Pro Subscription offer changed again?

Back in June, we were assured that Perpetual license holders would get "pay to own" subscription status immediately if we subscribe after March 2017, as described in this blog post: https://blogs.unity3d.com/2016/06/05/subscription-why/

However, I received my subscription offer email last week and it says:

Is this what everyone else is getting too? Why did this part of the offer for perpetual licenses holders get taken away?


I can't seem to contact Unity about this so hopefully someone sees it on here. I tried providing feedback from the offer email but after a week I still haven't received a response. I also tried the Unity - Contact web form but it seems to be broken at the moment.

 

What i understand is you pay 125$ per month during two years, after two years you have paid 1500$ and you get the perpetual license. This means you can stop your subscription after tow years and keep using Unity Pro.

 

Actually, after 2 years of paying $125/mo, you've paid $3000, not $1500. But that's not relevant because I'm talking about existing perpetual license customers transitioning to the new subscription model.

 

Have you contacted unity sales? They most likely will make this right with you, so if you haven't tried already, shoot them an email and see what they say.

 

I tried using the contact form but it's broken. Do you know of an actual email address? I browsed around on https://unity3d.com/contact/ but didn't see one. They make it hard to find.

 

I assume you do get pay to own but for perpetual users the offer was for $75 a month for 2 years i.e. you get that reduced rate but still have to commit to 2 years subscription, although in my email offer it was a one time offer and had to be taken up by the end of December 2016 I think.
I doubt if you cancel before 2 years you get to keep it, I'm fairly certain Unity were not suggesting that if a perpetual user cancelled after 6 months they would get to use the engine at that point in-perpetuity as a pro-version.

 

You are right, the perpetual license price has doubled today and you can no more buy a perpetual license from start.

 

I think the last pre-order price was $900 so even the pre-order cost for pro-users doubled, not to mention the number of asset store developers asking for an upgrade price for their assets beyond 5.4. Unity has turned into a money pit.

 

I see the asset upgrade system a pretty good thing as it keeps authors motivated and providing support for their assets instead stopping updating. We don't need another Daikon Forge or similar cases where assets have sold all they can and are left with a huge customer base to support (=expense) and to maintain support for every Unity version (=expense) without any extra income.

 

I would not argue the point, understandable if developers are required to do more work to make their assets compatible. It's not just Daikon Forge either, of course, there are quite a few that abandon assets. And, of course, the changes needed probably came as much of a surprise to asset devlopers as to their customers, so I'm not saying developers should not ask for an upgarde charge. On the otherhand if you have a large number of third party assets it does underline both where Unity is lacking and the possible additional cost of updating the Unity version being used. It has given me pause for thought.

 

Yep, i think the new pricing annoucement will be done in March 2017.
Still Unity revenue bar 100 000$ before needing a Pro license is still a good deal lot of people.

 

That's outdated. Currently the revenue threshold is 100K for plus, and 200k for pro. Plus is a highly affordable for those in the middle.

 

I thought that the whole announcement that you linked to was pretty much replaced, as per the "update" in red letters at the start of the post. I do see how it's not entirely clear what parts of the original post still stand, though.

 

Let's face it. Owning a copy of Unity outright is dead. It's not going to happen anymore. The two year option is in Unity for the same reason JavaScript is. Some marketing folk think it's a clever idea. But nobody expects to actually use the option.

The sooner people accept that it's a case of subscription or changing engine the better.

 

Agreed. I think main reason it exists now/still is purely transitional. Had they dropped it completely it would have wigged a lot of folks out. Too much change at once is frustrating. I imagine it will eventually go away when it's use dwindles past a certain point.

 

i got the same email to our business account where all our current licences are registered. I clicked the more info link and got a big

"Sorry, this offer is not available yet."

Sent an email, awaiting response. Just in case anyone else is getting similar.

 

I don't like subs based software , if there wasn't a Personnal Edition, i would have switched to Unreal 4.

Still it is unclear, if next year you make less than 100K , do you stop paying subs ? Or do you must use subs for a year until you got your financial results at the end of the year ?
This is very unclear on how long and when you must start paying subs once you made more than 100k in the year.

 

Just subscribe for two years and you'll effective gain a perpetual license. Updates naturally won't be available past a certain point and some would complain about it not closing up bugs... but let's be honest here. You'll have bugs regardless of the patches you may or may not receive.

