New products and prices coming soon

This is what I'm still curious about.

With a perpetual license, you still get updates until the next X.0.0 release. But when the 24 months run out on the "pay to own" license, do I get cut off from future updates even for that X.0.0 release? That would greatly accelerate how fast the mobile licenses become obsolete.

 

I don't believe that's the case for 5.x, the license only states support until June 2017 (or something like that). That doesn't necessarily mean that they will stop supporting it after that, but it does mean they're not obligated to provide support after that under that license.

 

I think that's a relatively recent addition to the license page (to warn new buyers and indicate when Unity 5 abandonment is planned). I don't think they had nailed down that date when I upgraded to 5 at launch.

 

Yeah, I can't believe they'll stick to some literal interpretation of the March 2017 cutoff. I'm assuming that any updates to 5 apply to any 5.x perpetual license, not some bizarro "no 5.x updates for perpetual licenses but Unity 5 subscribers get them".

That said, Unity Technologies: Please offer something for the desktop-only crowd or another tier that doesn't include any of the Unity services for a more reasonable fee. As it stands now(depends what the personalized offer turns out to be), I'll be changing from a ~$600 every 2 years customer to a $0 customer.

 

Okay, my $0.02...

I hate subscriptions. Hate them. I also hate the splash screen...but I can live with it if I must. I have had Unity Pro since Unity 1... but in U5 I decided not to go for pro simply because I looked at what Personal had to offer and what Pro had to offer and the only thing Pro had that I wanted was the dark skin and $75 p/m just for the dark skin... Sorry... Pro user for Unity 1 through 4 then went Personal. Even paying $750 just to get the dark skin.... seriously? Not an option.

Now there is the $35 option and it includes the dark skin and 50CCU instead of 20. Nice. Umm... nothing else. Darn. I was almost tempted to get it. Get rid of the splash and I might be tempted again. Everything else is useless. $35 per month to get 4 randomly picked products free every 3 months? What if I already own those assets? What value is that to me? Level11 hasn't had anything good for ages so what if they give me 10 2D pictures of faces to use as avatars in my game ... what use is that if I don't have a character to go with the avatars? Pixel art? I've never been interested in pixelated games.

So really, what do I get for $35? Dark skin and extra CCU but if I host my own masterserver then I get unlimited CCU for free. So $35 p/month for the dark skin... and being a single developer I get to easily decide which one of me gets to use Unity. 3 thumbs up for that option... not.

Then I read that I could subscribe and own Unity at the end of my subscription. Sold. I am onboard. That is the one feature I asked for all this time! Let me pay for the rest of my life and own nothing and I am not interested. Let me pay for the rest of my life but at least I own something every X months, now we are talking!

So I am sold... Subscription, here I come... Can't believe I am actually sold on a subscription... Amazing. The only company ever to get me interested in a subscription was Allegorithmic with their subscribe to own plan... Hell I don't even subscribe to the newspaper. Never did. Subscriptions suck... until now.

But wait... what is this I hear about having to pay $3000 via subscription to own a product that then no longer gets support and I need to subscribe again to get further updates until I own the next version (at what ever the cost will be 2 years from now)? $35 for 36 months and I own the product I can now buy for $750, that I am willing to go for... but paying $3000 for it and then owning Unity 5 only to hear "Yeah, we stopped providing updates to U5 in March 2017 so now that you own U5, please take note that we stopped providing you with updates 22 months ago already so the version you have now is the version you get to keep". Please enter your credit card details here...

Ummm... Hello Personal Edition...

 

If I take out the subscribe to own option and during the 36 months U6 is released, that means I get U6 (which I currently have) or U5 (which I signed up for to own) ?

 

Also, another thing I don't get... unless you have just announced that U6 will be released in March 2017, you are still going to be releasing updates of U5 to subscribers so if you have already done the work in updating U5 why only let some people download the updates? Why say "You only paid full price, updates are denied to you".

If the update is done and available to download why not let everyone download the updates? Unless U6 is released by March 2017 I say to everyone that all your complaints pale in comparison to this single point right here. This is the ultimate middle finger in the face to those who bought a perpetual license.

