Full Unreal Engine 4 Developer Kit $19/MO + 5% / Why can't Unity Offer the same!

If Unreal can offer Full Unreal Engine 4 Developer Kit $19/MO + 5% free to cancel anytime subscription with complete access to the source code...
https://www.unrealengine.com/register

Why can't Unity Offer the same?!


I'm not trying to sell, promote, advertise UDK at all. I use Unity and would not trade it for the world, but this I think would be a much better way to give more Unity developers access to Unity Pro than the current subscription deals that Unity offers.


Hopefully nobody will gets upset with this thread and members can have thoughtful discussion and perhaps even influence Unity to imagine beyond the current subscription offerings...

I mean it would be nice if in addition to what is presently being offered something like this would also be offered.

Thanks in advance!

 

They have to offer the same, or something competitive to stay relevant.

UE4 has Android, IOS, Windows and Mac support, out of the box. No Pro add ons. It has the full C++ source, you can implement stuff like Lua if you want.

Even if we let the source code slide, just the pro offerings costs $225 a month. Unreal costs $19 for that (not 19.99, just 19). Unity is almost 12 times more expensive. That is more than a 1000% more expensive.

They have to get rid of the add ons, they just have to. They need to reduce the subscription, and remove the 1 year contract. I can live without source access, but these are the things that they definitely need to do imho.

 

https://www.unrealengine.com/register

Go for it

 

Technically i'm not sure Unity need to do anything, from crunching the numbers on the UE4 thread here, if you upgrade Unity+Android+iOS every two years it works out you only need to be generating $27,000 p.a. for the 5% royalty to equal the amount you pay to Unity

There are of course various different aspects and trade offs to the costs, buying Pro first time is going to be twice as expensive, UE4 is definitely attractive for people who don't have a regular income from development and even for small teams where the per seat of Unity vs flat 5% gross profits can work in Epic's favour.

However overall financially for successful businesses or developers I don't think its s clear cut in UE4 favour in terms of costs. Obviously other aspects of the deal can and should be more of a deciding factor, such as getting source code, specific engine features etc.

I think the big deal here though is the perception that UE3 is an amazing deal (if it might not be after you crunch the numbers for your specific situation) and that maybe the battle for hearts/minds and wallets will force Unity to make a counter-move. It might be as simple as an additional pre-order bonus, combining Android and iOS Pro licenses to the cost of just one, reducing the monthly renting cost etc, though I don't see them trying to directly match Epic.

 

If your mobile+desktop app earns 65k combined, they're the same price regardless.

 

a lot of people who are indie would love to have a way to get access to pro and $19/m+5% for all pro with addons or $10/m+5% for just pro is far better than current subscription plans and inline with what unreal/crytek just started doing.... its called competition!

 

If early UDK is any indication, most of that will be fixed by the time Unity 5 shows up. If by that time, Unity doesn't do something, there won't be a Unity 6.

 

i sort of agree its brutal competition in this world its either compete or die. its like a race and even if ur running u can be standing still or even falling back. u really have to run to get ahead. which is good for us

i think the biggest good could be for making it easy for people like myself to get access to pro. i dont make a penny right now, do nothing but spend on assets and may never even make a penny on sales so the cheaper it is the better. more money for assets more money to develop. and if i do ever may a sale i dont mind unity getting a reasonable cut

like unreal site says

$10 sale, $3 for store, 6.5% for developer, .5% for unity and that is for the works! full access to source code and full packages for all platforms and even free cancel anytime subscription.

that would be so sweet for me! and if i do make a game at some point and if it does have any sales and if it is a big success, lots of ifs, then why should unity not get a cut even greater than what they outright sell it for since they sort of helped me upfront keep my costs down and be able to put it to keep dev going and to put it into assets...

im more concerned about 30% someone steam will get over .5% like unreal or perhaps someday unity will get... since by the time you account for everything that went on to develop a game there is not much left for indie since the costs of all the assets and other stuff eat bigtime into the 7% or n unreal case 6.5% u end up making after someone like steam gets their 30% or yeah and the tax man... i think at this point its like %0 left

 

The way they present it is nice, but there's a lot to be said for the UE4 engine announcement being chock full of perceived value compared to regular value.

