Open letter to Unity...

Good to hear! I know you probably won't be able to confirm or decline, but it has been my guess for a while that Unity might try to integrate better wilth platforms natively, Steam, social platforms, cloud etc. I won't be surprised if in the near future unity pro becomes completely free and UT makes money through distribution services and the asset store.

 

Unity has grown quickly. I first discovered it in a tiny booth on the outside walls at GDC, next to the vendor selling pretzels and popcorn. I was excited to be part of the explosion from side-line wanna-be to industry giant. I've built games in it, spoken about it, and spent countless hours helping the community through positive, practical, and focused suggestions. Being that invested, it took a lot to set me off. I'm still hopeful things will improve and I'm grateful Unity is listening. It matters.

Gigi

 

They have to protect buyers from the small percentage of people who are deceptive. A few people would put "SALE" on their icons and not adjust their prices. You might also see a flood of people dropping their prices by a $1 and claiming it's on sale. It only takes a few scammers to ruin it for everyone.

 

Valid point - you only answered half of my concern though. The other part:

Regardless, if they are to say it's their "policy" then it needs to be posted on a page somewhere (Asset Store guidelines) where people can read it. I've told them this two times and got no response. It would save them having to tell everyone independently so I have no idea why they haven't done it.

 

Maybe not fully what you want, but the assetstore has the following rule in its guidelines:

6.1 Getting Showcased

Often developers ask how they can be featured on the front page. [...] We do not showcase anything that says "Price reduced!" or "Reduced 50%!" or "Special Introductory Offer".

If it means that they wont take anything with a sale sign, maybe they should reword it, but I think that this is an official discouragement..

 

I didn't mean just the asset store. If I was to sell my stuff independently, I would use the SALE and price drops instead of selling everything at a rock-bottom price.

 

Yeah, I mentioned that part. I've read it several times. That's only about being "featured". Which is what I pointed out to them twice and got no response.

Being featured and having your asset on the store, unfeatured, are completely unrelated. No two ways about it. That's extremely black and white right there so I'm not sure why you mentioned it.

Anyway, big difference between discouragement and "that's our policy".

 

I mentioned it because for me it would be enough to say "don't put sale on it if you want to get featured". Thats technically not a prohibition, but it would be enough for me to know that they don't want it. Thats why I said that its not fully what you want: it is not an explicit ban although it gives you a clear direction.

 

I don't agree with your line of thinking. To me, that reads "make sure you remove any sale graphics from your asset a couple weeks before the featured sale date".

Actually, the main reason I gather that that statement is in the Asset Store guidelines is so that there aren't 2 sale flags visible at the same time, since one gets automatically added to the graphic from the Asset Store sale. That would look stupid.

Regardless, what I said still stands as a fact. That is, discouragement is light years away from saying "that is our policy" which is what the email we got actually said. There is an explicit ban apparently, they just haven't posted it anywhere.

 

Lots of asset sellers do sales outside the asset store.

Dexsoft has a 50% off sale section every day.

Mister Necturus had a 50% sale during easter and xmas.

Bitgem had a sale on their site I've received emails about.

3drt has sales a few times a year along with their daily deal, for xmas last year they gave 40% off the entire site.

Arteria3d has "sales" all the time.

3DFOIN has had a couple 50% off sales on entire site, at xmas and other times.

Then on the asset store, I see more and more often people discounting their products on the product page, as well as existing assets bumped to the top of the "Sort by date" listings when they drop the price for a sale.

Just because you're not in the Unity sanctioned sale doesn't mean people won't find your product and buy because of the discount.

 

Right, but the thing is, way more people will actually click on your icon if it has a "sale" or "50% off" graphic on it. Just by seeing the price on the page with other icons they have no idea it's on sale. We did split testing. The icon graphic is the most important part by far. But they don't allow it even though that is nowhere to be seen in their guidelines.