"Look at this nice update. Don't you think it's cool? Don't you want it? Tough. Only other U5 users can get it. You can go suck on a lemon and like it...or enter your credit card details here"

 

Yes, it's relatively recent for the license page (it's still been there for I think at least a couple of months, there's threads asking for clarification on it), but from the official comments on the blog (and maybe earlier in here) it's "always" been there somewhere. So putting it up front on the purchase page is about communicating it clearly rather than changing anything.

 

I read earlier in this thread that people are threatening to go switch to Unreal. Me, personally, I am invested in Unity and don't think I'll ever leave it for another engine. The only question is pro or not pro... what price am I comfortable with for what they offer...

...but for those of you who really want to jump ship, remember, Unity gave you C# experience and Unreal uses C++ so unless you intend to make games by connecting lines to dots for the rest of your life you are gonna have a steep learning curve in front of you. CryEngine, on the other hand works with C# also nowadays and is also 100% royalty free.

Don't CryEngine and Unreal both require you to show their logos at the start of your game? I could have sworn that even AAA games like Mortal Kombat still shows the Unreal logo at the start of it. Am I wrong? Unity's pricing may not match what you get for it so the price to feature correlation may need some work but at the end of the day I love having a custom splash screen but I can definitely live with it. Advertising Unity instead of advertising Unreal or CryEngine... what's the difference?

So I say unity Personal is STILL a great engine to use and don't think I'll jump ship because of this new structure but if I could make a wishlist of features I would like to see shuffled around it would be this:
1. Just delete the horrible default skin altogether and just give everyone the dark skin in all versions of Unity. This distinction is ridiculous.
2. Remove the splash screen for $35 p/m
3. Forget the user management at $35 p/m and make that a pro feature
4. Up the 50CCU to 100 or 200 at $35 p/m
5. Give us all 1 free asset per month or scrap the free stuff altogether
6. Make the study material a separate product only. Having to pay $35 EVERY month to get ONE month's access? It just feel wrong.

So yeah, that is my wishlist. I've read numerous time now that Unity is monitoring this thread. With that being the case, please take note of those items.

Thanks

 

I saw that earlier and wondered the same thing. I sure hope we are wrong about that graph.

 

eh, i don't honestly see why indie devs like myself are annoyed of the Unity Splash screen. I personally don't care. I'm actually somewhat proud knowing that my game(s) are being built on top of Unity.

What I am annoyed of is how expensive it is to get rid of it. $125 to remove a simple splash screen is absurd. I personally think that Unity should create a "modifiable" Logo Splash screen. that can allow us to include our own logo and Unity's logo together.

 

Agree. Nice suggestion.

 

The difference is I'd be proud to let people know my game was running unreal. Unity ? Not so much. Doesn't give the best first impression. There is just too much garbage out there branded as Unity. I don't need my players to be predisposed to expecting a crap game before they even play it.

 

So, the Devil is in trouble with Hell...

 

i've hoped for indie license since many years, but this current offering doesn't really make much sense..

- Flexible seat management, how it will help some random indie? since you can install unity free to as many pc's as you want anyways..?

- 1 month courseware access, but still pay same monthly price forever?
*Is this basically transforming free Learn-section behind pay-to-access tutorials?
(Which is not a bad idea, but if i'm paying monthly subscription, i'd expect access to it as long as I keep paying.
You could limit the access like digital tutors, plus members don't get project files, pro members do or something similar)

- Asset Store Project packs, i'd rather have free credits pack or discount included to the subscription and choose what to buy, as level11 selection was pretty much unusable for most things after few months..

Other "easy" suggestions to add real value for Plus:
- Add Alpha/Preview build access to pro and plus
- Add Unity demos access to plus/pro (still waiting for butterfly project btw.)
- Small % discount when purchasing from asset store
- Access to the courseware (if its basically paid tutorials)
- [Plus] Forum badge and access to pro+plus only forum (if exists) ?
- No splash screen delay on development builds (or it feels like the splash has some time.sleep(3) on it ? : )

 

Questions:

It's $125 with one year commitment. Does Unity also commit to that price for the one year that the contract is in effect? Or can they change it mid-contract?

Pay to own (which we don't have a lot of details yet), is it in monthly payments? Is there an option to pay upfront?

