Perpetual licenses not available for Unity 6?

"Support of Unity Pro perpetual licenses with new features, improvements, fixes and services will stop in March, 2017." - Unity

I was just thinking about getting a perpetual license when 6 comes out or just for 5 but i just found out today that unity is going to kill perpetual licenses. Do you guys have any more info on this? Should i switch to another engine? I don't think 75 a month is better than 1500 forever, and if i made a decent game on can i pay off my professional license? Btw i'm not very rich.

 

That line is saying that your license will eventually stop receiving support. When Unity 6 comes out, eventually they will stop updating Unity 5.

You will still be able to buy perpetual licenses when Unity 6 comes out.

 

Hopefully they allow the black theme in free unity 6. Seems kind of childish on their part to block something like this when Epic has no issues giving the black theme for UE4

 

really? well thanks!

 

lol

 

Epic also takes much more money, much faster. But that's not what this thread is about.

There is a post from @Aurore about it here. Long story short the website is poorly worded, and indicates an expected end date for support of Unity 5.X, and says nothing about Unity's licensing model into the future. Perpetual is here to stay.

 

Without fail. All we need next is something about the Splash Screen and we will have the basic forum thread necessities checked off.

 

In all honesty what is considered much more money really?

5%? 10%? 20%?

If companies didn't think that 5% that epic takes for their multi million dollar AAA engine was worth it, I am pretty sure all those AAA games like Street Fighter 5 would be using Unity instead of Unreal Engine 4.

I am fairly certain that due to the eye candy found in UE4 that in itself increases revenue. Believe it or not the kind of eye candy lighting you find in UE4 actually increases your game sales. I don't see the reason for keeping the dark theme for Unity 5 in the Pro version that you must pay for.

Does not make sense. No one is going to pay $1500 for a theme you know, yes people would love to have it but they won't pay $1500 for it IMO so why not give it free?

 

There have been people who stated on this site they paid for the dark skin.

 

Well let me rephrase no normal person is going to pay $1500 for a dark skin.

 

What's your definition of a normal person? Remember not all of us live in a third world country.

 

AAA and large companies using unreal, aren't paying royalties, they are licensing for a fixed fee. Also at that level, price of tools is a very minimal consideration compared to development needs. Right tool for the right job.

 

How much is capcom paying to use UE4? do you know the fixed fee?

And is it more than Unity? I would assume so since Unity is $1500. Which brings me back to the original point if these companies were that concerned about price they would just use Unity. Clearly whatever price EPIC demands is worth it for the graphics and what not of UE4. Else they would just be using Unity.

 

I'm pretty okay with the lack of a dark skin considering that Unity Personal Edition actually has the remaining 99% of feature parity, unlike the old days of Free.

 

I live in the United States. This isn't as prevalent as you seem to believe.

 

A normal person with sufficient amount of money on their hand can throw $1500 for the dark skin without a problem.

1500 will stop looking like a big number if you, say, have 500k on hand and have decent amount of money flowing in each month. For example, with 10k per month (that's $120k per year) income, one-time $1500 purchase will be quite approachable.

UNreal engine can quickly get more expensive than unity.
Epic's deal is %5 from your gross income (not revenue, not profit, income BEFORE store fees are applied).

Unity requires PRO if you go over $100k/year. 5% out of 100k is 5000$. Well, in case of UE4 it will be slightly less than 5000$, because they let you get first $3000 per quarter without paying royalties, but it will still cost more than unity subscription.

If profts go above $100k, 5% will turn into large number fairly quickly (for example, 5% out of 80 mil will be 4 mil usd). That's why larger companies will most likley license the engine on some custom terms - without paying royalties.

 

Unity isn't "$1500". There's far more to it than that.

It's $1500, per seat, per platform, for the license available on the web site (no source code, no additional support, etc.). We've no idea what large companies might be paying for specially negotiated licenses, or what licensing costs are incurred (directly or otherwise) for other platforms.