There's a lot to look at, including what your expected revenues will be, etc. 5% of gross is a pretty huge chunk for people who release games that would just break even, or barely float a profit, which is going to be a lot of them. Add onto that that $19/month per seat doesn't have any console support (legally, they can't), trying to actually deploy to those is going to bump the price significantly. For small teams on short cycles going just to mobile or PC, it may be advantageous, but those advantages go away pretty quickly if you want to target the consoles, or have a larger team or dev cycle.

There's a lot to take into account here, and while the headline-grabbing snippet of the cost is nice, it is in no way the whole story.

Also, I'm curious how long this might last. With several sub-studios providing a lot of the underlying code for Unreal, I have to wonder how much of a bath Epic may be taking on this, just to try to secure some of the mobile business that Unity has managed to monopolize for so long.

Regardless, engine choice just got real interesting.

 

Yeah, they kinda do.

No one in their right mind will pay more than what UE4 is currently going for to get Unity 4 or Unity 5.

#1 Reason, you can get UE4 today, right now. Not 6 months from now, not 1 year from now, but right now. Unity 4 vs UE4 .... unfortunately Unity 4 is blown out of the water.

#2 Reason, why spend big immediately on hopes of getting it back and more, vs spending little now and if by chance you hit it big, you'll end up spending way more. To the LARGE majority, paying later for success is more worth it than paying now for possible success.

 

Another thing to consider, you can still use UE4 without paying the subscription. You can pay 1 $19 payment, download it, cancel your subscription, and keep developing for as long as you want. You only need to keep paying the subscription if you want all the updates (you still need to pay royalties no matter what though). At least that's how it seems to work based on the FAQ...

 

so basically...

Fans: "unity sux0rs, no gfx for my AAA game brah, what gives, moving to Cry to unleash the real me!"
UE: "huehuehuehuehue...."
Cry: "huehuehuehuehue..."

Unity: "Hey guys, we added all the stuff you wanted from the past 3 years."
Fans: ".....
Fans: " ermagherd!!!!!!! its like ue/cry!!!!111``oneoneone "
UE: "huehu.... ehr.. "
Cry: "Erm... "
Fans: "wtf no mono update kthxbye."

UE: "Hey guys uhhhhhhhh we're 20 bucks and 5% royalties now! Yay!"
Fans: " ermagherd!!!! kthxbye Unity!! changing my whole project as soon as it downloads! no brainer lulz! "

Cry: " Hey guys, we're TEN bucks and NO royalities! Woohoo! "
Fans: " ..... is this real life? "

 

LMFAO .... basically.

 

Actually they don't they could just ride it out, at least from a financial point of view many people are missing that UE4 is likely to cost just as much if not more in the long term. There are a few exceptions such as small teams 1-4 poeple who could save through the per seat cost of Unity compared to the 5% of gross earnings of UE4, but generally its no where near as clear cut as poeple are making out. Combine this with the strong belief I have that many of those wanting to jump ship are not using Pro, therefore not directly contributing to Unity anyway.

That line was more to show that they could ride it out and certainly they should not be forced into a snap repsonse as this is extremely serious business stuff here. A snap response could see Unity under-cut themselves so much that it threatens the company, that would be bad for all involved. Indeed the changes in licensing from Epic and Crytek could be seen as a serious attempt to price out Unity from the emerging markets, whilst at the same time for UE4 increase their market penetration. So Unity will obviously have to be very careful in their response.


However I then went on to describe why I feel Unity will have no option other than to respond in some way, because regardless of the technical aspects in terms of the companies finances, the perception of these amazing deals from UE4 and Crytek stands a very real chance of harming their bottom line, from losses of up-sells (converting free to pro users), falling asset store sales, smaller presence etc.

