New products and prices coming soon

You can zoom into the image showing the overview of the different pricing tiers: http://blogs.unity3d.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Pasted-image-at-2016_05_27-02_47-PM.png

 

I guess this is why unity got us to fill out how much were making with out games..

The fact is and what unity has to remember, those who have enough money though ether there day job or by actually selling there game, will buy unity pro right off without the need to sub.

That leaves the rest of us, who dont have a lot of money to spash out one big cost, but also arent selling out game or not enough of it to make that money, the games industry is no diferent to selling music you own, it gets losts with the thosands of other games out there, to make money you have to be lucky, or have money to publish your game so people hear about it.

We all hate the splash screen of course because it makes your product look amature and thats not the image you want to leave people who may or may not buy your game.

So unity needs to make a plan so that it dosent cost them half there pay check to get what they want, me i would not pay for a sub and definatly not pay to buy if it means i end up baying 3 times the price, my only option is to stick with free, do a good product, look amature with the spalsh and hope it makes enough cash so i can buy unity pro, so far ive seen no packages that unity has offerd to change my mind.

 

Sorry to be harsh, but if the main selling points of unity are now the dark skin and the splash screen we have a problem. Seriously Unity what's happening? Since V5 it's a mess everywhere.

 

Is this business decision carved into stone?

 

I think this might be the perfect time to get acquainted with Unreal 4.

Here are some general tutorials for beginners: https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Videos/

 

Being a one-man "studio" with exactly one dev to worry about licensing for, I'd trade those flexible seats for a customisable splash screen. Moveable licences really seem like a Pro feature anyway.

 

Nobody cares about the frigging dark skin. It has absolutely no effect on your games image. Splash screen does. Once you are paying for the engine, you are expecting to make money off it, making it commercial and a business. The splash screen is the distinguishing symbol between hobbyist and a professional. You can't put the distinguishing hobbyist symbol in a product designed to be commercial.

 

Ok... 35$ / month for

- dark skin

Sorry, but the other features are totally bullshit and is EXACTLY NOT what a indie dev needs...

seat management... what the F*** ???

Give us the custom splash screen, and we are fine... otherwise, someone else gets my money!

 

Basically a whole lot of nothing..

 

What actually happens with our perpetual licenses? I paid for the life cycle of 5.X when I bought my license. Why does my support for the engine stop in March 2017? Is this when Unity plan to release Unity 6?

 

Yeah I was more interested in the (?) icons that show detailed info on hover. Now we can only assume what the generic titles hold inside...

 

Your perpetual license will still be getting updates until March 2017, and after that you will be contacted with an offer to switch to the new subscription (which includes the add-ons.)

 

Exactly - Dark Skin = no impact on final product..this should have been free feature from day one..
Its something 0.79 dollar apps use to make a few buck..

 

Yes, that is what it says in the FAQ. Sadly it doesn't answer my questions. Why will my perpetual license stop getting updates? This sounds like subscription customers will get updates for Unity 5 after that date. Is this correct?

 

Unity Technologies will provide product updates, bug fixes, and support for Unity 5.x Professional Edition for a period of 24 months from the release date of Unity 5.0, until March 3, 2017.

(See reference: https://unity3d.com/unity/faq/2497)

 

Oh, gotcha. The landing page with the pricing overview has not been published yet (still being worked on) but will be providing those details once it's launched.

 

Thank you for removing the Personal Edition wording.

None of what Unity Plus offers appeals to me, and it seems many others. I think you would have many new customers if it removed the splash screen. I suspect you will have very few as it is.

 

Right so Unity gives an all-in-one licensing option because people didn't like being charged multiple times per platform - this gives complete freedom. Unity personal stays free and plus is improved? I think that's fair.

As for anyone still upset with splash, well Unity has to make cash somehow, in some way. They think it's valuable. It probably is. People should actually be paying for something, somehow. People want it all for free, and that's just silly, be honest. There's no royalties and that is the single best thing ever - people who do finally make money will realise what a horror royalties really are.

I don't think it's bad at all for people. It's not a regression so why pitchforks?

Oh wait! I'm using reason and logic... and that's not allowed!

 

Yes, that's correct.

