New products and prices coming soon

Actually, I would be unhappy if they stopped perpetual licenses, even if the subscription cost was 1$. Because paying stuff outside of Greece is a pain in the ass and doing it monthly is just not worth the trouble. The worst case scenario would be that for each payment, we would need to get "permission" from the bank, which is something that might take a week and takes multiple visits and requires explaining what and why you want to pay while the clerk gives you the blankest stare ever. Which I'm not doing every month.

There's also the chance that it might "just work" but even then, it would count against the limit we have of spending money outside of Greece with no questions asked (which is a few hundred $), because it's pretty random and the rules keep changing.

I also don't like subscriptions on principle.

On top of it all, I have really lost my patience with Unity's lightmapping. So I'm really not looking forward to waiting in line at the bank for ages for the privilege of getting subpar results with enlighten.

Add to all this the fact that they actually made it more expensive and it almost makes me go crazy.

So yeah, I'm learning Unreal. I'm not saying that as a "threat" (I did that previously, not this time). I'll just learn it on my spare time, maybe start a small project, to ease the transition when the time comes to leave Unity and to feel less trapped by Unity in the meantime. Because I no longer trust them to do *anything* right and at this point in time, being dependent on them fills me with despair.

 

Dear Unity,
I am extremely disappointed with the new subscription products that Unity rolled out. I am pretty sure you have followed all of the mostly negative reception both on the forums and the blog post. In short, I think it flies in the face of what Unity has always stood for: Democratising Game development.

The New Girl/Guy:
I remember when subscription licenses first showed up back in 2013. They were supposed to be a temporary give away for a limited time. And then Unity decided to keep them them alongside the perpetual licences as they noticed that 50% of all new customers in that period opted for subscription licenses. Today, we watch in awe, as Unity decides that 50% of it’s developers who are paying for perpetual licenses are the second class citizens. If you look at the numbers, you will also notice that the people who have stayed faithful to Unity the longest make up a vast majority of this 50%. I liken this to being told by your parent that a new girl/guy will be staying with us for a short while. And then it’s decided that the new girl/guy will be staying forever because half of the family seem to like her. And then the parent finally decides that, s/he’s getting rid of his/her original spouse because s/he likes the new girl/boy better and has decided to marry him/her. Where I come from, that is referred to as a broken home.

A Broken Democracy :
As Unity shifted more and more to a service oriented model, I knew it was only a matter of time before this day dawns upon us. Still, I took a leap of faith and invested in two platform licenses for Unity 5. For just the platforms I needed. Today I am being told to take an all or nothing deal from Unity and the new price they have determined to be fair for all of us. That smells more to me like a communist regime took over Unity Tech (Maybe one that hailed from EA?). Because this sure does not feel like a democracy anymore.

Where are the numbers?
Unity Prides itself in the numbers. Just a month ago, you published stats from Unity analytics. At every Unite Conference, you talk about how many developers are using Unity and how many games have been published with Unity. In this case however, the numbers seem to be conspicuously missing from the picture. Below is the rather crass analysis that brought us to this point of a unified platform licensing model:

It’s harder to be successful today. Market is larger, consumers are spending their time in different ways. Mobile is in the ascendancy, console and PC need bold creativity and VR/AR is in a pioneer moment. Against this, Unity isn’t as accessible as it could be – a core product with add ons for a larger up front price and upgrade fees every 2 or so years didn’t seem to be cutting it.

So, we wanted to simplify. We wanted to give more value. With our three new products we’re confident we have increased the ability for you to reach the largest audience, provided increased no worry access to the latest tech and made Unity more affordable.

This is laughable to say the least. This is Unity essentially telling me what to do in order to be successful, selling me what they think I need to be successful, and showing me exactly 0 evidence that this decision was informed by a even a half-baked thought process which had the customers in mind. The post is not even trying to hide the fact that Unity needs to meet its new annual earnings goals (Because, ” a core product with add ons for a larger up front price and upgrade fees every 2 or so years didn’t seem to be cutting it.“…for Unity) and the way to fix that is to sell it as one big subscription to everybody because it costs you absolutely nothing to do so. Don’t you think the right way to have gone about this would have been to try and answer the following questions?

-How many paying Unity users are publishing to all 3 paid platforms?
-How many paying Unity users are publishing to Mobile Only?
-How many paying Unity users are publishing to IOS/Android Only?
-How many paying Unity users are on a subscription?
-How many paying Unity users are on perpetual licenses?

That’s how Unity has always operated. They show us the numbers, and the take the leap. That’s how you got rid of Boo documentation and support. That’s how C# became the primary development language. So if Unity thinks that short paragraph and a lacklustre Unite presentation about how to be successful is going to get us on the same boat,then count me out of this new world order. I liked simpler times when you gave me the tools and I determined my path to success.

I have already written too much. There’s still much to say (from the bugginess of the unity 5 release cycle to the failed promises of a .Net profile upgrade). But I sure hope my thoughts on this new direction will not fall on deaf ears and the leadership of Unity will reconsider it’s strategy for successes.

Best regards,

Setri

 

But no one else forces a splash screen on their users. No one else has zero technical differentiation between their free and paid offerings. No one else thinks it's a good idea for a game engine company to invest resources in creating a dumbed-down source control system instead of, say, a graphical shader editor.

I don't recall many people complaining about having to pay extra for iOS Pro and Android Pro. The most common complaint I remember was that subscription was grossly overpriced compared to perpetual. A point that you yourself have raised and agreed to many time before.

That was the thing that people complained about (and rightly so in my opinion). It made no sense to subscribe if one could pay upfront for Pro. And the hope was that UT would remedy that at one point by reducing the subscription pricing a little.

But they heard us loud and clear, and actually removed the more affordable option and made the subscription even more expensive by making it less granular.

I just don't understand their direction at the moment. What's next after Unity Collaborate? Unity Wiki? Unity Issue Tracker? UnityTube? Utwich?

 

For us it really hinges on how much that "pay to own" feature will be, so we are eagerly awaiting those e-mails.

