New products and prices coming soon

You only have to subscribe to Unity for as long as you are developing with it and have made over 100k$ in the past year.

You could in theory. Develop your game in Unity Personal, have a smash hit and make $1,000,000 and never pay Unity a dime if you quit development after releasing that first game. But in all likelyhood, you would subscribe to Unity Pro for 1 year, so you could at least patch that hit game.

Now lets say it was a big, but short lived hit. You make a million in your first 3 months and then sales die off. After a year, you can cancel your unity subscription and continue to develop using unity personal because you didn't make over 100k in the last year even though your pro made game is still on the market.

 

In a sense yes it is if you are solo developer. Then 100k income is enough to pay for 1 licence. But if you are startup of 10 game devs team with income for that fiscal year of just tip over 100k then paying for 10 licences beside every other expense that you have is big deal.
In my opinion it's much better to let that game studio expand and grow and to even have more employees which will in the end need more Unity licenses.

Look at the Microsoft Bizspark program. If you are a startup you get everything that Microsoft can offer for up to 5 employees for 3 years and you can keep licences after program ends.

As I said it is just my opinion.

 

If you are a startup of 10 devs then you still do not need democratization, that's a tipping point into the realms of greedy. You're biting off more than you can chew and expecting others to pick it up for you. In cases like this you should be bankrolled. It sounds harsh, but where does it end? why is 10 the limit? why not 20? 50? 100? I would venture at these scales you need a lot more money to keep 10 staff going than a few licenses.

10 licenses at $125 in a 2 year period = $30,000 (assuming everyone absolutely needs a copy of Unity)

Typical staff cost in USA for game developer: $54,000. Times 10 = 540,000. Hold on though, that is for one year. So that's..

So Unity asks for $30,000 vs your $1,080,000.

Technically on topic but I'm not going to keep discussing this point as it is kind of not making space for others to talk.

 

well, you don't need to subscribe to unity if you use free, even if you go higher than 100k. AFAIK.

 

A perfect solution for this new pricing plan is to simply remove the splash screen in the Unity Plus membership.

People with Unity Pro memberships won't downgrade to remove the splash screen for a smaller price because of the other vast features of Pro, including the unlimited budget cap.

The only people who would use Plus are those who currently use Personal, just to make their product look more professional. This results in Unity benefitting greatly, both in a communal and financial way.

If Unity is worried that people will upgrade to build their game then downgrade, they can require a 12 month lock.

 

I didn't want to go into discussions with you in the first place because I already knew that you will stand ground for Unity.
I am not talking about startup company of 10 devs with budget for salaries only of 1 million $ like you do. Of course if you are a company with that budget you should be paying for licences. Then 30k for licences then is not big deal. I'm not trying to make a point where I say that companies with that amount of money shouldn't pay for anything. You are missing my point.

I'm talking about startup companies without initial budgets and capital/angel investors. Not everyone lives in USA or in your case in UK so that you can take your salaries and incomes as base for every comparison. In my country average salary is ~500euro. So paying 125$ a month is a big deal.

 

Yes in that case you would want to be careful about who really needs licenses. With the right structure it could still be on personal ie just the programmers actually use Unity while artists and sound people are all external to Unity with one guy putting it together. You could still be legal with the right structure, and that is still democratic. And no, I don't always agree with Unity, I have criticised them in this very thread

 

I'll not say too much, as I might seem like I'm poaching at this point. It is relatively simple, more so probably for beginners as I was used to the "Unity" way of doing things. It's like a three year old pair of shoes, when you swap it out it'll feel weird / wrong but you'll get there eventually.

As for the rest of the thread, as an outsider peeking over the fence I find this interesting. I'll be honest, I never really thought Unity was a great engine but it was a great value proposition. Around the time of Unity 3.X I was getting quoted bare minimum $100K + for an engine license from Epic / Unigine / CryTek.

Which is a massive risk on my part if I fell flat on my face, in today's market it's more likely than ever but also that's the cost of two+ staff for a year in some cases which to me is more valuable. Now Epic turned the tables, I don't see the "value" proposition in it anymore. I really have to question with this new fiscal outlay, what's in it for me?

