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

[EDIT]

So I've spoken to legal and everyone involved, we've cleared it up, forget about all the below, you can upgrade your 4.x pro project into 5 personal. GO NUTS.



Hey guys, sorry I've not been online since I've been on the show floor. I've removed Josh's screenshot of the skype chat in case anyone gets confused, it's in fact a legal issue, not a licensing team issue.

Currently as it stands, this is still correct;

Essentially what is being described is "free" & "Pro" mixing of content which is not allowed according to our EULA. I am in fact discussing this with Legal to see if we can clarify and refine this.

 

It is a monthly subscription that requires you to subscribe for at minimum one year. After that year, you can cancel whenever you want. If they called it a yearly subscription it would be completely false and even more difficult to understand.

 

Er no.

5 devs x 1500 = 7500.
A team only needs one license to deploy to mobile, bringing the tally to 9000. Every dev does not need every platform. And you can get some discounts on that (pretty good ones) if you're buying in volume.

 

One thing is for sure, the new Unity licensing model is a mess if it is hard for even your own specialists to understand how it is supposed to work. Have you considered moving to a royalty model like UE4 did? I think I would prefer that.

 

Would be +3000 as it is $1,5000 per platform, most I assume want to deploy to both mobile platforms.
But I didn't know only one person needs mobile, that's a good thing although I still disagree with mobile being charged per iOS and Android and not just "Mobile". But my biggest beef is Pro users footing the bill for the free users by paying a very large sum (compared to other engines which most are free these days) and getting almost nothing in return (services we don't care about, ability to customize splash screen (we need, but trivial feature), 100k revenue (this is fine, when hit it buy pro, simple).

 

Wasn't this against the EULA? I've understood you need the same Pro licenses for everyone, not just base for all and one for deployment without splash.

 

Many of us don't want royalties. Although 99% of the people here would save money on Pro by paying royalties as most people are not making $100k per game, but it is a huge nightmare to manage and document. I appreciate the owned license approach of Unity, just don't appreciate free gets 99.9% of Unity and Pro users foot the bill for them to use it for free and get almost nothing in return.

 

Any help with this?

 

A subscription what requires 1 year minimum is a yearly/annual subscription

 

You'll probably get more help with that from support directly.

 

This is disheartening.

So yeah to answer the thread title question, I am unhappy.

 

Yep. I was afraid of this.....

 

But I'm willing to be patient and let them work through the issues

 

Yep, me too. But until it I'm pretty sure that it is the effect of the plan 'B'.
I mean if it isn't, then I hope that the management/legal guys will never go to work for a company what builds aeroplanes (sorry for the sarcasm)

 

It's not against the EULA if the developers do not use mobile features. If for example your game is cross platform (PC and iOS) - which it naturally is, since it's running on desktop, then providing all the other team members make no use of iOS there is no infringement in the EULA. The guy who is adding mobile support must have both. This guy probably does the builds too. Everyone else is working in windows, for example and do not require mobile export.

I think what you are thinking of is mixing licenses, you can't mix pro and personal.

 

Well that's a rare scenario except in large teams where you have dedicated teams per platform. 5 devs working on a cross platform game, every dev is going to have to deal with some sort of platform issue at some point. It's the same point about Pro/Personal you don't allow one pro user to build and others to use personal. As it stands right now, personal has all the features of Pro, so in theory what you are saying is you only need one Pro license since there is usually one "build" machine and the rest are just coding using what is now included in the personal edition. In fact, since Pro is really just a splash screen unlock, none of the other devs are using the splash screen to code their parts of the game.

 

No I specifically said you can't mix pro and personal.

 

I don't think the issue is about what Unity Pro offers over Personal Edition. What really bothers me is that pre-orders for Unity Pro opened 9 months ago (?). I paid for "Unity Pro"; the version of Unity that includes all of the engine features, because I require many of the features lacking in the free version. I was happy to pay for it - not a problem. Now, 9 months later, Unity has changed what I purchased without my approval to do so. What I purchased is no longer what they're selling - in fact, they're basically giving away what I purchased to anyone who wants it, and in it's place they've given me a bunch of other things that I didn't purchase. The bottom line is that if they had said 9 months ago - "click here to order Unity Pro, but keep in mind that by the time we deliver it, you'll actually be able to get it for free as long as you don't mind an enforced splash screen, but hey - we will give you a bunch of other 'stuff' instead at that point, some of which will be preview/beta features"....... then I wouldn't have hit the buy button and handed over a couple thousand dollars.

I don't know if I'm going to apply for a refund. What I do know is that Unity did the wrong thing, and I'd just like for them to acknowledge that. I know one thing for certain - there's no way in hell I'll ever pre-order another Unity version in future. Not if they can just change whatever they want at any time.