 

The license is negotiated per project and/or company. I have no idea what their exact individual cost for the software is. Based on those I do know using it, It is most certainly more expensive than Unity. But again, that cost is not a huge concern, especially considering other factors. Like if their studio is full of C++ devs with years of experience with Unreal, it would be more expensive to switch to Unity, or if they already have and ongoing license agreement or many other factors. Ultimately though, tool costs are very small to large studio. Even if one engine was 10x the cost of another, it probably wouldn't be a significant enough cost compared to other costs. Cost and ROI/value are relative, and most software costs are minimal.

 

You make a lot of sense, if the studio already knows C++ and has experience in unreal yes I could see then why they would pay the higher price.

I thought it was because of the graphics but I guess that could also play a role. UE4 games does look pretty damn good I think its up there with Cry Engine.

 

You don't even necessarily need a decent income. You simply have to make compromises in other areas of your life. I have known people in my area with broken down houses, cars with more rust than paint, barely able to afford any medical bills they may have (fortunately clinics in my area are very good and affordable), etc yet they somehow have managed to buy 50-inch televisions (both the old projection style and the newer flat screens) and can afford the monthly costs of satellite TV with more than just the basic package. Plus many of them have video game consoles with decent game collections.

 

It may be the graphics, or it may be existing tools and knowledge, it may be a ton of other factors. We use Unity because of its solid multiplatform support, but also because we have built a significant pipeline, toolset and framework around it. If Epic gave us unrestricted, unlimited use of Unreal for 100% free, we wouldn't switch. Our existing tools, knowledge and relationship with UT are far more valuable than what we pay for Unity.

 

Even though I refuse to pay for software, and other small things that are relatively cheap I do for some reason manage to spend close to $900 USD on smartphones every 2 years. a $600 USD phone comes up to $900 USD here cause of import duty etc

But noway would I waste money on a black skin for something like Unity. I have spent almost $800 US on skins in heroes of newerth and CS GO but thats different because its a multi player experience to show off the skin, its exactly why you can also download all the skins for free but it will only be client side hence why client side skins are worth $0

So I call bullshit on people who claim to spend $1500 US just for the skin for this game engine they are likely doing it for much more than just that.

 

Is that $900 with or without contracts to actually use the phone?

 

Indeed. It all depends on your priorities and interests. $1500 may not be expensive if it is your hobby/passion. And what other people are willing to pay for things may not make sense or seem "normal" to others. A buddy of mine has forced himself (actually, his wife did) to spend no more than 2k a year on knives. I easily spend about that a year on Lego. A few of my friends who are hardcore gamers spend what I would consider insane amounts of money on hardware. Heck, my sister spends a couple of thousand a year going to Supernatural conventions. Its all relative.

 

Without contract. Almost every phone sold here is unlocked and without any contracts, the complete opposite to the US it seems.

I currently have the HTC one M8 and the One Plus X. Really beautiful phones honestly.

 

See that's just it. You're spending a large amount on what you're interested in. I only paid $10 for my Android phone and my contract consists of a minutes card that I pick up at a local Dollar General for ~$35 a month (when I actually bother to).

 

Is that refurbished/used phone? Or "$10 wallmart phone" I spotted on the net that seems to come with 1 year contract?

 

It's a $50 smart phone that I happened to catch on sale for $10 during the holidays. Android 4.x.

 

Ah, right. Sales. Forgot about those.

 

I'm cheap when it comes to mobile devices and I'm simply not a fan of phones in general. Model linked below.

https://www.zteusa.com/zte-valet

 

Thanks, but I was just curious how/what kind of $10 phone could run android. I only ever saw "ringers" being sold at that price.

 

You make a really good point here I see what you mean now. I couldn't use a $10 phone lol I like my Aluminum Body phones you should try to get a One Plus X its a 5 inch iphone 4 with android on it is the best description for it. Like a mix between iphone 4 and sony xperia Z series

Or a HTC One M7 is like $170 on Amazon full aluminum. Or a Nexus 5 is $189 best value for money.