You can't keep up with Epic in terms of rapid feature / toolset integrations, I mean what Unity does in a year Epic does in two months. Which in a lot of cases is fine, I might not use a bunch of them but as an actual surprise they were clever enough to implement tools many would actually use and another surprise is, they actually work really well..

I don't expect engine developers to make tools for me, but if someone's going to offer them on a plate. I'd be pretty daft not to take advantage of it right?

I'd have to straight out the bat invest $30K in licenses to last the term of development, as it's gone up to $125.00 a month. Although what do I get out of it over the last $75.00 a month charge rate? Secondly, I'd have to sell around 125K copies of my game to match that 30K in royalties, I promised I'd dump @hippocoder on an island for a couple of weeks with an open bar if that happens.

I don't know if the AD space in the "plus" paid version is true, but if it is.. Just drop that, it is a stupid idea.

Lastly, yeah Q&A have stepped up their game but I still have to rely on Unity to fix (some times long standing) issues that can potentially affect a developers career. I'll never leave it in the hands of others to fix issues I need resolved ASAP, Unity doesn't exactly have the best track record either.

So TL;DR.

What's in it for me? Where's the "value" proposition?

 

Actually there's a thought... What about a 'support' version of Unity for indie Pro users? Essentially if you've got a copy of Pro registered, your artist/designer can use another copy of Unity with all the same settings to work on your project, but *only the master copy* can actually do a build. So anyone using the support copy can work on the game and test in the editor, but you'd still need the coder to do the builds to devices.

Currently you can't mix the Pro and free versions (the free version will mess up your project if you do), which makes Pro a harder call for small indie teams. But even if Unity can't afford to allow a single Pro subscription to count for the first 2-4 seats, having it allow 1 or 2 support copies working with the single Pro seat would be a major benefit to a small team and make it more worthwhile to make the leap to Pro.

 

Just think of all the fun that will come with another tier. We may be unable to mix Free with Plus and Plus with Pro.

 

Can't wait.

 

• Free version with splash screen, to develop and release non-commercial titles.
  
• Pro version ($1500 one-time purchase) no splash screen, to develop and release commercial titles. Revenue cap of $500,000.
  
• Enterprise version ($???) no splash screen, includes source access. No revenue cap.

 

That sounds sort of reasonable, actually.

And I should add to my longwinded last post: I am not totally against leasing software. Not at all.
I am only against it being the only option. It really does make sense in some cases to rent/lease software. For example for workplaces that are fluctuating or if someone wants to dabble into software and finds out that at some point it's not really necessary any more (like with gym memberships ). Or for people who actually like renting more than others. I am sure these people exist.

I am just against forcing it on anyone. Period.

But as I said - the rent to own plan could be really interesting depending on the terms. Hey - maybe I even like it so much that I consider it.
Otherwise the free version is probably going to be the more interesting to a large group of people voicing a very loud oppinion, here.

 

Another thought I've been kicking around is licensing scaling with income:

free: as is
pro: income based license
enterprise: as is

License by income means for <60k you pay $35... 100k you pay $125 and so on. Numbers can be tweaked. Feels like a game dev tax, but that's not a bad thing, and much easier to manage, Unity gets more when you get more, without the downside of royalties. It's a partnership.

Everyone gets the same features and benefits. Unity may get more. Simpler to understand than plus, which feels kind of like a stab in the dark for cash. Pretty sure nobody wants it, but really wants an affordable pro.

Just dump everyone pro together but scale pro's cost by income. This would be democratic and solve everything. Possibly. Thoughts?

 

I like the team-size based license better. Small teams - pay small. That's what I'd call democratization.

Make Plus be the same as Pro, but for 1-5 people teams and I'm sold.

 

I can't see how income based would work well and honestly or it would be hard for Unity to track anything properly at all or without extra costs. I wonder how Unreal is tracking the royalties since everyone has the source to modify and without any tracking data or is it just trust based mostly relying on companies.