 

We all know that software is an evolving product and in order to fund its development it needs to have a revenue source. Unity feels the subscription service is best for that. The perpetual license always had problems of splitting the user base on version and having Unity arbitrarily jump major versions. A subscription allows everyone to be running the latest version. A fractured user base is awful (as Microsoft can tell you). It's harder to support, it's harder to maintain an ecosystem, it's harder for users to sift through things that don't apply to their version. Unfortunately, I feel they have made their subscription pricing is less effective compared to UE4 or Adobe CC.

Including all of their revenue platforms together in a single license they needed to offset some lost revenue so they bumped to cost up. However, that cost range bump pushed it out of the range of devs that Unity has focused as their target market, the 1-10 developer houses. So they wanted to include an "indie pro" tier. However, that plus tier is ill-conceived because the primary reason that people pay for pro is the removal of the splash screen so that they can have a more professional product representation.

The second problem with the subscription model is the pace at which Unity is developing features and fixing bugs is too slow. They decided to focus on stability, but that makes the appeared value of this even worse. The feature advancement has slowed and when you look at a UE4 quarterly releases you realize just how fast they're improving their engine. For example, Unity announces their cutscene engine 2 years ago at Unite 2014. However, UE4 has beaten them to the punch and the Unity version is still not released. This is similar for many features on Unity's roadmap. Such as the 2D engine updates, inherited prefabs, better lifecycle events, input system, etc. It makes the appeared value to be paying a subscription to be much less.

In regards to its competition, I think that having engine source code, unlimited seats, better brand name, unlimited updates, for a 5% revenue share is a better deal for most developers. Especially, for larger developers who can improve the brand of the engine. Seems like Unity has painted themselves into a corner.

For example, let's take a theoretical developer of 8 engine users (designers, artists, programmers). It takes them 2 years to develop and 1 year of post-release patches/content. In order for Unity to be a better deal than UE4's 5% revenue they'd have to sell more than $720K in revenue which is a fairly large success. I'm sure Unity has run the numbers on this, but for most devs this does not sound like a good deal to me. It still might be OK for the 1-4 devs, but anything more the value evaporates quickly.

 

Well this is bad and looks like the cost of supporting Unity is going to at least double for myself.

None of the subscription models fit me, where as the perpetual license was pretty much perfect. I can't understand how Unity can have got this so wrong when it has been discussed many times in the past with the various issues and flaws with moving to subscription 'only' - yeah sure there is apparently going to be pay-to-own, but with no details available when they announce this new subscription payment plans i'm going to bet its an even worse deal.

Having paid for Pro for almost 6 years now, even though for some of that I didn't technically need to this feels like a real kick in the teeth. I'm most definitely going to be considerably worse off with this new pricing model as I mostly produce standalones for clients, but with the occasional ( 0 - 2) mobile projects a year. Whilst I could get away with the MWU ( Made With Unity) for standalones as they are one off kiosks, that wont fly for mobile.

So I feel like i'm stuck between Plus & Pro with no middle ground. I feel i'm going to be forced into Pro, easily doubling my current costs for ... ever ( well for as long as I use Unity). Previously with the Perpetual license I could get the Pro add-ons when and if required, now they'll be included but might not even need them! So where as I used to have control over the cost of Unity, now that is being taken away.

I really dislike subscription based plans anyway I would far prefer to keep perpetual licenses, but if I had to have a subscription then it needed to be in-between Plus and Pro. It needed to cost no more than $65 p.m ( approx same cost of perpetual license updates for standalone, iOS and Android over two years), have standalone and mobile included, no MWU, and a one month cancellation after subscribing for a year.

Actually it could have cost a little more than $65 as I understand UT needs to generate income, but my goodwill that would have existed for that has been destroyed by this new plan, especially after Unity claimed they we're listening to users, as this plan doesn't seem to match with anything I've heard in the forums from users talking about this.

Hugely disappointed. There were so many better ways and fairing pricing to do this.

 

Will you still be offering the possibility to purchase new perpetual license purchased for Unity 5 (or other versions in the future) and is the price going to stay the same?

If the possibility is removed, when is the deadline to purchase a perpetual license? This is very critical information for us and I can't get anyone answer in customer support.

 

yeah i hear you Hippo but what about customers that only want to make games for desktop?
are they charged the same or more?

