Major Annoucements from John Riccitiello Unity CEO March 3rd GDC2015

Major announcements and an update to the Unity Roadmap???

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/...new-announcements-at-gdc.html#~p3pXCTmrsBfNEv

Care to speculate on what they might be?

Any chance it will be live streamed for us Indie/Hobbyist developers?

 

I really hope they do that. really looking forward to it.

 

Exciting. Whatever happens I hope Unity will remain true to its original purpose.

 

What would be the male equivalent meme as I find that meme sexist and well unsettling in a homophobic sort of way!

 

cats?

 

Or

 

My guesses...

1. Acquisition by Microsoft.
2. No PRO version anymore. Unity is free but features are upgraded with in-app-purchase.
3. 5 ships.
4. Unity goes public.

 

I've been thinking that for a few months, despite official claims to the contrary, and very little evidence; what's your rationale?

 

I would love for Unity to be acquired by Microsoft but I don't hold any real hope.

Microsoft is certainly being cushy with Unity though. Opening up VS community edition, debugging tools, and now open sourcing .net as MIT. Also you don't need to pay pro for Windows Store builds. why is that? Are Microsoft footing the bill?

 

Just so everyone is clear, I don't claim to have any evidence at all. I'm just guessing.

1. The games industry is huge and growing. One advantage the Windows platform has over other desktop platforms is games. MS just paid 2 Billion dollars for Minecraft. They believe in games and are making moves in that direction.

2. Windows Phone trying to play catch up with Android and iOS. They don't have nearly the catalog of games the other platforms do and may want to cultivate that somehow. If they control Unity, they can hobble Unity for other platforms and promote it on Windows. A huge percentage of mobile games are done in Unity. If Unity were suddenly not an option for Android and iOS, developers wouldn't have a ready replacement.

3. HoloLens - Unity is probably in the best position to be the defacto authoring tool for HoloLens. I'm pretty certain MS will find a way to botch the HoloLens launch but Unity would be a great companion for it.

4. Unity's relationship with MS has been pretty darn cozy for awhile now. That seems unusual for them. If MS scoops up Unity, they suddenly own the #1 game development tool that is suitable for amateurs to pros.

 

What about a new price policy?

 

They believe in 60 million Minecraft's users.

 

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/valve-ea-and-unity-to-unveil-new-graphics-api-at-g/1100-6425086/

 

Microsoft buys Unity and we will jump straight to version 10!

 

Unity 5 Roadshow

Join Unity & Microsoft experts at an upcoming Porting Lab where we’ll help you bring your existing Unity games to a broader audience on Windows and Windows Phone. After a brief orientation on how to get the most out of your Unity game on Windows, we’ll have open coding labs with food, drinks, and expert staff available to fuel your development efforts. Once you have had hands on help porting your game, you can submit it to the Unity offer program and get awesome benefits such as ad impressions, device, licenses, vouchers and a priority review for the ID@Xbox program. See the recent developers greenlighted to receive their Xbox One dev kits here.

Developers who successfully port an app during the event can qualify for a Windows Phone* and be invited to demo their app to the event audience.

For a list of events, see http://unity3d.com/pages/windows/events

* NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Open only to attendees of the Unity 5 Roadshow Windows Porting lab. 18+. Winners must be present to win. Ends March 1st 2014.. For Official Rules, visit the check-in desk onsite.

 

-1-

 

These days, it seems Unity does not work As before

Replacement of the CEO, what do you mean? I think that is for negotiations.. I feel this is something huge

Acquisition by Microsoft.

Now everything makes sense

If the future is uncertain, less the efficiency of the work

 

By bringing on the former CEO of Electronic Arts...

 

Yep said it all along, you bring in high level c-suite folks when you are about to sell or go public, one of those two.

 

Nipping this in the bud, let's not start the sale panic of 2014 again.

And let's not get into the whole EA debate again.

Do continue guessing, I guess

 

We've thought of this, we are looking into the possibility of live streaming – stay tuned on that front.

 

I guess unity say 5.0's release date.. and release date is summer

 

Unity release their own VR/AR gaming HMD/Console hardware Unity Vision, free with every pro version of Unity.

 

Again it's about price : The new 30$/month subscription.

 

Unity acquires Unreal.

 

I think it's the setup to an elaborate April Fool's joke. No one will suspect it on March 3!

