to fear:
Going forward we will continue to enable all of the integrations in place with Sketchfab’s technology, as well as ensure the company’s offerings will remain compatible with each of the different tools and platforms they support. This includes wholeheartedly supporting Unity and other engines. Sketchfab will continue to operate as an independently branded service while collaborating closely with the Unreal Engine team.
Artists that sell on Sketchfab however have some great news, as Epic are making immediate changes to the commission structure:
As part of our shared goal to make Sketchfab’s offerings more profitable to creators, we will be reducing Sketchfab’s store fees to 12% so that 3D creators will get even more value when using Sketchfab.
There is even better news over on the Sketchfab announcement, revealing that Pro plans are now available for free:
We are also making all the Plus plan features free, which means more uploads and larger file size at no cost. Current Plus customers will be automatically upgraded to our Pro plan at no additional cost, with the option to downgrade to free if they wish to do so. We also increased the number of monthly uploads of Pro plans from 30 to 50. Finally, we will also be retiring the Business plan, and migrate current Business plan customers to our enterprise level features, at no additional cost. You can read more about those changes in our dedicated FAQ.
You can learn more about Epic Games acquiring Sketchfab in the video below.