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

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by im, Mar 19, 2014.

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  1. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Had it since last year personally. Didn't speak about it at all on forums because I wasn't allowed to, frankly. Still don't feel entirely comfortable speaking about things because people should make up their own minds. I will say what my opinion is for what it's worth.
     
  2. tiggus

    tiggus

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    What if they offered a royalty free sub/perpetual and one with royalties? Then both sets of users could be happy. They're still going to have to drop price on the royalty free one though to be more competitive.
     
  3. Alf203

    Alf203

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    Well, of course thats up to you. You're free to believe whatever you want.
     
  4. jjejj87

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    Am I the only one who sees engine related costs trivial at this stage? I mean game development costs reach far beyond monthly subscriptions. I would be worried about post production royalties though....they come back and take a good chunk of your sales. Funny how people don't see it before going through one. 5% royalty matters.

    just my two cents
     
  5. steego

    steego

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    No, with prices like this, I know I will be staying current on both Unity Pro and UE4 and probably CryEngine as well
     
  6. DreamInspireEducate

    DreamInspireEducate

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    If you are at the sales levels of royalties..you wont be giving Steam 30% because you can afford stand-alone distribution and publishing.

    All it will take now is a company to dethrone steam by offering a distribution platform that takes 0 cut...and victory is achieved.
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2014
  7. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    Um... how exactly do you think that will work? If they don't take a cut how are they meant to run their service? If they don't take a cut what incentive is there for them to create the service in the first place?

    I don't know why I'm still surprised when people expect others to work for free...
     
    ArnoC likes this.
  8. Kencho

    Kencho

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    The Humble Store (https://www.humblebundle.com/store) takes 15% for their distribution fees and another 10% for charity. Overall, you'd lose 25% (Unity/CryEngine)/30% (UE4), and avoid the Greenlight barrier, at least immediately. And if you later get your game on Steam, those who purchased it from the Humble Store will also own it on Steam immediately for free.
     
  9. Setmaster

    Setmaster

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    Nice joke.
     
  10. BlueByLiquid

    BlueByLiquid

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    It seems like the biggest issue is that Unity license is per seat and UE4 (I'm not sure if it is or not) you could all sign up for $20 each dev and be set. Unity will add up and up with devs. Everyone doing the math seems to think you have to keep buying an update each month and plus they are only comparing one seat. Personally I wouldn't want to drop everything every month and test my code with a new version. Its a major headache, you end up spending more time fixing new issues and I don't see any reason to do it that often. I would just do occasional updates where needed or the tradeoff makes since. If your making decent money it isn't really an issue about the cost and might work out better based on royalties but when things are tight its tough to fork over the upgrade fee but it doesn't come around that often with Unity. Sure they could change that but I don't think that is the model they are going for here. I really like working in C# and will still keep using Unity for projects as needed but its hard to ignore that cost for small teams and for new costs where I will be collaborating with others. What ever happens its clear Unity has to respond. I'm curious what that response will be.
     
  11. techmage

    techmage

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    Back when Unity first announced the pricing for subscription I thought 75 a month was nuts. Mainly for this reason. If you just bought all of Unity on a credit card and paid it off, you'd be in alot better position with less money spent.

    If Unity offered a royalty based license, I wouldn't go for it personally. I am not going to go for UE4 either personally. Royalties are just another big complication I'd rather not have to think about.

    What I personally hope this does though is make Unity rethink their subscription pricing. When I was thinking Unity subscription I initially thought that like $50 a month would be good for all of Unity, not $225 a month.
     
  12. JohnnyA

    JohnnyA

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    Here's my thoughts on what might help Unity keep competitive whilst not causing a dramatic reduction of revenue.

    1. Add some graphical features back in to Unity Free (e.g. post-processing/render textures and soft shadows). Ideally enough to kill off the "but free looks bad" arguments (however justified/unjustified) but still keeping back enough that there's good reason to move.