 

Explain to me the limit of the one person needing mobile.

Cause it sounds great, but I have a feeling if I called Unity (if that was even possible) they would say no you need a license for every single machine.

How is it different than Pro/Personal and what determines you are "using mobile". Same project that has mobile builds? Actually writing mobile code? Building to mobile devices? Where is the line drawn, because everyone on the team is going to touch mobile code in some way or another or will need to deal with it but only one maybe building.

 

Usually not whole team is working on same platforms. There can be 1-2 guys for iOS, or 1-2 for Android and rest do the desktop and core/shared features. There is no point for everyone to have everything if they do not use em. AFAIK this has always been like this. However I'm not too sure about this with the latest license changes...

 

I want to expand slightly -

Say one of the car manufacturers had a new model coming out and opened up pre-orders. A bunch of people put down $10,000 to get the car when it releases. On release day, the manufacturer says - here's your new car! Oh, by the way though, were also giving them to everyone else who didn't pay the $10,000. All those people have to do is put a big sticker on the bonnet that says they got it from us. Tell you what though, we're going to keep your $10,000, but here's some road-side assistance and a year of free fuel... does that make you happy?

So I guess what I'm saying is that I don't feel like I got my "money's worth" in the end. The Unity Pro features that I was buying were worth the money to me. The random "new" features that I got instead are not. To save that money, I would have been happy to have the splash screen - at the end of the day I think people dwell on this splash screen thing way too much anyway.

Sure, you can say "Well if you're not happy, ask for a refund!", but is that really the way to run a business? Give your customers something other than what they were expecting and then give them attitude if they're not happy about it? A "refund" generally indicates dissatisfaction with a purchased product. I don't think a position of dissatisfaction should be the default position. I love how Unity had prepared that page with the details for applying for a refund, knowing that people were going to see this for the S***ty thing that it is.

Anyway, as a parent might say to a child - I'm not angry, I'm just really disappointed.

 

Sure for a big studio (like less than 1% of unity's community) and for them it's a moot point as the cost is insignificant.

 

BINGO we have a winner!

 

My only issue is a need for clarification. I earn more than 100k, but none of that is from Unity which thus far I just own for my own personal tinkering pleasure, there is no clear distinction in the form which seems to be set out as a legal agreement. So do I qualify or not?

 

Small studios too. Why would the whole team work on mobile when one or two team members can do it and main team is focusing on the platform shared things. It sounds more like the hobbyist scheme where everyone is doing everything and workflow is not organized.

 

I've wondered this myself. Is the 100K only earnings directly from the output of Unity?

 

Which Version You Can Use - Unity Personal Revenue Restrictions
Unity Personal (including the iOS and Android platform deployment options) may not be used by:

1. a Commercial Entity that has either: (a) reached annual gross revenues in excess of US$100,000, or (b) raised funds (including but not limited to crowdfunding) in excess of US$100,000, in each case during the most recently completed fiscal year;
2. a Non-Commercial Entity with a total annual budget in excess of US$100,000 (for the entire Non-Commercial Entity (not just a department)) for the most recently completed fiscal year; or
3. an individual (not acting on behalf of a Legal Entity) or a Sole Proprietor that has reached annual gross revenues in excess of US$100,000 from its use of the Software during the most recently completed fiscal year, which does not include any income earned by that individual which is unrelated to its use of the Software.

 

It depends on which constraint your "company" falls under.

If you are a company (C/S Corp, LLC, Partnership), and you make 100k in revenue, you must buy it.

If you are a single person/single proprietorship and made a gross revenue of 100k+ in the previous fiscal year DIRECTLY WITH UNITY, you must buy a copy.

It is outlined explicitly in the Software Agreement:

Which Version You Can Use - Unity Personal Revenue Restrictions
Unity Personal (including the iOS and Android platform deployment options) may not be used by:

1. a Commercial Entity that has either: (a) reached annual gross revenues in excess of US$100,000, or (b) raised funds (including but not limited to crowdfunding) in excess of US$100,000, in each case during the most recently completed fiscal year;
2. a Non-Commercial Entity with a total annual budget in excess of US$100,000 (for the entire Non-Commercial Entity (not just a department)) for the most recently completed fiscal year; or
3. an individual (not acting on behalf of a Legal Entity) or a Sole Proprietor that has reached annual gross revenues in excess of US$100,000 from its use of the Software during the most recently completed fiscal year, which does not include any income earned by that individual which is unrelated to its use of the Software.

 

When you have to start a response with "huh?", perhaps you should read more of what people are saying before responding.

