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

@zombiegorilla Do your team find the email lists their on useful? Informative? You didn't say, and I assume so, but you know what they say about assumptions...

Another poster asked how they get on the email lists and that's a great question. There are many lists, some require NDAs (Xbox One, PS4, Unity Alpha, etc.), some were initially populated with our partners (BlackBerry, Microsoft, etc.), some are platform specific (iOS beta, Android beta, etc.) and some are based on features (like Audio, networking, etc.). Seems like it's time we figured out a structured way to manage all the lists and inform our users how they could potentially signup. Now on my todo list to look into.

Not getting the public roadmap out yet is my fault. Unity developers are very self-organized and getting everything collected together proved challenging because we didn't need to make it public before. So in trying to do it, I realized we need to probably change the way they're expressed or stored internally to make them easier to process (we have hundreds of items in them). So it will likely be some more weeks before you see our public roadmap on our website. Meanwhile I'll try to write a blog post or something on this. Also now on my todo list.

On pricing, no matter what I say not everybody will be pleased. We have a free version of Unity with no royalties already. Of course, people say you can't compare Unity Free with UE4, and that's fair to say for certain types of games. And there's plenty of users out there making many thousands of $ using our free product already, and even though they can afford to upgrade they don't because they simply don't need to. That's fine, it's satisfying to enable so many people to earn a living making games. If we change the price of Unity Pro, we want to do it in a way where everybody can be happy, and we're still thinking about that. There's no evil, or corporate, or secret plan we're hiding, we're simply still mulling things over.

 

Are these users use free version to create assets only? Do they create games for selling?
If all of them are creating assets, that means Unity free version is ONLY good for making assets, not games.

If there is no secret plan hidden, could you please name some games made by Unity free that earns many thousands of $ and mark them in the showcases?

UT can set any price. The main problem is: we have other choices at very very low cost with excellent performance by comparison! Customers are not fools.

 

Assuming UT5 and UE4 are appromately the same, one is $20 and the other is $4500,
if you give a 10 year-old kid $4500 and ask them to choose one of them (the remaining money can be saved to buy toys and candy). which one will he choose?

 

@Peter Apple

Unigine just to be a pain in my rear.

 

I am currently away from my laptop, with limited mobile 3g, so can't compile a lost properly but Thomas Was Alone was made in Unity Free and earnt a shed load of money. Ill find sources when I'm in a wifi spot.

 

At least get the prices right:
Unreal Engine 4 is 19$ per month + 5% gross product revenue from users.

Go with BGE and buy the kid a calculator

 

..and as it seems, ut5 will be 6.000 with the add-ons, ue4 includes. (ios, android, webgl)

 

Unity proposes a free engine and editor with free mobile version. Not all 3D engines even small ones like Esenthel proposes a complete free suite that you can use to sell games. I think at final this is the point that some of us forget ,not having the money forget , because it allows you to start and with a really good idea or game design you could win enought to buy the Pro. Is Unity Pro worhting it's money ? you can only test 30 days.

For mobile with Unity Free this is just good, as the experience is lot more good without publishing problems than what we encounter now in UE4. Perhaps it's a matter of months until Epic brings performance and good experience on mobile ? perhaps it will be longer to have a good mobile support in UE4 ? we don't know and today after trying boths, UT Free is the best for mobile. For PC game UE4 is lot more tempting than Unity Free. For people targetting big poulated games and good terrain system, until Unity don't show some great demo , UE will remains the bets choice.

The No Royalties is a big point when you are successfull only. What will not work For Unity is the 75$ per month for pro without owning the software , where UE4 propose you to own the engine and just ask you 20$ one time at least. About roadmap, having one clear as UE4 do, is showing the engine is not sleeping, but evolving each time, even some estimated roadmap in terms of quarters or semester is lot more good than nothing, like games at least you know approximatively when the product will be available.