 

I pinged the team working with subscriptions, so just making sure it's clear for everyone:

• if you currently own a perpetual license (upgraded or not), you have the right to own this perpetual forever - you will just not get updates after March 2017
• if you subscribe to the new Pro now, you immediately get the right to pay-and-own, but you can't claim it until 24 months have passed, which is in line with the perpetual programs where version are charged every 2 years

 

What about Plus subs ? Does it get same formula ?

 

What does "right to pay-and-own" mean? Sounds like it means nothing if you still have to pay for 24 months.

What was the point of saying...

... if it means nothing? What exactly do we get "right away" with our subscription license in this case?

 

If you make 100K in the year you must buy Plus Edition subs, if next year you make less than 100K when can you stop paying subs and go back using Personnal Edition ?
This is not clear on how long you must subscribe after you reach 100K limit and when you no more reach 100K next year.

 

Please stay on the original topic of this thread.

 

"The right to pay-and-own" has a lot more meaning in technical legal vernacular than it does to the average customer. I'm not saying that you or anyone else aren't justifiably frustrated with the terminology, since legalese is inherently frustrating (and I work for an attorney ), but under the terms and conditions of the Pro license subscription, it does actually mean "something."

At the end of the day, anyone has the right to be miffed at the shift to subscriptions, but it is how the software industry as a whole has been trending for years now, so I would be wary of getting too angry at Unity, since they aren’t doing anything out of the ordinary, compared to their peers.

We’ve seen many threads about this here already, so I certainly hope those arguments don’t come back and get rehashed again and again. It was a bit of an unpleasant phase on the forums, from my view.

 

The license is pretty explicit in that the revenue limit applies to the previous financial year. So the simplest way to do it would be to sub for 12 months at the beginning of each financial year. If you have a poor year, then you don't have to subscribe for the next year.

 

This is the opposite to clear. How have we got something if we can't have it for two years?

In practical terms what does this mean?

If I sign up for a 2 year subscription today, what is different for me depending on whether or not I currently own a perpetual license?

 

Reality of things is this: I bought the perpertual license that promised updates for the life of the project. Just like I bought Unity 4 perpetual pro license. Now, they are changing the fact they no longer want to offer you the free bug fixes, updates and stuff like that, and want you to invest. So If I want to own the software I currently bought and get updates past March 2017... I need to rebuy the same exact license, but over 24 months, and at a much steeper price... for the software I *already* own. This is highway robbery in my book. I spoke to a few other developers, and all of us had invested and where evangelizing Unity3d. That is no longer the case, we are all switching to a real developer that won't screw over its customers. Funny part is with this announcement... it got followed the next day by *2* University cancelling their Unity 3d Classes, and now going with other engines. They are screwing themselves over from the indie scene, will only leave the big studio's to pay their bills.

 

Not much has changed in that regards. March 2017 is the end of that version except for a critical updates. For the pricing the costs came down for a large group of developers via the plus subscription or having all the platforms in the pro. For small indies it's cheaper than it ever was. For educational use Unity is now free since Unite LA announcement.

 

You bought a perpetual license that promised updates for the life of a major version number.

Have you ever compared the time periods between when a major release happens and the final update for that release? The period between the release of Unity 5 and March 2017 is roughly the same length of time. Unity 5 would have ceased getting updates roughly around the date given regardless of the changes made.

The only meaningful difference here is that you're subscribing now instead of paying the upgrade fee for Unity 6.

 

... where the subscription cost over the same 2 year period is more expensive than the old one time upgrade fee.

But this thread isn't supposed to be about the change to subscription or the change in pricing. It's supposed to be about Unity changing the deal they had promised for existing perpetual license customers.

 

Discussions don't always stay the way the author originally intended. Unless there is new information on the original topic there isn't much point in continuing to discuss it.

 

I agree with a lot of this. I own a perpetual license of Unity Pro 5, and I expected to have free/included updates for Unity Pro 5.x. I also expected to have the option to pay a discount to upgrade to a perpetual license of Unity Pro 6 when it was announced, similar to the discounts offered for previous major upgrades. Unity is changing the terms for existing perpetual license owners, and the deals Unity is offering for us to convert to a subscription are not very compelling.

