New products and prices coming soon

Of which a bunch are incomplete, malfunctioning or missing. Which you then need to replace with asset store items or make your own.

 

The argument is not that it devalues the engine, but the games made with it. And anyway Plus won't be free.

But this is what the CEO of Unity said about it:

https://www.theguardian.com/technol...indie-gamings-biggest-engine-john-riccitiello

I think that's very very clear.

 

Plus was not mentioned in the post I quoted. I responded to the quote.

The above applies to both games made with it and the engine. There is no proof that the games made with the splash screen are devalued and no one has provided anything but what I said above, anecdotes, YouTubers, and a forum post that actually proved that most didn't care. I can come up with an equal about of anecdotes that show the opposite. You need actually statistical data to convince Unity that games made with the splash screen hurts sales. Find some well made good games that failed because of the splash screen.

If you really believe this, and maybe it is true, then you need to actually provide Unity with a reason to remove the splash screen and lose a lot of Pro users who will downgrade to Plus.

A lot of blustering and threats are not going to help. The CEO's comments are very true, but still, not evidence. There is no proof of cause and effect here, just common sense.

 

The fact that it hurts Unity's brand doesn't necessarily mean that it hurts your game. If you make a great game with Unity people who think poorly of Unity are going to say, "Wow, even with Unity this game is pretty good." If you make a poor game with Unity people are going to blame Unity instead of putting the blame on you where it belongs.

I see why pro users are really upset though. At first, they paid $1500 because they thought they were getting a similar set of features that 4.x pro gave them. That turned out to be false. Unity issued refunds to those who happened across the news that they could get them, but it still had to feel like a kick in the balls. It's okay though. Business strategies change and I'm sure they eventually got over it. Then, they were told that they'd have access to 5.x throughout the 5.x cycle. It looks that that has been amended to be 5.(x<8) or so. It's another kick in the balls that could have been avoided by simply releasing a Unity 6 and making the changes then. Even if that meant holding back features for one more cycle. Unity has a bad habit of putting the cart before the horse. Not only in changing the pricing structure dramatically mid-release, but also in releasing most of the 5.x features in 5.0 before they were ready, in making the announcement about pricing when nobody was around to answer questions and before they even had a solid idea of what they were doing.

All of these add up to very questionable business practices. If someone sticks with Unity until they make enough to require Pro, what will the next kick in the balls to Pro users be? The likelihood of that is about as high as the likelihood of a buggy 5.4f1 release. Which is pretty high if the past is any indicator. None of these things add up to a high degree of consumer confidence. Unity can't fall back on gaming revenue like other game engine makers can if engine revenue goes down. So they should be making smarter decisions than the competition. They aren't.

 

This..is a different discussion. I absolutely agree with you. I spend way to much money on the asset store propping up missing "parts" of Unity.

 

This is pretty much what I hear from asking a bunch of gamers I know. They also say that bad games are not always Unity.

 

I agree with you that proving some public perception for or against the splash is both foolish and a waste of time, but it's far from my only argument against it. I don't want a logo on the front of my work, I want the first impression and initial loading of the game to be seamless and controlled. I consider it a matter of artistic integrity. Which is why I want to pay Unity to remove the splash, but now the ideal payment tier aimed at someone exactly like myself requires paying for an advertisement which is where it gets to be insulting.

 

I understand. However, Unity will make the best decision for their business and nothing you are I say will make a difference.

Personally, I think a $90 discount off pro but the requirement to have a combined Unity/custom splash screen is pretty good. It is not uncommon to have to advertise for discounted products.

 

So why do some users feel the need to try to discredit other's feedback to Unity just because they don't agree with it? If someone wants Plus and doesn't want the splash then this thread and the announcement thread are where they are supposed to voice it since there appears no other outlet.

Other users saying it is not an issue doesn't help anything or change anyones mind.

 

From the other point of view, it's a price increase based on what I would expect to pay upgrading my perpetual license every two years. And I have to maintain the payment. So quite the opposite of a discount from my perspective.