 

I'm not liking what I am seeing at all...
Unity is changing... and not in a good way.

Edit: Just to better express,
I love the unity engine and have been using it for years. but it worries me.
I understand this is a business decision and is probably what is best for UT business.
Scary to think what unity's future decisions might be.

None of the features are even worth it.
Dark skin and remove splash screen? Thats all you get?

 

I try time ago, It takes you 1yr and half depend on how big it is. Plus there is a different small asset store. The problem is that at that point you reilase Unity is much better overall for a lot of reasons. Just try to import a car in UE and make it run. And is much expensive...

Unity is a spirit. If we can pay we pay. If we can't pay, then we can work with it until we can pay. Pay means supporting the team and this community.

I call for Unity!

 

Well, I've been waiting to be able to bake proper lightmaps in Unity 5 for over a year now, so a year and half doesn't sound that bad actually.

And I don't rely on the asset store too much, so it's all good.

 

Nothing is wrong here.

 

Hi Sara, The MWU splash screen is not so attractive as the latest Unity logo video. Can you pleas ask to change the splash to a MWU video and give the option to choose MWU video or MWU splash screen ?
I'm a Pro user but I wish to have a better Unity branding logo intro in my game as sexy as unreal do or better. Please!

Also one question: What is the technical or economic reason for not selling traditional perpetual license any more?

Thanks!

 

To be honest, more puzzling to me is the cliffhanger of an announcement. We're replacing the old perpetual license - tune in next time to find out how!

I mean... why leave us hanging like that?

 

Actually, I think it's not that big of a mystery.

So perpetual costs 4500$/3000$

The only question is what the "upgrade" pricing will be. If there's going to be upgrade pricing.

 

What is Unity Certification Courseware going to mean for Unity Learn? We have not had a new Live Training session since February. How much is the Unity Certification Courseware going to cost?

I'm happy that the "personal edition" has been removed from the splash screen but the increased pro fees make it less likely that I am going to re-subscribe to the pro edition any time soon.

 

Has anyone even thought a little farther ahead...? There is another problem that I can see...

You take the Subscribe to own route, pay for 36 months and then you own the then current version of Unity. Does it also mean that now you no longer qualify for updates any longer unless you continue to pay again?

Is this a "Subscribe to own the version we are on when you make your last payment" plan and then you are a free agent and must take up one of the normal subscription plans for the remainder of your life to keep getting updates or is this is a case of "Subscribe to own the version we are on when you make your last payment then start a new subscribe to own subscription to own the next version we are on when you make your next last payment"?

How does "Subscribe to own" affect you after you've made your last payment? Are you cut off just like the people who bought perpetual licenses who are not allowed to download updates any more? ...or if you take a subscribe to own plan and at the end of it you own the U5 or U6 or U7 version and still get all the updates for that version?

 

I think archwiz and consoultants are really screwed here. They make a pittance in comparison to games and still have to pay for pro with all its useless features. Because of company general revenue and the splash screens. There are other quality free alternatives, that I won't mention out of fear that my comment will get deleted again.

I was sticking with Unity because off the web player. Now that WebGl is almost here "other" engines are more on an equal footing.

I don't like the idea of free software, because of support reasons, but paying multiples of hundreds of dollars for a small team every month is becoming too much to bear.

Me and many like me will choose the free option, but some of us would like to pay to be supported.

 

lol... I wonder if Unity said "No more Personal editions. No more perpetual licenses. All features included into one product. No splash, dark screen, full everything. Only option is subscription, mix and match your build platforms, no free platforms at all, $10 each. The end." how would people react to that?

Download via the Download Assistant. Can only download the modules you paid for.

Oh heaven help us if they do! I like the new Unity Personal edition!

Of course, if they were to do that as a 4th option... well...

 

Yes, that is the reason I pass to Unity and in Unity if you are making 3k you can start thinking in a pay option. I agree with you also in the dark side. Because is not profesional to work in a white video environment. Is pain and heavy for the eye also for hobbys customers.

But I do not agree with you with the logo. Is not a Ferrari red hours and I whant a Ferrari feeling. The problem is the splash logo is not appealing. I think with a nicer well done intro Unity splash video the Unity feeling will improve and is needed... people will pay for that! Sponsored by Unity but there also must be an improvement (in branding) that way too.