The issue is that there is no such thing as "Unity Android Personal Edition". I have "Unity Pro Edition", with which I primarily develop a game for publishing on Steam, yet when I build for mobile I'm expected to tell my customers that the product was made with "Unity Personal Edition". Yes, I understand the license forces me to make this untrue statement. That bothers me. Understand now?

 

Of all the complaints, I think this is one of the most valid ones. Forcing a splash-screen on you is fine, but claiming it was done with Personal when you hold a Pro License is just not accurate. Part of me feels like it had to be some oversight, and hopefully it will be fixed. I focus desktop so, not an issue for me, but I totally empathize with you.

 

Exactly. This is the only complaint I have regarding the announcement yesterday. I have a Unity Pro 5 license and I primarily work on desktop projects. If I choose to build something using Unity Pro 5 and then publish to mobile, I don't want a "Made with Unity Personal Edition" splash screen on the mobile build. I'd be alright with a Unity Pro splash screen or no splash screen, but not a "Personal Edition" splash screen.

 

Perfect - thanks! I'm amazed I'm never been curious enough to go looking for that answer previously. I have wondered about it several times.

 

Man, people still don't understand that? Either they're not reading and comprehending, or they're simply choosing to be blind fan boys/girls.

 

Wrong. From the EULA:

"Unity Pro users who are not eligible to use Unity Personal may not develop and publish Licensee Content for the iOS and Android platforms without purchasing the applicable Unity Pro Add-On Product license"

The people on your team who add the Wizard are developing content for iOS if that Wizard appears in your iOS product, even though some other member of the team does the publishing.

And don't listen to random quotes from Josh or whatever - they're not legal representatives of UT and have already flip-flopped back and forth on this very thread. Read the license. Anything unclear, talk to a lawyer or get legal wording from UT, not random forum posts.

 

Not that I defend the "Personal Edition" on the splash screen, but if we're here to argue semantics...
You don't have Android Pro, which means you're using Unity Personal to build that specific android version of the game, which literally means you've made it with Unity Personal.

 

So do I - the mobile version is more a convenience for PC players to allow them to also play on-the-go. Prior to this new splash screen debacle, I would have said that a great value of Unity is the ease of porting for quick mobile ports. My mobile versions pay for the Mac hardware and iOS devices I need to develop the iOS version (and also useful for testing the MacOSX version), and for some Android devices to have fun with; not much more. As a bonus, some people discover the game on mobile then later buy the PC version. The only downside is that some people get confused and think the PC version is "just a port from mobile". Still, always worth considering, I think. Well, until this stupid splash screen change.

 

That would be a big change in semantics considering this was not the case with Unity 4 from which I "upgraded". Even in the license comparison it says that both Pro and Personal support "all platforms" and explicitly states that you're forced to say "Made with Personal Edition" on the splash screen, even though you are using "Unity Professional Edition".

So no, you are using Unity Professional Edition to develop, then you are forced to display the Personal Edition splash screen to deploy to mobile unless you have paid for the add-ons.

 

I wish I could "like" this 100 times.

 

How is that different to Unity 4?
If you developed a mobile game with Unity 4 Pro but without the Android Pro add-on, you would still have the splash screen when building for android. The splash screen in Unity 4.x is the same indicator that you're not using Pro.

 

In Unity 4 there were many things at the engine level that you would be using that was in the Pro but not in the Free version. In Unity 5 there is nothing in the Pro version that's not in the Personal. Its literally $1500 (or $600 upgrade) to for a customizable splash screen.

 

How is that relevant to what I'm asking?

 

I haven't said you can mix personal and pro. I am talking about pro and pro.

 

If I could get through to support directly that'd be great. But at the moment all I have is a generic error and the confirmation of receipt of my email. Nothing against Unity, but this isn't a situation that's very nice to be in when it comes to support like this. I just want to know what the problem is with some form of reassurance that it's going to get taken care of.

 

To the point. UT just realized the mole hole and crammed it in 5. There is a reason for add-ons to opt-in.
Android/IOS Pro users don't need a "PRO" splash screen. Neither do Desktop users.

Still your choice to take the blue or the red pill.

 

Royalties are never going to happen with Unity. David Helgason has made this very clear in the past, and to be honest, many developers don't want to be paying out royalties. I certainly don't.

 

Guys just make games, you're wasting time because I'm busy learning all these new great tools before you and my game will look better than yours if you don't hurry up!

 

+1, get off the forums people, go make games with your shiny new toys!

 

But we gotta complain about something...

 

You must be using the version of Unity that doesn't pop a "Hold on..." dialog in your face every time you do something slightly complex.

 

-1. It is a poisoned chalice.