 

The problem here is that almost since the beginning of time Unity has depended on the asset store to fill in the holes.
Shader Editor=Shader Forge; Visual Scripting=Playmaker, etc.; AI=Behavior Designer, and the list goes on and on.
If you're gonna start charging folks premium prices at least give them build in tools like Unreal and not Level 11.

You can't come back from these pricing rigs and roll out the red carpet for free for all. Epic is moving at FTL speed.
Good luck.

 

Bingo.
Perpetual upgrade price for PRO(previously): $750

Now compare that to Plus:
$35 * 12 = $420 * 2yrs = $840 instead of the $750 upgrade perpetual. That is for Plus, not Pro, for Pro it is much much more.

So that is why people expect Plus to essentially be the same as Pro but with less Revenue cap.

 

Only if you want to keep Pro. If you go down to Plus, it is a discount. The option to keep what you had is gone.

I think that is sad. I totally sympathize with you guys on this.

 

It's not a discount if you were a desktop developer. Plus still costs more than a Pro upgrade in 3.x, 4.x, or 5.x cost.

 

No worries. I have nothing against you. Just wanted to say what was on my mind.

 

I know and if I were using Pro, I would not be happy because I only use desktop.

The pro upgrades with perpetual are gone, so comparing that to the future subscription based plan really doesn't help. They are not going back to perpetual. My guess is though, you will get a nice discount from Unity on the new subscription if you already have Pro. I would sit tight until they offer you something. Then complain if it doesn't help you.

I rarely think that anything anyone says here is personal. Saying what is on your mind is exactly what you should do.

 

I have Pro for 3.x and 4.x but I skipped 5.x so I am guessing I will not get one of these sweetheart deals. Also how is it fair to new users to have to pay more?

The whole thing just leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

 

It's not a discount. It's a different tier, a separate product or suite of products aimed at a different segment of the market. So let's not think UT is pitying us or anything

edit: new Plus is not a discount from new Pro, not from current products to new subscriptions

 

If the CEO saying that they probably should remove the splash screen for free users is not enough, here's the reason I can give: I may subscribe to Plus if they completely remove the Unity splash screen. Not much, but if there are more like me, the reasons multiply; then they can decide if the upgrades offset the downgrades. (For the record, I have a Unity 3 Pro license, and subscribed for later versions for a pair of months and canceled when they made the free version fully featured).

No no no, quite the opposite, not saying anything is what won't make any difference. We have to give our opinions and comment about it, then Unity has to decide whether listening to us is a good decision for their business. They don't have business without us, both those that like the change and those that don't. Just leaving Unity without saying a word is not good for anybody involved.

How can I find that post?

 

It's the internet. Complaining is the default behaviour

 

Oh god - come ON! If Unity is so bad then go for Unreal, for christ's sake.
Unity isn't perfect but no engine really is except if you are making exactly the game it was designed for in mind. Everything beyond that will always be an extra mile or two to reach. The fast progression of tech doesn't make this easier.

Look at how far Unity has come. Look at how it is progressing. Lokk at other products. Decide which one you want. Help out with others. Be it with bug reports, feature suggestions or helpful forum posts which detail what you want and why.

If you were working in a company and you were really proud of your work but everybody always just pointed out the flaws all the time. How would that make you feel?

Sorry but these kind of broad generalizations make me defensive as hell towards Unity. Making a great product takes time and if you just try to keep up as fast as possible without renewing tech from time to time as Unity 5 did then the breakdown will come at some point. Sure some things break along the way when tech gets renewed and some things slow down progress but despite that so many cool things have been added and improved. And Unity knows about shortcomings. And they want to change it and they are working on it.

We don't need to accept everything as users and customers and we shouldn't but so far Unity are still listening. So let's keep it that way, please and not just throw around general grundges.

Sorry that this was quoted with your post now. This goes for pretty much everybody saying similar things. My answer wasn't geared toward's you specifically even if I did quote you.

 

Unity asked us to state our opinion, we did. No splash screen.
Unity said "OK we hear you. Here you go, SEMI Custom splash screen for you".
What part of NO splash screen don't you understand?
Even though I speak Portuguese as my first language, I understand what "No splash screen" means.