I assume that from march 2017 is end of U5 and Unity 6 is for what I'm paying for. I will upgrade and pick a 36 month plan.

 

agreed.... 100%

 

I disagree about the splash, our company study's reviews like its going out of style for mobile and Steam... We have seen many people go , not another Unity personal game, I won't buy...We have seen this happen alot. Our company owns Pro, but I know many do not.. We used to use Free, and we made way less money.... Because of so many game where made sub par with Unity and with Unity Free, this is what gamers have the opinion of....

We have seen this happen alot...Why not charge a one time fee to have a custom Splash??? Many people would buy it.. Like an asset or something, I bet it sells.. Or atleast make it look better , this has been complained about by many users... Even though I think this benefits me, being a mobile developer, I like the over all price it is cheaper for people like me.. But i'm not an unfair person so I see why the desk top only developers are upset.... The price is way to much..Why not keep it at 75, and limit them from using mobile?? So its like your selling a deal, if you want both, give people better options..Otherwise Unity will lose people.

I know they have already, more and more people I know have moved to other engines, due to bugs, and stuff like this... So keep it up, and you will lose more people... Again i'm happy with most of the changes, but I see others are not and I see why... Free and Plus are a waste.... makes no sense...I bet hardly anyone would use it...


Being a small indie company and free lancer, if it wasn't for the asset store I would of left a long time ago, I use other engines, but Unity and Unreal are my favorite. It is great to get indies going, with low cost, that is one thing that helps get us going and stay in business. Other is the asset store helps so we do not have to hire a ton of people... Also the asset store has some awesome tools, and we can make our own awesome tools..Something I like over other engines. Plus I like C#..

 

When I read multiplattform I only understand something like PC + Mobile (iOS/Android).
What about folks, like myself and our small studio, which have no interest in mobile but develop for PC + consoles
(PS Vita, PS4, XOne, WiiU).

How to handle that? Which Unity version to buy/subscribe to to work for all necessary console plattforms and PC or will that still be handled through the platformholder like SONY/Microsoft/Nintendo?

On top of that most of the Unity Services like Analytics or Cloud Builds don't work with consoles, so no real value there for 125$/month regarding the services.

Unity claims to democratize game develeopment and it's kind of there slogan.
Why not sticking to it? Why not let people choose what they want?

Why not making a flexible model where people have all engine features, but choose services they want to use for a specific amount of cash, which is subscription based, but really flexible, which can be updated every month.
When buying/subsribing to Unity you'll have a big list of the services you want to utilize, like

- Unity Ads [2$]
- Unity Analitics [2$]
- Unity Multiplayer [2$]
- and so on

Maybe same can be applied to specific "features" like the removal of the Splashscreen.

 

depends, how much work he does, I have done work for AAA, and own pro sure, but I didn't for years, because some of the larger companies don't have work all the time full time. So really depends how much work he gets from them..and how much they are paying..Also matters where he lives and his life style..

I have to pay 90% of my earnings to medical , I won't get into that. But my point is we don't know what everyone's earnings are and life... So I wouldn't be so quick to judge
/cheers.

 

Lets assume that someone uses Unity personal and makes over $100k so they have to buy a subscription and that they don't make any additional games or revenue. For how long will they be required to pay for the subscription? This licensing scheme pressures individuals and small businesses to keep performing, keep raising revenue in order to maintain their level of service of the product or lose it (whereas having the perpetual license someone knows that once they save enough to buy the perpetual license they can rest easy knowing that they will always have that license).

 

Agree with that and everything else in your post.

Seems like UT vision is to become a services company, with Unity engine becoming the main consumer of these services. The problem is that their services are yet to catch up with their vision, and yet their pricing model acts as if they already did.

The services on offer are simply not worth the asking price at the moment, at least not in my case. I already have my pipeline set up with custom tooling and other services, and I'm just a part time freelancer. I imagine others are mostly in the same boat.

So, until the services catch up with the vision, the only service they have that is worth the subscription fees is Custom Splash Screen As a Service.