Running some numbers:

Unity Pro = $125/month x 12 months = $1,500
For 2 years = $1,500 x 2 = $3,000

5 person team @ 2 years:
Unity Pro: $3,000 x 5 developers = $15,000
Unreal: $0
and you would have to make $303,000 from your game to pay Epic $15,000.

10 person team @ 2 years:
Unity Pro: $3,000 x 10 developers = $30,000
Unreal: $0
and you would have to make $603,000 from your game to pay Epic $30,000.

20 person team @ 2 years:
Unity Pro: $3,000 x 20 developers = $60,000
Unreal: $0
and you would have to make $1,203,000 (~$1.2 million) from your game to pay Epic $60,000.

30 person team @ 2 years:
Unity Pro: $3,000 x 30 developers = $90,000
Unreal: $0
and you would have to make $1,803,000 (~$1.8 million) from your game to pay Epic $90,000.

 

Let me just translate this:

"It’s harder to be successful today. Market is larger, consumers are spending their time in different ways."

normalized: "The market is flooded at all tiers, and consumers are moving on to other forms of entertainment."


"Mobile is in the ascendancy, console and PC need bold creativity and VR/AR is in a pioneer moment."

normalized: "The mobile market has reached its' peak while PC and console are at rock bottom. Pinning your hopes on VR/AR is like taking a time-machine back to 1990 thinking everything will be Virtual Reality is 5 years. Good luck with that."

"Against this, Unity isn’t as accessible as it could be – a core product with add ons for a larger up front price and upgrade fees every 2 or so years didn’t seem to be cutting it."

normalized: "Because of the aforementioned issues, we are having to change our pricing to better fit our revenue needs. We are basically going to be charging more for our products and services and gambling on 42% of our current license owners (Pro Licensees) taking it again for the team... errr, I mean funding our continued efforts to provide a fully capable free version, but just with a splash screen.... uh, I mean.. wait, let me rephrase that....F@#%!D"

"So, we wanted to simplify. We wanted to give more value."

normalized: "We are going to force a certain group of our market share into a subscription model and charge them considerably more for the same beta testing that they are doing so well for us now."

"With our three new products we’re confident we have increased the ability for you to reach the largest audience, provided increased no worry access to the latest tech and made Unity more affordable."

normalized: "We are going to slim down our product offering, raise prices, and force people to pay monthly.. while leaving everyone in a secret and end-less beta, release candidate cycle of development and tools support."


fixed.

 

I don't understand all this rage against Unity... they are doing soooo much of work (adding new features continuously), improving the engine with weekly patches and long term features (see the road map for cool stuff coming, if u forgot) and etc which does require HUMAN Resources -- and you have to have competitive salary for your developers to keep them to do the job..

You can not pay 35$/125$ in a MONTH, but you expecting Unity to run the whole organization for free?? More features/platforms = to hire more qualified developers and Unity has to make money to keep everything cool.

I do understand you get used to 750$/1500$ upgrade price but hey, time changes. Back at that times Unity3 -4, unity didn't have all those features which it has now and thus it required less $$$ to run it.. Now with more platforms and features seems like it has to make more to run the engine, didnt you think about this part too?? Selfish enough to do not think about this, right?

The Engine which were delivering the tools for you to make your living all these years, deserves a little bit more support from your side. You were paying less, and now you will have to pay a little bit more..

If they could rise the limit of revenue cap for Plus, I think there will not be any reason to cry for others, but I imagine it will require a lot of job from Unity.. anyway, guys, wait for the pay-to-own solution, wait for splash screen for Plus (they heard us and they r working on it) and dont be CHEAP, you have to pay thats how it works in this world. You have to pay for everything.

 

So @DalerHakimov, I assume you'll jump directly to the 125$/month version as soon as the new subscriptions open, right?

 

This isn't rage. This is evaluating options as the terms of the product are changing and discussing it openly and honestly.

As I have mentioned before, I am totally open to a revenue based model like Unreal. Sure, its not as good of a deal that we have gotten in the past with our perpetual licenses, but its fair - you give a portion of what you make.

Subscriptions take from you whether you end up generating revenue or not, which places certain individuals and groups/teams out of the market now. A revenue based pricing model wouldn't.

 

125$/month is too much for indies. Does Unity want indies in the future? I have already paid 4500$ for 5 Pro + iOS + Android and I am now wondering? Why did I pay? To get rid of the splashscreen? After May 2017 that my updates end I will probably continue to with the free version because its getting too expensive for me, I cannot pay 1500 per year just for this tool.

 

Use the free version then, if you dont make enough to pay, then you have fully featured engine for free. Use it.

@AcidArrow , no I'll not jump to 125$. Once I'll make something >1k$ month Il'l buy 35$ sub. So, if I would make 100K year, I would definitely go for 125$ without any kind of complains.

P.S. My post was for those who actually does deliver games and make something out of it.. If you dont make anything, then of course dont buy Unity use the free version and it has everything that you need. Unlike Unreal you will not pay to Unity anything if you didn't reach the 100k limit, where with Unreal you would pay royalty even for 10k$ or less??

 

Thanks for your suggestions, but I am not you and don't make my decisions based on your way of thinking.

Consequently, if you truly believed what you originally said, which was this - "The Engine which were delivering the tools for you to make your living all these years, deserves a little bit more support from your side.", you wouldn't have then said something implying the exact opposite with this "Unlike Unreal you will not pay to Unity anything if you didn't reach the 100k limit, where with Unreal you would pay royalty even for 10k$ or less??"

I'm the one actually saying Unity deserves to get paid proportionally to the amount that people benefit financially from the product by saying a revenue model is the fairest way to go.

Next time you should try to stick with one rather than go for the double standard, it will increase your credibility.

 

@rnakrani
Where did you see the double standard thingy ?? I said if you make your living out of this engine, then you should support it, and if you don't make anything then dont support it.. How do I have double standard??.. I did say the same thing twice.. It means the same.. and yeah don't do as I said, nor any other ones over here.. I just said my opinion, the ones who is making money from this tool they will pay anyway, the ones who were not paying they will still keep complaining..