Don't get fooled. Unity is trying to sneak this plus option on us.
After they get this option in, just wait for the next price change.

You (Unity) can do whatever you want with the engine... make it blue skin, red skin, splash screen etc.

I am just glad I have more options.
What am I going to do??
Use the option that hurts Unity the most, I will use the free option.

I will give my money to Cryengine from now on. At least their price option is honest.
Do I use it? No.
Am I learning how to use it? Yes.

Next Unity price change I will be ready, if not gone already.

Completely agree with @nicktringali.

Unity, please stop for a second and think!
You are selling me a product, it doesn't matter if is $5 or $35, and
still you want to have an ad in the start of my game?

At the end of the day Unity is a company, as any company, they DON'T work for love they DO work for money.

I love all you guys from this community. This is what hurts me the most to leave.

Love you all. Keep fighting.

 

By the way that was my first message ever!

 

They probably know that if they would remove splash from Plus a lot of Pro users would downgrade (not everyone hits 100k). Another thing is that also already announced Plus to also have one month subscribes so that would allow people to sub few times a year only to release updates without splash (includes possible pro downgraders). Well designed games with not many bugs can have only have few releases per year and rest of the time content updates would be done via asset bundles or custom content/mod systems.

 

If Unity would not double their license policy, i wouldn't need to go search for another engine. If Unity would listen, we wouldn't need to buy assets to replace features that are standard in other and cheaper engines. Btw, i didn't even mention Unreal, so why do you?? There are other alternatives than Unreal.

If you're fine with Unity, then so be it. I have the right to tell my opinion. I express my opinion so that Unity knows how i feel. I don't need a lecture from you. I respect your opinion and so should you respect my opinion. After all, if everyone talks good about Unity, the engine won't evolve.

I already decided which engine i wanted, before this new price policy. My engine of choice was Unity. But, if i'd need to pay double for same features, then it is in my best interest to search for a cheaper alternatif. Because i don't have the money to pay $125 a month and pay double for same engine.

 

How many of them are on par with Unity and Unreal? If you're concerned about the features offered by Unity then chances are the majority of the competition would be a downgrade for you.

 

Opinions are great! Everyone's opinion. While I use free now, the day may come when I will need to upgrade, who knows. If that happens, it will affect me too. So I do have a right to share my opinion as well.

No one is forcing anything on anybody. What Unity is doing is giving you a choice. If you don't like the choice, then you will have to look at other options.

I truly do feel for you guys that are going to feel you need to pay more to get what you had before. Price increases always feel unfair, but especially when asked to pay for features you do not need or want.

I think there are a lot of great arguments here. The splash screen is not a concern of mine but I get that it is for a lot of people. Unity really should just allow people to remove the splash screen for a set fee but...if they do that, no one has a reason to subscribe to Pro, at all.

Honestly, they shouldn't even have a Plus. Instead, they should keep the $75 desktop version per month.

 

There's Unreal, cryengine, Lumber Yard, Xenko, Godot and others i probably haven't discovered yet. The point is not only features, but price. I have a Pro license. Subscription to Plus would also be a downgrade for me, and as mentioned by others, i payed $750 to upgrade from Unity 4 to 5, yet Plus subscription costs more if you count two years of subscription (24 * 35 = 840). So, i'd have to downgrade and get even less than i had before for more money?

Cryengine is pay what you want, Lumber Yard is free, Unreal a percentage AFTER your game gets succesful. Unity Pro is $3000 for two years, regardless of your game being published/succesful or not. That is my concern.
Cryengine, Lumber Yard and Unreal are AAA game engines, have ALL the features you can think of.

 

One of the problems is that people have existing projects released and running live made with Pro so they could be "forced" to pay the new costs because changing engines is no longer possible/realistic at this point and extra splash all the sudden before all other logos and brands could be a contact breach. Usually you have to plan for these worst case scenarios but I assume many have been used to the same safe perpetual upgrade path and expected it to remain without massive cost increases.