 

Unity pro could have been free, and pay only for services.

Would have been my preference, now you pay for things you don't necessary use.

Let's just say that unity is giving us the same "options" adobe gave us.

http://www.cnet.com/news/dislike-adobes-creative-cloud-subscriptions-tough-beans/

 

Dude.

Some people just want to pay for the licenses like before. People aren't asking for anything for free.

That isn't illogical or irrational. I understand you moderate here and have to keep up appearances, but there's no reason to be insulting when customers don't like the new product scheme.

 

They are charged more and I hear you too. I guess the problem here is that the $35 plan. I guess what will happen is that people will vote with their wallets and Unity being the democratic company it is, will decide if it should change or not. This change today, it's the result of careful analysis and possibly polling the company what it thinks.

What is it about the $35 plan that has people not happy?

btw - wasn't aiming to insult. Every change this company makes results in a lot of hate and I don't understand why. It's still easily worth it. I guess the removal of perpetual only is a cause of concern and I have the same concern, but I estimate (I don't work for Unity btw) that it would cost $3000 to purchase perpetual with all licenses included. They mentioned some sort of plan where you can be perpetual though at the end of a sub - any more details on that?

 

Possibly the most wanted paid for feature, that is not included, in the paid for version.
>_<
Yes, the splash screen, everyones going crazy for it.
The price step from plus to pro to get that splash screen customisation is a huge jump.
Majority of the features in the Plus $35 package are not needed by the majority of us, where as, if the splash screen feature was in that package, we'd get it, whether we use those other bonus features or not.

 

Off-topic, but do you work for Unity? you always seem to reply as a Unity spoke person, maybe its just because you been moderator on forums to long, just my assumption.

Claims you have made in the post:
1)Unity is a democratic company
2)Unity careful analysis and possible polling

Your proof?

Usually people who make these decisions have no real background in actually making games, but are top of the company food chain, as with any company, the aim is to every year make more money, make more profit, and they have probably done some figures on this, that doing subscription only will guarantee Unity a small price increase and in tern higher profit in few years to come..

You need to stop thinking like a Developer for a few minutes and see this from a non developer point of view.

 

I don't like where this is heading.
I never thought I would of said this, but I think I might move out of Unity for my next project.
Thanks for the good years.

PS: If you came to Unity after Flash's death or you are here mainly for doing web games, might be a good time to look into Phaser.

 

For many it is a regression though on many different fronts.

For example you had Unity, iOS and Android Pro - perpetual license update $2225 ( @ $750 per add-on) every two years but now with subscription that is $1500 * 2 = $3000 !

For example you either only or predominately create standalones, you use to pay $750 per update every two years, now its $3000!

Not everyone demanded having all the licenses together. I know personally having them split greatly helped reduce my costs over the years i've been developing with and paying for Unity Pro.

As for Unity Plus, I really don't see who its aimed at. Honestly if it weren't for the occasional mobile project i'd be very tempted to ditch Pro and jump to free instead. Makes no difference for my kiosk work as you'll never see the MWU splash screen.

 

I can't demand anything from Unity. I've been a user since version 1.5 and have been active on the forums since 2008 (albeit on an older profile). I will always support them, but ultimately it's their product and they can do what they want.

However, I gotta say that owning a license outright is much better for me. I understand subscription services are the way software is going in the industry, but paying more and then being forced to rush out my game before it runs out kinda sucks.

I'm a part time developer, and sometimes my life can't revolve around the timeframe a subscription will demand. I have a Pro license, but hearing that I have to subscribe from here on out is disappointing. I was actually planning to upgrade my legacy Pro license this year. I might have to reconsider now, because I simply can't afford $125 a month compared to $750 outright :/

 

Yeh as someone else said above, the things in Unity plus are not tempting enough for Free users to get it, and the Pro price is too huge, where as, if the splash screen feature was in there, it would be.
If they are still doing their market research they need to quickly address this, as it could be the difference between many people sticking to Unity Free (or leaving), or Subscribing to Plus (and staying).

 

I'm the same - but in my case I'll pretty much do anything I can to avoid royalties. It's not so much the royalty price but the price it places on me. I'd have to constantly account for each sale, log it, and report it plus payment and run it through my accountant every quarter. Royalties would be the straw... soaks up too much time. I'd need to invest in some sort of automatic system to get it all accounted for. What a pain.

