MERGED - Dark Skinned Themes for Unity Free and Forum

Maybe for short amounts of time (also see comments below the original article) but not in the long run.

 

And complaining that the free version doesn't come with dark skin is like complaining about a free Corvette because you don't like the color.

 

It's more like complaining that your free Corvette has a chrome dashboard that shines sunlight directly into your eyes and it'll cost $1500 to make it stop.

 

I used the free version of Unity for a couple of years and wasn't blinded and don't need glasses. Come on now, its not like we have a disco-strobe going off in the free editor, every 10 seconds; Its just black text on a grey background.

Although, someone is probably going to make that disco-strobe editor extension now.

 

Haha, you're still complaining about a free car.

 

It's not like the background is white or anything. It's a fairly neutral/light gray, #c2c2c2 specifically. If you're blinded by that, then I have to assume that simply turning on your computer blinds you, especially considering that much of the screen is likely taken up by the scene and game views anyway....

--Eric

 

Skin selection is a user convenience and should not be used as a differentiation between Free and Pro. I doubt many users think "hmm maybe I should get Pro because it has the Dark skin". Just make it available for both versions.

 

What if it's a game about a snow man in Antarctica?

 

Then you might as well just order the white cane and guide dog right now and get it over with.

--Eric

 

This doesn't make sense. Unity free really isn't free, because it's hard to do a lot with it unless you buy stuff from the asset store.

As an analogy, lots of games are "free": Dota 2, Hearthstone, Candy Crush etc. They make lots of money too. By your logic, people who play these f2p games shouldn't be able to complain about the game's design, but people who play non-f2p games should be allowed to complain?

 

Yes, Unity free is actually free. You can make and ship a game without buying anything from the Asset Store and the main costs residing in other software/hardware you use.

 

Yes, you CAN make a game without things from the asset store. Hell, I CAN sit down with assembler and make any game I want!

But how often statistically are games made without asset store help, at least on anything reasonably large?

 

So? Statistically, how far can you drive in that corvette without buying gas? Or paying rego? Or having insurance?

Before the Asset Store was a thing people still shipped stuff with Unity. The fact that there's now an Asset Store which we can use to our benefits as both buyers and sellers isn't a negative and doesn't make Unity's free license any less free.

 

This argument only makes sense if you view Unity in an isolated bubble. In reality, the industry is evolving, and now Unity is facing increasing competition from say, those folks over at Unreal. If Unity didn't have the Asset Store, Unreal would CRUSH Unity.

The manufacturer of the Corvette doesn't get a cut of the gas, insurance etc. Unity does get a cut.

 

Who is giving out all of these free corvettes?

 

That is a very interesting statement.

Out of interest, why would Unreal CRUSH Unity if we didn't have the asset store?

 

Because without the Asset Store, Unreal would be the superior product. Imo anyway ...

 

No, I don't see it in a bubble at all. Plenty of the stuff I do still doesn't involve much from the Asset Store. And what does come from that Asset Store could typically be purchased elsewhere or made in-house, both of which are options we often took before the Asset Store was around and continue to do afterwards.

 

But you still buy stuff from the store, don't you?

 

OK, thats fair, but could you please give us some examples or some comparisons?

 

So?

Going right back to what started this tangent, it's like complaining about paying for customisations to a car you're given for free.

Do you honestly think that Unity should give us the engine for free, then assist 3rd parties in profiting from that free engine (including no small amount of cost to themselves), and not take a cut of the proceeds?

 

Okay.

Shader Forge and PlayMaker are both in the top grossing on the asset store right now. Both of these products are things that I use almost specifically because they're duplicating features that are available in UE4 and even UDK by default. UE4 also has a fantastic terrain system that just got a massive update to help create sublevels for large environment streaming. Advanced visual effects are available at a far smaller initial investment over Unity, allowing for a wide range of visual aesthetics with considerably less work. Regular updates both in terms of a roadmap and in terms of feature implementation blow Unity out of the water.

This has all kiiiiiiiiiiinda been covered in every single UE4 vs Unity thread.

 

Again, you're viewing it in a bubble. Here's an analogy:

Unity Car Dealership gives you a vette for free. But if you want any upgrades to your car, you have to pay Unity Car Dealership some money.

Unreal Car Dealership is a bit different. They don't give you the car for free. But for a certain cost, you get the car and the upgrades too. Oh, and by the way, you get this really nice DARK SKIN INTERIOR too.

Now, if Unreal Car Dealership's price goes low enough, it would be ECONOMICALLY WISE for Unity Car Dealership to pay attention to its customer's complaints.

Yeah, my apologies for turning this into another Unreal thread ...

 

Again, I'm not. Where is the economic wisdom in catering to people who aren't paying you for your product?

You cite the Asset Store, but I suspect that Unity are far more interested in license sales than microtransactions. Unity have said before that the major advantage of the Asset Store is the benefits it brings to users far moreso than the small amount of money it makes.

 

Some of them are currently paying for your product through Asset Store purchases. Some of them are future purchasers of pro licenses (not everyone buys pro from the start). You have to keep them at least somewhat happy, or they'll go to the other dealership.

 

No, when you buy something on the Asset Store you're paying for the thing you're buying, not for your access to Unity.

I see where you're coming from re: keeping people happy so that they stick around and become a paying customer later. That's valid. Having said that, rational me still falls back on the "right tool for the job" point of view. (Though you can't assume people will be rational.)

 

And now back to:

Would you like to see the dark skin added to the free version?

 

Rather than argue the point, I'll restate:
Some of them are currently paying you money through Asset Store purchases.

The argument about keeping people happy still applies, as people will continue to buy new assets from the store.

No!!

 

I think we should have a 'Choose Your Color Scheme' option.