P.S Don't cut and quote my sentences the way you like. I said my post was intended to those who does deliver games and make $$$ out of it.

 

Yes, you made it clear that was your position.

Then you turn around and support Unity's position where they don't do that until someone hits the 100k mark, trying to use an opposite example as a means to support your case.

Thus the double standard.

For what its worth, like I said, it seems like you and I agree, Unity should be compensated fairly. In making the case for it though I wouldn't have justified the fact that Unity doesn't get fairly compensated by their current licensing scheme like you did

 

@rnakrani , I said about 100k cuz everyone loves to compare the Unreal royalty every time for reason/no reason when it comes down to pay something for engine.. That's why I said to those "cheap-guys", until you will not make 100k you dont have to pay anything, so keep using the free version. I'm surprised how you see the double standard thing over here.. as I said even if I'll make 1k$/month i'll sub to Unity to support them.

 

If you don't see it, you don't see it .

 

@DalerHakimov for my use case Unreal is cheaper and has lightmapping that works. Can you see why I'm a bit annoyed that Unity has a price increase?

And if you don't see the irony in that someone who hasn't given Unity any money is lecturing people that they should give Unity more money and not expect things for free, I don't know what to tell you.

 

@AcidArrow,

I do actively purchase assets from the asset store, so I'm paying to Unity. I'll repeat again, my post was intended to those who makes money from Unity for years... and I said once I'll start making money I'll pay back without complains that I'm paying more or less.. I'm not lecturing anyone, I'm just saying people want it to have cheap, while its not possible anymore. That means they've been making money for years and now just because of price increase they dont want it anymore.. it feels selfish...

While the price increased only for desktop developers, when the mobile developers have always being overpaying.. Cuz to develop for Android you would have to buy desktop+andorid..

They'll fix the light-mapping eventually...

 

Just to add my 2 cents here:

• "wait for the pay-to-own solution" --> Yes. But Unity would be stupid to make this offer much more affordable than the subscription and therefore MY problem as a desktop-only developer remains: I won't pay for all the mobile/services stuff i don't need just because some marketing guy at Unity wants to sell it to me.
• "wait for splash screen for Plus" --> There is exactly one way to solve this: Get rid of the splash screen in Unity Plus. No custom splash screen and no watermark. To be honest, I'm baffled about how many in here would accept an advertisement (=splash screen) in their commercial product. You pay unity for their tools and you think they should be allowed to inject their ads into YOUR program? This is just barefaced and never going to happen. Some people seem to forget that they are paying customers, not solicitants.
• "dont be CHEAP" --> I'm exactly the opposite of cheap. I have paid thousands of Euros for my all of my tools and will continue to do so, Unity is just one among many. But this is exactly where the current subscription plans fail: Their product is not the most appealing one to me anymore.
• "You have to pay for everything." --> Indeed. And I'm more than willing to pay for everything I use. But this is the real free market economy and not some kind of Monopoly with a "set-the-conditions-however-you-like-card". There are enough alternatives out there which suit my needs better.
• "They'll fix the light-mapping eventually..." --> Again, we are a professional domain in a free market economy. It's Unity's job to sell what they have and not to sell promises about fixing existing problems. You can deliver, I'll pay. You can't deliver, I'll buy somewhere else. Like in every other domain on this planet.

 

Currently at the company where I work we decided not to go for subscription as this is why:

From an existing license ( 4.x before ) to a new one ( 5.x now ) we payed not 1500 euro but a reduced price because it was an upgrade. The same applies for Android and iOS plugin upgrade from 4.x to 5.x. In total we payed around 1200 / 1500 in total for the whole upgrade per license. With this we could continue working with Unity for at least 1.5 years up to 2 years.

However the current buy once and own it price it unknown, but when I look only at the price for Pro, the increase in pricing is huge.

From 1200 euro upgrade to a major version once in the 2 years, we go now to 3000 euros per 2 years.
For us this is a price increase of more the 50%.
How is this new pricing going to help us, is Unity really going to let us pay 50% more for the same app, same tools but all platforms included? We don’t even use Nintento, Playstation, WebGL, just only Android and iOS.

I love the game engine, but the subscription makes my boss scratch his head and ask me how this could happen.
I would like to know more about this and why the huge price difference. If there is a special case solution that would not come with a 50%+ price increase, let me know.

 

Hey guys,

I need your advice to decide whether I should purchase Unity perpetual now when it is still possible. I'm an independent desktop developer. For me 1500$ is huge sum of money but 4500$ will be totally off budget in the future. I also can not accept the subscription, because it is like a fast loan: by their subscription-terms whenever I couldn't pay the whole 12 months they will handle my remaining commitment to an independent collection agency.

Previously I was planning to develop a game first (with a personal edition) and see if it sells. But now with the new plus license I'm afraid they will change the personal edition terms. Right now there are 90% of perpetual license owners according to their graph in migration plan. I guess only few of them will continue with the subscription license. This may eventually lead to the cancellation of personal edition benefits because UT has to regain their revenue stream.

Guys, do you share the same fears? Do you think I should invest in the aging product to get some safety against future marketing changes?

 

Ok, let's forget how much we used to pay. Let's look at just the prices. You don't like to pay royalties? Ok, fine so Unreal is not the right choice. That leaves us with two engine options: Stingray and CRYENGINE V. Stingray is $30 per month and includes MayaLT. CRYENGINE V is free, but you can pay them what you want if you want to support them. Both of these engines are cheaper and better than Unity. Both of them appeal to the different target group.

Are you a mobile and/or mobile VR dev? Go with Stingray. Are you desktop/console and/or desktop VR dev? Go with CRYENGINE V.

You make the choice based on the information you have. Life changes, the strongest are ones that can adapt. You are comfortable using Unity and don't want to learn a new tool? Fair enough but then don't complain and prepare your wallet ;-)

 

Please do me a favor and reflect about what you have just asked for an hour or so. I think you can answer your question yourself. If not, you can have my input.