    2. Reduce the 100k limit (maybe 50k+ income requires Unity Pro). 100k isn't a lot, but there's probably a few small studios and a lot of individuals that can squeeze under that number.

    3. Small reduction in subscription price or no lock in or both. As techmage said above $75 seems like a lot for a subscription to a product that only costs $1500 outright, compare to say Adobe (and now to UE4 and CryEngine).

    The idea is that you really push the Unity is FREE thing, but once you have people hooked you can still make money off of them. Not saying it would work just throwing some ideas out there.

    Whichever way you slice it Unity is going to be in some trouble if they don't respond.
     
  13. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    $75 looks a lot worse when the upgrade fee is $600. This means continual subscribers in fact lose $1200. I hate to post stuff like this as I need Unity to be successful. But the fact is, it's not a good subscription model, and the reasons for it being high (because people might want to use it only for compilation and shipping) is not a very good reason.

    Instead the pro environment should be desirable to work in, not just ship in.

    How would we make Pro more desirable to work in without harming Free? this is how a free/pro split can truly be a tricky design.
     
  14. angrypenguin

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    I thought there was a far cheaper sub offered as 'upgrade' pricing for one year for Pro owners who wanted a sub?
     
  15. Stephan-B

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    Personally, I think the purchase price for Pro is fine. The addon pricing could use some tweaking (modest reductions). Overall, the price to purchase their products works for me. I don't like the 5% royalty model as that can get expensive really fast as your revenues grow.

    On the other hand, the price of the subscription is too high. It is too high for those who own Unity 4. So few of them have an incentive to subscribe and thus little (new) revenues flows from them to Unity. For those who didn't upgrade to 4.0, the subscription price is a bit more appealing but it all depends on the development cycle so some of them may have gone the subscription way and others not. For those who were about to purchase Unity Pro + Addons for the first time, the subscription is more appealing and should have done ok for Unity. However; and where it matters most, I believe the subscription price is too high to really appeal / convert a large quantity of free users into paying customers and that is where the explosive growth potential is for them.

    Unity needs to keep attracting new users with the Free version. Convert them into subscribers with an attractive / aggressive subscription pricing. Get extra income from Asset sales and their advertising services. In terms of the existing Pro users, depending on their internal data and retention rates on upgrades, either keep them on an upgrade cycle or just convert them into subscribers as well.

    None of this is rocket science. Adobe moved to a subscription model because in the end, it results in higher and more predictable revenues. Adobe had become too dependent on the upgrade cycle. Too many customers were skipping upgrade cycles, etc... Does attracting potential customers with an aggressive subscription price for all your stuff + locking those customer in for 12 months work? Just look at Adobe's stock price.
     
  16. nixter

    nixter

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    Why not -5%? That is about a likely as 0%. :p
     
  17. nixter

    nixter

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    +1
     
  18. nixter

    nixter

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    Wow. Dat Subscription Revenue.
     
  19. pmccall2

    pmccall2

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    I think the problem with most 'productivity' software is that the cost is usually geared towards business, and they really don't seem to understand (or care) that a lot of people use (or want to use) the software as like a hobby.

    Most of the time I end up using free software its not because the software is better, but because the alternative is geared towards business, and the prices are absurd for those who aren't using the program to make money. (I even donate to some free software, at least they will take my little bit of money =p)

    The point is I think we are lucky unity is free, the pro version is expensive to non-professionals.

    Also I don't like paying a subscription for things that don't require a service to subscribe to, that's called renting.;)
     
  20. zombiegorilla

    zombiegorilla

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    Actually, It had nothing to do with competing with Unity, Unity was barely on the radar when GG made the choices that lead to end. in fact going under had virtually nothing to do with the engine. Though the reputation and perception of the engine side of customer support did mean that there were very tears shed at the the funeral. ;)
     
  21. Pix10

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    A bold move, without sacrificing too much, would be to set the Perpetual license holder discount on subscriptions to apply not just for the first year, but rather all time, and removing the annual minimum term - so we can, effectively, get on-demand seats to our account as we need them.