 

Unity might be trying to avoid devaluation of the word 'sale' like what has happened in the clothing industry. About the only place you'll not see clothing go on 'sale' is at Wal*Mart and when it does it's because it's change of season not because they are asking haute couture design prices for a brand label commodity.

 

Speculation. Bottom line, if it is in fact their "policy" they need to add a sentence about it to the Asset Store guidelines. Which should take, what, 5 minutes?

 

OK, this isn't speculation: hundreds of merchants using the word 'sale' on items that they've always charged the 'sale' price on isn't a 'sale', it's regular price.

So Unity needs to make it clear:

They shouldn't allow 'sales' or 'percentage discount' in an asset store's icon or descriptive images or literature or it will wind up being an SEO tactic that will erode the effectiveness of Unity's own provable sales. Who they choose to feature is up to them although featured sale items should undergo more rigorous screening and testing than your typical asset store item.

You can already sort by price, name, rating, popularity, and release date. And there is a text search function. Adding 'sale' isn't going to sell an item to you that you don't need.

 

This is what stands out for me in this thread.
Like the post says, patience is the key here.

So Unreal has made their move. Yes it is a bit of a system shock. Wait for Unity to make theirs.

 

Almost. In the description it's fine to say that it's on sale, just not the key images. I agree with the rest of what you said. Fake sales are dumb too. I hate that.

 

As much as the assetstore's easily what keeps me fiddling with unity rather than anything else (so much fun stuff on there) is has been a bit weird of late and reading this stuff does increasingly seem like some old spirit has gone and been replaced by estate agents

I own some of your products, have any of you had an email from a customer regarding refunds lately? Are you aware that its the tos for customers to contact the developer who then has to contact asset store support regarding any refund?

I recently asked for a refund, was told by unity after several days i was to ask the developer, the developer was significantly more prompt in the reply and was very reasonable and agreed with my refund rationale, but he was also completely unaware that this was the new policy. As far as I know he's still waiting to hear back from unity?

Why have unity completely passed off the running of the asset store to as much hands free mechanism as possible while not, apparently, changing how much they take of the sale?

 

I'd think that refunds would be somewhat rare, I've not even thought of asking for one yet, and given that they're rare Unity should just refund if you ask before the funds have been disbursed to the asset kiosk owner.

 

I don't really know how rare they are, there's someone in the asset store thread asking what to do if they cant contact the developer. It's the first time i've asked for a refund and i felt bad about it cause he generally makes quality stuff but it was unnecessary since a recent update (This rather big feature, i thought, went totally under my radar), other assetstore vendors i've been much less enthused about but hey. There is some toss on there, even without the legitimate good product but not suitable kind of refunds, and i reckon the asset store must pull in some decent trade, so refunds must pop up, that theyre handled this way now is pretty slack

 

I can say that the communication from the asset store is practically nonexistant. It really seems as if it's running on absolute minimums, but this is not a change, it's always felt like this.

As far as refunds go, there was a lot of blowback last year due to non-authorized refunds which they now call chargebacks, This has died down quite a bit, but I think because of the blowback they've kind of washed their hands of actual refunds.... preferring to leave it up to the asset author who is both more capable of determining appropriateness of a refund and usually more agile to respond than the asset store itself. Under these sets of circumstances I agree with their current policy.

Ideally though, the asset store would be providing better seller tools, feedback, and level of responsiveness to "earn" that 30% cut.

 

I'm just a bit surprised fairly well known and popular asset authors aren't aware of the policy change, bit bizarre, as explicable as the policy may be

 

We are not aware either...unless we see a communication from the Asset Store, we will assume there has been no change. Not that I dont believe what you're saying.