So I think we are in agreement generally, just I don't think Unity need to go to anywhere like the level you are suggesting. It could be more damaging for them to do so.

 

When Unity 5 comes out, UE4 will be well over two years old. You're essentially paying support on a two year old engine that has been retrofitted to work on mobile platforms. It's certainly not perfect, and while it will be getting support, it's not going to be getting the focus of new development, most likely.

Except if you don't have success -- and that's going to be the case for a majority of developers, like it or not -- you're getting kicked while you're down.

5% of gross may not sound huge, but if the platform holders are getting, say 30% of gross already, after you figure in taxes, you're lucky if you get fifty cents for every dollar worth of product sold (or ad revenue, or whatever). You're essentially going to have to sell almost twice as many copies to break even with this added hit on there, and if you don't, well, too bad, you still have to pay them, before you ever get to pay yourself. That's a REALLY hard metric to realistically plan for. Plus if your development goes longer than you expect it to (and it will, more often than not), you're paying that sub fee, per month/per seat, until you finish it, which is even more sunk cost... and if you go over and you're not prepared to, the chance is you're not going to have planned ahead for that cost sink, and for larger teams/more complex projects it's going to be significantly painful.

And if you fail to abide by their terms, you're either not going to be able to release, or you're going to get saddled with all sorts of penalties, at the very least

The Unity cost-up-front can at least be accurately budgeted for, and that alone makes a ton more sense, especially for a group bootstrapping themselves and likely to slip.

There's a metric TON of stuff to take into account, and the initial cost is just a small part of the story. The value of each platform is likely to be on a case by case basis.

(Note that I'm talking about full-price upfront on Unity, not their subscription cost, which they WILL have to rethink, IMO)

(Not even figuring CryEngine into this, because it's a bloated pig, and just trying to stay relevant at this point)

 

Well if you look at this way. You have three types of small studios/team indies.

a) Students who formed it with their friends
b) Studio pros who quit or got laid off and started a new one with fellow coworkers
c) Total novice group with no real experience.

Then you have the hobbyist group .... and also the large team development studio group.

A) Students mostly are taught Unreal tech in school, some are taught Unity, and some both. I think there are more taught Unreal tech. That includes schools teaching game art, they make them very familiar with Unreal tech. They also dont have lots of money. So they will pick the cheapest and most familar .... most likely Unreal tech.

B) They too are familiar with Unreal tech, and also dont have lots of money to spend. But they will use anything that works that wont cost too much from the start, so they'll most likely pick UE4.

C) They just pick whatever they think is the ultrabest and cheapest for them. These will be mismatch group.

The large team studio group wont care what tool they use as long as it can deliver the best product possible, no matter what cost or condition. Most already use Unreal Engine, or have in the past, and arent adverse to paying royalties since they had to pay them with UE2 and UE3. So to them it makes no difference, and they'll probably stick with what they know which is Unreal tech.

The hobbyist group goes wherever is cheapest and best bang for their buck is because they dont have much to spend, some do, but majority dont. Some care for certain things, while others dont. They generally will go with the best product with the cheapest starting price .... aka which is UE4.

 

I agree with DMan... Unity might need to do something. $225/month + 0% royalties is going to be more expensive than $19/month + 5% royalties for a lot of teams.

 

I'd expect that anything significant on those grounds would come in the next weeks, or months. It takes time to respond to shakeups like this.

 

I'm seriously hoping Unity does something to remain competitive. That price on an industry standard engine is too good to pass up, but I would be so friggin' sad to know all I've spent on Unity so far is wasted if I switch.

 

If I were Unity, I would just ride it out. It's pretty clear that a lot of people are going to jump on the UE4 deal, realize how difficult UE4 actually is (and subsequently how much time Unity actually saves them) and return back to Unity in just a couple months.

