MERGED - all splash screen discussion

Moderator note: this is now a go-to thread for all discussions about the splash screen and the wording.

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I created a feedback change request if anyone else would like to see this changed.

http://feedback.unity3d.com/suggestions/rebrand-personal-to-indie

Replace all branding of the words "Personal" and "Personal Edition", including the mandatory splash screen, to"Indie" and "Indie Edition".

'Personal edition' is a phrase usually used for software meant for private use - i.e. not for commercial sale. Branding applications with this may erode customer confidence.

By contrast 'Indie' and 'Indie Edition' are well known and trusted monikers.​

 

I agree. I was confused when I first read personal edition, as to what does it mean. Since I'm used to hearing indie for something that fits that description.

 

+1

 

Plenty of places that call themselves indie that make over 100k per year. In fact, without that sort of revenue you can hardly call yourself independent. Your dependent on some other source of income for food and the like.

Perhaps the title of 'hobbyist' would be more accurate?

 

But before you have made your first 100k per year you have to actually make your game and sell it. And at that point the branding is working against you.

 

imo 'hobbyist' is too colloquial... seems that the simplest way is just remove 'personal edition'. however in the short past i was againts 'personal' but now i have mix feelings... Unity have chance to change 'personal' meaning and have to earn money for custom splash screen of course he isnt charity org. but there is the same or even bigger (since 'personal' is strong estabilished in 'official' language and have pejorative for software or at best neutral for common life private actions meaning) chance that this dont happen and all free user could be considered as against legal by someone who isnt familiar with unity....

 

100% change to indie.

lets be honest, it is the indie version...

 

Haha hobbyst would do. Nah I mean indie is more fitting and we're kind of used to seeing "personal" and "home" attributed to stuff you use for your self, and "indie" to the individuals who're trying to make it into the business. Because its sort of a standard. Off the top of my head, Substance products and Photon networking use the term "indie". I've seen it more but I can't think of any right now. Anyway I think its a really minor thing, but agree with the poster that the branding "personal" is working against you, if its somehow known to the potential buyers. Haven't tried it yet so I don't know.

 

Presumably you have funding though. Otherwise you aren't indie, you're starving.

 

Indie, as I understand it, doesn't have anything to do with an individual's sources of income or tax status. Indie games, like indie music or indie movies, refers to a product being made without being connected to a publisher (or movie studio, or music label, etc).

If, for example, an employee of EA were to develop a game on nights and weekends with his own time/resources--even though the person would be using a paycheck from EA to pay for his living expenses--the game itself would still be indie because it would not be connected to a publisher.

 

Hobbyist is just as bad.
I get it, Unity wants the added motivation to buy the pro version, but... honestly I don't mind the splash screen it's just the "personal" thing that could give players the wrong idea. I would actually want the unity splash screen - but not with "personal edition" below it.

 

I dunno, "personal edition" sounds kinda classy and "indie edition" sounds kinda scruffy to me. The point about "personal edition" software often having limited distribution rights is reasonable, but remember that your audience is the general public, not other developers. I can't see people in general getting the wrong idea.

--Eric

 

I agree with the sentiment. "Personal Edition" sounds like something that isn't meant to be distributed. However, to the gamers I've seen that have vitriolic reactions when Unity is mentioned, it's not really going to matter what it's called.

 

Yeah, I think Indie would look better on the new splash screen than "Personal". Though honestly I think the splash screen should just say "Made with Unity", but I guess the splash screen is sort of there specifically to make you hate it so much that you want to pay to get rid of it, so I don't know. Maybe it should just say "Made with Unity by some person too cheap to pay for the full version!" just to really make you feel bad about releasing a game with it.

 

How about "Not-Pro" edition?

 

I've always found it odd that the splash screen is on the free version and not on the paid version. From a brand recognition and marketing perspective, Unity gets associated with poor basement games that make small amounts of revenue. And the big budget games that are made in Unity don't get associated with the engine in the publics eye.

 

Exactly. I was really happy to see a Unity splash screen on Hitman Go. Maybe UT should provide some incentive to AAA devs who leave it on.

 

"Personal" means one thing guys.... Did you SAY this word around any women like once during a marketing meeting...? Because it's SO NOT just a random word.