 

The problem is with Unity free, currently, if you want to sell a pc game you made, except for 2D games, you won't have many sales. People want graphics with a minimal quality, not something outdated from 10 years.
For example, Far Cry 1 (2004), has HDR, Realtime Shadows for point lights, real time reflections.
Unity free just lacks of render texture, other things can be done by ourself.

 

Indeed you won't make Far cry, but you can make gorgeous 2D games, why not some 3D mobile or PC RPG game with some Diablo 3 hand painted textures looking good, or some team fortress 2 style PC game.
With Free version you must be aware of the tool you have in the hands and find a good way to do something good within the limits.
If you really need Render to texture and other tools you have to buy the Pro or jump in UE wagon for some 20$, or other alternatives as Esenthel engine for example.

 

If you are talking about a really successful game made with free and actually stayed made with free (and not updated to a Pro version build at some point), there are none.

There have been a few that started out with free but eventually converted to a Pro version either just before release or a couple of months after.

Most people think its just about the looks, its not.

A serious game in free doesnt stand a chance. There are a lot of optimizations and performance enhancing elements in the Pro version that make a tremendous difference. So you can try and make and release a serious game with free, but I absolutely guarantee the people playing your game will get fed up and dump it when they run into a whole variety of performance issues when they are playing.

 

I stay for now on Unity because it's so efficient and really like the workflow.
For rendertextures, it's just needed to make some good graphics effects (beautiful glow etc).
I think it would be a good compromise if Unity allow render texture in Free, but with limitations (resolution, maxmimal number of rt). I took the example far cry but for example, less "AAA" games uses heavily rendertextures :
Rayman Legends for glow effect.

People will judge the game by it's look, if it looks outdated, they will skip.
Outdated but free, maybe they'll try but outdated and paid => 0 sales. (I talk for PC)

 

Ok let's go real and make the "app businesses" numbers do the talk for Tom hobbyist and Joe Freerider:

http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/21/the-majority-of-todays-app-businesses-are-not-sustainable/

If Joe and Tom cannot emerge in 2014 because of own limitations (budget, time, skill), they can still get candies and good look with UE4 at a fraction of cost compared to Unity Pro.

 

I actually think those numbers are too optimistic. If they sampled a larger pool it'd probably be more like 70%+ make $0 - $100 in the lifetime of the app. Because if you look at the sheer volume of apps in the stores there is no way 60%+ make $100 per month or more on their apps. They must have excluded F2P apps or something like that to get that stat.

 

I tend to agree: the bubble needs love and messengers are happy to make the pill less hard to swallow. That way hopefuls will see their ads, read bullsh*t, buy engines, assets and make the wheel spin for a while yet.

 

But if they were developed in Free, released in Free and were successful in Free (Like Thomas Was Alone, for example), then surely the free version CAN enable you to make a successful game?

Yes you absolutely can design, develop and ship a product in Unity Free, without giving UT a penny. Of course, I am excluding optional expenses such as other software, hardware, Apple license cost, paying an artist to make your assets, paying a coder to code your game, IF you choose to purchase from the Asset Store etc, Apple Developer License, etc.

 

Here's the main issue, any creative arts have always been a race to the bottom. Games have held on due to technical difficulties and barriers, just like music 30 years ago. But with the rise of home recording and the race to the bottom of technical devices, it filtered to the masses / killed sound engineer careers and brought a flood of music.

Now the chances of you making it in the music industry is next to zilch, zero, impossible. Sure we have the odd AAA equivalent mass market pop machine, but still it takes a LOT of money to make money. Some songs occasionally go viral, you seeing a pattern here? Can't be coincidental right? All these AAA developers *Cough I mean record publishers started dropping like flies and game artists *Cough I mean artists earn a dime a dozen.

The people making money here is developers who sell to developers which will also become a race to the bottom.

It's a VERY smart move by Epic, in this overly flooded Mobile and PC market (much more so on Mobile) market. Because the chances of making money is negligible and any day job can cover that amount, even your student loan can cover that amount for a year. If for some miracle your game makes an impact, Epic get their cut..

