New products and prices coming soon

As a desktop developer plus seems like a viable solution now. Thanks for listening!

 

In regards to the "keep the targets separate" the landscape down the road is probably going to get a lot more complex than it is today. Is GearVR Android or just VR? When Google's Daydream hits and works on IOS, Android and PC do I need 1 target license for that or 3? Why is SteamOS Daydream under desktop(Linux) when Playstation Daydream isn't? Both systems are marketed as consoles.

It's just a headache, especially when it seems that Plus will cover what most of today's Pro users want.

 

I for one am also glad that Unity listened and responded. I think the best thing they did was remove the splash screen from plus, and I totally understand why they took away the option of month-to-month on the plus subscription in exchange.

My only question that remains...I'm still stuck in the contract paying $75. I know that I'm allowed to keep paying this price until the end of the contract if I want, but what I REALLY want is to switch to the PLUS tier, as that fits my needs more. Is Unity going to let me get out of my contract to do this? I'm willing to start the 12 months again on the PLUS tier of course, but I think it would be fair that they let us downgrade in this manner.

 

Thanks for listening, Unity people.

This offer sounds much more reasonable and respectful to your loyal customers.

 

While it is a step in the right direction, the new offer is probably still not attractive enough for many perpetual licence holders.
Instead of paying $25/m for full Pro we would have to pay $35/m (+40%) for Plus now while getting far less value (reduced services, revenue cap and maybe worst of all: not owning the product) or $75/m (+200%) for similar value.
Therefore I still see several long-time customers switching to Free (if applicable) or leaving Unity for good.

At least the new Plus plan makes some sense from a business perspective now, as it will attract new customers to make up for lost ones.

I'd love to see a migration plan from perpetual licence to Plus for a reduced price...

P.S.
Hopefully the revised terms are not just a cheap excuse to leave us with a broken "March2017" release.

 

Thanks for listening Unity. Plus is now a viable alternative to the free version.

 

Look at the road map. You will see when you can change to the new plan.

 

Glad you are all (mostly) liking the changes! It's been an intense two weeks of discussion internally and we're happy that many of you find Plus a better fit now.

If you have individual migration/transition questions, we will be contacting all existing customers directly in the next weeks/months. At that point you will have the chance to speak with us about your own specific situation. I know it sucks to wait in the dark about specifics, but we have a lot of different set ups with many different people so it's all too complex and convoluted to print it all -- I hope you'll understand

@arkon We realize the exchange rate for some people may make monthly payments unreasonable (or perhaps you just prefer to budget in lump sum vs monthly). Because of this, Pro and Plus subscribers will be able to prepay for 12 months at a time. Hopefully this will lessen the impact of currency volatility.

 

Resuming:

 

Splendidly done!

 

To be honest, now it makes sense as a product. Before I just couldn't figure out what it was for. Now I'm tempted to jump on board myself, even though that's irrational - my current work is at a demo stage and thus hasn't even had a chance to work towards the cap, I don't need any of the stuff it gets me, and am not even slightly concerned that the splash will cause issues for me.

I still think that non-mobile developers who need Pro are getting the short straw here (even $200k doesn't go that far when you're running a team of professionals), but I also understand that the old model did need attention and that no solution could make everyone happy. These changes at least make it easier for new startups to transition to paid users as they build up their success and, as mentioned before, I still think that even at the new Pro price point Unity represents good value.

 

Very good! This change was very important to us!

One last thing! It would be wonderful if Unity Team add support for Paypal to pay the subscription plus the current Credit Card option.

Anyone else here also agree with the PayPal payments would be good?

 

Thanks for making Unity Plus a viable option. Is the new subscription model still planned to be available in June? I'm going to release a game soon, and just waiting for Unity Plus now. I doubt anyone would buy a pro subscription with the new model "coming soon".

 

Yes please! (and could allow paying 1-2 years in advance, if not possible already by contacting sales person and asking invoice?)

 

This may seem stupid, but I have a question.
As a free user, Plus looks very nice to me. I'm in the middle of producing my `second ` game, but am unclear if I can upgrade to Plus during this current project?
It has been said you can't mix different license? Is that true?
Any help would be great
Thanks

 

You can upgrade mid-project.

It's referring to having part of your team on one tier and part on another.

 

While I have already "kudos-ed" for the new pricing plans, I wonder if the installation terms will remain the same: With my current Pro Perpetual I can activate Unity on two machines. In my case a desktop rig plus a laptop. Will this opportunity remain unchanged with the new Plus tier?

 

Oh I see, that makes sense
Thanks for the answer,
I look forward to upgrading to Plus

 

Unity. Do you have an ETA for when we can subscribe to plus?

 

Yes, +2 for a Paypal option !

 

Those look like times you contact existing perpetual owners and subscribers, but I can't see anything about when you actually launch the subscriptions for new customers. Is that happening sometime in June, or do you want the first few percent of perpetual owners to be guinea-pigs?

 

Also something to consider:
https://feedback.unity3d.com/suggestions/remove-3-day-limit-for-license-reactivations

PE seems like the best deal here because you can have infinite installations in use. A little more automation in activation and short re-activation delays would be really great. You only use one or two at once (export to Windows store and iOS on two systems, either of them export to Android). If music software and 3D modellers can do it, why not Unity too?

 

Maybe things are not 100% perfect for everybody, but now Plus is certainly much more interesting for me, and though I'm completely broke I may subscribe. I have to release a mobile game next week, I guess Plus won't be available so soon, right?

 

UT work on Valve Time, but they have all the things in place to enable this next week, I hope.