 

I'm a pro user and I earn less than $100k. I was a pro 4 user too. I'm a pro user because I do a lot of contract work and it just looks better on your cv and allows me to say "hey, I can get rid of that splash screen if you don't want it" but mainly because it just comes across as more professional.

I've read a lot of these posts and my first reaction was what a bunch of moaning buggers.

If you can't afford pro or plus then use it for free. Those banging on about unreal should perhaps go and pay the royalties that they wouldn't of had to pay if they were using free.
And I don't get the big deal with the splash screen but obviously it annoys a lot of people.

Then after a day or two of the price hikes soaking in (and yes they are price hikes) I'm starting to feel a little different.

Firstly I applaud Unity on all the new services they have added. Dealing with the millions of plugins (ok exaggeration) for IAP's and Analytics is a total ball ache. Then just when you have it all working a new iOS comes out and buggers it all up and you have to piss about with plugins again. Having this built in to the engine is a god send for those of us who use it and as a contractor I'm forced to use it in some cases. These big companies do like there stats.
Then there's the cloud build. If you're working on your own then you might not see the point but if you're working on mobile you should give it a go, it can be a real time saver.
And there's the multiplayer now too. I've not used that yet but the fact unity provide a service for this at least allows me to rapid prototype.
The problem is that all these new services have taken development resources and need paying for and thats what we're now doing regardless of whether you want to use them or not. If Unity was to put these as payable options then chances are most people wouldn't bother.

However whilst the development of these services has gone on, the bread and butter of Unity seems to have suffered with what can be at times a quite slow and buggy experience. For me Unity 5 hasn't quite delivered on the promise and while its a big step up from 4 its still lagging behind its competitors in some respects. I've seen countless posts with people saying the lighting isn't as good as Unreal or post effects etc and sadly this is true. Enlightened's baking times can be painfully slow and tbh its not all I was hoping for.
And don't get me started on the bugs in Animation.
This causes hidden costs in using Unity. I love the asset store but I'd like to sped my money on Environment Art and Models, not lighting systems that actually work well or Animation solutions or Terrain solutions.
@Unity Instead of spending x*100k on developing something from scratch, have you thought about buying a solution from an asset store dev and building on that?
And why are Shader Forge and Playmaker not part of Unity ?
Having mentioned lighting systems, has Unity ever tried to poach some of the extremely talented people on here to work for them? I'm taking about devs like

SonicEither http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/fully-dynamic-diffuse-global-illumination.314748/
or
Lexie http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/dynamic-volumetric-lighting-replacement.379041/page-4

But I digress

Now I'm a Unity fan boy but for the first time I'm giving serious consideration to other Engines. What would make me stop?

Allow me to become a Plus user by...

Dropping the splash screen for Plus. Personally I don't have a problem with it and I'm proud to say I made this with Unity but not all of my clients feel the same along with quite a few devs on here.

And for god sake give the dark UI to everyone (even free) and lets move on. I've never known such utter bullshit in my life. The amount of people that would love you forever and stop clogging the forums with asking why its a pro only feature must be worth it!

And for Pro I have to agree with a few others on here...
The rev cap should be tiered on company size. For a one man band $100k is fine but for larger teams it really should be increased.

Just the thoughts of an old man who wants to see the best out of Unity.

 

You don't get it? Really? I mean, you answered that yourself, didn't you:

You seem to understand that there is a negative connotation when it comes to the Unity Logo/Splash Screen, at least consumer-wise otherwise you wouldn't have to offer to get rid of it.

 

I see many clients who have invested money in Unity and have released products complaining in this thread, they do it for a good reason : The current paid options suck.

One gives nothing meaningful, another is too expensive, from a hobbyist-small dev perspective.

Many people counted on the possibility of upgrading Pro Desktop with 750$. Not happening.
Many people are not happy with the quality of services that are being provided so far.

Many people are not happy with the fact that they thought that services will eventually mature through the 5.x lifetime only to find that 5.x lifetime is not what they got when they bought Pro.
A buried note in the FAQ states you get access to 5.x updates only until Q1 of 2017.
No access for people who purchased Pro 5 to new services from August on.

These things suck.

I can understand that some features may take time (GUI), I can understand some choices may be bad or need time to mature (lightmapping), I appreciate the ever expanding set of platforms and features.

I am biased, I like Unity.

The business offer it makes now sucks though, as well as the way it treats people with limited budget who have invested in it. Expectations are not met, trust issues arise.

@DalerHakimov, those things really suck more if you have already invested money in Pro.

 

Everyone's waiting for the pay-to-own pricing, but I bet it will be actually higher than the new subscription, since you can use the software for years after the subscription period ends. Not sure you'd want to though, since it won't be updated any more.

 

Thank you for your answer. To be honest I've been thinking and searching for last two days. But I will be really graceful if you can tell me your thoughts.

 

A possible solution would be to allow a custom splash screen and a mandatory "Made wih Unity" screen in Plus version, so it would be a real middle solution.

What does everyone think ? I undestand this would be a step back for already paid Pro usage, but is better than no custom screen or price increase imo

Another way would be to have a middle category (the Plus) that would be modular (e.g. allow to choose ot have iOS and Android as extra that add to price and a base desktop rpice) and have the next category as a bundle and cheaper overall if you go with the full bundle, so there would be at least one category with choice (and a custom splash screen of course)

 

What do you mean with "allow a custom screen"? It is entirely up to you if you add your splash screen or not. I say it once again because i honestly can't believe that people accept ads in their own commercial product: We are customers, not solicitants. Why should any other company besides my own have its splash screen in MY product when I'm a paying for the tool? Im curious. Giving credit and having to show a splash screen are totally different things. Just for your information, Epic solves it this way:

"Product Checklist Prior to Shipping Your Game:
Add the following to your products credits: “[Product Name] uses the Unreal® Engine. Unreal® is a trademark or registered trademark of Epic Games, Inc. in the United States of America and elsewhere.” and “Unreal® Engine, Copyright 1998 – xxxx, Epic Games, Inc. All rights reserved.”