You have a few choices here, you either outperform the competition in just about every area and build hype on the back of gorgeous graphics (which requires a lot of time and money). Or you market the living daylights out of your product (which requires a lot of money), or finally keep making games until one goes viral which may never happen.

In short expensive tools aren't sustainable in this market, the market is border line crippled in many ways. It's not all doom and gloom, a lot of people are buying games and a small amount of indies are emerging. But still being realistic, there's probably a 99% chance of falling flat...

What's my point? Well justification of cost, it's more important as an Indie (especially a start up) you need a leg up because the competition is so fierce. Mediocre games and lack of budget won't cut it, Hobbyists if they're anything like me on a personal level I like shiny things .

TLDR;

Unity has to beat UE4 hands down to be a consideration, especially in the day of more for less and mass markets. Some one give me a good reason why I'm wrong?

 

If you compare releases that were successful using free vs Pro, the statistical odds of a successful game with free is so incredibly lower that it will be very difficult for UT to provide a list of very successful games made in free, released in free, and remained in the free build.

Plus, if free were so good then why update the releases with a Pro build. It means something very important is lacking in the free version of the builds that must be updated to a Pro build if successful.

 

Sorry but that is bullsh**.

Does Minecraft looks like FarCry? Nope. Still sold more than all FarCry games together... And that's just one (extreme) example of many.

People give a crap about graphics when the game is fun.
You really limit yourself if you honestly think that graphics are the most important factor for a indie game. It is not.

Despite that, even if you have all the fancy graphical features in a engine, does this mean you can utilize it and make something like FarCry?
Not necessarily, because it takes skilled artists(plural), a lot of time and huge budgets.

If you're a indie game developer, the key is creativity and fun. Not graphics in the first place.

I know it's tempting to make something like Halo, Crysis, or whatever AAA game comes to your mind. But the hard reality is, most indies are not be able to do that. No matter how awesome the graphic capabilities of an engine are.

That being said. Unity free is still problematic because of the lack of optimization options.

 

Ah yes, the "fun" argument. The same argument that completely disregards that Unity Free is aesthetically limiting and that there's more steps between aesthetic than "Minecraft" and "Far Cry."

 

So you're saying that it's a problem that communications intended specifically for ID@Xbox (etc.) customers require said customers to actually be a part of the ID@Xbox (etc.) program?

As for knowing about the lists to get onto them, I expect that it's made pretty clear to people using their ID@Xbox (etc.) licenses. For general public stuff there are these forums (which I do agree don't get enough official attention).

 

@nipoco

Where are people (not necessarily you) getting this info from? I'll list here a BUNCH of one man bands doing visuals that rivals or beats some AAA's! World of warcraft sold more than Minecraft and so did GTA5? Point feels a little moot. It's all about making your game the way you want it, if it demands some realism and atmosphere. That's what you do.

The issue isn't making things look pretty, it's performance. Characters, world building.. It's the whole package that takes time.!

(This took the guy one weekend)

(This man did 650 meshes in 3 (Yes 3) Days)

(Time taken three weeks):

(Time taken two months)

 

You can't compare they use thousands of 3D artists and also a lot outsourced ones, it's not comparable to one or three people making a game.

There is some exception, UE4 gives you marvellous terrain and grass/trees, anyone can paint and sculpt terrain or use WorldMachine than place vegetation using a brush, and it will shine, one guy alone can make mavellous exterior with water.
Once done buy or make some detailled good looking hero and some vilains ,some pack of other characters, make some modular medieval houses kit and you can begin some action why not like Dark Souls or simplified Skyrim game with new gameplay , some new mechanisms, puzzles. It could work and would look great specially the terrain outdoor and vegetation.

The tools make you win a lot of time, what about vertex painting ?
Three texture : base wall, damage , green moss , than just paint to make infinite variation.
No need to hire some veteran texture artist to make custom walls textures.