THEN EVERYONE IS HAPPY.

 

Apologies for the interruption!

Seriously this time we are going there for real ladies and gents

Drums roll!

Aaaaaaand now back to:

Would you like to see the dark skin added to the free version?

 

Yes I agree!

 

But people would still complain, but instead about having too much choice.

Disclaimer: This post was made in jest and with lightheartedness, I seriously believe no-one would complain if they had the option for a Unity editor in the colors of the rainbow.

 

People have been suggesting this for Free since before this thread was posted nearly a year ago.

 

hahahahahaha it wouldn't surprise me at this point

 

Asset store or like other developers code yourself, model yourself, texture yourself, etc. No one is forcing you to buy anything from the asset store. That is a cop out stating you "have to" buy stuff from the asset store. Don't like the standard shaders, learn and code your own.

 

This.

The Asset Store was created to help developers collaborate and help one another out by distributing assets or game production tools, for free or for sale. Its intentions are to help 'lighten the load' for developers who may need tools to perform specific tasks that the developers need a little more help in. In fact, David Helgason spoke about this in a talk he delivered at DICE.

For example, I would not use a Visual Scripting system as I know how to write C#, but I would be interested in some sort of Audio Creation tool as I am not good at sound recording and editing. Im sure the Asset Store has something like that that can help me out in that area that I am lacking in.

You aren't forced to use the Asset Store and im sure that many, many games (I don't have stats) are shipped without using it.

 

Can't beat FREE. Unity isn't competing with them. They are competing with Unity.

 

Sure, no one is forcing you to use the Asset Store, but it saves you time. Sure, you could write those shaders yourself. Hell, you could write your own engine yourself! But you don't and instead use Unity because it saves you time.

Now, you can't fault Unity for saving us time (they're so nice to us). But you can't forget that Unreal Car Dealership also wants to save our time. If they have a product that saves you more time than Unity without the Asset Store, you're "forced" to use the Asset Store to save time. It's like an offer "you can't refuse". Either that, or you switch to Unreal ...

If they're both going for the same customers, they're competing with each other, no matter how you state it.

And yes, you can beat free.

To continue with the car analogy, if someone gave you a car in real life for free, you'd accept it, wouldn't you? Why? Cause it's free!

But the analogy fails some. Let's say someone gave me an old beat up Ford Pinto, for free. The first thing I'd do would be to sell it and buy a better car. But with game engines, you can't sell them. You either have to keep the free Ford Pinto or go buy a better car. Sure, some people might keep the Pinto, but lots of people would be willing to pay money for a better car.

 

......really!!?? this is getting old.. just go in a relevant thread or start another one

OK

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand now back to:

Would you like to see the dark skin added to the free version?

 

Well, it is logically connected to the forum topic ...

 

Seriously the UT staff are a pain in the *** and clearly lacking professionalism. Over 70% voted for dark skin as a option and how does UT respond? They are making fun of their customers and acting high and mighty. Instead they could provide a possible solution for the needs of the users but what do they do? They mock them.

Such a disgrace.

 

Yeah, okay, great. Let me tell you what this looks like to me.

For the past forever and a billion years, Unity has gone on about how they're all about democratising game development and all that junk. This is a nice thing to say, and one of the things this conveys in a statement is "financially, technologically, and skill level accessible."

With the advent of Unreal Engine 4, Unity has gone from competing financially and skill level accessible with the likes of Game Maker to competing financially and skill level accessible with both Game Maker and Unreal Engine 4. Like it or not, not everyone who is trying to make games with Unity does not have a background in programming. Compared to using something as simple as Blueprint or Playmaker, C#/Boo/Unityscript are all pretty daunting. Compared to something like Shader Forge or the Unreal Engine materials editor, writing Shaders in Unity is absolutely daunting.

You can say "they can just buy an asset for that" all you want, but these two assets alone shift the initial investment from $0 to $170, compared to the initial investment of $20 for Unreal Engine 4. The only difference is that you're not going to be running Unreal Engine on an Intel HD 3000 or whatever, but that seems to be roughly 8.5% of the entire userbase.

Democratising game development isn't just about making access to the tools themselves accessible, but making the tools accessible as well. By putting two key accessibility features behind a massive paywall relative to a rising competitor, you're getting clobbered on this front.

 

There's always one who doesn't get a lighthearted joke. Relax, pal.

 

My post was in jest and lighthearted-ness. I apologise if you didn't understand that.

 

Ya, gotta keep it light

Here ya go:

 

What I want to hear from you is why UT thinks that such a trivial thing like custom skins are locked behind a pay wall of $1,500 and thus neglecting the needs of 70% of their customers.

I don't want to say that it should be free, but I think that you as a company would walk towards your customers in helping completing their needs in some or the other way.

But instead you are just sitting there and making lighthearted jokes.

Good work!

 

The reason why custom skins probably haven't been a major number 1 priority to our editor team isbecause they are focusing all of their efforts on developing the actual useful areas of the editor and working on the new GUI system; the dark skin is a purely trivial thing.

Also, the paywall of $1,500 gives you access to much more useful things to make your games (Profiler, Render Textures etc) I would argue that the Dark Skin is right at the end of that usefulness list.

 

I would argue that that's the point of that statement.

 

You're never going to be able to sell a beat up car for a better one. Besides you sure can use Unity free to earn enough money to buy a better version on Unity. I did.

Customers are people who have paid for Unity Pro not people who use the free version. There's a different word for people who use free things and complain about them.

 

I assume that when you spend money on the asset store, that you are indirectly a customer of UT since you are using their service and they get 30% of your money.

If you disagree, my point is why UT don't make the free user into a customer by selling the dark skin.