 

I got one of your things when it was still called erm.. the spawn thing before it was called Core Gamekit, haha, the shooter i was planning never transpired in the end but the bright side is a mate thought the core toolkit was a pretty good idea so grabbed a copy . Should I ask for a refund to prove the point? Hah, well i can pm you the email i got from asset store after asking for the refund if you like, but yes, on the unhappy incident someone ask for a refund (Although i dont see why, in the case of the Core Gamekit its a great kit and still relevant) you'll be getting surprise emails

 

So you have to contact the author to contact Unity to contact your payment provider for your refund. Oh, well, at least the asset provider can learn why their asset is being returned. Imagine if the iTunes App Store or Google Play tried this.

Maybe the App Store isn't earning as much as we think or refunds really are rare.

 

Chingwa is just too much a nice guy haha

While the asset store is obv a very different case to itunes or steam or wotnot, i still find this bizarre, its now seemingly an entirely automated in-editor web interface with a support staff of 1

 

Good luck trying to get a refund on the asset store, even when a plugin was empty and didn't even throw an error and didn't work, they wouldn't refund $50. And I'm not the only one who's been burned, there was a thread a while back about it.

 

Well tell us what the plugin was so others won't buy it.

 

Sure, I'd like to see it

 

All this talk about switching has me wanting to switch but all my games are primarily mobile on IOS and Android. There hasn't been any talk on how UE fairs in this category. Has anyone any experience with IOS and UE?

 

According to their website:

Windows PC, Mac, iOS and Android

so it's better deployment support than this thread and other threads have hinted at.

If you need to deploy to a console you need to talk to them directly.

Missing is Windows Store and Windows Phone, although implicitly they may be referring to those with Windows PC (although I think they would have left off the 'PC' part if that were the case).

 

Well I got my return email saying i'll be refunded within ten days, i guess thats how it works, cheers to that dev who was so reasonable though, il send him an email back when im less tired

 

Good Job masterprompt !

You stood up, stated your case and braved all the flak they could throw at you!

You even got UT to chime in!

/bow

 

Android support is, as they say, a little rough with black screens on some, dark textures on others.

Have to pay attention to the supported GPU and device list for Android.
Burned a couple of hours trying Tappy Chicken with a Galaxy Tab 3 before actually reading the docs.

 

At the moment - Do not switch to UE4 Just for mobile.

If you are targeting other platforms go for it!

Keep in mind that UE4 has to catch up to unity in terms of mobile performance.

From what I have seen atleast.

 

Moving, or at least making u4 part of my tools seems like a good idea but its too distracting at the moment when i have things i want to get done before another big distraction. Until Unreal can provide out the box or in its own store some functionality that i really do either currently enjoy or really look forwards to using that i've got available with Unity its not going to be as flexible or do stuff id really want it to do

Could use it for little sketches much like i make on Uni that help me make something pretty and learn a new thing

 

Way to not read the thread.... Do you know what an open letter is? Perhaps you should read a bit more and write a bit less; feel free to remove foot from mouth after you figure it out...

I enjoy using Unity, I like c# (mostly enjoy c# more than Unity editor haha), I came back (never left) to ask perfectly reasonable questions.... I never said anything was holding back my talents. And just because you ate from a bottle for the first year of your life doesn't mean you must stay with the bottle forever or refrain from asking why solid food is better than said bottle.... I started in this industry with raw openGL in c++ (yeay mid 90's), did a quick stint with DarkBasic and BlitzBasic (early 2000), then did a tour on torque and some XNA before fully switching to Unity (joined a team and we choose Unity several years ago).

Be as loyal as you wish however know that there are those who have a bottom line to watch. Your content, great! don't assume everyone is as ignorant as you.

 

Some (less than a weeks worth), so I can't say that we can bring our Unity mobile stuff over confidently. We initially evaluated it for networking and next gen support which lead into other curiosities in performance and efficiency.