And don't forget BSP integrated in UE4, it can help a guy alone to make the basic level before bringing assets on top of it.

Some indie guys uses less 3D art, but uses it whisely and it looks gorgeous

Why not making it even better using UE4 with PBS, GBI , reflections etc ....


And some people find ways to bring quality knowing they are not some AAA big team :

http://blog.uppercut-games.com/

Just to say to not underestimate UE4 tools and features that can speed up creating your level. And UE4 will not ask you lot fo effort to make a 3D scene looking gorgeous even with basic textures.

 

And that actually reinforces my point. Because I talk about fully fledged games not some pretty environment pieces/ tech demos.
I really want to downplay that cool stuff. It looks awesome. But those are not games with characters, AI, gameplay and full levels.
Take the train station as example. It took two months (you say) and while it looks impressive, it is really just a small scene, that looks huge thanks to the clever and well done cinematic. If this would be a game, it would took you maybe 3 minutes at best to walk through this.

And you are one of the few here, who actually know how much a time/money sink a AAA graphics game is, right.

Absolutely. Especially with UE4 everyone and their dog can put some meshes into UE4 and it looks good by default. But what goes beyond that is the real hard work.

 

And that was my point.
To make such games, you actually need the budget and team to do so.

 

Train station took three weeks.

The second one down is an actual game made by one guy, thing is do OMG GRFX sell? I'd have to say yes, look at Star Citizen, we've not seen much in the way of actual gameplay. But they're 40 Million bucks better off for it .

It's not the only way and if everyone made gritty realistic games than man would that be boring, but the engine should never be the limiting factor and neither should you have to fight it.

I have to agree with you that AAA kind of graphics are draining, they take time and too much of it. Artwork is a pain in the rear and big games require lots of it but it doesn't necessarily require huge teams. Just a lot of skill and time..

It would take you far longer to develop a global illumination system with a small team, than it would to wrap some PBR around some meshes.

The engine can make you or break you, any leverage and tools you can muster and UE4 has that in abundance. I'm not a UE4 evangelist, their is a ton of stuff I don't like in it and some of it seems unecessarily complex. But in this absolute cluster screw of games, you need a leg up and in Unity 5.0 PBR and Enlighten will make this possible.

With Unity it's more performance I'm worried about as opposed to OMG GRFX!.

 

The tools can make you gain lot of time, look at 5:35 some example
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGA0WZLp_08
You could make such tool and your little team could bring quickly complex levels in no time.

 

Star Citizen is simply because of Chris Roberts. A very well named person in the business. If it wasn't his name on it, I highly doubt it would have done so well. And they are using a modified version of Crytek. They also have a very talented group of people making the game. I for one am very looking forward to it. Ah the hours I spent playing Wing Commander! Then with the addon of voice! holy crap it was awesome on the 8-bit sound blaster card!

 

I know the Solus Game. And it does look impressive. I've also seen the video with his clever mesh duplication tricks. If you're willing to sacrifice the quality in detail (i.e. unique meshes, high quality character..) like he does, then you might get a game done, that looks awesome because of the GFX.

And indeed. For core gamers, graphic matters. But they are only one part of the market and not the whole market. Which brings me back to my original opinion that Cyrien5100's claim, you can't sell games because the graphics are not super awesome/realistic, is nonsense.

40 million is also impressive. But how long is that game in the works and what does it cost to maintain the development per year? It probably also successful because of the name behind it and his already huge fan base. I doubt a no name indie get's such funds.
And look how long Fortnite is in the works. And that is done in-House by Epic themselves.

Just to make that clear. That is not an excuse for Unity's lack of features and price ratio. I just get mad, when I read that a game that does not sport AAA graphics can't sell.

 

I'm not doubting that a fair portion backed the game solely because of who he was, but prior to discovering the Kickstarter I had never heard of him or Wing Commander. It was only when I did a quick search while making my decision that I found out.