    It's not a "give-away" approach, as you're limited to three subscription offers per Perpetual license.

    And they could improve the License management by letting us "loan" licenses to other Unity users, for example I want to hire an artist or programmer who only has Unity Basic - I rent another seat of Pro + iOS Pro + Team License for a couple months, and loan it out to his account for X days. After that period, the license is returned to me. Fewer capable people are turned down for work because they're not equipped, we don't break the EULA (mixing Basic with Pro), the freelancer has made a bit more cash to put towards a future Pro license of their own, and everybody's happy.
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2014
  22. Muckel

    Muckel

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    well i have Pro all time... and it is expensive compared to what you get!
    I'm happy that i did not upgrade yet... my Upgrade Cost is 1.624,35€ for Unity Pro, iOS Android Pro.
    And that is now the special Upgrade offer.... :-( for me it's now way too much compared to the other Engines out there...
    I now use my Licence until my last Game ships.... and switching to Unreal Engine because it works now really well on a Mac!!!!
    It is interesting that Epic cares about Mac... Unity3D cares more on PC the last Years... there are still several Bugs on the Mac side that get not fixed...

    So i'm very very Happy that there is more progress on the Indie Game Dev Side and that you can choose now!!!
    I really hope that Unity3D change it's Prize System like many of you are mentioned.... 1.624,35€ just for a Upgrade it's too much also for me... and that is now the Special Offer...

    Now i spend my Update Money for the Epic Engine and i will see after some time what engine is better for me... but 19€ a Month is no problem... Pro iOS Android inside :) make me smile!

    So now the only interesting Part is how is the Performance on Mobile.
    Do i get more FPS on Mobile with UE4 or with Unity3D ????
    well i can't tell ya yet but let me work one Month with UE4 and i can tell!
    Very positive for me is that there is no MONO.
     
  23. bitcrusher

    bitcrusher

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    mobile export doesn't work for all phones, though you can check the compatibility list
     
  24. Eleazaros

    Eleazaros

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    I don't know - have you done the math?

    Subscription fee then 5% *GROSS* profits. That's $27k US gross to equal the unity pro price per platform.

    $27k gross - as in any and all sales not counting discounts and such. So a "sale" of your product - you may eat the difference being as gross doesn't consider discounts, returns and such.

    Lots of little questions on this stuff that might com back to bite you with a different agreement. This way you are running with a fixed-cost model but not going with a gross percentage to the engine maker.
     
  25. saymoo

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    Maybe i don't understand your point completely.
    but from what i understood (or think you are saying):

    I'm not a US citizen, but asfar as i know, Gross revenue (also called Gross Sales), is all income without any cost of any kind to being deducted from it.
    This would mean discounts (or sales) are part of Gross Revenue..

    in case of Preorders: this is not part of Gross, since they are unknown in advance (not actual sales untill they get the product)
    Preorder != discount on actual sale.

    Epic confirms it by example:
    "Generally, you are obligated to pay to Epic 5% of all gross revenue for your product, regardless of what company collects the revenue. For example, if your product earns $10 from sales on the App Store, the royalty due is $0.50 (5% of $10), even though you would receive roughly $7 from Apple after they deduct their distribution fee of roughly $3 (30% of $10)."

    So in a discount example (temporarily price drop of $5):
    your product earns $5 from sales in sales on the app store, the royalty due is $0.25 (5% of $5), even though you would reveive rougly $3.5 from Apple after they deduct their distribution fee of rougly $1.5 (30% of $5).

    I might be completely wrong here, but what i understand from epic's example and from what i've read: is that discounts are included in gross (all income from the product in a certain period) for a product.