 

Heh, thanks! Although I still have a really hard decision to make in the next couple weeks. I can't rest on my laurels for long... I fear that Unity's slow game of chess my force our hand with their competition :-( It's the nature of business I suppose although says loads about their true community connectivity. I can understand their apprehension; I'm sure they have a strategic schedule of announcements to stick to. I really hope their schedule has something soon :-(

 

I'd have to strongly agree with these statements. From what I can see (based on their update frequency and roadmap) it will be another 5-8 months before they reach maturity. Blueprint is a-friggen-mazing! I've said in other conversations that it IS what Unity should have been (from the editor). To a 20+ year programmer(me), it feels at home and is a comfortable relief from writing thousands of lines of code. That being said, at the moment it still is a 'programmers' tool and not very artist friendly quite yet.... As for performance, it's next-gen targeted. I wouldn't expect them to support aging hardware by any means.

 

As seeing as I'm planning on spending almost another $500 in the asset store in the next 6 months to say nothing of what I've spent in the past wouldn't you say my spending and others that have spent much more than me have contributed to the community?

And percentage wise our contributions are much greater then the big businesses who more or less are spending (gambling) government economic stimulus money and average joe retirement money anyway. Who also pays the higher tax rates, individuals or business? Just who is profiting off public natural resources if it's not the government you are buying those resources from? So who's gotten who where? It was years Unity was available before it was made free like UE4 and CryTek recently have done. If you've spent a dime in the asset store it was a dime Unity would likely have never have earned without Unity Free. They have their reasons and 'community' is a efficient cheap way to do 'customer service'.

 

My thoughts exactly.

@goat - The problem is that Unity is no longer competitive in terms of pricing towards us indies and hobbyists. Basically from what I see you still need to pay 1500 dollars for a perpetual license for Unity 5. Their sub model is also non competitive - 75 dollars with a 12 month lock in. If you fail to pay that then you have to pay the amount in full.

Also I would say this - I am finding Unreal Engine 4 Not all that hard to learn... It is very much like unity3D in certain aspects so I am able to pick it up and just go right away. But If unity comes out with a revised payment model then I will be jumping on board. But right now that is a big maybe.

My advice to Unity - Revise your sub and perpetual licensing model. You are no longer competitive. As soon as Unreal 4 hits maturity you guys will be in big trouble. Revising your sub and perpetual licensing model should be your #1 priority right now.

 

I agree. If Unity revises their subscription model to compete with UE4, I will definitely sign up for the new Unity subscription. I signed up for UE4 already and like it overall, but I am still personally more comfortable with Unity at this point. If Unity waits long enough, that will no longer be the case, though.

I'm guessing Unity has decided to take a wait and see approach to this, and that Unity will wait until 6-12 months after they ship Unity 5 before they tackle the competitiveness of their subscription plan.

 

I did look at UE4 briefly, it seemed very easy to use (though the editor is a little sluggish on my dev machine).

UE4 is not mature/tested enough yet in my opinion - after a few months we should start to see developers complaining about various bugs.
I'll also wait until their asset store is up, and a few mobile games have been produced (for performance comparison).

I'm also holding out hope for Unity 5 - once that's released I will seriously consider which direction is the best way forward, but not before.

If UT manage to create a competitive product with Unity5, address some of the outstanding issues (eg: GC/licensing) and revise(or explain) their pricing, then I'm happy to stick with it and will probably purchase a Pro license (finally).
The open source aspect of UE4 is very hard to ignore, but I still have a lot of faith in Unity and I imagine they are figuring out how to best deal with UE - but publicly ignoring the fact that there is now a viable competing product would be a very bad idea.

 

I think Unity have enough feedback from community right now, all depends on them and how will handle this. And they should make a move fast in my opinion, unless is to late and lose a lot of users.

 

After all, with UE4 available now for its $20 per month... Actually, you can pay once and then unsubscribe and use all features that was available to date. You just will not get updates, but you still can use it in your commercial products. More of that, with their per project royalty fees system, and newly introduced EULA, if your project generate less that $3000 gross per three months, you haven't to pay royalties at all. And who talks you can't have tens of such projects? No one. All of it for just $20, without any limitations besides lack of new features (not like developers can't live without that features years before, right?). They'll make money when and if we, developers, indies, hobbyists, do.