Team size based costs would be at least someway realistic to track/monitor with the data they get from the license activation/use system.

 

I actually thing CryTeks new way of doing things is pretty awesome, they have a how much do you think it's worth page.! There's the same engine, same features but multi-tier giving access to stuff like advanced training / support hours. For the upper tier memberships it's either £45.00 a month (with basic troubleshooting support) or £130.00 a month and you can buy additional support packages.

You can pay nothing, or add to an indie development fund to help other developers and / or add to CryTek's teams to develop new tools.

https://www.cryengine.com/get-cryengine/service-packages

I'm actually surprised of all developers CryTek came up with this, at one point I thought they weren't too fond of indie's. With this new revelation, it's hard to not want to support them.!

 

An income-based model simplifies everything. You make nothing, you still have the ability to access all the features and develop stuff in the hopes of making something. Additionally, your success will be a part of Unity's success proportional to the amount of revenue that you generate.

Given that Unity doesn't provide their entire source for most of their licenses, I don't think it would be hard to track that. They already do track stuff whenever you open the Unity Editor (that's not a secret; if you run a network tracker like Glasswire on your computer that tracks all incoming and outgoing requests from your computer you will notice that when you open the Unity Editor data from your computer is being sent out to the Internet).

 

I'm pretty sure... no. When I pre-ordered my Unity 5 Pro license it said nothing of the sort. I can't see any mention of it in the archived Unity website from that period. It's not mentioned in the store page, or in the FAQ. The only license agreement visible at that time, 4.X, makes no mention of its support ending at a predetermined date, which implies that 5.X will follow the same model. I had no plausible reason at the time of sale to suspect that my perpetual license would not cover the full gamut of 5.X releases (in fact, the only way the available information at the time could possibly be interpreted was exactly that I would have access to all of 5.X), and therefore what you are doing now is a textbook example of false advertising, at least to those of us who pre-ordered.

Therefore, I will absolutely seek recourse if I don't have access to the full gamut of 5.X builds over the course of my perpetual license. I may also seek recourse if it appears that Unity Technologies increments the build number without any substantive improvements prior to March 2017, since Unity Technologies' current language is suggestive that you intend to continue the 5.X branch past March 2017, and such an action taken on your part could be construed as a bad faith breach of the implied agreement at time of sale.

 

This is very dispiriting to us.

We're a very small team that's used Unity since 2.x, paying for Pro (and iOS Pro, and in the past Android).

We always purchased the perpetual licenses, even after subscriptions appeared. We're required to use Pro, based on our revenue.

Under the new system –– ignoring the yet to be disclosed situation with the new pseudo-perpetual licenses –– we'll have to pay more yearly, and pay monthly instead of a lump sum. Paying monthly means we're at the mercy of our currency (AUD) as compared to the USD, which based on current trajectories means every month it gets more expensive.

The pseudo-perpetual licenses they've mentioned –– subscriptions that convert to whatever version you're left on when the subscription ends –– sound prohibitively expensive when compared to a "real" perpetual license, as is available now.

This is not viable to us, and unless Unity revises their stance on perpetual licenses, or makes the subscriptions significantly more attractive to our situation, it's likely that we would stop using Unity after the final version of this announcement.

The doublespeak in the announcements, as well as the confusion around "Unity Plus" (truly, what does Plus offer you over the free version? Why offer a paid version with a revenue limit? Very confusing offering!), and the general attitude presented by Unity representatives makes me very concerned about the road that Unity is heading down.

Things we'd want to see in order to stick with Unity:
* slightly reduced subscription rates for the new all-inclusive Unity Pro OR a reasonably priced equivalent to the currently perpetual licenses we've been buying
* ability to pre-pay, or even fill an account with credit, for however many months/years of Unity Pro license(s) subscription(s) we needed, to avoid currency change hits every month

Things I'd like to see, that don't necessarily impact us:
* more clarity around Unity Plus: a subscription based product with a revenue limit really doesn't seem fair
* splash screen issues resolved

 

So, a lot of really good points in here and great feedback, even if (or ESPECIALLY if) some of it is negative it is very important to us to hear your thoughts on the subject. And thank you for remaining civil for the most part so we can have clear discussions about it all.