Plus basically turns into the current Pro, gets its own subscription entry, mobile licences added and that should be it. Pro gets a price change and mobile included. All of that is just configuring things in the licensing backend.

Both can wait for the new optional splash screen that PE gets, which involves binary updates + QA and all that mess, because it can take weeks.

 

These are very good news! I'm glad that our comments were taken into consideration.
Good job Unity.

 

I have unity5 pro perpetual and what do you offer if I choose to go for Plus?

Nothing if I read this correctly:

“Transition offer for existing Unity 5 Pro perpetual license customers …

… If you make less than $200k per year, you may choose Unity Plus and pay $35 per month with an annual commitment. ”

Where is there any benefit for my existing Pro, if I would go for plus? No price reduction like perpetual who continue to go for pro subscription and have to pay 75$ instead of 125$ ?

I just could see my money I spend since Unity 3 is wasted then, if I go for plus?

Bad move, if that is true

 

What kind of benefit are you expecting when the plus is almost the same as old pro or to some even better.

(I've also been pro user since Unity 3).

 

For the record and since I have been a maelstrom of negativity recently, I feel obligated to say that I'm very happy with the new pricing.

 

If you go for pro subscription you get 40% reduction for up to two years. There is no benefit unity offers to perpetual users if they choose to go for plus. They pay the same as new plus subscribers. What are you not understanding? Unity is increasing their prices.

 

That doesn't make sense, Unity Plus itself is already a benefit since it's cheaper than Pro. The reduction for Pro users that continue on Pro is due to the price increase for some of them, you don't get a price increase with Plus, so I don't think it's reasonable to expect a price reduction.

 

I c that point, but summed up I have a bad feeling about it. I dont want to spend too much time on discussion new prices in detail, but so far unity pricing felt right out of stomach, especially after they adjusted their pricing in the past. But now, a lot is not right to me anymore. In the keynote John Riccitiello said a few things about unity tripple a engine bla bla. I see there is less and less space for small indies there. How many games the community produces really need all this costy tripple a stuff ... No more updates for existing 5 pro users after march 2017? You are sure at unity you will leave us with a working lightning solution?

 

Yeah that is what I meant, the plus cost is around the same as perpetual with upgrade every 2 years.

 

I look at it like this: Plus is the upgrade from current Pro when your perpetual licence no longer receives anymore updates. You can keep using your perpetual Pro until it becomes too painful, at which point subscribing to Plus for $420 per year (close enough to the old upgrade price every other year) gives you double the income cap and newer updates.

 

A lot cheaper even, if you develop for more than PC.

 

When can I buy Plus ? Also is it backward compatible with unity 4?

 

Is there a link anywhere comparing feature list of Plus vs Pro?

 

If you mean engine wise, they are the same.

 

I signed up to PayPal to buy Unity iOS Indie a few years ago. The reason was to avoid the fees for using a different currency to my bank account (British Pounds).

There were several posts over the years on these forums from people who got their PayPal account locked when buying Pro because the transaction value was far outside the norm. I can understand if Unity dropped PayPal support because of those issues. I would not have considered PayPal for buying a perpetual licence.

However, subscription fees are in the normal transaction value range for most accounts, so it should not be a problem. So I do hope the PayPal payment option returns, it is the option I would probably choose.

It would also be good if it was possible to pay the subscription fee in many more currencies when using a card.

 

Not really. New plus subscribers dont have the initial $ 1500,- to pay we had to pay before. And you also don´t own Plus after a while. So, it is not true that this is the same good deal as before.

 

Any kinda ballpark you can give us? Are we talking days? weeks? months?

 

I agree that plus is actually reasonable now, kudos to UT on that, but it's not cheaper if you're a current desktop-only perpetual user. Besides that, the big kicker is that you can't "own" a plus license. The higher price, revenue cap, downgrade of services, and inability to stop paying and settle at a specific version more than outweigh the benefit of gaining IOS and Android support, especially for those who don't need it.

Don't get me wrong. Unlike the old changes I can swallow these, albeit begrudgingly, but I'm not happy about getting less for more money just because UT's initial offer was so frightening.

A good olive branch to perpetual owners would be something like this: If you have purchased a pro license any time in the past, you can pay-to-own a plus license.

 

I am wondering... I am 5X perpetual user. In March 2017 my updates will finish, then can I use the free version on my old projects for a while (the ones previously made with Pro) with the new splash screen until I decide that I need the Plus package?

 

How did you reach that conclusion? 35 seems cheaper than 75 to me. Both have a 12 month commitment ($420 vs $900). Current desktop was 75, and then +75 for iOS and +75 for Android (225 total), which is now reduced to 125. So Pro is certainly more expensive for desktop-only users than it was before, but Plus isn't.

 

Jason,

For desktop perpetual owners, we were paying $750 to upgrade to the newest version of Unity every ~3yrs or so. Compare that with $35/month over the same period.

 

Except that Unity planned on 2 years but was late getting out the releases. So while you did get an extra year, the initial offering was two years. The Unity 5 perpetual license was set to expire in 2 years. So really, you are paying only a wee bit more, about $90, for two years of Plus.

I don't know about you, but my new cars always seem to cost more than my old ones.

 

Ah, perpetual. I wasn't paying enough attention clearly . As someone who was entirely a subscription user, I can't comment on that.

 

Sorry, no. A 40% increase is not a "good deal" for desktop-only developers, especially not considering the premature nightmare called 5.x. We've been getting less than we paid for – and now you want to charge us 40% more regardless?

Sorry, Unity, no. It's not as insane as 400% for desktop perpetuals, but it's not "a good deal".