Taken from https://www.unrealengine.com/release

 

Sorry I didn't read my post with a fine tooth comb before submitting. It was rather long.

But yeah I stand by what I said. I don't get it.
As I also said
"Personally I don't have a problem with it and I'm proud to say I made this with Unity"

Yes there's some dross out there made with unity but there's also some quality.

And just because somebody else might not want the splash doesn't mean I have to agree with there decision, but if they are paying me for a job and they want it removing then its nice to have that in my arsenal which is why I would like that option to be part of Plus.

And for the record where i say...
"Dropping the splash screen for Plus. Personally I don't have a problem with it and I'm proud to say I made this with Unity but not all of my clients feel the same along with quite a few devs on here."

This isn't quite accurate. I've only mentioned dropping the splash to my first client and they didn't seem to be bothered at all but I accept that not everyone feels that way. Again it doesn't mean I have to agree, I just have to obey.

 

I agree that customers that already paid, should not be burdained further. On the other hand a Unity screen is not a random ad, it is the engine that is used to make the game, so it is both in the developers and Unity interest to advertise, and keep Unity alive and well imo.

So i guess the solution should be somewhere in the middle, let Unity advertise (this could mean different methods than the starting splash screen though) and also have a custom screen when the game starts, or remove with the higher tier. I dont agree at all with the Plus tier as it is now, or the absense of choice to not have Android and iOS included.

 

Why should it be in my interest to advertise Unity? It is my interest to advertise my company and Unity's interest to advertise itself. No one would have a problem if there were a legal clause that demands Unity to be named as a used technology. That's how it works everywhere else and the reason behind the "Credits" section in every game (and programs).

 

There's a lot of suggestions based around royalties etc. But there's a very good reason why Unity may be going the straightforward pay to unlock path.

Essentially, once you get into licensing (which is what a royalty split deal is) you have to constantly check up on the companies and individuals you've licensed. This is to check on their income from the deal and calculate your royalties. Of course, this is worldwide, so tends to be a very large job.

Effectively you're talking about having a huge department of people dedicated entirely to chasing up royalties, which is expensive (staff costs are always expensive and accountancy & legal staff more so).

It also makes a big difference to your cashflow as all your income is now coming in after your licensees have earned it *and paid you*. Each step in a payment chain like that can easily be a quarter, so going from retail/app store - publisher - Unity can be a 6 month+ delay and that's *after* the game's been written. So while they might end up making more money of successful titles, Unity don't get that money until a lot later and it costs them a fortune to collect it.

Compare this to the system Unity is using with the splash screen and upfront payment for Pro. They get the money immediately when a developer wants to use Unity without advertising it and they don't need to run around chasing up who's earning what. The splash screen is effectively a crypto lock as any pro developer likely to make a profit from a Unity game is unlikely to want the splash screen on there.

 

Hi all,
I use Unity Pro and learned already a lot, however I hope to hear something more from the official side from UT soon. Because I need to think if I should continue to invest time/money in Unity or not.

I really like Unity, and I could recommend it to others, I don't want to switch honestly. I could overcome myself and say I would pay 420$ each year. Even this is already a quite bad deal in my opinion, because I don't know whats next, maybe in a year it costs 10$ more per month, in two years again 5$ more(...) Today I paid 1500$ and that's it.

But if I pay 420$ each year for a product, Unity has to remove the splash screen. I can give credits, but I want to decide, if I show the "Mady with Unity" splash screen or not. A semi-Splash screen, a logo that shows somewhere form time to time, ... is no compromise for me. In this case I think I have to switch back to Unity personal or to another engine

However, I think it would help us all to hear more about the pricing from the official side soon. Like what are the pay to own terms really, what will be changed in Unity Plus, what is the offer for existing pro customers...

 

Any software without future support is nothing but a giant turd which is what my pro license will turn into next April.

 

Any? I have several tools working fine that's are years old and support has ended ages ago. I see what you mean but in the case of Unity, Even Unity 2 or 3 works for desktop I think. Unity 4 official support ended last year but they have still made critical fixes. Unity 4 and 5 will work for desktop probably years. Then on mobile side you can't expect forever support for new platform features and changes that Apple and Google add (forced changes have been hotfixed in the old versions too).

BTW I'm in the same 2017 boat with my full set of perpetual pro licenses .

 

i got a question regarding the "new online admin tools that let you control who uses Unity on your team and how they use it"
so, iam working in a company which provides me with a pro version. and iam concerend about the "how they use it" line. sounds like a spy tool to me. what does that mean?

 

It's the team role management where you can set who can edit, add and do different things in various projects.

 

ah ok, thanks!
sounded to me first something like usage time, average whatever and so on

 

Perhaps I should have said Unity vs Any. My experience with the number of bugs, interdependencies, asset store and platforms that unity supports, to say you can keep using something after a certain time without future support is just asking for trouble.

I like unity and they have a business to run. I hope they will listen and address some of the valid concerns raised here. When the time comes
I will have to choose the best option for me of the three that are available.

 

I wrote this in another channel first, since the forum and blog seems to be frequented more by people in charge, here it goes again:

