[NUREN]: The New Renaissance is the first VR project to get a slice of Epic Games’ development fund, coming to the tune of $18,000 worth of “no strings attached” funds to further the development of the virtual reality experience.
Last month, Epic Games announced that they would be giving up anywhere between a $5,000 to $50,000 piece of their $5million development fund to “anyone making cool things” with their game engine, Unreal Engine 4.
See Also: Epic Games Offering up Cash from $5 Million Fund to ‘Anyone Making Cool Things with UE4′
And now audio engineer Jake Kaufman and artist/voice actress Jessie Seely have a reason to celebrate, because NUREN, their full-length VR rock opera set in a dystopian (and actually quite visually attractive) future, has received a guaranteed $18,000 in funding from Epic Games, and is the very first virtual reality experience to do so.
NUREN, which is still running a Kickstarter campaign, is among two other entries made with UE4 to hear the good news, all three of which are receiving respective $18,000 grants.
See Also: ‘[NUREN] The New Renaissance’ Oculus Rift DK2 Demo Now Available (video)
And it seems that when Epic Games says their Unreal Dev grants are “no strings attached,” they really mean it, as devs continue to own their IP, are free to publish however or whenever, and “can use the grant funds without any restrictions or obligations to Epic.”
Anyone who wishes to enter can still submit their project for an Unreal Dev grant, and like NUREN, are allowed to concurrently run crowdfunding campaigns or any other means of soliciting funds. If that isn’t enough encouragement to get started on your VR project using UE4, don’t forget that as of an announcement from Epic made on March 2nd, the game engine is now also free of cost, so there has never been a better time than now to build your VR game, experience, or app.