I apologize for not being able to reply to each of you directly, but there are a lot of points to get to. Hopefully I can clear some things up for most of you. And it’s very important to me that you understand that while we may not be able to reply to every single post that we — that is the community team AND others at Unity — are reading all of these posts.

So firstly, a lot of people seem unsure what will happen to their perpetual license for 5 come March 2017, which is the date that we said we’d support the perpetual 5 license until. We are not locking you out of using that version of Unity after that date but you will not be able to get any of the new engine features and services that we add from that point on. However, I want to assure you that we will continue to provide critical patches past that day — just as we have historically done for older versions of Unity. You don’t have to blindly trust me on that point — we just released 4.7.2 yesterday for example.

@talos72 - if you’re on the $75 subscription, unless I’m mistaken, that is not a perpetual license. You’re already on subscription. You’ll be able to lock in your current subscription price until June 2018 for access to Pro. At the end of that time, if you no longer want to be on subscription, you can bump down to Personal if you’re under the rev cap. That is what my understanding is. However, if you still have questions or concerns about your specific situation, I’d like to ask you to please hang tight — someone from Unity will be contacting you directly next month and they will be able to talk in depth about your specific individual situation. It’s not great to be left hanging so thank you for being patient.

@Paradoks Have you contacted support about this? I apologize for not being up to speed on your particular set of issues, but could you please DM me any bug report ticket numbers you may have? The only thing I can really say for now is that we’re moving away from big major releases toward more frequent updates, moving faster… I know that’s not a complete answer, but I can’t imagine we’d purposefully be unreasonable in addressing issues that are within our control.

I know it’s all seeming very complicated… because it is! We have a lot of different license holders with different add-ons, different mixes, different platforms. Like @salgado18 said, we’re trying to unify. In the long run, we’re hoping it will simplify things for us and for you. This may not feel important to some of you now, but who knows what the future holds — having all platforms included does give you flexibility to release on any platform you wish.

Prices for most mobile developers is coming down. Desktop only development pricing is going up. All existing customers will be contacted in June with migration offers to ease the transition. One of the ideas behind these offers is that it will give everyone a chance to think things over before deciding if the switch makes sense for them.

As for price…I think it’s worth mentioning that in all the years that Unity has been around, we haven’t raised the price. The engine used to be paid only, and now we let anyone use Unity completely for free provided you make less than 100k revenue per year. The engine has come a long way and the price has remained the same. Not to put too fine a point on it, but keeping Personal completely free — without asking for any royalties — is something that’s very important to us, and I think you’ll agree it’s important for the community as well.

A lot of discussion has been around Plus, and trust me, there are a LOT of internal discussions going on right now and we’re listening very intently to everyone’s feedback. The last thing we want is for you to feel abandoned. I don’t personally make the big biz decisions myself obviously (and honestly, you probably wouldn’t want me to LOL), but what I can do is tell you that everyone at Unity wants to make the right decisions for the most people here.

*takes a breath*

OK!

So, now to splash screen — we’ve said it previously but I’ll reiterate it here, we hear you! We’re considering what we can do with some kind of semi customizable splash screen for Plus. As a somewhat related topic, it does make me a little sad to hear comments that people aren’t proud to show they are using Unity (client work not withstanding). I hope we can work together to change this perception because as a gamer myself, I really appreciate Unity’s mission to democratize game development. I want to be able to see ALL the crazy wonderful things people want to create — different types of people bringing me different types of experiences. GIVE ME MOARRR (basically I’m greedy). So, what do you think? How can we achieve this? Now’s the chance to input — what would make you happy with splash screen? In what cases would you feel proud to wear the Unity badge?

With subscription, it’s a big change, so I understand that there are a lot of uncertainties that may be concerning you. I’m sorry that we may not be able to answer all of your questions right this very moment, but thank you for being patient with us.