The solution’s first step would be pretty simple really as said before by many:
*keep the old perpetual license option with old pricing structure, including upgrade pricing, early bird pre order discount, volume discount and whatever other discounts people had as option going forward, instead of the wishy washy marketing replies on the blog that people can keep their perpetual license till it runs out next year, which is obvious but also obviously makes people think they will not be able to renew it with the same deal afterwards.
(
In case it is not clear to the managers:
Unity is a multi platform game engine which even if all ran perfectly on all platforms at one point in time would by definition still always require regular support and updates since the platforms themselves change constantly so of course then at latest every few months a new issue on a new/upgraded platform crops up. And most even just halfway informed (potential) Unity users are aware of this.
So just saying you can keep your existing license is not just captain obvious but also of very few value if it is not supported onwards nor renewable.
)
So yes, you have to keep the perpetual license option offering, at the very least for one more major version cycle, longer if by then you still have no subscription offering which satisfies the majority of your existing and possible new users.
(Thinking about it, most people (me including) already moaned that perpetual license for two years (with upgraded price discount options) is half or a third compared to pro subscription in new model, now looking at Unity versions i realise most versions were supported for 3 years+ so one would actually have to compare perpetual license with upgrade discount options paid once every 3 years to subscription paid for 3 years..)
*And for the subscription model, you have to make the prices across the board a third at most of the prices you stated so that it would be at most as expensive in most scenarios as with a perpetual license and those upgrade options, in some cases making them a fourth of your current statement would make most sense. Make it /4 across the board and most people will happily take it.
If you do those, then the moaning and complaining could go away and actually way more people even consider to sign up for a subscription rather than the state of now where most people are not just not considering it but even stating they are seriously considering to jump ship.
Again, when you have a look at any of the subscription options for software which actually do work out like Adobe CC, then you can see, that yes, there will always be (a not tiny) group which will generally hate subscriptions, but if the subscription price is so much lower than the perpetual purchase/upgrading price, a large group will actually make use of it, because it comes off as good deal even when they have done their maths homework.
I think Adobe did many other wrong decisions on many other ends over the past decade, but their CC subscription pricing for the whole package is MASSIVELY lower priced than any option they had before to get a license for it,
so one can actually call it a good value price wise and hence millions of people like me who hate subscriptions have used it.
Another thing is: You should also give people the option to sign up and cancel their subscription for the higher tiers in shorter term easily, like at most 6 months, because one of the major worries of people against subscriptions is they don’t like the feeling of being tied to paying something on and on for a year or longer. I know to a company a large reason for subscription offerings is ongoing secured income of halfway known amount, but to users there is a very high perceived value to being able to cancel in shorter timespans than 12 months and the general thought of flexibility gain.
Now i have to say something about past mistakes, not to annoy you, but in hope they are repeated nor made even worse:
I think when the pricing/license model was changed the last few times, there were already major mistakes made.
Way too expensive subscription pricing (again, compared to all those price lowering upgrade options for the perpetual license), which made a large chunk of maths capable perpetual license owners not be into switching to a subscription. If your longest time supporters don’t use your new offering and stay with the old model as long as they can, something is clearly broken with the new offering.
But also other things like you diluted the value feeling of the pro license a lot by adding most of it’s engine features to the indie/free license, making lots of people with pro license wonder what they are paying so much more money for.
At the same time you have weirdly also encouraged way more people with free/indie license to expect the removal of the unity splash screen (one of the last clearly visible separators in the content between free and pro license owners) since it didn’t make sense to them that you seemingly charged so much “just” for the removal of the splash screen.
While in reality of course you had given the indie/free owners much more, that they could use all those engine features of the pro license in the engine, but yeah, when pretty much no noticeable in engine difference is there other than the splash screen, then of course people moan about why do i have to pay so much just to get rid of the splash screen.
These problems were already not addressed properly last time around, they remain to this day, the pro license feels devalued because the free or way lower tier options have most if not all of the engine features and at the same time people getting all the engine features felt like they would have to pay too much for removing the splashscreen alone and the subscription pricing staid so high that it was nonsensical for anyone doing the maths (and being able to do a one time higher payment every 2-3 years).
Now, with the new subscription pricing options, across the board, for most platform combinations, people would have to pay 2x-4x+ prices of before (besides very few exceptions)
And on top, tiers available between free and pro make people for who those tiers would be most fitting for moan even more now because as the pricing for those went up, too for most common use case scenarios, people complain even more why they have to pay to still have a splashscreen or pay more just to get rid of the splash screen (which for many of those is the only advantage of Pro they would actually use since the engine features are the same).
The only backpadelling i see is that there are replies talking about customization options for the plus tier for the splash screen being considered.
No, this is again not the solution to any of the actual problems.
If you allow heavy customization/removal of the splash screen in the plus tier, this dilutes the pro tier further, since, why should most of those pro people still get pro if engine features are the same and one can customize
the splash screen in plus tier? And wouldn’t people then still moan why can’t i remove it fully? since again it feels like that’s the only thing they pay for to them since all engine features are the same.
At the same time, the pricing for all tiers is still way too expensive for a subscription and compared to the perpetual license upgrading scheme 2x-4x in most combinations.
So yeah, you need a better solution.
I understand, when there were internal talks about the mantra of Unity and democratization of game development, so bringing game development options to everyone was chosen as the main company mantra, that surely sounded like and awesome thing.
But the reality is, if you want to/have to make money with the engine, you have to charge for it or a service enough people would pay for. Not enough people pay for it when they feel the free tier gets all the engine features, too and at the same time pricing is too high for all paid tiers. Other services included is seen as nice bonus by most, no matter how good they are, for most people most important is the engine and it’s features itself in daily usage.
Since making the lower priced/free tiers be less well supported/run worse or similar would not be an option accepted by anyone, the way it was while the indie version has the splash screen AND not some engine features made way more sense than only in engine difference being a splash screen, of course then people ask that that’s gone, too. I don’t think it’s great when a free tier doesn’t have all engine features, but it at least makes more sense than it feeling like one has to pay only for the removal of a splash screen and at the same time paid tiers all have to be made so much more expensive because the majority just keeps the free tier.
Time has passed since that all engine features in all versions change, so i wouldn’t have brought it up as discussion point, but i felt like it was needed since it has to be clear that is one big thing making people with pro wonder what they are still paying for and people with free or lower paid tier wondering why they have to pay for “only a removal of the splash screen” and while that all is already bad besides the whole prices themselves, allowing customising the splash screen in plus tier does not fix this problem, actually makes it even worse.
For a first step you’d have to make clear to the people the perpetual license option will still be available with all the same pricing/upgrade options for at least another full version after 5 and also make all the prices of the subscription options /3 or /4 and also add discounts for people doing them longer than a year, too.
And then, it later steps one could think about what are actually reasonable to most users differentiator options between free/low paid tier and pro upwards.
Anyway, yeah, reasonable and good solution suggestions were brought up by many in the community which would make most if not all happy and make Unity actually make more money since more people would consider upgrading and even subscribing rather than jumping ship, the ball is in Unity manager’s side to use it.