But if they are going to change anything, it'd be nice to remove the year contract on the subscription option.

 

This group also spends a lot on the asset store I imagine. I never plan to make a dime on my games but owned U3 and U4/iOS pro. I'm not saying I will definitely switch to UE4 but I did buy it today to check it out, because lets face it for $19 it's rather silly not to.

Spending cash on U5 Pro + iOS Pro + team license versus $19/mo is a no brainer if it remotely meets my needs, guess we will see. True it will suck to learn an engine all over again, but I'm willing to bet most of the folks here know multiple programming languages, it's not insurmountable to learn a new tool if it makes sense.

 

It took Crytek only some hours.

 

Yay for Unreal. Let them deal with all the clueless noobs who think the engine makes the game, not the developer.

 

You mean the noobs that will be paying them $19 a month? Yeah, I'm sure Unreal will be reeeeal upset about that. /sarcasm

 

Is this some sort of deep insightful wisdom similar to the concept that games with great playability need S***ty graphics and games with great graphics need S***ty gameplay? Because I really cannot understand you.

Choice of engine comes down to what is best for your actual game.

 

Oh, you're right. They're too cheap for that so we'll still have to put up with them.

 

Unreal will be wallowing in their sorrow once they get buried in the money they make from their marketplace.

 

I’m loling non stop hahaha

 

I think this will make schools move to cryengine or unreal engine 4. Most likely unreal engine 4, because they have full source $20 or $75 a month for unity. Would you want your students to learn to use antique mono or c++. I think unity needs to step up or be squashed, the giants have woken, and realized the money they left behind from not supporting indies, won't be easy pickings for Unity.

 

Is there any concern these engines won't survive?

Because this pricing war sounds like a deathmatch to me.

 

Unity has to respond in some way but it's not an easy task.

If someone doesn't want to pay it wouldn't make sense to jump ship as Unity free is the cheapest option.
It makes sense to jump for people who think about getting Pro but it's just to expensive as well as Pro users (as the upcoming upgrade price of a single licence is worth more than 2 years of UE4 subscription) and finally the Unity subscriber who can have a comparable UE4 licence for 1/10 of cost.

That might be true, however the price difference is just too big. The price for Unity adds up so fast. If you are a one man show and bought IOS Android Pro you would have to make 90000$ before Unity gets the cheaper option. For 2 or more this multiplies!

Of course there are lots of other reasons to consider as well (e.g. the tool itself or if you are doing many small projects Unity is most likely cheaper) but there are sooo many cases where UE4 will be the cheaper and lower risk option.

Unity has to do something if the want to stay where they are. What Epic did here is a massive attack on Unity's user base (a bit too aggressive in my opinion).

 

I doubt they don't have a prepared plan for this situation.

But I fear they could think the free version of Unity is still the answer.

The main problem is that over the last years Unity made everything free to get all those new customers, now they almost have nothing to fight those new deals of the other engines in their Pro sector.

UT has to keep their huge userbase to survive. Best thing would be to drop the free version of Unity 5 and sell Pro plus all AddOns for $9.99 per month because as of today it is a mass market only. A lot of people won't switch because they are used to unity. But seriously, no one who is starting game development will buy Pro for this deal anymore. They could keep the free version for Desktop only, like if you use the Mac Editor you can build for Mac only when using Unity free.

 

You forgot that UE4 actually cost $19 ONCE, you don't need to subscribe any longer than a month to keep the version you've got, you just can't update when you don't have an active subscription.

 

That's just crazy... 5 minutes ago I thought this CryEngine for 10$ was a joke...

[EDIT]
@VIC20: But you would have to subscribe again if you wanted to publish something? (Which makes it 40 bucks... 20 to buy, 20 to publish... LOL)

I still love Unity, hopefully they will come up with a good response to this madness...

