Ever heard of FMOD? As far as game libraries go, FMOD is perhaps one of the most ubiquitous libraries in existence. It is a low level audio library and the question isn’t really who uses it, but who doesn’t. FMOD is integrated into just about every game engine you can think of including CryEngine, Unity, Unreal, Trinigy and Source. It has literally been used to create hundreds of games. FMOD has always been available for free on free projects, but had a price tag for commercial releases. Earlier today @FmodStudio made the following Tweets:
The link in question leads to this article on Gamasutra ( although oddly not their own site ). The press release reads as follows:
Melbourne – 10th March, 2014 – Firelight Technologies announced today that its next generation audio tool suite, FMOD Studio, is now free for indie developers. FMOD Studio has always been free for non-commercial projects, and from today it will also be free for commercial indie projects.
"We started out as an indie company so we’ve always felt an affinity with the indie community." said Firelight Technologies CEO Brett Paterson. "They’re risk takers, innovators and explorers. We wanted to give back to that community and we can’t wait to see what they do with FMOD Studio."
Firelight Technologies recently released FMOD Studio 1.3 with new features specifically for indie developers:
· Unity integration plug-in
· Plugin SDK for creating sound generators and effects with examples on GitHub
These additions come on top of an industry-leading feature set that includes an intuitive and familiar UI, an all-in-one multi-track editor for interactive music and sound effects, and a full-featured mixing desk with dynamic mixer snapshots and control surface support, as well as supporting cross-platform authoring on both PC and Mac.
Since its release last year, FMOD Studio has already been used in a number of AAA titles, including Forza Motorsport 5, which recently won an IGN award for best audio on Xbox One. FMOD Studio is also proving to be popular with iOS and Android developers, with several unannounced titles due in the coming months.
So basically if you make less than 100,000K ( at least I assume that is the case, budgets under 100K strikes me as odd wording ) you can use FMOD for free. If you make over 100K, you should be able to afford it.
I’m loving how much more accessible game development tools are becoming!
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