For years Unity was known as the most accessible and widely available game engine, but recently Epic’s Unreal Engine has made strides in becoming a powerful tool not just for established pros, but smaller teams and newcomers alike. Epic Games is no doubt happy about this development, and as such is looking to boost both its relationship and PR perception with developers using or aspiring to use its Unreal Engine technology.
With this in mind, Epic announced today that it is partnering with Nvidia on something called Nvidia Edge, an effort designed to provide “outstanding individuals and teams doing great work with top of the line hardware.” Awards include free GTX 1080 and GTX 1080i cards respectively, with winners selected by Epic and Nvidia as they surveil developers’ progress on social media. The full explanation of the program is below.
To celebrate these talented developers, artists and designers, we’ve partnered with NVIDIA on a new initiative: the NVIDIA Edge Program.
The NVIDIA Edge Program aims to award outstanding individuals and teams doing great work with top of the line hardware — GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1080 Ti cards.
Starting immediately, we will select three projects each month and present those developers with one of these high-end graphics cards to further enhance their work. We will also showcase their projects on the Unreal Engine and NVIDIA blogs with additional promotion possible on other platforms. The first round of winners will be announced at the end of July.
The NVIDIA Edge Program will continue until the summer of 2018.
There’s no formal application process for the program, but Epic says that if you share stills and video from your game on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, and mention Nvidia Edge while you’re at it, then Big Brother (or perhaps GPU Santa) will be on the lookout for the best of the best. It’s a rather informal process, and it does raise questions about why the “best of the best” would be the ones who need freebies in the first place. Regardless, it’s clear Epic and Nvidia’s hearts are in the right place – now I just need someone to help out with some fancy mockups so I can score one for myself.