 

I also expected a 75$ subscription for everyone.

You can raise the price, but 200 to 500% increase is hard to absorb
75$ per month was already a high price. Migrating all perpetual licence to 75$ would have done already a nice bunch of income increase.

David Helgason increase the price by reducing the version cycle from 3-4 years to 2 years. But it's a "hidden" method. And it was reasonable. And you have more often a new version, with all the fuse around it.

But the new CEO made what he is used to do, despite him telling everybody he won't do it ( Like a good politician).
EA method imported to Unity. Getting your user base against you
Thinking short term, by increasing the price a lot for a short term cash flow increase, but creating a breach for the competition.
He also forget that their paying user are pro. Pro can't do impulse buy, they need to maintain a budget, calculate cost...

 

Changes are needed: focus on doomed free to play

Then one more thing, only tangentially related but because important for the whole future direction i bring it up:
There is a whole philosophical and financial debate to be had regarding the whole free to play business model.
Why do i bring this up here?
Because with most of the services features you introduced over the last year(s) and also free license option, and also on many of the unity talks and other PR and community events and messaging, you are very heavily pushing that model.
Sorry, but i have to say it bluntly for anyone who didn’t get the memo yet: That model is not long term financially viable to the large majority of developers/creators, nor long term viable or sustainable in general for the whole "industry" and hence also not for Unity itself.

It can work out for something as quickly creatable as a Youtube video to some degree (though even there not for the majority of creators), but as soon as way more time is needed to create quality content
and hence way more money has to be made on ongoing basis to recover costs and stepwise turn more profitable, it is already very clear that that model is not working out for most.

And when one would think it through, it should also be obvious why in long term it can’t work out well at all and will work out worse and worse the more people do it.

I have worked on many paid and for some clients and own stuff also free to play things over the years, i have had both own and client projects huge successes, but i have seen both the shiny and dark sides.
The bottom line is always the same:
For free to play stuff a huge amount of downloads has to be reached and maintained to have enough as they are called “whales”, so the 1-5 % of users usually who buy stuff and one has to constantly push a lot of money into ongoing marketing and ongoing introduction of things for which people come back and again enough people pay for stuff, and a huge number of people has to come back again and again to make any profit, so much that this is not long term sustainable by itself.

It is even exponentially less longterm sustainable, when one knows/considers that as soon as an app is not in the top 50 or front pages of the app stores anymore, it very quickly suddenly makes close to zero if not zero money with these models.
Because not enough users means not enough whales/advertising watchers for this to be profitable.
With a paid app every user is a sale, with a free to play app you need millions to have enough in that low percentage which brings in enough money.
There was this talk at Unity Europe, where the lady proudly talked about her strategies for monetizing and how they treat it as integral part of their game design and spent a whole release cycle working on that.
Now first, there is the talk to be had whether that’s actually a good thing most developers would like to do in all or even just most of their games, whether that’s a good thing for gamers etc, too,
, but then also the part that i’d like to see whether she is still so happy about that model for her game once the game is not on the front page and charts anymore and then makes zero and yet has ongoing very high costs to promote it enough to attract enough whales so they have to push a lot of money into constant promotion to push to have it get in the charts and front pages high enough (again) to be able to keep attracting enough whales.
It is a constant spiral of sinking more money into it to sustain ongoing milking features introduction and those still working out.

And in the case of that one game, that could actually be achievable a bit longer than for most, due to the known properties which give automatic traffic for a while. For the large majority of content there is no such thing. Even Angry Birds deflated after a few years. And they keep on pushing big money into it to keep it going as much as possible. Ever wondered why so many free to play companies collapse quickly after having made so much money in a short while? Because you have to keep pumping in huge sums constantly to keep this scheme going.

And no matter if one company or 100 achieve that in longer term or not with these cuthroat fights to get one of the 100 chart spots that matter (100 among over a million), it is captain obvious, that that model can’t work out on a large scale. There can’t be 50 million players for each of all games so each of them could have enough whales or advertising watchers to make it profitable in free to play model.

So yeah, regarding all that, over time this becomes clear to more and more developers, and then instead of becoming more attractive to more developers (which maybe initially worked out), then sadly you are making 100ks of devs less interested in developing for these platforms where this is meanwhile enforced by too many doing it and the platform holders encouraging it.

And you have at the same time reduced the value of supporting these platforms and also your engine as whole if your meanwhile main selling points and talking points at your presentations are services pushing free to play.

See the many replies in the forums, blog posts, email threads etc about people saying they have no interest in iOS or android dev (anymore) because it’s overcrowded free to play where most can’t make money anymore.
And for each 100 actual fun to play “quality” free to play apps which don't just feel like milking to the max optimized drug with negative value, there are a few 100ks of free to play apps which make more and more users not just hate the model but become weiry of even downloading more and more apps on their phones.

Regarding such things, really time to reconsider in app purchases and (incentivised) ads as main business strategy, yes, when it’s the only option remaining on a platform, people at least try it, at least until they see how longterm viable it is for several products, but if that’s the future you want to support and push as positive thing in engine, services, presentations etc.. i think one has to think about this seriously.
So yeah, after the perpetual license is sorted out, and then pricing for subscriptions, and then ideally later on also the (ideally sense making) differentation between free and paid options in engine feature differentation,
then also stepwise improving reliability and stability of the engine on ongoing basis;
then one next also has to consider for going forward, what are the most reasonable ways for unity users/creative content creators in general to actually make money in sustainable way longterm and hence what Unity as engine, services and asset store offering company should actually push going forward.

This all is not a single “high pricing announced - let’s run crazy” incident, these are things piling up in the community over the past 1-4 years and yes, the pricing change announcement now just made it be too much for many so it was time to release some steam. But yeah, now time to get this all sorted.

 

From what I have read, it would not be a good idea. Development for 5 will end in March 2017 so your perpetual license will no longer be updated, or so they say. That may change.