This is also why some people hate subscription only software.

 

Features can directly correlate to price though. After all in order to achieve the same degree of functionality that is present in one of the big three engines (Unity, Unreal, CryTek) you may have to invest in third party middle-ware and/or considerable developer time.

Enlighten, for example, is an approximately five or six digit price tag. SpeedTree is four digits. That's just the costs of the licenses for them. You have to make them work with the engine too. One of the estimates given earlier was $10,000 per developer per month. One additional month could very easily cost you far more than you'd spend on Unity Pro.

 

Yeah, it is a bad situation for those that contract with clients.

For the rest of us though, one could easily work on free version until they release, which could save them a lot of money! Splash screen is not a problem if you are the only one seeing it.

 

Concurrent builds in Unity Cloud Build, better analytics, 200 concurrent users in multiplayer, 2 Asset Store project packs per quarter and 3 months of Unity Certification courseware. If you are saying that all that is of no value, and that people are paying $1,500 merely to remove a splash screen, then the situation is far worse than I thought.

But anyway remember that you also have to get Unity Pro if you earn more than $100,000 / year, so I'd say there are many reasons to subscribe to Pro unrelated to the splash screen.

 

Enlighten is already built-in in Unreal, in cryengine you get Voxel Based GI, in Lumber Yard you also have a state of the art Global Illumination system. In cryengine and Lumber Yard, you don't even need to bake the lighting. Saves a ton of time.

Without SpeedTree trees you can't do much with the SpeedTree system in Unity. And they cost also. Paying the SpeedTree editor also costs. There's a free SpeedTree pack, but not very useful if you want for example winter trees, or tropical vegetation. Then you'll also need to make your own.

Cryengine, Unreal and Lumber Yard have more features than Unity, and they work. I'm not saying those engines aren't bugfree, but at least you don't need to pay for assets to have that feature.

 

Unity's Multiplayer service is simply a matchmaking and relay service. What are the chances the platform you're deploying to won't already have a solution available? Steam, for example, gives you access to theirs for free and it doesn't have a limitation on the number of users.

By the way if you decide to host your own matchmaking and relay services that limitation no longer applies.

 

@ChrisV: You're only comparing the big three in that post (Lumberyard is CryEngine 3). You referred to other engines too like Godot and Xenko which are definitely not feature comparable to them.

Costs associated with the SpeedTree modeller don't truly count because you need it for every single engine.

 

That's not relevant, I just say what they offer for Pro.

 

It is relevant. You and @Teila were discussing the value of Unity Pro. The Multiplayer CCU aspect is not valuable.

 

So nobody has ever or will ever find it valuable?

 

I believe it is intended to be used during development, and it may work for that very well, but I don't see how it would have any value after a game is released. After all the main platforms used for multiplayer already have matchmaking and relay services for free. Besides if a multiplayer game only manages 200 CCUs how successful is it really?

By the way, if you check the official page for Multiplayer, you'll notice they don't price it according to CCUs at all.

 

I don't know if much or little, but I'd call that valuable.

 

Lumber Yard is a modified version of cryengine. They are supported by different people, and thus also have (some) different features. Lumber Yard seems more indie friendly or for developers on a small budget.

 

Yes, but it is still largely the same engine. That's why I tend to lump it in with CryEngine. Once it leaves the beta state that it is currently in I'll likely give it a more in-depth evaluation. I just don't want to waste too much time on engines that are in flux.

 

I don't know who is responsible about the pricing\marketing strategy at unity (yes, they ARE related!), but I think you really need to take a new route.

We are in 2016, if your selling point is a splash screen removal and the amazing rare feature of dark gui skin you need to just close the business for good.

How many sane humans really buying pro just for the splash screen without a profitable game (without underestimate the bad impact of the splash-screen on sales - let's be honest, it does)?
it's defintly not more than 500 people. that's 750,000$ a year which are pretty negligible for a company in unity's size.