 

You know.. mobile games already have the issue where everyone competed the price down to nothing and now it's very hard to make money on... Indie is getting more support on consoles, which is great, but leaves me with concerns that the same might happen there. Now with this, will Dev assets also race down to a nothing cost? So then what, the entire gaming industry is in the future relegated to pure hobby where no one at all either spends or makes money from it...
Or maybe I should take off this tinfoil, I dunno. Awesomeness for now, at least.

 

A game industry crash like in the 80s approaches wildly... If not already here.
Next 6 years will be interesting to watch how things unroll.

 

No you don't - you can use this version as long as you want, you "just" have to pay the 5% royalties. That's why CryTek answered with $9.99 and no royalties.

 

Where did that come from? He didn't imply any of that stuff.

He's simply getting at people flooding to Unreal because they think the engine makes the game, rather than the developer. How often do we get questions here like "Can someone give me the script for <major game subsystem> like in <huge budget title>?" as if it ain't no thing at all? Yeah, I whipped up the netcode for a WoW clone last weekend while watching the football, let me just whip it out of my pocket and send it over...

Better tools mean that people who make things can make better things, or make them in less time, and things like that. They don't mean that someone who doesn't understand the process can suddenly pop out the same results that a veteran of years could achieve. I'm pretty sure that's what drewradley was getting at.

 

After some digging in terms and such, something else to take into account re: the 5% gross -- Apparently, Epic can claim applicable 5% on Kickstarter revenues, since you're essentially using their engine in order to raise funds, and contractually, this counts as profit made from the engine. That can be HUGE.

 

one small point unity may not making money on indie, but they make it if the game succeeds and developer(s) moves to pro and even before then they make it of the developer buying from the unity asset store. so even if $0 from game engine they do get 30% form asset store sales.

 

All Unity needs to do is bring the sub level down to 20 dollars. The base price should remain the same. They may need to sweeten it by adding droid and ios to it however. And cancel at any time (just will revert back to free).

Having 5% royalties makes no sense for Unity in my view since it's royalty free model is the biggest edge it would have over epic

 

That would be nice but I don't know if it's enough to keep Unity afloat financially. UE4's pricing scheme only works because they're counting on getting royalties from successful games. If Unity gave you a choice of either $225/month like it is now or $20/month + 5% royalties, that could work. I doubt anyone would take the expensive subscription though... it would probably be some people paying full price up front for 0% royalties, and everyone else doing cheap subscription with 5% royalties.

 

$720 for three years of what would currently cost a new customer $4,500?

As much as I'd jump straight on that without blinking, there's the little issue that Unity has to make good income to survive. If there's no royalties to make money on the back end then they need to get their profits up front.

I like Unity, I want them to still have jobs.

 

Unreal already has over 250 forks on GitHub and this is going to grow. There is a tremendous amount of value in a large and talented developer community working directly with the COMPLETE engine and editor sources, sending pull requests, immediate access to engine, changes, etc.

Unity's point releases are a bottleneck and the $600 "deal" for upgrades every year PER platform which is $1800 PER seat for the major 3 platforms (much less whatever the WebGL addon will cost), Unity has spread itself really thin across too many features/platforms chasing AAA and leaving the core Mono to rot and some pretty horrible mobile iteration times, which were all there was a few years ago, to look pretty long in the tooth now. All in all, I think Unity has had the field pretty much to themselves long enough to get a bit cocky. Hopefully, Epic has some success with this model and it is a wake up call.