    So in my example: You only would sell one unit for the discount price of $5, you would in effect receive NET revenue (aka profit): $3.25 out of $5 (that includes 5 percent for UE4 AND 30% for distribution in app store, both taken from gross revenue)

    I don't se how the developer would eat the difference? (it's not that the developer is paying the $5 difference to stay at the original unit price of $10)

    Another example:

    let's pretend:
    in past quarter year....
    you sold 10 units of normal price ($10) = $100.
    Then you did a week discount, and sold 50 copies of discounted price ($5) = $250
    Now the total gross revenue for that quarter is $100 + $250 = $350
    5% out of $350 = $17.5 (royalty to pay Epic)
    30% out of $350 = $105 (to pay the distributor)

    so from $350 gross revenue, you need to pay $122.5, leaving you with a net of $227.5
    (most of the cost is the distributor as you can see, not UE4)

    Remember: unit price is excluding VAT, which is calculated on top of unit price for the end user to pay (percentages vary depending on buyers country).
     
    Last edited: Mar 24, 2014
  26. cynic

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    @saymoo

    You're mostly correct, however regarding pre-orders it depends on when you actually get the money.
    If you're offering pre-orders for which you charge and receive the money upfront your royalties are due, disregarding of when you actually ship the product.
     
  27. saymoo

    saymoo

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    Thanks for the clarification on the pre-order part. :)
     
  28. bitcrusher

    bitcrusher

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    they do that so you don't spend the money on development, and can't pay them back lol
     
  29. Eleazaros

    Eleazaros

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    Here's a quote from their website on their pricing:

    In other words, it has little to do with what you get but the list price of your product.
     
  30. saymoo

    saymoo

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    revenue is based on list price, since actual sales * list price = gross revenue.
    So the example you posted from their site, is exactly the same as i've did.

    Gross revenue, then from that amount royalty is to be calculated (thus not from the amount you receive from apple after they deducted 30% on the list price sale totals for the quarter year period), as i've did with my example.
     
  31. JecoGames

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    But for me as a teenager with no possible means of raising 1500 dollars for unity pro unreal engine 4 is a no brainer.
     
  32. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Well I made roughly that as a child collecting scrap metal over one summer.
     
  33. HavocX

    HavocX

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    Time better spent making games!
     
  34. UndeadButterKnife

    UndeadButterKnife

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    Lets not bring baby boomer logic to Unity forums.
     
  35. MaxieQ

    MaxieQ

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    You mean, get into a lot of debt, crash the economy, and then put all young people in austerity programs to pay for their own pensions? :D

    *ducks and runs*
     
  36. drewradley

    drewradley

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    Or you COULD use the free version of Unity with NO costs and NO royalties. But then again, I guess "free" isn't good enough for some people.
     
  37. HeadClot88

    HeadClot88

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    Unity is no longer competitive in terms of price for their Unity Pro products And yes you are right unity free is not good enough at least anymore.

    1500 Dollars for allot of performance saving features - Such as occlusion culling and Deferred lighting. But also you need get the "shinies" as well in said pro version... Not to mention you need to buy it per seat with an additional license per platform that you want to target.

    There is however a limit to how much you can make with the free version - 100K I believe it is.

    The reason a bunch of people are complaining about unity free In my eyes is -

    1. Epic is offering a better product however we want to stay with Unity3D due to workflow and various plugins we have purchased.
    2. We want change in terms of licensing which has been a long time coming...
    3. Unity Free is no longer good enough... Critical Performance Features are hidden behind a paywall same with graphical features.

    Just my 2 Cents.
     
  38. Silly_Rollo

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    They could make x64 editor Pro only but I think having a stark Pro/Free editor difference is silly. If they keep it they really need to break up their pricing to make it more granular. A smart move would be to make something like $20 a month for full Pro editor and then offer each Pro compiled version as an add on even Windows/Mac/Linux and Web. Maybe even extra for DX11. Developers are likely to have months of testing on each device so even if a dev drops the compile options during early development they are going to need to subscribe for months at least.

    With a lower price and no lock in absolutely no one is going to release anything without a little Pro time. The greater number of subscribers would probably more than make up the difference in pricing. A bonus: you might have less crappy throwaway Unity apps out there with horrible performance with more access to the profiler.

