Are any other developers making less than $100,000 unhappy with what they have been offered today?

Most of the stuff you listed can be done very simply using the Editor scripting. That is exactly why it is there. Many are literally a line or two. You can learn more starting here: http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/ExtendingTheEditor.html
For the items that confuse you, or the things that are just part of game development (specific to your needs) you can start here: http://unity3d.com/learn

 

I agree. I have the base $1500 Pro license. Publishing to mobile using the base Pro license should never result in a "Personal Edition" splash screen. Unity should have included all Pro add-ons in the base Pro license or at least included a "Pro Edition" splash screen for Pro users that did not buy the Pro mobile add-ons.

 

Seems like a simple fix, reword the splash screen problem solved./!! Made with Unity is good enough.

I agree people who game get so picky as it is, they would see those words and rip that game apart. I hate to say it, but its true!

 

Sorry about that. I must have initially been quoting several posts, then changed my mind but deleted the wrong part of the reply I was preparing. I edited my post to fix this error.

 

@OP, Its an easy question.
Answer: NO
I would suggest people to show some gratitude for what they got from unity-ue-cry-source.

 

This. I was contemplating getting a refund for my Pro Upgrade but actually I think for AS Level11, the dark skin and the Beta Access I will keep it, anyways.
Cloud build .... yeah well. I hope the 12 month free cloud build can be started when I want (not immediately) because at the moment I don't need this at all. I will stick to Pro even if I would qualify for a refund. If I don't see it justified in the future I won't upgrade for Unity 6 any more. easy as that.

(edit) - Also the Asset Server is included now. Which is awesome for me.

 

Asset server sucks, it hasn't been updated since 2009. Look at Perforce or Git.

 

This.

 

Actually, the team-license is quite awesome for single developers as well: You get the Cache Server which makes switching between platforms fun again - no endless re-importing of everything. Works awesome. And even as an individual developer I put everything except super-tiny test/demo-projects into my Asset Server. Doing any kind of development without version control seems like ... driving with a car without brakes. There's workarounds you can use when you don't have the Team License or now simply Unity Pro ... but I'd rather use the Asset Server because for me it does work quite well.

 

That's the first thing I thought when I saw the new screen, I think people would be more accepting if it only said "made with unity".

 

Thanks for the tip but I will try it as soon as I need it. For now I am just happy to have an integrated solution in case I need one.

 

Using git is hardly a workaround, but we digress. The Cache Server certainly looks interesting - I tried something from the Asset Store and it was more trouble than it was worth.

 

[Slight Rant]

I don't understand all the complains that so many people are making... i find it a little insulting to Unity imo.

So many people were asking for the price of Unity Pro to be reduced ( not to be free ) for a few years because the price was too high for indies, and now they give all feature set of Unity Pro for FREE and people are still complaining about minor things that they didn't get, like the dark skin or splash screen...
It doesn't even have royalties, which is crazy.

Now, i do agree on a few points people made, like:
- Changing Personal Edition to Indie Edition or something else. Personal Edition sounds like something one would use for personal use only and not commercially. Sends the wrong message when people start your game for the first time or watch a video of your game. I do agree that if your game is good, then people don't care, but it's about that first impression.
Anyway, that logo video is awesome and i want to use it in my game, even though i have Unity Pro.

BTW, Unity people, is it possible you can provide us with the high quality video of the logo? without the "Personal Edition" thingy so we can use in videos? that would be great

- Value of Pro. One thing to note about this change, is that Unity Pro is no longer a feature set that Unity Indie doesn't have, but it's a set of Services for a reduced price if you got every service separately. If those services aren't something you need, then you don't need to buy it.
If you bought the Pro version during beta and don't think the value is right for you, then simply ask for a refund...
Having a dark skin in your editor won't change the final quality of your game.

Think of Dark Skin as something symbolic. It's like when you buy a skin for a character you have in a game. ( many people probably don't agree, but come on, you can't ask for literally everything to be free... even more than it already is )
Did people who had Unity 4 Indie complain about not having the dark skin? why did it change now?

Another thing, if you want to upgrade from Unity4 Pro to Unity 5, and you don't need the Service set of Unity5 Pro, then guess what, you don't need to spend money to upgrade like you used to, because Unity5 free comes with all the features you had! Crazy right? ( correct me if i'm wrong though )

I upgraded during the Beta through Studica, which cost me 300 something €, and i think for what i get i can get the value worth, so i'll keep it.