Almost every single game engine out there is count on users success.
Unreal engine is royalty based, which by the way is not really more expensive from unity's pricing structure. for a big studio, it saves the need to buy license for every single developer\artist.
CryEngine is completely free.
Even if you look at company like Microsoft (despite not comparable in size), it's visual studio full version is relased completely free (like unity's structure) but without any foolish limitation (like splash screen). This is smart move, they just want to make the product a standard IDE so every programmer want to use it when got hired or start a venture and became profitable.

The only reason i'm still using unity is becuase there is no real alternative in mobile yet (especially in 2d games).
I really can't understand anyone here who develop a non-mobile venture and not trying out Unreal\CryEngine.

I think a better pricing is to make 2 tiers. one for Pro and one for Personal edition.
Personal edition should be with full features set, without spash-screen (or skin limit).
If unity want to extend it's paying customers (which is completely reasonable), they should just lower the free version revenue cap, e.g 50,000$ a year.
Another acceptable approach could be varied price based on earning: 1.5% from revenue which starts only after 10,000$ is gained.
that's should be implemented with a cap for 100,000$ a year (it is not royality), and 5 developer limit (or something like visual studio limit) so after 100,000$ earning, a per developer charge is emplyed (with the same pricing cost).

BTW: this was my first message here

 

[QUOTE="DED Games, post: 2674600, member: 27612"

But anyway remember that you also have to get Unity Pro if you earn more than $100,000 / year, so I'd say there are many reasons to subscribe to Pro unrelated to the splash screen.[/QUOTE]

Of course! I didn't think that had to be said. I meant all those people who have not hit the cap.

 

People like wearing tee-shirts with Ferrari or Maserati branded on them but you never see someone wearing clothing branded with Ford or Skoda. The splash screen is an image problem for me. Unreal doesn't have this problem and if i had a game using that engine I would be showing their logo up front and centre. The Unity Splash basically says to people I don't make $100k, I'm a failure, This game is likely to be simple, jerky, stuttering bug ridden mess.

The irony in all this is that the successful studios using Unity and making money producing great games in Unity don't show the unity logo so you never know what unity is really capable of. I couldn't believe Max the Brotherhood and Rust were written with Unity. Many hours spent playing both thinking how the heck did they do that in Unity.

 

Unity may as well change the splash screen to say "the following game is probably terrible", it will have the same effect.

The fact that they use that correlation as a "feature" is annoying. Almost as annoying as holding back the dark skin. (also, by the way, your editor GUI stuff are VERY outdated. will a day when we can zoom in and out in mecanim finally arrive? That multiple selections work correctly and consistently? drag and drop reordering?)

 

Did you find any well made games yet that failed because of the splash screen? I will believe it when you do. A few would be better.

 

Dunno, I never went past the splash screen to see if any of those games were actually good!...

More seriously though, probably not. But no one is suggesting that the effect is that great. (turn a game destined to be a success into a failure). That doesn't mean the splash screen has zero effect. It has the effect of what I said. If your game started and the first thing it said was "The following game is probably terrible", what kind of effect would it have?

It's almost the same as making a trailer that says "made with bandicam" or "hypercapture unregistered edition" on the top all the time. Sure, if your trailer is great it might not matter, but it looks unprofessional.

 

Really? If I saw a really impressive trailer with a bandicam stamp on it, I would think that this is a really good trailer that just happens to be made by someone who is just starting out!

You guys really judge from a little bit of logo on the page? That is sad. I have asked a lot of gamers..but it is the developers who have this mindset...and since you are probably all gamers, I think you guys are the proof. lol

You are much harder on other game developers that most gamers are, from my experience.

I give up. I still think this is "group think" but I will let you guys fight this out with Unity without anymore input. I am not proud though of developers who would judge people who are new to game development this harshly. I find it sad that indie gaming has become something it was never intended to be. Yeah, slam the bad games, but give the poor young devs a chance. One should assume things are good until they know they are bad, not the other way around.

I am glad at least Unity believes in the young struggling gamer and I have no doubt they will continue to do so.

Carry on.

 

or just stop using Unity altogether and never give them another dime, because I am NOT going to be forced into 4x what I have been paying.