Even once I did find out who he was and about his past works, that was not really my primary motivator to back. I backed because it looked like a serious project and it was getting reasonable attention. These reasons are pretty much the same for those I know who also choose to back the project.

So at the end of the day, I'd say a combination of who he is, the quality of the project (both potential gameplay and visually), and "marketing". Also it is now up to $48 million.

 

@nipoco

I don't think anyone says it needs AAA graphics, it just needs to look good and on the off chance you want to do the same old gritty realistic thang. You shouldn't have to move the earth and moon to do so, but all this is moot. I see a LOT of potential with Unity 5.0 in this department anyway and I don't think it'll be an issue.

I probably care about GRFX too much and need to shift priorities, but that is due to the way the market is going at the moment.

What all this comes down to is, when is Unity releasing 5.0? When are they going to match toolsets with UE4? When will it all becomes stable? When are they going to communicate with is what's going to happen?

I would use Unity 5.0 in a heartbeat if I didn't get burnt too many times by waiting and hoping, yes you NEVER wait for features in production. But soon to me means a month, not six to twelve..

 

Indeed. Just a quick look at some of the most popular games can debunk that. Minecraft, anyone?

Having said that, it depends on the type of game. For instance, the claim probably is more or less spot on if you're trying to make a military FPS.

 

All rules have their exeption Minecraft sold good, yes.
And i don't mean realistic graphics. When i said Far cry, i taked about Far cry 1 which is 10 years old.
I also talk about Rayman Legends, which has good graphic but not realistic.
I don't mean super realistic graphic, i just mean something not outdated from 10 years. If graphics doesnt count, so Unity free doesnt need PBR, doesnt need shadows, doesnt need per pixel lighting... because we are not making AAA.
Yes, we can make good game with Unity free, but no, we cannot make beautiful games (except in 2D), or not of all styles.
If you see, many indie games doesn't sells at all, especially on mobile.
An original and good game doesn't have to be ugly.
If we are aiming for example a platform game, with magic universe, the lack of glow would be bad.

 

I disagree that AAA means realistic 3D graphics. AAA is meant to mean the highest production values, which there have been numerous award winning games built with Unity that meet this criteria.

Realistic graphics is a style of art, nothing to do with production values...

 

You have to differentiate between graphics (rendering capabilities) and art.

Even without render textures, FX PBR etc. you can have a game with great art and even more important fun gameplay.

This game was made entirely in Unity Free.

Does it look bad?

Of course if you aim for a realistic shooter or something like The Forest for example, Unity Free won't cut it.

 

Absolutely.
But beautiful doesn't mean necessarily render textures, FX and stuff like that (see the video above)

Funnily enough the best selling games on mobile are the ones with the simplest graphics, that could be created with Unity Free most times.

 

No, i doesn't look bad, but it's in a "cartoon style". What i wanted to say is with Unity Free, if you want something beautiful, you are limited to some styles (not necessarly realistic shooter).
See Planet Explorers, it's not realistic but, uses much render texture.

It's often the same developers who sells goodly. I don't say it's impossible, but the chance counts much.

 

AAA doesn't even mean that anymore, AAA = they have lots of money!.

Also realisitic graphics is mainly a class of technology as much as it is art, you know the stuff you guys are putting in your own engine to make it possible to keep in line with current gen, like Enlighten and PBR?

I agree a lot of the highest selling games aren't the best looking, MineCraft and Diablo 3 are examples. Whilst Diablo 3 isn't a bad looking game, neither is it bleeding edge tech and artflow.

Also "games" is such a broad statement, I wouldn't make a realistic gritty super mario. As interesting as that would be it doesn't fit context, whilst if making a modern 3D FPS / RPG / Action game that's exactly what I'd be going for.

In short, it all depends and one can't make broad statements.