One other thing that some people are probably missing, is that this is HUGE news for Asset Store vendors.
People that sold assets with a feature set different from free and pro, or only had to sell their asset to pro only users, will be able to sell their asset to literally everyone out there. That's huge news for them as they will be able to sell their asset to many more people. They don't need to cut down features from their asset, or use inferior methods to achieve worse results they would get with Unity Pro.

[/Slight Rant]

Anyway, i think this announcement was amazing for the game development community and i hope to see many more great games with better quality made with Unity.

Thank you Unity for everything you did

Now, everyone get back to work

 

Look at Fast Platform Switch, it is awesome if you want cache server functionality for flat $25. Only issue is it works only for your machine, and not in a group environment, each person would need to maintain their own cache, otherwise it is awesome.

 

Seems to me like this new pricing structure and feature split is made for a version of Unity that is yet to come; a version were services are the main value-add. Right now the services included with Pro aren't that appealing (at least not to me), but I guess the intention is to remedy that with time.

Though right now it does feel like Pro is mainly the "Bring your own splash screen edition."

 

What? We're talking about expensive software here, not hamburgers.

 

Yes, I totally agree. So to make Pro more appealing they made the splash screen worse.

The changes do nothing to improve the issues I have with the Unity licence set up.

1. The poor value for mobile development compared to desktop. 3 times the price when you are less likely to be using all the formerly-Pro features.

2. Something for the users in the large gap between free and Pro. I'm not a freeloader, I want to give Unity some money for good value features. $4500 for removing a splash screen is not that.

 

I preorderd Unity 5 Pro too and previously owned a Unity 4 Pro license (both including plus iOS/Android Pro ). A certain amount of let-down feelings were indeed there when i learned the news yesterday.
At the same time I gladly noticed that now Pro includes the Team license, but again was disappointed that this feature does'nt trickle down to the existing Unity 4 Pro license installed on the same machine

I would certainly expect this to be the case, hence i created a Poll
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/po...tained-teamlicense-in-unity-pro-4-too.306793/

In my eyes, having the Teamlicense trickle back to Unity 4 Pro too would create an even bigger incentive to buy into Unity 5 Pro, even for teams currently not planning to update their current projects to Unity 5 any time soon

Why does a new Unity 5 Pro license not enable Teamlicense for Unity 4 Pro too, when it's the usual way Unity licenses work: A license for a new major version is valid for the previous major version(s) too

Could anyone from Unity respond to that specific issue ?

 

Can't say I'm particularly appreciative of the enormous give away. I have no team, no need for the asset server, don't make mobile games which seems to wipeout most of the analytics, webGL is still not great in my browser, might be ok as a full game, useless to use in a website as opening several windows kills my browser. Either have or don't need the assets. Not sure there is much advantage in marketing aspects for pro users unless it is more than unity ads. I now have the possibility of working with a couple of friends that will use free which is good but to do so still excludes the use of the cache server and any of the other team features, so I will have to set up my own version control. Not much use for the Cloud build and it is only free for a year anyway.

Half my reasoning for preordering was to support Unity as well as it seeming a good deal. Well the supporting Unity bit still stands but had there been an inkling of this a year ago I would never have forked that money out. Don't want a refund because the money is already spent and maybe my situation will change and I will benefit from these team aspects, but it leaves a bad aftertaste in my mouth , vaguely like winning a carnival dart game where the tickets cost a dollar and the prize is worth 20 cents, the 20 cents worth in this case being the team tools and analytics, for me at least.

I'll live with it I suppose, Unity usually comes through so I have no doubt in a few months I will be glad I let it stand, possibly even the community pro features will make it worthwhile, and priority bugfixes and beta downloads etc. It does bring to mind that old English saying 'no good deed goes unpunished.'

 

So? The scale doesn't change the concept.

Indeed it does! I think we might be seeing that from different points of view, though...

 

Which is simple not true.
You cannot use Unity 5 Personal edition to continue working on former Pro edition's projects.

'Another thing, if you want to upgrade from Unity4 Pro to Unity 5, and you don't need the Service set of Unity5 Pro, then guess what, you don't need to spend money to upgrade like you used to, because Unity5 free comes with all the features you had! Crazy right? ( correct me if i'm wrong though )'

Yep, you are wrong.
And you cannot mix any Pro and Personal projects in the future, which is crazy. (And of course you can correct me if I'm wrong).

 

Everyone's welcome to stick with Unity 4 free.


No? thought not.

 

Actually I'm a Pro User since 2.x. Now what?

 

Use Unity pro. Or don't

Unity Pro is more about splash screen removal, earning restriction removal (both entirely fair, lets be honest, as free is subsidised by these) - and ALL the services. That's a lot of services. 5 hasn't been finished. 5 has just started. More and more value will go to pro owners in the form of empowering your game, rather than engine features.