In my case, I am not going to switch to another game engine. I have spent time evaluating those options already. What I will likely do is skip Unity's current conversion offer and simply keep using the perpetual license that I already own for as long as I can tolerate that version. I will delay switching to the subscription for as long as possible.

To be completely fair, I should mention the fact that I actually don't have anything against software subscriptions. In fact, I honestly think switching to a subscription based system makes a lot of sense. My complaint is how this transition to subscription is being handled and how this is really just a price hike compared to the previous perpetual licenses.

 

I suspect that @VarricCW's meant "product" instead of "project". In any case, the major version number hasn't changed and I can't fathom why. That would immediately put (perfectly valid!) complaints like this entirely to bed.

I appreciate that their goal here is to get rid of the whole major-versions thing, but a change in license model and development strategy is a pretty good reason for a change in major version, if you ask me. A clear point of change and a clean slate.

 

The cheeky answer would be that it isn't March 2017 yet. That aside the only conceivable reason I can come up with is that they don't feel like it warrants a completely new number yet.

 

@VarrickCW - I agree. I am not going to subscribe at the moment. I'll wait a couple of years at least. Just stick with the version that is most stable and will do the job. Unity overpriced itself when it switched mto the subscriber model, I guess a lot of developers didn't take them up on the new price so they then lowered the price to what it would be if the three modules that most bought all had to be paid for and then made that the flat rate across the board so for the likes of use we saw the cost doubled, and for studios it went back to what they had paid before. Those that benefited most were free users that don't contribute to the cost of developing the engine at all, like half those in this thread lecturing the people that did support the engine and allowed them to be given the thing for free. However, free users have a fully featured engine but they don't have access to a great many things the pro users have, so a what appears to be a bug to a free user usually has a solution and workaround to a pro user in the pro version which is why I was buying the pro version in the first place. I did find the emails sent by unity hilarious though 'Loyalty option! One time offer only! Commit before 31st December! No bug fixes, no support after March 2017! And only Double the price!'
However, on a couple of occasions Unity have made it clear that it is better to wait and see what happens, so I take their lessons to heart and will keep hold of my hard earned. There is nothing that Unity offers that gives me any desire to subscribe, the fact there are no Pro only forums underlines how much paying customers are valued over the professional forum poster crowd currently filling this thread (not at all), and it means that the actual paying customers have to post here and be set upon by freeloaders and fan boys that reap the benefits and don't contribute anything at all to the development. Theres actually one guy in this thread who states that without the personal edition he would have switched to Unreal ages ago because he doesn't like subscription pricing - no, he doesn't like paying at all.

 

Not subscribing is certainly a valid option. If enough people stay on 5.March2017 Unity might be forced to reevaluate. I really doubt it though, there doesn't seem to be enough dissatisfied customers left to make a difference.

Locally most devs seem happy with the move. But locally the industry is dominated by mobiles and VR, both which have been benefited by the change.

 

Huh? The versions are the same. There is no difference in the engine itself.

 

I'm personally pretty happy with the sub for plus, as I hate to not be able to remove the splash screen. I didn't upgrade for a while to the latest unity 5 versions until I subbed because I hated the latest "personal edition" splash screens they started around 5.4, even though the old mobile slash screens didn't bother me at all.

So yeah, I say thanks unity for creating the plus sub for people like me! I feel it's fairly priced and I will continue to use unity for a long time, and I have no reason to buy perpetual as I hope to continually update unity as it grows and evolves to continue to grow and update my apps and games in an effort to eliminate bugs and improve IL2CPP building, which has made a very nice difference in performance on android for me, and also has proven much harder to decompile (for me anyway).

I honestly don't totally get the reason people are so upset to sub, I mean I look at it like this, if your content your creating with unity is not producing more than 35 bucks a month.... why are you doing this anyway? What difference does having a perpetual lisence make if your that concerned about subbing to pro because of cost effectiveness? If your apps or games don't bring in enough to make a plus or pro sub worth it, then why is a perpetual lisence worth it?

Perhaps because I've never had a perpetual lisence is why I don't understand, and perhaps it has something to do with people trying to maximize revenue or something... but for me I have zero issues with giving the guys who made this engine - the guys who make my work possible - a measly 35 bucks a month.

