Kinda happy about new Plus thing

But I'd like if there would be a way to just pay flat fee to obtain it.

 

I'm shocked that no one else has created threads about it yet. Personally I don't know what to even think about it. There are indications around the website and in other communications that I'm getting the impression the perpetual license will no longer be available for purchase after March 2017, but it could just be a roundabout way of announcing Unity 6.

I'm just not certain what advantages Unity Plus is bringing that would make it worth the investment for me.

 

No other threads about it cause all the rage is happening in the official blog post or forum tread

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/new-products-and-prices-coming-soon.408046

 

I haven't watched / read much, but from the reddit comments I found this:

If that's a real quote it is certainly interesting.

Dark Skin, possibly a semi customization splash screen, and maybe good value from the asset store project packs are what seem to be the big "sellers" of that tier.

I know for me personally I can live without the dark skin, splash screen is irrelevant since I don't see myself releasing anything in a while, and the value could easily be hit or miss. I don't think I'm in the minority (maybe on the dark skin) so I'm not sure who this is really targeting since you're also stuck with the revenue cap of Personal.


Edit: Apparently both Personal and Plus will only say "Made with Unity" (in addition to whatever potential customization is available in Plus) so we can finally stop listening to developers complain about their feelings being hurt by the splash screen.

 

Dark skin was always a joke of a feature. How many of those who complained about it actually made a game?

 

I think the thing that annoys me about it the most is the completely BS reasoning they give for doing it, to "Simplify"

What is complicated about a paid and free version? You pretty much can't get more simple than that.

They are cashing in, just like Adobe, just like Autodesk. I probably would be less annoyed by it if they just said "You know why we're doing this, we've decided to switch to the dbag model, just like all the other paid software in the game industry. Feel free to hate us, but what are you gonna do, restart your current projects and move them to another engine? Didn't think so." Because then at least they would have been being honest about their reasoning.

 

Its kind of what people have been asking for.

Personal users get a way to pay for the dark skin. $35 per month. Removing the splash screen would have been ideal, at the moment I don't see many people taking this option.

Pro users are getting the mobile add ons cheaper. Down to $125 a month from $255.

Level 11 is going away. Who knows if 'project packs' will actually work.

Really the only losers are pro users who only developed for the PC. There cost goes up from $75 a month to $125 a month. But for a while they have been unfairly subsidized by the mobile market anyway.

And those that liked the perpetual model might be worse off. The blog is unclear on exactly what the perpetual model now looks like.

 

Yeah the plus version is kinda weird set with no actual value for many. For the costs, at the moment it seems that they will be actually increased for everyone unless they will offer discounts for existing users. Even with mobile addons it will be doubled vs perpetual upgrade costs.

Level11 is replaced with similar system, quarterly packs where asset store team picks random stuff with some theme (was said in the official thread).

There will be pay-to-own kinda system with unknown price

"Existing perpetual customers will be able to purchase either a 24- or 36 month prepaid subscription to Pro that allows them to keep the software as a perpetual version at the end of their commitment period. The 36 month prepaid pay to own option will be available to new customers as well. Pricing for the pay to own options will be available when we launch the new licensing."

 

I wouldn't hold my breath. After all, they still have yet to implement all the changes promised in the last licensing announcement a year ago. So until you see it in the EULA, and you see a buy now button on the website...

 

It's just a shame that their solution requires the other side to start being unfairly treated. They should have just allowed mobile developers to buy professional licenses without having to own desktop ones. After all if they can differentiate between the two editions during build time for mobile platforms there isn't any real reason they couldn't have done so for desktop too.

 

I'm free and probably always will be. Still I don't see why they just don't give these folks a 10 to 15% discount (which Unity then pays to the asset sellers) on everything instead of choosing packs and stuff like that. Let the users get what they actually want at a discounted price. Granted they may have to put in a max like up to $25 savings per month or whatever. That is adding real value. Or set up some kind of credit system and each month these folks get $15 in asset credits that accumulate. Something along these lines.

 

But there wasn't "a paid version and a free version". There was a free version, then a Pro version that let you publish for desktop, but which you had to buy in order to be able to purchase licenses for iOS and/or Android publishing. People who just wanted to make mobile games were frustrated by that, because they felt that they needed to pay for a whole platform they weren't interested in before they even got the option of buying their primary platform as an add-on.

So, I can understand the "simplify" justification.

What I'm not convinced about is the new price point of $125/mo. I see that as a huge benefit for mobile developers, because before the same would have cost them $225/mo. So big win there. But for my current projects, squarely aimed at desktop... now when I jump to Pro, which I intend to do, it's going to cost me $50/mo more for... what? The only practical thing I'm getting from it is access to two platforms I'm not (currently) interested in.

I can't argue about the overall value proposition. It's still a great tool at a reasonable price. But it did sting a little last night when I read the new pricing announcement which basically tells me I now have to pay more to get some bundles features that don't apply to me (at the moment).

I'm also miffed at the lack of an (announced) perpetual purchase. There've been hints about that for a while now, so no surprise, but it's always been the cheaper option by a fair margin for long-term users. Again, not as big a deal for people using all of the platforms anyway, but I'm not one of those people at the moment. The staff comments keep saying that there'll be a "pay-to-own" option, but I'm a little concerned as to what it'll be - the subscription options seem very much aimed at mobile developers, so I can't see why the pay-to-own would be otherwise. On top of that, it sounds like the pay-to-own is going to be a modified version of the subscription, so goodbye to upgrade pricing for long-term loyal customers... (for whom the price is jumping up significantly even if they were already using all platforms).