 

i am not suggesting unity get rid of its current offerings

im suggesting adding new offerings

that would have like $10/m+5% for just pro and $19/m+5% for the works (with all the plugins)

as people pointed out if someone gets a game out that sales a reasonable amount unity will actually actually end up doing very well more than what they currently make

but it would greatly expand the number of indie developers that would be able to get pro which is the point

and also keep in mind unlike those other companies unity most like already making a good deal off asset store purchases

more indie developers mean more asset store purchases! why because indie is just that indie and they will look for inexpensive solutions off the asset store to make up for what they cant do... so i can imagine some indie developer easily spending thousands off the unity store to help them get going and unity taking in a thousand off that, not bad..

plus with pro features standardize that will make it easier for asset store developers since they would not have to as much support a indie and pro version of their assets. a number of the assets that i've gotten the asset author has had to have tweaks for both. some only support pro and appear broken in indie like water or lighting, ect since these features are not available lets say in indie the same way which adds to support requests from people like me asking for help making it work with indie...

i mean it dont hurt business executives and legal to sit down and take a look at it. see if they could cook something that opens up pro to more members

they already did sort of its just as people pointed out without a percent of sales the price of paying $70 per month makes no sense vs the current price of price and it sort of binds you...

also the competition have it so that you pay much less per month and are not required to lease it for a set term, you can opt out at any time, in exchange for a reasonable 5% which for indie i'ts ok so its 35% when you take into account one of the store and the udk then. not bad still 65% for developer, ok there are taxes. but it makes it easy for small developers up front since they can put the money into the asset store. and unity making 30% off of that.

perhaps have deal where if u buy x amount to get started from asset store u get unity pro and they can have like tiers. $0-$n u pay y for unity pro, all the way to $m where u pay $0 for unity pro since you bought more than enough from the asset store to get you unity as indie.

indie being up to $100K a year in sales gross i think, beyond that u have to buy pro at list price which is fair

also perhaps also have $0-$n at asset store get us unity pro for $n/m or even #n/m+x%

the thing is to have as many options as it makes business sense so to get as many indie developers into pro as possible.

so indie when then by like used by tiny crowd, if anyone, hey who knows could be phased out eventually cause of the asset store sales and other gimmicks.

that again would be good for asset store developers since they would not need to have version that works on both indie and pro and also they would not have to support two version and the same for unity who now have to developer two version for features and support them. think of water two version and of like other things where they have slightly different version...

anyways i hope unity business takes a look at it. also looking makes them look like they are responding to recent competition... you have to response you cant ride it out. why cause this game people may continue to use unity but not perhaps for next game. or perhaps some other people not committed yet will never go to unity. why cause to be truthful if you go to steam udk helps sells games, if you say unity it actually does not help.. people have sort of bad impression of unity in pc gaming like on steam from indies perhaps cause indie games. but lots of udk and its like then u get mapping/modding, ect with unity nobody doing mapping/modding, ect... ever notice that... anyways i dont do mobile, but im looking at it from sort of pc / steam...

 

once u sign even if u leave the 1st month they still get 5% of your game... so they make $$$$$ if you make $$$$$ and if u r going to release a game u really have to keep subscribing cause you have to release patches, ect and that requires it...

 

20 bucks works out when 400,000 users pay it per month as opposed to what? 5,000 users paying full price? I don't know. The whole concept of a ridiculous sub is the uptake of it. Completely made up numbers of course. It's the concept being discussed.

Right now 75 is more expensive for a 2 year cycle, so people by large ignore it. Who wants to pay 1800? 1500 is too much for them. Plus the restrictions of not cancelling any time.

In any case, Unity users are being lost as we speak. I guess if we want Unity to react they'd need to do something. What they'll do, I don't care. But it needs to keep users.

75 sure isn't working out for us though. We'd prefer to pay 1500 and save 300. But will it mean losses to Cryengine and Unreal?

I think Unity needs time to figure it all out.

 

I don't know if matching price is enough; this whole thing has me looking into UE4, and it's impressive. It natively does many of the things that Unity requires major assets for, and better. Like visual node-based scripting, shader editing, and sound editing. People complain about UE being more difficult, but at least on the surface, UE4 seems to be making it MORE user friendly than Unity. Source code access should allow for far more impressive assets as well, if I'm not mistaken.

 

I don't think the cost is a big difference but full source is especially if they expand their market place into something comparable to the asset store.

 

I don't think there are 395,000 wanna-be indie devs out there who would pay for very long.