They will not be making changes to Personal Edition. I would be very surprised. In fact, I think their new subscription prices will encourage many to drop down to PE and it seems that is okay with Unity, not sure why though.

 

Changes are needed: focus on doomed free to play: Are (reward) ads the solution?

Ok, promise, my last post for a while, i really have to get back to coding after this one and bothered you enough, too, but i think we all should think about these things because it affects us all:

In my previous post i most talked about "whales" in free to play model as in if it is about in app purchases (alone).
The same applies for ingame ads of course, just even way more exponentialized regarding not being sustainable for the large majority of apps/games/devs/creators/players/the whole eco system.
When you think about it:
-You need x millions users to be profitable when 1-5% at most usually become whales who pay.
Yes, more people are ok with watching an ad than paying for an in app purchase, but an ad impression pays so way less than an in app purchase, you need many more millions of users who watch ads than buy something to get the same money.
So in app purchase free to play stuff requires a huge amount of players to make any proper money at all, apps with forced ads for making money require even way more players to make proper money.
When you have rewards ads instead of forced ones, this may feel nicer to the users and ethically nicer to us as devs/creators, too, but you again need way more millions of users then, because when it is not forced onto the user, not all users will do it of course.
Next to the quite considerable development time and money to think of and implement nice well working incentivised ads triggers or to players reasonable in app purchase products. And to pay constantly in marketing to keep the scheme going by constantly having these gigantic player numbers over longer periods.
So while initially it may have seemed like a fairer model for users and developers and in general to have unity push rewards ads most, you see that financially it is long term even way less sustainable than usual iap purchasing based free to play already is for all besides the apps which can constantly push lots of money into staying on the front page and hence having the large numbers of users needed to make any proper money with these models.

On top of the huge issue on larger scale that not just did free to play with in app purchases erode the notion of paying for apps/games up front at all for a huge chunk of users on these platforms, no, now let’s take it a step further and get all users used to not paying for anything at all anymore and always using the reward ad option.
What, not all apps can be downloaded and used hundreds of millions of times, so most of them will make not turn profitable with rewards ads?
Hm, yeah, well, too bad..
And as users of apps/games/content, we are all cheapskates. Most will click the free option when it is available. Most will in that moment not think about what it means for this company or all companies or all content i like when that is the only choice going forward. When many of the groups whose stuff i like are not around in a year anymore. Or then have to plan most how to milk to the max than to design what i enjoy, not use because i’m a cheapskate in that moment and there is just a more affordable option available. if it wouldn’t make money for them they wouldn’t offer if, right??
(The reality is most only notice it’s not longterm viable when it’s already too late)

For years this has lead to talks/rumors about a big video game/content creator industry crash. Yes, sure, many beloved (and many less beloved) companies have already shut down over the last years. Maybe more and more.
But so far, this could in grand scheme be ignored. Because the industry is so large, right? Because there are so many platforms and distribution ways. If not making money on one because it has become over crowded free to play, one can try another, right?
But what now when now most or all of them get there?

I don't want to yell doom and gloom all around, there are still many great opportunities, even many new ones regularly, of course, but it should be obvious at this point that some things don't work out for the majority and are not a good thing for all and worse and wrose becoming for all the more do things in that manner.

Now these are big problems and the whole "content industry" has done a shift in negative direction there, starting by the platform holders and going through the whole chain of all involved, so few in particular could be blamed for it as the one or few culprits.
But yeah, one has to consider what one pushes now and in the future as models that can work for the majority of people/devs/users and the implications for all longer term.

Maybe the managers should have a look at the Unite Europe keynote again with those thoughts and then maybe it makes more sense to them why more and more people worry when the words democratization of game development are highlighted in already over saturated free to play focussed app stores or the managers should think about why a large part of the user base was offended by some of the talks, services, and notions like raising prices for including services of which many to many appear like pushing broken models that help further kill the industry and passion that got many started and turn all into milking stats planners, analizers and implementers.

(note: i very much support for example a service where one can deduct where many players get stuck, that was not what i was talking about i hope you see/understand which service features and presentation portions and blog posts and future outlook as presented by the company at Unite etc i meant over which people get riled up).

 

Seriously, the CEO-themed attacks are not just off-topic, they are actually annoying.

 

I would consider it a bad move to purchase anything at this point. You're purchasing an unknown product, best let it be launched first, and decide if it is favourable to invest or not. I always say: vote with your wallet.

Yes and they will get deleted / banned from replying and so on if it's an attack on staff or people. This one is borderline so it's left as-is but we can't have abuse

 

I'm in agreement with your points but I felt the need to point out that GameMaker does force a splash screen on their free users, but at least they remove it on every single paid tier. Likewise, other than the free tier being restricted to Windows builds, they give you the full engine features across all tiers.

GameMaker may have been copying Unity when they took this approach but I believe Unity needs to copy them now and remove the splash screen from every single paid tier. Treating UI skins as perks for paying is pretty silly too.

 

Pricing is too steep and 12 month contract is a no go. "Neither a borrower nor a lender be." I live by that maxim. I may not have a dime but what I have is mine.. Fire Ricotello and return Hegalson. Since he has been in charge the number of issues I have to fight against are ridiculous and have lost me major money. Some months I don't use Unity and am involved in other work. I refuse to pay 125 a month for something I am not using or working around it's glaring flaws. I am 58 and have a "flat" credit file. It has baffled some people researching me and think I must be criminal to not have anything in my credit file. I pay cash and do not borrow and haven't since I was 28 y.o. Just downloaded Unreal because Unity won't sell me for cash what I want and the bugs are atrocious since 5.x.

 

We're not raging against Unity. Unity themselves created this thread for the very feedback we're giving.

Yes, it does require human resources. Despite having more employees to draw from though they are consistently behind their main competitor. If these pricing changes are a result of having all those additional employees then perhaps they need to reevaluate the need for all of those employees as well as their priorities.

Unity has always presented the Asset Store as a way of attracting developers and their statements in the past made it clear that it only made enough to support itself. It's not a meaningful source of income for the company. If you want to support Unity then you need to buy licenses.