    They could also make it a company wide license addon not per seat which would scale up quickly for larger houses and keep it cheap for solo devs. I know currently there are devs that have only a single Pro license they pass around the office for compiling or the profiler and everyone else works in Free so there will always be people who try to work around restrictions but if you make it inconvenient I bet most devs will just do it properly if they have the means.
     
  39. create3dgames

    create3dgames

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    I agree with you. I am currently writing an article on Unity vs Udk and as I was typing the "price" section, I was thinking, what is Unity doing? They must be crazy to offer such an expensive price compared to Unreal. But I have a feeling Unity will change their pricing sometime in the near future. Well, they sort of have to anyway, to stay competitive.
     
  40. ShilohGames

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    Keep in mind that UE4 is not the same thing as UDK. They are different things. You will want to update your article to reflect that.
     
  41. XGundam05

    XGundam05

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    Reason numero uno that people have with Unity Free (especially after UE4), from Unity's FAQ:
    UT says that the free version is just as viable when approached on the forums, but the official line appears that Free is just for tech demos and pure hobbyism. You can do some great things with Free, don't get me wrong, but when the company itself looks down on a product...
     
  42. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    I think that's more of an encouragement to engage people with the pro version though. I agree it's worded terribad and will raise it with the UK team.
     
  43. Kend

    Kend

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    This thread will be closed in 3...2...1.....
     
  44. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    Surely the main blocker there is the $100k limit for free licenses? That's something that most professional organisations would clip by default, and most startups would clip when they get their 3rd (or even 2nd) employee on board.
     
  45. Unity_Student

    Unity_Student

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    This is very dissapointing due to the fact i really love unity but UE4 seems much better AND CHEAPER! OMG

    it must be a marketing catch by ue4 IT MUST BE!

    im really used to unity now but if it is necessary i will be considiring to switch engines :(

    unity must do something about it!
     
  46. GMM

    GMM

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    Unreal Engine 4 is nor better or cheaper, it's all a matter of perspective. Unreal Engine 4 is a mess to work with if you cannot code C++ as the Blueprint system will not get you as far as JavaScript or C# will in Unity. Unity has a pretty steep initial commitment price, but do not require any royalties from sales.

    Personally i love many aspects of UE4, but there are aspects i dislike and would like to see improved. UE4 and Unity is definitely two of my favorite pieces of software to work with, but neither is perfect in any shape or form.

    Work with what yields the best results for you, switching engine is not worth anything if it requires you to do double the work.
     
  47. ShilohGames

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    For full time professional game developers, UE4 is not always cheaper. But for indies and hobbyists who need/want Pro features, UE4 is definitely cheaper. Paying $19/month and being to cancel at any time is pretty risk free compared to paying $1500 up front.
     
  48. dogzerx2

    dogzerx2

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    I think you make all good points.

    If I was strictly a hobbyist, there's a good chance I'd prefer to play with all pro features in UE4 for $19/mo. Still for a few folks, Unity absolutely free, without even the commitment of taking out the credit card, can prove appealing and efficient to lure a few hobbyists.

    But much like you've said Shiloh! Once you start making some actual profit with your games, enough to make a living... compared to Unity upgrade cost, UE4 costs anything from "a bit more" than "much more" than Unity licenses per user.

    People fixate in the fact first time purchase with Unity is expensive for beginners. Yes, it will be expensive, likely more than the 5% fees the first couple of years. But you must THINK AHEAD. Chances are after the 3rd year of making money, you've spent more in UE4 fees, than licenses per users in Unity.

    But that's why you have Unity free to start making $$, use it wisely! Buy pro when business is steady. I just don't see how so many people can complain about such great deal.
     
    Last edited: May 8, 2014
  49. Teo

    Teo

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    There are so many valid points in this thread, however, I think NO change will be made until August 2014 when is Unity conference, and when will be launched Unity 5.
     
  50. create3dgames

    create3dgames

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    What's the difference between Unreal Engine and Unreal Development Kit?
     
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