Professional users worry about splash screens and services. When you sell games for a living (the definition of professional is being paid for it), you worry a lot about analytics if you want to make serious money. You worry about networking in the cloud and things like that.

People who can't afford it have been given something special, and these guys worry less about services. Pro isn't about "playing as AAA game developer", it's about making a living from it. Money spent to make money.

These are my opinions as a user.

 

'Unity Pro is more about splash screen removal'

Doesn't matter to me as I never was a game developer.

'and ALL the services. That's a lot of services. 5 hasn't been finished. 5 has just started. More and more value will go to pro owners in the form of empowering your game, rather than engine features.'

Yep, almost none of these services is useful to me.
I choosed Pro because of the features like Image Effects.
Now - thanks to wonderful new policy - I have to pay for the ability to continue my former projects as I cannot use the Personal Edition to continue former (4.x) Pro projects and everything I made in the Unity 5 Pro Beta.
What a great deal!

 

I'd love to do the bolded. Except I can't, because I gave Unity $850 a year or two ago for 4.x Pro.

 

I think you are missing a couple of particular user cases here.

The problem for some people is that with the new editions, if they owned Pro previously to obtain things like specific features, but they don't hit the $100k limit then in theory they could switch to the Personal edition and save money. Unfortunately they can't because it would appear you are not allowed to downgrade a previous U4 Pro project into a a U5 Personal project.

In essence there are a small group of developers who are now worse off than new users, they are effectively locked into buying Pro because they started in Pro.

Another awkward case is for those who work with others but in a freelance capability who again don't hit the $100k limit themselves, but the companies they work with do. So the companies must purchase U5 Professional edition as they are over the $100k cap and the freelancer must now do the same, despite themselves not earning over the $100k becuase you can't mix licences.

This is slightly different to the first case where the freelancer is just going to have to suck up buying Pro as a cost of doing business. Though seen from their point of view they are being charged to use software even though they aren't earning over the $100k limit.

This is the position I find myself in, and i'm in two minds as to whether its good or bad, as I like to support Unity and technically i'm no worse off than before. However I can understand others being frustrated as they end up straggling the license divide and in effect haven't gotten anything out of the amazing announcements from yesterday.

For both cases i'm not sure there is a nice solution, since part of UT business plan depends on not allowing mixing of licenses.

 

I believe that particular case is allowed by the EULA:

"any user of the Software may use content licensed from third parties regardless of the version of the Software that was used to develop such third party content."

 

For 4, yeah. I think a lot of people getting refunds for pro will probably buy pro again once more services kick in

Do you have a link for this? or something I can read about it because it's the first I've heard of it, and it seems irrational that a Unity 4 pro project couldn't be moved to Personal.

 

Thanks for pointing that out. One thing I wish Unity did in its EULA/FAQ is give clear examples. I may well fit that definition, however I work very closely with one company so i'm not positive I do. Whilst I do in the end provide a finished product to them, there is a lot of back and forth testing in Unity on both sides.

Regardless I'm in two minds as to whether to drop Pro. Technically I probably could, but I like supporting UT and getting it for free doesn't feel right when i'm earning a decent living from it, even if its not > $100k limit. In fact I doubt I will for a number of reasons, not least i've already paid and accounted for the upgrade price.

 

'In essence there are a small group of developers who are now worse off than new users, they are effectively locked into buying Pro because they started in Pro.'

Not so small. Think of the guys who are using Unity for simulations, VR, archviz, etc.
Also Asset Store Developers.

It seems to be a very unfriendly policy.

 

'No, you do not need to buy Unity 5 Pro if you make less than 100K a year. You can run both your 4.x Pro and 5 personal on the same machine but the EULA still prevents content mixing from Personal and Pro. Essentially you can have both editors on the same machine but you would not be able to upgrade your 4.x Pro project into 5 personal.'

From Unity Staff member....

 

Sure! http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/un...personal-on-same-machine.306536/#post-1996188

 

Sorry just going off what others have said and that you seemed to miss in terms of their point, so you'll have to ask them.

 

Is this a technical thing? Or is that a license thing?
If it's just a technical thing, can you conver your project to U4 free and then port it to U5 Personal?

 

I'd say it's a misinterpretation or something that you would not be able to use your U4 Pro projects in your own U5 personal. I saw Aurore reply about it somewhere but I think it needs to be rechecked. It could be info/technical oversight from the team in all the hurry with the release.