 

Awesome! really glad to hear this. Any idea on how long critical issue updates will last?

I'm happy to have it in my game's credits. I'm cool with requiring it somewhere on my game's website. I'm not cool with it anywhere on the splash screen.

 

If we're truly at the point where the Unity logo has negative connotations with players then quite frankly I cannot see any advantage to wearing the Unity badge. The Unity badge should have always been a thing that was only available for quality games, but hindsight is 20/20 and there isn't much you can do about that now.

 

Ha ha was thinking about something opposite, what about unity giving the right to put the unity splash only to good games ? Like a reward ? It would make the opposite effect: everyone would cry to have it !

 

You could begin to alter perception of the logo by two words:

Endorsed by
Sponsored by

Endorsed by is when Unity sees a really great game. They get the red logo, and are often given free licenses / a way better deal in exchange for promoting Unity's logo.

Sponsored by uses the classic unity logo as associated however it is today, I guess. But red logos are sought after as you get Unity endorsing your game on twitter, website etc and Unity considers this a high end example of what Unity can do.

So to change perception of the logo, there's only one way you do that and that is you court the best developers. You certainly don't charge them :/

 

OMG, please can you answer a little more directly. If 5.6 is the current version in March 2017, and in April 2017 Unity moves on to develop 5.7, will Unity 5 perpetual users be able to access/use the 5.7 update or not? I just want to know, with straight-forward language, if having bought a Unity 5 perpetual license does that entitle me to all updates in the Unity 5.x cycle... 'cause that is certainly how it was initially sold.

 

Income from using Unity as the current license is? Or do you mean gross income, including non-game related income?

A fully featured Pro at $35 a month would be nice. One could subscribe during their release time, continue until the 12 month subscription is done and if their game completely flops, they probably would be able to go back to free.

Of course, I betcha a huge percentage of the users make less than 60k on their games. So why would anyone but the small number that make 100k buy Pro? Now, people making less buy it for their custom splash screen at least.

Does Unity win with this? At least they will have some people buying it.

 

I wanted to add one more voice saying that the splash screen is the biggest issue for us. Without the option to remove the Unity splash screen Plus offers us absolutely nothing of value. A minimum of $1500 just to remove the splash (the other pro features are not really of use to us either) seems excessive.
As others have said, I'd be absolutely happy to include the Unity logo in the credits/website or wherever, just *not* as the splash screen when you're trying to make the best possible first impression. A 'semi' customisable splash screen is not going to be good enough I'm afraid - the exact colours or animation isn't the issue, it's having something I don't control as the very first thing my users see that is the problem.
Plus could be a very tempting proposition, if only it included the option to *remove* the splash (even with the 100k limit, lets face it most games will never reach that). Without that though, it offers me precisely nothing.

Please please listen to what people are saying and consider adding that option to plus, I'm sure there are a lot of devs who really want to give you money right now, but you're just not offering us the option. The cloud services are of no use to most indies, the asset store stuff is next to useless unless we can choose which assets we actually need, and a colour change for the editor is not worth $420 a year. Please put something of value in the Plus tier so I can give you my money.

 

That's what the original FAQ said before Unity 5 was released, and anyone pre-ordering or buying Pro after have been promised just that.

 

@ArthurT Yes, that was exactly my impression until recently. I purchased 5 as a preorder. I would just like to have a simple confirmation here, because the way this is being worded in recent communication is (intentionally?) confusing. Even when trying to clear up the confusion, the same thing is being repeated.

 

Hippocoder's idea is a good one. Unity has to do quite a bit to show that 'Made With Unity' isn't a badge of amateur production. The Hitman games have done a good job by having it there and if Unity does a programme of endorsing and plugging good Unity games made with Pro with a special Made With Unity splash screen it would go a long way towards changing public opinion as well as rewarding great games.