 

For as long as their Unity-derived income is in excess of $100k, just like I'm pretty sure the license says?

 

Dark theme MUST be in every plan. It shouldn't be a pro feature, because working with dark skins it's not a "pro" feature, its a HEALTHY feature. I cannot work with lighter applications for a long time, my eyes suffer a lot. That's why i've the dark skin in max, the dark skin in visual studio, and so on...

 

There is no mention of "Unity-derived income". Income is income, generated by unity projects or not.

 

Note that that is one of three use cases described, and those words are not used for the others.

 

I think they should have done:
- 35$ with everything, including changing the splash screen if your earn below 100K
- If you earn more than 100K, it's 125$.

Making an indie and a pro price. Simple and clear for everyone.

No they still want to force the logo for indie dev...
Just a ridiculous compromise with a custom mix logo splash screen.

 

That doesn't answer my question.

 

What I find funny is that console and desktop/vr developers had a lot of incentive to switch to UE, since it has more and better tools and somewhat better graphics and graphics-related features.
With this price change, these developers are alienated even more by Unity, forcing them to pay a HUGE amount of money for platforms they don't use, and services that they can't use (Analytics, IAPs, Ads, Cloud Build are not supported on consoles and are somewhat useless or not supported on desktop/vr).
And Asset Store Project Packs? Newbs and hobbyists might use them (if they're not total garbage), not indie and large professional studios.
It really baffles how you could come up with these absurd price/feature plans...

 

It's funny, because if you build your game, at that time you may be not reaching this 100k $. And later what, if people would buy this game and you'll become rich, for how long you should pay for Unity even if you don't need it anymore ?

 

I'm happy unity still gives the option to switch between dark and light skin. even if payed.

Unlike maya who now has only a dark skin, i did prefer the light skin in the older maya.

 

it's strange that unity does not learn from it's AssetStore. They know that lower prices will create much higher sales. I would rather make the plus version 9$/month and then a super extra version which is 35$/month.
I'm sure they would generate a lot more subscriptions with this model.
The splash screen thing is also annoying....if I pay for something I want to be able to remove the "watermark"
It doesn't make any sense now.

 

That means no more (paid) Unity for me, I guess

As a hobbyist/small time desktop only dev, working with 1-2 other persons, I really feel screwed over.

With Unity 5 I already questioned if I got my money's worth out of the perpetual license upgrade from 4. I bought Unity 4 Pro for the full features. When they announced that Unity 5 would have those features in the free version too, I didn't take the chance to get my money back because a) I wanted to support Unity and b) I hoped to still get something out of it because they made it sound like Level11, etc. would make up for it.
Well, Level 11 didn't deliver at all and most other services either weren't really usable and/or of no interest to small teams.

And now it gets way worse.

What irks me the most

• Since my perpetual license will stop working in March 2017 and it sounds like we won't get any more updates after that point in time, I've already got a way worse deal for Unity 5 than I did for 4, which got loads of support for a very long time and this was all included in the 4 Pro perpetual license. And no, judging from the past and the information available when buying 5, it absolutely wasn't that unreasonable to expect the same from a5 Pro perpetual license, on the contrary!
• Before, am early Pro license upgrade to the next version was 600US$ and 750US$ at the worst.This gave you at least 2 years of support. Unity 4 even got released at the end of 2012 and still gets small updates and got bigger ones until end of last year. That's a good 3 years of support.
  Now, Pro will cost 125US$ month and give people like me, that aren't interested in mobile development absolutely no additional value.
  This means that I'll pay more in 5 months now than I did in about 2 years! If we go with this assumed and not all too unreasonable lifespan of 2 years that's 3000US$ instead of 600$ or a price increase of 500% with absolutely no additional value for a desktop only developer.

To sum it up: Before I wasn't sure Unity Pro was worth the money for me personally anymore (no doubt it is if you're one of the big fish!). Now, I'd have to pay 5 times what I did until now with no additional value as a desktop only dev. I won't have to think a lot about whether I'll still pay for Unity in the future or not. To even at least consider this, Unity would had to have ramped up their game as much as they did their prices.