To be honest, my first impression of the new pricing strategy is that Unity is consolidating their mobile efforts to the detriment of other platforms. That may well be a great move for their business - if it's where their strength is then absolutely they should be going with that. For my current projects, though, it's definitely not as good a fit as the old model.

 

Doesn't sound like they simplified anything, more like they just made it complicated for a different group of users.

And also cashed in hard.

 

Apparently it is not a joke of a feature if they feature it prominently in their announcement. That is the real joke to me, that they are hanging the dark skin behind a paywall.

 

I'm not sure the new model is unfair. Everybody now pays for all the features.

I'm not convinced on this. The model involves moving the cost away from mobile developers and onto PC developers. I'm not sure Unity will net an increased revenue from licensing, assuming the user base stays the same.

Loosing perpetual might be considered as cashing in.

 

Really? With the old system Pro licensing was per-platform, and you had to buy one platform before you had access to others. With the new one, you either have Pro or you don't. I can't see how that isn't simpler.

Yeah, this is a large part of what makes me unsure about what I think of the new model. Long term customers used to benefit from upgrade pricing, now it seems like they won't, and for desktop focused developers it comes along with a significant price hike on top of that.

To be fair, I haven't checked the math but I still think it's likely to end up cheaper than the competition, and if mobile developers are the majority user base then overall it is indeed an improved system. I'm not currently a part of that majority, though.

 

I don't get all the hate personally. I usually float back and forth between being a pro user and a free user and will probably continue to do so (plus seems weird and not valuable I will still probably be either free or pro). From a value perspective people have to pay Unity something, even $125/month is fair in my book for what Unity provides (especially since the multiple platform stuff is gone). Even vs. the old perpetual licenses it always made sense for me to just grab Unity pro only when I need it like if I'm about to launch a game. The minimum term is a year so that's $1250 which is still under even the $1500 original cost. All the features for my game are there so there's no reason to have it during development, just get it before launch which will also cover the patches and then cancel after the year.

Most of the time I don't need anything other than free, and they've actually removed the main reason I have it currently which was access to the betas. I just wish asset store publishers could get credit for part of the 30% cut they make for Unity. The last year Unity's cut was around $4000 it feels a bit weird paying them monthly on top of that but I like the engine so it is what it is (for the record I like Unreal as well I don't know why most people only pick one or the other).

 

This...

 

I wonder if part of the idea is to take the pressure off of doing major releases. The current pricing model incentives Unity to release a major version on a regular basis. Regardless of if its the most appropriate thing to do for the engine.

A bit less version jumping might actually improve the engine.

 

Oh...I was under the impression pro was just like free, except with a black theme and some team based features, and basically only existed for people making over $100k

 

Pro was just like personal. But there was pro android and pro iOS as well. So for a mobile developer, the price was not 1500 or 75 a month, rather it was 4500 or 225 a month.

 

Definitely, and it's great if that's the case. They're even hinting at that with the talk of larger quarterly updates. If that's the primary intention, though, couldn't the pricing be somewhere between the old sub model and the upgrade pricing many users were taking advantage of?

I don't think the new price is necessarily unfair, but nobody's going to feel good about a price hike, and for some user's that's effectively what this is.

I agree entirely, but remember that once we're earning $100k+ we don't have a choice about which version we use - it has to be Pro. Not a big deal for most solo developers or beginners, but for experienced teams or companies you'll (hopefully) hit that $100k quickly.

By the same token, by hitting that income quickly you'll also hopefully be making enough to cover $125/mo/developer, too. And, once again, if you're targeting mobiles and were already on the subscription it's a price drop. So it's not all doom and gloom.

 

I was just responding to the hate, which if I had to guess was coming from mostly hobbyists/indies who are under that limit. If you are a studio you most likely see the monthly fee as a drop in the bucket vs other costs in your production pipeline.

 

The price gouging is real!

 

No sure why the rage. Seems Personal is just as good, and the Pro version is potentially cheaper for a large portion of developers. I agree they could have made Plus more juicy, but it doesn't seem wildly different or more expensive than the current pricing.

 

I don't know how it's cheaper to any existing pro user except for those who have might been on full set subscription without any discounts. For me being on pro since 3.x and always upgraded my perpetual using pre-order or upgrade discount (~1300 € for 2 years or more) and the new subscription cost will double my yearly budget for Unity and that is with all mobile platforms (~2600-2800 € for 2 years). It's even worse for people who did around 500 EUR for 2 year upgrades for being only on desktop only so for them it's like 5x raise in costs.

I was always expecting some sort of cost raise coming for desktop costs since there are so many platforms there including VR than before when they originally did the pro costs but didn't expect such huge raise and also for mobile devs who already paid 3x for only 2 platforms while desktop pro included more.

It's unknown if there will be any discounts for old users but usually subscription based systems get rid and move away of all that kind of discount things. Also if you look at the migration chart it shows majority of users will suffer since there aren't that many subscribers(?)

 

If that's the truth, then I'm happy. My main problem with the splashscreen was not the splashscreen itself, but that specific wording.

 

FTFY

 

I find the Plus plan to be rather disappointing, since I don't have enough income to upgrade to Pro, but not much incentive to upgrade to Plus due to its minimal improvements to personal.