 

The business model has changed, I get that. I bought Pro because it had graphic abilities that indie did not. I accepted that because it is normal in graphic software to have different feature tiers at different prices.

But now "Pro" is oriented to team licenses and cloud services. No matter my graphical skill level I choose to work for myself, not in a studio with other people. Income aside, the Pro features are mostly meaningless to me. I wasn't even aware of them, and they only last a year anyway despite my perpetual license. Pro should be called "Studio" or "Enterprise" or whatever term that brings to mind a team.

My problem is I technically pre-bought Unity5Pro and got 4xPro to use because the beta was partly crippled from writing final projects.... So I used 4.5-4.6 and necessary to use the pro features for what I am doing. Unity5 is released but obviously not finished, especially 3rd-party support.... I'm stuck. If I refund for my pre-order, I assume I lose my 4.xPro. I lose everything I've been working on.... I guess I could wait until April to apply for the refund and hope for the best, but this is a crappy situation for me personally.

 

Why do you think this? I've just returned my license on my project and re-opened it and it all works fine, only difference is the skin colour. We wouldn't offer refunds for those who qualify then say "btw, you can't move the project " .

 

With no hard numbers I didn't want to over-estimate the number of users affected. However I suspect it is not an insignificant number due to how the license used to be and how it is now. Plenty of dev's would have bought Pro simply for access to all features and not because they were over the $100k limit.

Unfortunately for all the amazing changes UT made yesterday, it feels as if they failed to account for this group who are now somewhat stuck in between the licenses, with what you say is quite an unfriendly policy and honestly not something that UT normally does.

 

Problem is, you did: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/un...personal-on-same-machine.306536/#post-1996188

 

I just wanted to quote this again. It's such a good point.

I would actually like to use that logo in the splash despite having a pro license. It looks great and adds credibility.

UT is in a kind of tough position - they need to make money, and I have a feeling there are a large number of customers who pay for pro despite <$100k.

On the other hand, as a customer on a budget - it feels terrible dropping $1500 on removing two words from a splash screen.

 

From this thread:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/unity-4-x-pro-and-unity-5-personal-on-same-machine.306536/

and this quote:

 

Please see the replies above mine that link to this post from the Unity Community Manager.

Very willing to accept this is all just miss-communication as I agree it would be very weird. Honestly the only misstep UT made yesterday is that there EULA/FAQ does not got far enough in providing clear examples of what the rules are. This has clearly led to misinformation and in this case clear contradictions that ideally should be addressed in a blog or new FAQ and not by 'random' UT employees. That's not to say I don't appreciate UT employees trying to help here but this is all based on legal requirements so IMHO it really needs something more official.

 

I need to get this checked ASAP

 

Thanks a lot!

 

AFAIK it's just a mistake due to sleepless GDC nights. Hang on in there and it'll be clarified.

 

Being that you're entitled to a refund, I don't see what's the problem. If you pre-ordered pro, it's because you were ready for it. Now you can keep pro features you wanted, AND get your money back? How is that an insult?

 

I see that you cannot see the problem. I preordered Pro for the features what were Pro only. Now it seems I preordered it for nothing, but I cannot go for refund as I cannot work with Personal Edition on former Pro projects legally.

But I say we should wait for clarification.

 

For most the 'personal' tag line is a big problem. Let's be honest - Unity probably selected that wording specifically to entice people to pay for its removal.

I'm not saying it's entirely rational - but it 'feels' horrible paying to remove that text. Paying for features or functionality 'feels' way better. For people on a tight budget (under 100k total income means you basically are), this can really be a pretty big deal.

As a community of game devs, the idea that the mental accounting process isn't rational (but is meaningful) shouldn't be too foreign! These feelings are compounded when you see others being given something for free (ie: all the features you were happy to pay for being given to free users).

This kind of psychology is pretty well studied.

 

I think when Aurore said that, she meant that you can't have Pro and Personal on the same machine and switch the project back and forward between those versions. just like a team can't have part of the team with Pro licenses and the other part of the team with Personal licenses.

Sounds counter intuitive that just because you don't want to upgrade to the Pro version of the next Unity, that you can't return to the free version. ( at least if you don't earn 100k+ a year ).

Aurore should probably re-phrase what was said, unless i'm wrong.

Can Unity just answer this question so there isn't any more confusin?:
Can a person with Unity 4 Pro upgrade their project to Unity 5 Personal Edition?

EDIT:
Well, it was just answered by the post above mine

@squared55 There is your confirmation that you can upgrade your project from Unity4 Pro to Unity 5 Personal Edition