I get a doubt to use Unity for one reason:

I completely hate the Unity Splash Screen. It's pointless. Just wrote my two-penneth worth on this forum, then I noticed this thread. Here;s my opinion on the matter:

I'll try to keep this short. Basically I have given this much thought and I do understand their thought process of having the splash screen but....

I think the negatives far outweigh the positive they get from 'free' advertising/awareness.

Some negatives I can think of:
-Bad press for Unity, many games are bad and the general gaming youth consider Unity Splash Screen as an instant sign the game will be bad.
-Personal Tier Unity is designed for private users AND companies that earned less than $100k in 12months. This means many small studios with decent products are lumbered with this horrible seal-of-bad-quality at the start of the game. It is currently very expensive to upgrade to Pro purely to remove splash screen.

Well that was just a couple of negatives, but before I started writing this I did have a few more in my head lol

But what positives are there really??:
-Potential free advert to potential wannabe game-devs ? (most game-dev, even budding ones, will use Google etc and find Unity pretty much instantly anyway)


I honestly cannot think of another positive worth mentioning.

Therefore I have to take the stance of, why the heck is it still there?

(And yes I am a budding game dev, intending to release some small games and really dislike having the splash screen at the start of every game).

There are just 2 things I dislike about Unity (when compared to say Unreal Engine)
1. The UNET (and other networking offerings) tend to push users with little knowledge to the paid hosting options which are usually not worth it for a small startup game company.
2. The goddam Splash Screen.

Also, UE is 'source available' which is nice.
That said, I much prefer Unity, I think it is superior overall for my needs. I am able to create full games in just a week or so using Unity. UE and others have a steeper learning curve and IMO not as good a 'framework' as Unity. I give Unity 10/10 review and will always use it, but the Splash and the Networking almost makes me consider ditching it to be honest.


EDIT: One last thought. What if they split the 'Personal' tier in two? They could have 'Personal' for purely non-commercial use. And then 'Indie' for companies under $100k. I would be happy to pay a small one-off fee. Or even a very small yearly fee. But I don't make income from my games and therefore cannot justify anything close to what the current cost is to remove splash screen.

 

Please dont spam other threads with copies of your post.
People will reply to your thread if they want to.
Please read the rules before posting next time.

 

It is honestly not your concern, as you are not unity.

If you dislike the terms, you can pick up another engine.

 

That's false. Valve just give you access to their market. The small visibility boosts you get, everyone gets. It's still not accounting for anything and if you follow prominent indies on twitter, you'll see they're not impressed with the numbers from those boosts.

If you do not make money then the splash screen is not changing anything for all 2 seconds it is visible, assuming you are loading a blank scene first like you should be.

 

Once upon a time you had to qualify for Unreal Engine and the vast majority of those that qualified were not indie developers like they are today. Getting access to the engine was not only exciting but a way to assist with sales because people weren't associating the logo with low quality like they were with Unity.

Today though neither of these mentalities for either Unreal Engine or Unity are truly accurate.

Unity has largely moved away from the whole mentality that it's only used to create low quality games thanks to titles like Escape from Tarkov. Anyone turning off the logo now does so out of habit moreso than any actual sales reasons.

Unreal Engine is no longer behind a qualifications barrier. The logo continues to be pushed by Epic as a marketing tool but since it's now behind a qualifications barrier most developers just skip it. I can't even remember the last time I saw it in a game.

 

These days actual gamers have no idea what Unity or Unreal is, I know because I've been slyly asking people I come across or game with for a long time now, and people are only very vaguely aware at best. To them it's identical to the "junk" you see when watching a film, you get endless logos pop up and keep pressing controller buttons.

That's the reality. Toxic vocal minorities online don't mean jack, and should just be thrown onto the pile of ignore along with anti vaxxers.

 

I'm not a brand person, but I'm ok with Unity as a corporation.
I would never want a google or f@ckbook logo on anything, ever.... Weening myself off youtube.

But Unity? I don't know these people but they seem mostly harmless? maybe even… nice?
Unlike other corporations in this sphere, Unity has not leaked my password to Russian hackers, deliberately violated monopoly and labor protections, or facing class action lawsuits from thousands of employees.

When you grow up, your priorities change.
The things that matter start to matter a LOT MORE, and the things that never mattered (like being scared what people might think if you don't wear the coolkid brands) feel less than trivial.

 

When you definitely know how effective monopolies work.

When you definitely know how advertising works.

 

Wow..you were not here when instead of a free fully functional engine, we were missing lots of stuff that Pro had and it was very difficult to get far without some of those features.

I still remember the day when they told us that we were going to have a fully functioning Unity Personal, one that we could use to make games until we reached a certain threshold. This helped so MANY of us that had small teams and small family businesses to continue to use Unity.

If the logo bothers you, then buy Plus. No reason to complain when you get something for free.

Unity...CARES about us small developers. If they did not, you would have to pay to use Unity so stop being so selfish. We are fortunate..and no royalties to pay either.

 

Not from thousands of employees, but there are multiple lawsuits against Unity, class action or otherwise, settled or otherwise, just FYI.

Can we maybe close this thread? It's becoming a place for everyone to come and post their horrible, off topic, takes, while the original question is more or less covered.

 

I honestly forgot about the days when we needed pro just to make a really great game. I actually did a pro license and never even released a game, just because I enjoyed tinkering with the cool features lol.

So despite my whole somewhat complaints lately, this has actually made me remember and realize we are actually pretty fortunate to have the tools we have with Unity. Dang talk about a wake up call, I literally had forgotten them harsh times by being flooded with all the features available now.

 

On that note, it's time for a lock.