 

"Powered by Unity" sounds big and and (obviously) powerful,
"Made with Unity Personal Edition" sounds weak. If they're trying to market themselves as a serious competitor to epic then thats not going to do them any favours.

 

That may not actually be a bad idea, if you combine it with previous posts about Unity's current reputation. This may serve to split the brand into Unity Personal Edition (expect poorly made amateur games) and the more polished professional games. It may well actually be smart marketing.

 

The pro games will just not advertise they are Unity made (like hearthstone and many others already do). The more the Unity name is associated with amateur hour the less likely big games will advertise that they use it.

 

Why must y'all complain? It's free, does a name really matter that much? If it just busts your little ego bubble for being called Personal, then wow.

 

It's not a complaint, it's a suggestion - I for one will be more than happy with today's announcements regardless.

However it's not a mater of busting an "ego bubble" - when you release a game it's all about public perception. The word personal implies that it's not a professionally made game, when in fact the free version of Unity will be used to make plenty of professional quality games.

Complaining is not helpful. Constructive criticism and suggestions are helpful, which is what this is. Once you see the difference between the two you're a lot better off than you were before.

 

The perception will only be bad if people continue to make sh** games.
With U5 being out, there is no excuse whatsoever to make crappy games.

It's so easy to use once you get used to the new workflow.

If people actually make good games, that look proper to the style, without messed up UV maps that don't properly scale just right, etc. Then the perception won't matter. As long as the game is good, looks good, etc. Then it shouldn't matter.
Now sense all engine features are allowed, there isn't any reason why you can't compete with the top AAA people using Unity, as you have the same tools they have exactly.

Now if people continue to make crap games, which I'm sure they will, then the image upon "Personal" will look bad.

 

The name itself looks bad either way. And I'm confident that people will always be making crap, with every engine.

 

Exactly, this sort of thing was exactly what I thought when I saw the word. Told my husband about it and he thought maybe it was a translation issue. Maybe personal has a different vibe in Danish? I am not sure, but personal for a woman is pretty intimate. lol I wasn't going to go there but since you did....

 

I don't exactly like it either, but hey it is what it is lol. It has no effect on final outcome of game, only so long as you can show you're not a crap game compared to the others. Like literally the other day, I saw a guy selling a game for Iphone, it was literally just a room with nothing in it lol. LITERALLY THAT'S IT! And wanted money for it lmao.

 

Every bad Unity game I've seen on steam that uses Unity is using the pro version (no splash screen), and people are aware and pleasantly surprised when a Kerbal Space Program, The Forest, Grow Home, The Long Dark, Planet Explorers, etc., show what Unity can do. And now it will happen with the Unreal and Cryengine games as more bad games are created.

 

I'd actually prefer if they removed the "Personal Edition" branding from the splash screen all together.

1. The branding seems redundant, if I was Unity I'd want to market the brand, not the version that is used.
   
   
2. Which ever branding is chosen is likely to be disliked by some users - not all free/personal edition users would like to be branded as Indie - it's fine for some products but not great for others.
   
   
3. In my opinion, having the mandatory splash screen already achieves my assumed marketing objectives of Unity. The "Personal Edition" wording feels like 'punishment' for using that edition and I don't see how it achieves anything else.

As I've also said in other threads on this topic - this is really just an opinion, not a complaint - I'm thankful for what Unity have just given us.

But if others are going to 'fight' for a change here, I think it should be the right change, and in my opinion the right change would be to remove the redundant "Personal Edition" branding altogether from the splash screen. This eliminates the chances of a change being made to 'Indie' and a whole new raucous about that branding.

 

I completely agree. It's best if they could just remove the Personal Edition bit. But if they feel they should "punish" free users for not paying, "indie" is much easier to swallow than "personal".

 

I don't think they meant to hurt the free version with the label "Personal" or shame people into buying the pro version or punish them in any way. After all, it has nearly every feature of pro and saying anything bad about the free version would reflect badly on the nearly identical pro version.

I remember a few years ago a 3D modeling program with a "personal" edition, maybe XSI? I think Unity honestly thought "Personal" was a good name for the free version.

