
Yeah, pretty much, Unreal just released their UDK (Unreal Engine 3 Development Kit) for free. There are a couple limits on that though, as follows
So basically not only did one of the biggest names in game development just release their cutting edge engine to the masses, you can make damn commercial games with it and make 5000$ royalty free (and after that it's only 25% royalties anyways)
I'm blown away by all of these high profile Development Kits going free in such a short amount of time. Also makes me wonder if we're going to be looking at a new business model where companies give their engines to EVERYONE for free, which causes more high quality games to be made, which, in turn, makes them more royalty money as there isn't that initial thousand or so dollar bridge to get over to get into game development.
So anyways, here's the link on Unreal's site.
http://www.udk.com/index.html