 

I'm very proud to use Unity, I gladly tell people that I use and I don't care about the public perception of the engine. That said, I do not want a splash screen at the front of my game. At all. How my game launches and first impressions means a great deal to me, and I want to control that. As much as I like the engine, I do not want to pay for it and still be stuck displaying an advertisement for it at the front. No adjustment or customization will be satisfactory, especially when I'm paying hundreds of dollars a year for the luxury. Between paying an extra $90 for the splash or $35 for the dark theme, the tiers come off as exceptionally greedy and petty.

 

Many feel it has, particularly desktop-only developers. I think the essence of all the posts so far basically is that they still want a classic perpetual licence, somewhere around the current prices (with an upgrade at half of full price). But my suggestion is a perpetual licence without any of the cloud features etc.

I know the utility of analytics. So sweet, all that information at your fingertips, but if some or all analytics features are mobile only I couldn't care less. It's a nice idea to simplify the products and streamline features so you can produce just one app per supported platform, but the various cloud features aren't exactly part of the app (ignoring interfaces you've built into the editor to actually use them).

In short I really feel like it's Pro or Personal, because Plus gives me nothing that I care about, not even full control of splash screens (or the removal). If I cared about the extras beyond the engine itself, I'd go Pro, but while just prototyping on desktop it feels like a waste of money to pay $50 more than the current subscription (or however much it is in other currencies, if we still get to choose).

I LOVE that, and I think most are happy with the personal edition.

The one little complaint people have is always the skin - I think there should only be one skin, to make it easier to create editor extensions. I've seen many messed up colour schemes because an extension only works in one skin. I can survive, though, as it just deters me from doing anything fancy with extensions. It's a freebie after all.

Alright, you asked for it.

First I think that paying for a product and still being forced to don the pieces of flair of another company is right out. But if we absolutely MUST wave the flag, there should be many options.

The look of the splash screen: Unity logo in five positions and reverse colour scheme for a total of 10, with custom image either as background or positioned around the splash screen, so we can display any number of logos required along with it. Perhaps the logo could have variations too (not just "Made with Unity", but a selection of things to say).

Then for a wilder desire: Make the Unity splash screen configurable after a custom scene. Yes, I'd like it to be #2 if it absolutely must be shown.

Even wilder: Give us some art and some acceptable phrases, including a 3D logo, and let us go to town embedding it in our splash screens, menu scenes or whatever. Spinning, dancing, singing Unity logos, or at least doing the pre-approved things.

I get the impression the most vocal whiners are basement-dwelling, spoiled, anti-social teens. You know, gamers.

Duke Nukem Forever was made with UE, wasn't it? Clearly that proves it's the worst and slowest to use!
(The forum doesn't support Ariel Sarcasm, sadly.)

 

Heh, somehow I missed that... would have saved me a lot of time if I had seen it the first time around

This is pretty damning. I'd argue that even people who didn't pre-order might have a leg to stand on, as UT never explicitly corrected that piece of marketing (Access to all 5.X builds and access until March 2017 are not technically mutually exclusive)

And from the look of things, they aren't gearing up to launch Unity 6 any time soon either. It should be pretty obvious if they rename what should be Unity 5.6 (or whatever) to Unity 6.0 as a way to cover up the mistake, which would be a good way to drive a substantial portion of their most devoted customers away.

 

It will be hard at this point I think. The problem originates from the strengths of Unity, it's free and fast to to learn and use. People can put together a working prototype of a game idea in hours if they have some kind of experience from other engines. Even if they don't they can get stuff up and running in few days with all the resources there are available as tutorials and asset store.

For example browsing Steam Greenlight queue was at some point very popular of having poor quality few minute games that very done with no effort or direct "asset flips" where people downloaded stuff from asset store and only changed the name of the asset demo games. People also started to submit satire/joke games of various stuff trying to make a joke about the whole system letting every kind of stuff in as long it was voted (extremest being hitler, isis, etc games). Many of them used Unity cause of the easy of use so the splash screen was popping everyone's face in the demo applications or videos.