It's not like Unity is exclusive to real indie developers anymore. I'm a noob, but I always thought "real" indie devs wouldn't even use Unity - they just use all open source stuff and write all the tedious systems themselves. Maybe "independent" is better like mentioned above. Not independently able to survive on what you earn using Unity - but independent in the sense that you are not associated with a big company.

 

Unity 5 isn't a magic bullet. It isn't going to suddenly turn the "where's the 'make MMO' button?' guy into a master modeler, a master game designer, or a competent coder. Air Control would be no less horrible had its creator had access to Unity 5.

 

First world problems.

 

Oh I know, I was just trying to say that, the tools are there now to make nice looking things.
E.G. - Image Effects, Profiler, etc.

So now you can make nice looking things and making sure it's running good.

 

Hah! Was about to say something along those lines, albeit something a slight bit more... uhm... personal.

edit: Annnnnnnd... further down the thread I see that @Teila had the same thought!

 

My opinion?

The Unity splash screen may exist, but with the inscription: "Powered by Unity" or "Made by Unity", no such stupid words like "personal" or "indi" or other. "powered" or "made" sound very professionally. Unity Technologies talk about democracy and equality and at the same time they try to divide their clients in a disgusting way. I'm sure people to which I will be making Unity projects will want the Unity splash to disappear from the builds. "Personal" will sound for them like "non-professional".

"POWERED BY UNITY" or "MADE BY UNITY"

 

I'm actually surprised they went with "personal" over indie, wonder what they were thinking. While changing it to indie would make it better I still believe a simple "powered/made/created with unity" would be better.

 

No, because I'm indie but I'm a Unity 4 Pro owner. Owning pro doesn't make you not indie.

Studio/Lite/Free are some alternatives.

Upgrade to Pro then. That's the point.

 

I use Pro all the time. In the future, I will be using Unreal because I'm a PC game developer. No problems with stupid tricks.

 

I think Free users should just be able to choose between old Unity splash (4.x) and new fancy one.

//edit: Also I wouldn't put my faith into Unity's feedback system, Linux editor is top suggestion for how much years now? 3? 5? They could easily do it in that timeframe yet they didn't.

New features seems to arrive despite feedback system rather than because of it.

 

Please go back to Powered by Unity - it's so much more POWERFUL.

 

Unity feedback is false. I noticed Unity users aren't important in this business. Money, money, money... It's a very bad Unity politics because users = money. I really don't like that. It can be done in a different way. Unity did one good thing - other game engines are cheap or free.

 

The topic is the suggestion to rebrand "Personal" to "Indie". It is not about money, it is not about Linux, it is not about Unreal. Please, don't bring those arguments to unrelated threads!

 

No "Personal" and no "Indie". Both inscriptions are bad idea for me - this is my last word.

 

100%.

"Personal Edition" is translated by most people as "Made by an Amateur on his Mum's Computer at home in his parents house". It is a PR disaster.

It 100% is NOT classy.

Also the word "Edition" should not be included. Game players do not want to know that their game is made on an "edition" of something.

Ideally it should say something more positive like "Powered by the Awesome Unity Game Engine Technology".

It's a splash screen it should convey why the game is good. Not what edition of some software they've never heard of is used!


100% This is a deal breaker. I can not use Unity 5 with this splash screen saying "Made by an Amateur on his Mum's Computer at home in his parents house".

 

Linux Editor costs a bundle of cash to keep up with and reams of support for the various distros. Changing the logo wording takes two minutes in Photoshop and adding to the next release. Logic much pal?

 

Exactly why it is a terrible terrible terrible thing. Unity you need to change this pronto. Basically you are saying Unity is free but we will brand all your games as pieces of crap.

 

"Made with Unity Snatch Edition."

 

I gave it my 10 votes.

While I think the $100,000 limit is VERY generous and I'm ok with a splash screen to bring unity brand awareness.
But if you're trying to establish a company and are not simply giving your games away, then this doesn't look very professional at all.

"Powered by Unity" would get my vote.

 

Unity Personal Edition. Set it on vibrate and improve your well-being.

+5 votes

PS. I don't care what they call it on the website. Just don't put that in the Splash screen.