Does Unity have any more details about how long it takes for sub to be converted to perpetual?

 

I don't think anyone will buy the Plus Licence with no splash screen customisation and it may just confuse users - I would forget this!

 

The good:
People used to pay $4500 initially to get all mobile platforms, then half that to upgrade. Now it's $3000 over the same period, if they continue the two-year major version plan.

Plus simply says "Made with Unity" instead of "Made with Unity Personal Edition". Yay for small victories, right?

The bad:
Unity Plus is basically worthless. Seemingly Pro-features in a product clearly targeted at indies, particularly individuals, but still with a splash screen. The only bone is the dark skin, but that whole thing was silly anyway.

People who only develop desktop games are still paying $1500/year, like the ones using all the extra engines, if they want the splash-free, pro-looking builds.

The uncertain:
Not sure what the free splash will say.

What are those extra optimisations? Will we be able to strip the binaries to the bone, removing any semblance of depth from a 2D game?

Employees have posted on the blog that there WILL be a perpetual option. I will reserve an outpour of hatred until more clarification is available

It's still a nice engine, but the Pro edition is a moving goalpost to many.

 

I love it great Idea

 

This doubles my cost. I have unity pro + iOS pro since 3.x series (perhaps the iOS add on was called something else way back then). ~ $1200 - 1500 to upgrade both roughly every two years. The subscription scheme seems to roughly double that. Are you trying to increase revenues to go public or what? I'm a singleton dev and find this new scheme appalling. One hopes you have a better way to feel with long-term pro subscribers - and that info should have been available when this new subscription info was released. Bad marketing department, bad marketing department.

 

• I would make the dark skin in the free version, its a silly feature to put in pro.
• Splash screen removed in the plus.
• And for pro, the source code.

 

But your logic is flawed. People are saying they would give Unity cash if Unity Plus included the removal of the splash screen. Cash that they will not be getting with the current offering.

It is the opposite of "People want it all for free" and they are saying "People should actually be paying for something, somehow".

 

You've said this before and I was confused as to why the so much effort part?
why do you have to log every transaction?
at the end of the quarter period you get your accountant to simply apply a percentage or you could just do it yourself.
is that so complicated and time consuming?
have you tried this before?

 

You will have to realize Unity is catering on mobile devs and not much on the PC standalone folks. None of the plus or pro are actually benefiting the standalone crowd. We are only starting to get "next-gen" features such as temporar AA and other high quality image effects which should have been there since Unity 5. Something the competiting engines have been focusing from the beginning.

 

Nope, with the current info the costs will be at least doubled. It was around ~1300 EUR or so for all platforms perpetual upgrade and that covers two years or more. Not it will be the like ~1300 for every year with subscription.

Most assumptions in the previously locked perpetual license threads seemed to be right or close...

 

I'm not him, but I have read up on how royalties are typically handled. It's a MASSIVE amount of paperwork not just for the people who need to pay royalties, but also to the recipients. Different countries have different laws which complicate matters more. Royalties are not a fun option, and the big companies are generally agreeing these days (at least UT and Epic).

 

Yes once, it was horrific, having to account for the prices before the actual revenue ie the sales price itself before store cut. This means if the product goes on sale, or even is free, you have to account for that not the unit revenue. So it may have shipped 5000 copies but the store charged one thing and you got another. I don't know what Unity's concept of it would be but if it was just a royalty on whatever earned it would be much easier, yes!

True but mobile users are still the most numerous AFAIK...

 

Ronja clarified the splash for Free on the blog - it's the same as Plus, so that's at least OK.

 

We updated the FAQ with the time periods for pay-to-own:

Existing perpetual customers will be able to purchase either a 24- or 36 month prepaid subscription to Pro that allows them to keep the software as a perpetual version at the end of their commitment period. The 36 month prepaid pay to own option will be available to new customers as well.

http://unity3d.com/unity/faq/4520

 

hmm I need to do some research on this, I always thought it was simple.

 

That's good news. And the price?

 

Good news about the pay to own option!! Thanks

So perpetual stays but is renamed to pay to own.

And the price has changed, so if it would have been worded like that people would have understood it easier.

 

good points.. food for thought