Maybe (!) we could talk about it if we weren't still waiting on a decent input system, pathfinding system (or in the case of 2D any pathfinding system at all), terrain engine, lighting system, networking system and many, many other things as well. There's just too much stuff half baked or non existing at all to justify such an increase in price.
And yeah, it might be cheaper for others (although, considering former upgrade discounts for perpetual licenses, that's very questionable in the long term) but that doesn't help me or anyone else in the same shoes in the least and I really don't see how you couldn't offer people that only want to develop for desktop another tier. You can't just shove a bunch of stuff I don't want on me at a great additional cost and expect me to still be your customer. Simple as that.

Also, what the heck would people with a 35$ subscription want with a flexible seat management?! And that it's ridiculous to have to display the splash screen even as a paying customer if you don't shell out 125$ seems kinda impudent too, but a lot of people already mentioned that; I won't go further into why that's a bad thing.

 

Does that replace the current 4 assets we get for free in level 11, plus the 10 or so we get heavily discounted every month ? Because in that case, we're just getting *less* stuff from asset store than we do now...

 

When I upgraded my 4.x license to 5.x early bird, and then found out pretty much everything I had paid for was made free, I was quite bummed out, but I decided to keep the license anyway, and not ask for my money back. Part of the reasoning was "Well, what the hell, it's a one-time fee, and when 6.0 comes out, I'll probably want that too, and owning a 5.x perpetual license will mean a price reduction on 6.0"

Now I find out, that Level 11 is apparently being changed from 4 free assets pr month, plus 8-10 at massive discount pr. month, to what ? 4 assets pr. quarter ? I find out that my rebate on 6.x cycle perpetual license is probably just gone. vapor.
I find out that I now have to pay for two mobile platforms I don't really care about. (I am interested in stand alones, not mobile).

I'm told I'll get an offer to migrate to subscription at some stage. That offer had better be convincing, because to be honest, Unity has worn my trust down pretty badly by now......

 

The positive reactions here are very rare . For me too a subscription model with that price will turn me from a payed Pro user to a none unity user.
Take a look at Lumberyard or Cryengine. Cryengine has a new pay-what-you-want model and it supports C#.

 

I also dislike it a lot that my Unity 5 pre-order failed to deliver a lot of stuff so far. Back then I was probably blinded by the good history with Unity and different marketing bs. Yeah Level 11 was mostly just a lottery feature and seems to be getting even worse now? Cloud build is changing to unlimited size now after a year when it should have been that since the beginning. Analytics were in beta for long time without accurate knowledge how it will be priced in the and same for UNET, which is still under progress? Lightmapping has been disaster and there are still people using Unity 4 only cause of the problems with it. Where is the input system, better terrain and everything else we have been waiting? Maybe in Unity 6 or 7 after we have been paying enough for beta testing stuff

I don't want random mystery asset pack from asset store team. I would rather have fixed amount of credits to use em on assets that improve or add features that are missing in the engine or hanging in the roadmap forever.

Small note, even the existing license page has listed pro community features (Coming soon! Pro-only benefits including filtering options to view selected Pro threads, and more.) for over a year as one of the key perks which I don't think anyone cares about much but it just makes me not to trust the new feature chart either when it seems hard to deliver trivial feature that some intern could cobble together.

 

You're getting it. Slightly different situation, but same train of thought.

In economics there is an acronym TINSTAAFL - (T)here (I)s (N)o (S)uch (T)hing (A)s (A) (F)ree (L)unch. Obviously, if one were to become rich they should compensate those who made it possible for them to become rich and a flat fee (a la perpetual license) is the clearest way to do that. Since the perpetual license is going away in favor of only subscriptions the question now is how much does someone owe if they gross over $100k and how do they pay that to Unity?

I'd have to agree with Ostwind - the 5.x cycle has been a disappointment. Having said that though I've worked on 5 AAA games at a major developer / publisher and I understand looking at the additions and changes to the tech for the 5.x cycle were and continue to be very, very ambitious.

Either way, I've shut down all my Unity instances yesterday and downloaded the Unreal source and have been looking at how to port over me and my team's work over to their engine (we are all just as comfortable with C/C++ as we are with C#) while also exploring other, perhaps lesser known game engines. I understand that not everybody has that luxury but we do and these changes force us to consider it.