Now, to use Unity without limitations I have to pay at least $1500, and if I want Andoid or iOS support, then another $1500 for each. Weeeell, not like it is an cosmic price, and 3-4 years before it was a great deal. But hey, now there is another great engine for just $20. And CryEngine going to offer much similar terms of use, as far as I've heard.

I'm definitely waiting for some changes in terms of use for Unity engine now.

 

Have just talked to my customer to push back any further Unity license purchase. We were forced to buy the U5 upgrade + Android pro upgrade because we attend a fair next week, but we decided to limit our demonstration to Android devices only...

Also, my investors are asking about U4 and Unity... currently, in terms of short term investments, they tend to U4, also because of the Unreal Engine notoriety. I've initially told them, that Unity *should* react within a month, but the month has ended and they did not react... I'm in discussion of creating a new company with investors and we're talking 17 licences complete pro setups within the next 2 years... :/

 

Since there are at least 2 named attendees of unity in this thread I would have guessed that there will be a statement by now..

 

I've spent the last month with UE4, I can't pretend that I prefer UE4 as a development tool because I simply don't. I find the actual game creation portion quicker and the level design portion wayyyy slower and as most of big games circumvent around animations and assets / lighting placement. UE4 seems to become a pain in the ass after a while..

For one they should dump lightmass on it's derrière, if I find one more shadowing issue I have to correct I'll go skitty.

On the flip side as an actual engine, I still think it's way better. The particle system is easy to use and looks beautiful, the AAA demo's set you down the right path.. Base templates and clean character controller code gets you up and running quickly, material editor and blueprints for our artists has been a success, matinee has been fantastic and a lot of things came together quite quickly..

Graphically I'm mixed, it does look far better due to inclusion of PBR and post. Unity 5 really does need an overhaul with that portion, TXAA is great, motion blur nice, great dof etc. etc. in UE4. But as a base renderer with lightmass it doesn't quite stand on the same shoulders as CryEngine, Snowdrop or Frostbite IMO. Or it's a lot of work to push it in that direction to move away from the "Unreal" look.

I don't love UE4 and much prefer Unity's workflow, but as a 3D engine it's far in the lead. Then again it is "New" and Epic have had a long time. The thing is I could live with UE4 to push out a project, so in a business sense I have no qualms about switching dependant on what Unity do next.

 

So, it would seem after the last several replies (contrary to the trolls earlier in the thread) that our team isn't so crazy after all

TBH: We didn't even know Unity had a subscription model until after we heard about UE4. We rarely go to the Unity marketing site; every upgrade year, we send in our money and get our licenses back (with the same individual having issues activating every time haha, he knows who he is).

We've always hated paying Unity as the cost is really too expensive for the size of our team. Knowing what we get for iOS pro and Android pro vs basic (but still having to buy Unity Pro) has always spoken volumes to us as how we've always had to bend over the desk for Unity. But, in the same respect, using Unity has been easy and quick and (in a few cases) headache free. Prototypes are always quick to produce for viability play testing but the polish always takes months (as is expected) :-(

I agree, I think the Unity team has a decision to make just as our team does. If they rest on their laurels too long we will be gone. Sure, we're a small indie team and merely a drop in the pond of revenue for them. We'll be back in a few years (probably around the 5 year marker) to re-evaluate our direction however I fear that once we make the initial investment into ramping our team up to UE4 (and to whatever UE flavor will be out by then, who knows) that the re-tooling cost to come back to Unity may be too great to ignore.

Worth noting that we have a pinky finger on the pulse of the AAA studios (a couple of our guys still hold part time contracts with the big boys) and the general consensus is that Unity is in big trouble with Epic Games moving onto the block. I'd like to see Unity stay a viable solution for us Indies but the quality of UE is very very hard to ignore.