Then Android with low entry costs and kind of no submission reviews is a land of many newbie devs where they make their first game that they are proud of running in their own phone and sharing on the market in hopes of income or fame. In reality their stuff first tries are crap for most gamers for various reasons like they have no proper art style, are simple tic-tac-toe kind of games, have not been tested with various devices etc. so they run badly or look bad.

I'm not sure if there is any good way to get rid of the negative association. Even with semi customizable splash screen the Unity word might be a problem if there are several different splash screens and gamers don't understand the difference between the editions.

 

One big disadvantage to this approach is that you are effectively penalizing developers that couldn't quite achieve the necessary quality for whatever reason to be endorsed or sponsored. It brings us back to the same situation we have now where a developer cannot afford Unity Pro but must have that splash removed to be as successful as they can be.

 

Look, I know you really want this to be true, I know it makes sense in this capitalistic world that this would be true, but unfortunately, given what Unreal, and CryEngine have recently done, this is not true for game engines anymore. Unreal and Cry have been massively improving as well despite the fact that they've been getting cheaper. If I were to take a guess, its because their pricing scheme with royalties is actually working out because some games that are really great are made with these engines and bring in a lot of money for Unreal.

To address your second point – that personal being completely free is important to you guys – this is incredibly shortsighted. To what extent do people with the personal edition of unity care that they won't every have to pay royalties? Absolutely 0 because these people do not publish games. Furthermore, a royalty system actually makes a lot more sense as then it acts more like a tax than as a fee. This is a lot more affordable for the majority of game developers (especially indies whose income vary drastically). Does Steam charge a one time fee for putting a game on their store? Does Apple? How are the companies doing profit wise, how are you doing Unity?

I think you guys really need to rethink your strategy if you stand a chance, long term, with Unreal.

 

Not really, they're just not rewarding them. If they're using Unity Pro there's no Unity splash screen to worry about anyway and if they're using the free version the scheme would be improving the image of the Unity brand so it would benefit them too.

 

Alice, I asked my team members what they heard about Unity's perception among their gamer friends and how they felt about Unity. Now, 2/3rds of our team are my family members, two artist teen daughters, a young adult son and husband programmer, and me, who does everything else!

My 18 year old daughter says she has heard nothing bad about Unity from her friends and they all think it is cool we are making a game. She says she is PROUD to have Made with Unity on the splash screen. She is also using Unity to publish a comic book and is able to do such cool things with it.

My son, who is a college student says he has never heard anything bad. And another team member, not a family member says he has heard a lot of engines trashed, but never Unity.

He said:

We all play niche games, mostly indie. We enjoy trying things that the big companies won't make, the little games, different, using unique styles of play. We are making a game like that and Unity is making it possible for us to make this game. I worked with a team many many years ago (before Unity) and they spent many years trying to make their own engine. They failed due to lack of funds.

Today, Unity is allowing us to achieve what they could not do. It is affordable for us, it does what we need it do and then some. Unity is not perfect, of course. But...it allows us to take risks without the worry of big losses. It allows us to make games that may not be blockbusters but may change the way we think of games.

So yeah, I am proud to use the splash screen...especially without the word "personal" on it.

However...the guys up there? They probably play different games than I do. Maybe the FPS or mobile games who all use the same assets, or are clones of each other, or are badly made do ruin the name of Unity. Maybe to compete in the non-niche game world, one must not advertise they they are using Unity, or any other "package" engine.

I really don't think everyone feels this way. There are a lot of indie haters out there who won't play any Indie game, but yet we are all proud to be Indies'.

Maybe a marketing program where Unity shows all the GOOD games. Get the Youtubers to talk about those instead of the "asset flipping" games that they seem to enjoy sensationalizing. Maybe talk to some of developers who would never get a chance to make a game, have it on steam, and get people to play it, if not for Unity.

The story of how these indie developers created their games, worked hard, put in time, and were able to do it because Unity was free and/or inexpensive...something that will inspire people to check out the good games.

Bad games are everywhere. Even AAA games can be bad. Yes, when the engine is free and the asset store is available for easy cheap stuff...bad can be really bad. BUT Unreal and Cryengine...they have bad games too.