 

When we say AAA , we mean next gen, targetting realistic as possible could it be in characters expressions, or level design using now PBS and advanced lightening. Just take a look at AC5.
Sure indies won'yt make the game made by 200 people and more, but they can make a piece of it.
I mean making some simplified level but using great materials looking as good as others, simplified gameplay but with good scenario and new crazy gameplay ideas, and simplified characters but looking unique and great why not with PBS to make it appealing.

 

@bibbinator: Could you please name these game making many thousands of $?
It seems that no one could name a game, except you.
(Andy can only give an example like "Thomas Was Alone" which is believed to be having made many thousands of $ ???)

 

Thomas Was Alone hit 1 million sales, and the game was atleast a couple of dollars to buy. Mike Bithell hasn't stated how much money he has made but you can do the maths.

Here is also a thread of people on this forum suggesting half-decent games made with Unity Free, in the App Store: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/any-good-game-in-appstore-using-unity-ios-free.187493/

Its quite difficult to find exact earnings from developers as they tend to keep that sort of info to themselves. However, other people might have more examples with developers saying how much money they have made.




Edit: Im going to keep updating this post with more links as I find them, instead of making new posts each time.

Commercial Success with Unity Free blog post: http://blogs.unity3d.com/2013/05/28/commercial-success-with-unitys-free-technology-and-tools/

One of my favourite iPad games, Wrestle Jump, was made using Unity Free and it has an estimated app worth of over $1 million. Oh, and it was in Apple's WWDC14 Keynote: http://www.veooz.com/photos/yHEYed7.html

 

Thank you, Andy.

 

http://blogs.unity3d.com/2013/05/28/commercial-success-with-unitys-free-technology-and-tools/

The car has shadow (pro features).
Both of them start with free version and then go to Pro finally....
They don't keep using free version.

 

So, they made the demo in free, sold licenses, then bought pro. Their free-used product was successful enough to make enough money to upgrade.

 

That's true. When one become successful with free version, he must upgrade to pro because free version cannot satisfy him.

 

It does not mean that. You can still continue with free but why on earth not to upgrade you tool to even better when you can afford it?

 

Indeed. A handful of solutions came from either discussions on the lists or other members/staff.

- All of the Lego Games from TT across many brands.
- Most of the core IP titles from Nintendo (Mario, Mario Kart, Pokemon, Zelda, etc...)
- Disney (Infinity, Epic Micky, TS3)

 

You're right. Unity Free is limited to certain graphical styles. I won't deny that.
My whole point was that you still can make money off your game, even if it is graphical simple, while it is way more time consuming to make a graphical advanced game, where you require tons of detailed 3d assets and stuff, like in Far Cry, which you mentioned.

If you really need sophisticated graphics without paying tons of money upfront, you're indeed better off with UE4.

 

I think this is exactly what the Unity folks are saying. You can make a stylized game, a cartoon game, a racing game with cars, a lego game, etc., all with Unity Free. But if you want to make a more realistic style, then Unity Free doesn't work very well.

They should say this up front. Spending a great deal of time building something, code, graphics, etc, plus the money spent on the asset store, only to find out we have been wasting our time and money with Unity Free. Please let people know this before they start developing, not after when they run into walls.

So, from what I see here, Unity Free is not capable of making a realistic style RPG game that will demo well enough to gain funding, at least in many cases. To get attention at places like Kickstarter, one must have beautiful visuals. Game features are important, but since you have a brief 'moment' to draw someone in, the more beautiful the scene, the better.

It does not take Unity 5 features do this, but it takes more than Unity Free. I really wish these guys would stop saying we can "get funding and buy Unity Pro." For most of us, that isn't going to happen.

 

The problem with funding is when people paid for something, you HAVE to do something.
I mean, they expect a minimal quality, and expect you often add features and update to your game.
So you have a "pressure". By this way, you can't develop your game like you want, in the time you want, because people paid, and you must give them what they paid for.
That's why i think funding is not that good (for a hobbyist) : we have to hardly focus on developping the game, and cannot do what you want because people gave you their money (and they are right).