 

I hope they do some more natively integrated stuff.. Steam would be a good step.

 

We are going to announce building from Unity to Toasters. 2015 is the year of toaster-based gaming.

(Disclaimer: This is probably not going to happen. But rumours are fun!)

 

Darn it. I was really hoping to launch to my fridge this year. Will fridges be included in the 5.x series or do I have to wait for 6? Toaster just won't capture my target market.

 

Yay the Unity Toaster...

 

Coming just after I watched RimmerWorld and PolyMorph II with my dinner XD

 

Fridge will probably be in the 5.x series. Toasters have a pretty damn big marketshare, though!

 

Unity are involved in the glNext announcement at GDC, but the Digital Spy report is about something Unity specific.

Maybe it is Unity Semi-Pro (or named Prosumer or Indie or Rising Star or IAP or something else) to bridge the gap between Free and Pro.

 

So the George Foreman Grill devs get left in the cold like a red headed step child again? Their compression rivals toasters and fridges ya know.

 

Dude, they've got like a three percent market share. It's just not worth Unity's time and money to develop for this market. Give it a rest.

 

Unity is going to dominate the fridge market.

 

Depends. I heard ice cubes were going to be pro only. Not sure if it's worth the extra license fee. UE4 looks like it might include ice cubes for free.

 

Ice cubes are DLC only. But you get $100 worth of asset store fridge magnets if you sign up early.

 

The Unity of Things? But will we have enough IPs to serve all the Toasters and Fridges? When will you guys add IPv6 ????!!!

Many questions....

 

True, but everytime you use an Icecube in a drink, Epic will sip 5% of your beverage. We won't sip any.

 

Yay, I love gossiping about rumors!

#1 seems to have been shot down by Aurore so that we don't go into a sale tizzy again.

#4 doesn't seem to be that advantageous to engine development nor really fit into the "democratization of game development". Unless they think that they need the investment money, going public is not usually worth it. They then would be accountable for profit filings, road maps, needy shareholders, and other accountability that is time consuming and thus expensive. Having to force the development of the engine to meet quarterly financial results doesn't seem to fit to me.

In regards to #3, I think Unity 5 shipping is definitely a positive but not a buzz generating feat. Especially, since it was announced 1 year ago at GDC 2014. Apologies to the Unity evangelists, in my opinion Unity lost a lot of mindshare and momentum after UE4's development and pricing blew past Unity's in 2014.

I think the more interesting concept is #2. The reason that I believe this is going to happen is that we haven't heard much from Unity at all in regards to the free/pro breakdown of features yet. They could just be holding back because they're not sure how it will break down, but I think the likely reasoning is that they aren't going to have much of any of differentiation between Pro and Free. While the pre-order bonus is a nice feature, it could be argued that is what you paid for when you purchased the license upgrade. They could also give pre-orders some AssetStore credit in exchange for their purchase. I just believe If everyone had access to AssetBundles, Image Effects, RenderTextures, etc. this would make the engine much more competitive as well as create a more uniformed community.

However, this naturally brings up the question. How does Unity make money to pay for engine development? They could keep the current enforced branding (splash), but I'm not sure that is really going to be good enough. Maybe some sort of forced Unity AD system on the players?

 

I was thinking about ponying up the pie n mash for pro today so I can get my hands on the 5 beta and WebGL export. This post makes me think I may as well give it another month just in case. ..

Wise choice?

 

I'm picking the pro/free model will be almost identical in Unity 5

 

Me too.
We may all be jumping to the wrong conclusions though. What if they put the price of pro up then add a slightly cheaper mid level version which still makes you upgrade to a higher priced pro if you reach $100,000 turn over in a year?

"Conspiracy theories" (-:

I don't have a real issue with the current price of pro. I just wish the pro mobile export (IOS, Android) were included in the $1500.

 

"it has been an amazing year [...] We have decided to make Unity Pro available for everyone! [big applauses & crowd noises] and also ........... "

..or not

 

It's quite clear what the announcement will be. I'm not usually one to gloat but it's obvious the announcement is to pay respect and acknowledge my true awesomeness. It's not easy being me. I know you are all jealous; deal with it, just calm down and accept the fact that all of you are beneath me.

 

Unity Technologies is developing Half Life 3

 

...everyone wakes up

 

I think he will announce that there's 10% less noobing going on thanks to the heroic efforts of the learn team!