I buy pre paid top up phone cards here it costs me $5 a month in top up cards. lol I will spend $900 on a phone but then $5 a month on minutes

 

Currently my purchasing plans consist of saving up for a new computer followed by a new laptop. Having finally experienced mobile devices in the form of an Amazon Fire tablet ($50), I've decided I want a decent laptop now. My aging laptop is practically indestructible but being a paperweight is about all the Panasonic Toughbook CF-T5 is good for now.

 

Around $50K for us dependant on certain factors (quotation), which ain't bad really compared to some things I got quoted on other engines.. Jeez!.

Unity for us including all addition's would probably sway in at around $20K, without source access. Never looked into source so not a clue..

@zombiegorilla

Professional music is a great way to throw money into a fire.. Oh and I love cars, well who needs a retirement plan aye?

 

So much passion. So few published games...

Plenty of people spend huge amounts of money on hobbies that are just for fun. I'll probably spend more then the price of pro on my LARP kit by the time I'm done. Heck, if I count labour hours I've exceeded it by a long way already. And most of the kit serves no actual purpose aside from looking good in front of my friends.

 

Well, as long as the hobby makes you happy, that's money well spent.

 

I do plan on purchasing a Macbook Pro at some point, but right now I have a custom built gaming PC with a really nice monitor.

Dell S2415H monitor its ultra slim bezel and is glossy reflective like how laptop screens are. This makes it incredibly sharp and 0 haze on the eyes when reading EBooks compared to the nasty haze on those matte monitors. I guess I don't go anywhere so a desktop is good for me I got a core i3 Haswell @ 3.7 GHZ and 12GB RAM with a GTX 960 2GB.

If you could afford a Razer Blade laptop would be great, the solid aluminum body in these things are really something but christ are they expensive. Dell has the XPS ultrabooks but its half aluminum and half carbon fiber this should be a plus as no heat from the bottom or keyboard but I used a macbook retina once. Thing was gorgeous and so solidly built and Apple Macbook isn't overpriced like their iphones.

I read somewhere Apple makes like only $200 profit on their $1300 macbook pros. Pretty small because for $1300 there aren't much PCs that beat the specs of the macbook retina.

 

Exactly. And if someone wants to drop that much onto a Unity pro license just for fun, well good on them.

 

Come on! UT has made all Pro features for free! Having a light scene with a splash screen is a small price to pay.

About the perceptual license - they must get the wording correctly. I thought that the support for a perceptual license is going to be dropped in March 2017 favor to a subscription service!

 

I did suggest a minor alteration a few posts below Aurore's post but never received a response about it.

 

That is a pretty good deal. For single project or for the organization in general? That is significantly less than it used to be in either case.

 

I think it was for the project, I got the quote a long while ago.. Not sure if anything changed, you'd get access to UDN as well AFAIK..

It won't of been an all out top tier contract sorta thing like a AAA company would get, but still not bad.. Not sure what Unity offers as an equivalent and how much it would cost..

 

In my opinion Unity should reintroduce pro only engine features. Too many people seem not the least bit interested in their services(me included) so except for the splash screen currently there is no value for them.
Maybe new features providing better performance could be tied to pro, like dx12, vulkan, gpu instancing, etc.
They could be a motivator to go pro, right now the pro offer it's too weak.

 

How did this thread go from a license question to the usual Unity/Unreal comparission to a discussion about what things we spend our money on?

 

Welcome to Unity's forums. Please leave your sanity at the door.

 

Umm, because it's been the same since always.. They support a version for so long then drop it, they never actually said they're dropping perpetual licenses in Unity 6.. Just that the license for current perpetual versions of Unity will end in 2017..

So then someone pops in, mentions *the engine that shall not be named* and here we are..

We subbed to Unity 4, don't regret it.

 

I did.

 

I did. I also buy it for my staff.

 

New around here? The discussion forums can get pretty strange. Especially when the actual OP question is dealt with in the first couple of posts.

The rest of the forums are pretty on topic. But stay clear of discussion!

 

No, not really new. Been around for about 3 years and visiting on a regular basis, but I'm not very active myself. I'm pretty used to the Engine discussions, but all the talk about phones, skins and Lego was a bit unexpected