Godot Engine needs more funding for post-4.0 development

While Godot Engine has been going from strength to strength, the co-creator and technical lead Juan Linietsky has reminded people how they rely on support to keep going.

Considering the masses of work that goes into an open source game engine, they don't actually get all that much money from donations or sponsors. On their Patreon for example, it only gives around $15,000 per month which doesn't go far when it's split between multiple people.

On Twitter, Linietsky mentioned in a short thread how the team managed to secure funding to hire contributors to finish the huge 4.0 release that includes Vulkan support and a big rendering overhaul. Thanks to the recent donations and grants the release won't be missing any big features. However, next year they will not have enough funding to keep most of the developers hired and more work will be needed to help everything mature.

Linietsky mentioned that next year Godot will have a re-think of the funding situation, and hopefully get some sponsors to renew their pledges along with trying to get more of the community to donate "so we don't rely mostly on sponsors like now".

Is this all something to worry about? Not really. Open source projects often go through rounds like this but it is a clear reminder to support what you love, if you're financially able to - as one day they might not be able to continue. It's different for other game engines like Unity, Unreal and others as they take a revenue share but Godot does not.