 

Customers " Remove splash screen! " Pitchforks & tourches

Unity " we have listened! Alright we will give you a semi custom splash screen! "

 

Yes, I can see it now. You'll be able to choose between a light splash screen and a dark splash screen.

 

The point is....THESE people, who I guess are not like you, CAN publish games. Unity's Personal is full featured, exactly like Pro. They can publish if they wish to do so. That is what democratization means, which is a cornerstone of Unity.

Whether they do or not is their decision. I betcha lots of pro-users have never published a game either. Many pro users are considering dropping down to free now, which tells me they have not reached the 100k mark.

 

That's just Jim. I don't like him, his image or that Steam insists on shoving his face in mine. Ignore!

There are plenty of of 'tubers who don't care about which engine a game is made with. Games are meant to be played, not be a stepstone to a deep analysis of the business decisions of the company that made it. Unless it's Zynga.

 

I'd still be much happier if there was no splash screen, but if there must be one I can think of three things that together might make Plus worth the price:

1. Have it say just "Made With Unity" without mentioning the version. Anything below Pro would convey a sense of "amateur".
   
2. Give us the top (portrait) or left (landscape) side of the screen for our own logo. That way the total message is "Game of Awesomeness is Made with Unity". Now it's a partnership instead of an advertisement.
3. Have it displayed for half of the time that Personal currently displays it.

But I have to be honest. You offer removing the splash screen as a major selling point of Pro. By your own strategy, you make it a mark of shame. Having the splash screen means we're low-budget, which creates a perception that our game has less value. If you genuinely want us to be proud of being associated with Unity, don't build it into your business model that becoming un-associated is something to strive for.

That said, for the most part I am really quite proud of how Unity operates as a business and to be working in the fantastic community that has grown around it. Unity has played an enormous role in the decentralization and accessibility of creative technology and I fully intend to continue down that road with you. But this whole splash screen thing really does stand out as an exception.

 

Yes, but the point was to assist those who cannot simply afford Unity Pro. After all if you're able to afford Unity Pro then there isn't any reason why you would choose Unity Plus since your goal would be the removal of the splash.

 

This is wonderful. We all need to see the bigger picture here. So easy to get caught in our own personal needs and wants. Thanks!

 

Actually Jim Sterling has said a lot of positive things about Unity and even dedicated one or two videos to it alone to tell everyone that it's not the engine but the people. He is mainly against the garbage that is flooded to Steam Greenlight which sadly includes a lot of stuff made with Unity.

 

I think your wording here is unfortunate. It implies that game developers don't already know precisely which platforms they are targeting. They do know. That is same sort of "simplification" that leads to cable companies bundling 400 channels of which three you care about.

It has nothing at all to do with being proud to use Unity. I love Unity and talk about it as much as possible. I have a Unity T-shirt I got from a Unity-sponsored user group that I actually wear.

It's about the perception gamers have about Unity, justified or not. By requiring the splash screen on the lowest tier of Unity, players see the logo in front of many low budget and/or poor quality Unity games and make that association. As others have suggested, if it was completely flipped and only good games endorsed by Unity were *allowed* to have the splash screen, that would do a lot to change those perceptions.

 

Yes, exactly! We got promised a life time license for all Unity 5.x versions! Of course we could give them the benefit of the doubt and maybe they are planning to release Unity 6 in the mean time. But it just sounds very weird!

I mean.. if that was actually the case, why not just say something like: People that pre-ordered Unity 5 Pro will of course still have access to all future version of 5.x!" instead of making such a vague comment.

If it indeed is like we fear it might be, I'd of course like to insist on my right to get what was promised upon the original purchase. But let's be real... what could I or anyone else do?
I'm not saying it's the case (although it really looks like it from what we know right now) but if it is, we won't be able to do anything about it except voting with our wallett in the future. Anyone really concerned about this and the additional cost to get what we already paid for would probably not even be able to afford dreaming about having the means to do anything about it, as sad as it is.