Free apps with ads can make more than this easily, and easily produce a profit on top of that, so why all the unhappy perpetual people? Is it just the price difference when compared to a two year pro sub? Is there more that they lose in the deal that I'm not getting? There must be something I'm not understanding.

 

Can't you tell? This thread is stuck way back in 2014 when there was a difference.

 

So currently, I have a perpetual pro desktop license which at full price is the same as one year of Pro sub (paid upgrade price for my Unity 4 Pro license). I don't make mobile games, I like making web and desktop games so I am paying $1500 for one platform (using this very loosely here, web could be considered a separate platform) essentially. Pro mobile addons was another $1500 per platform so if I wanted to make games work the same across all platforms Pre-Unity5 I would be paying $3000 to start the perpetual license upgrade cycle.

Now with the post Unity 5, having the full engine available for all tiers (instead of locking them away) is fine, I got more than my upgrade payments worth out of the Level 11 and Services used. Problem is that now the mobile developers are getting a massive break (1/3 the price) while the Desktop/Web developers are now paying the same for features that they don't need.

I own my license and will continue to use it until March, but as it stands I will switch to another game engine until after the end of support date and the results of the new pricing system settle down. I have no issue paying for something that I'm using but when I am expected to pay more for less, then I have an issue.

Edit:
Whereas I have not made much money off of games I make with Unity (25 cents I think, it's still a hobby) it definitely has gotten me in a position to get a job or two in another year or so doing game development because of a portfolio.

 

What do you mean ? i pay for what i need, i mean plugins, why should i pay until i reach 100K limit, or no game i made have made benefits or if it was only an hobby until it makes money income ?
It is better switch to Godot or another free engine or Unreal 4 formula as you pay only when you succeed and your game make money income; it makes lot more sence for lot of people than paying a subs without having any game revenue and not knowing if your game will be success or not.

Some companies uses UE4 because they can start using full engine capabilities without needing to bring money when they start their business and game. They pay if they get successfull only.
I know some team users making mobile and desktop games that only uses open sources engines or open source frameworks for lot of reasons and they don't want to hear about mainstream 3D engines. There is more diversity that you would expect.

Anyway who are you to judge people specific choices, each of us has different business, goals and choices about what you must pay or not could it be 3D engines, clothes, houses or whatever
In Unreal forums each users is treated as equal, there is no Pro users because they would pay some subs would give them the right to say Personnal edition users are inferior users

 

This is just straight out wrong. If you are talking about fairness, the new price model is better. There was no particular reason that two platforms of the twenty that Unity supports should be subsidising the rest. After all, the average mobile developer has no need for most of the desktop features in Unity.

Yes you can complain about the price going up. Yes you can complain about the move to subscription. But there are no grounds to complain about the price balance between platforms.

You are not paying for features you don't need. Rather other people have stopped subsidising the features you need.

 

You do realize that the vast majority of the different platforms are a variant of each other:

• Windows
  • Xbox One
  • Windows Phone
  • Windows Store Apps
  • Hololens
• Linux
  • Android
  • Tizen
  • FireOS
  • Daydream
  • Cardboard
  • Samsung Smart TV
  • SteamOS
• Apple
  • iOS
  • tvOS
  • OSX
• Nintendo
  • 3DS
  • Switch
  • Wii U
• Sony
  • PSVita
  • PS4
• Web
  • WebGL
  • Facebook

Having done homebrew and hardware hacks for consoles in the past, all of the SDK's I have worked with (except for the PS3) have all been OpenGL based which powers the majority of Linux devices. I don't know what the current Nintendo devices run but in the past the homebrew SDK's were OpenGL geared towards its hardware. What I don't think you realize is that when they add a new platform, sometimes all they have to do is write a wrapper or just add the necessary library to the current codebase and they're done. Sometimes for bug fixes all they have to do is update the SDK for that item and then fix any minor bugs that arise from prior workarounds.

That's why I'm a tad miffed and you try to make it seem like it's a magical black box (human sacrifice was required for PS3 Cell Architecture though) but in reality it's not. I appreciate the hard work that UT has put into the engine and it is definitely an excellent engine but the business side of things is not the best. That's the side I have an issue with and I wasn't too thrilled when EA's former CEO took over since he was in charge when it was voted the worst company in America.

I get it, they need to make money somehow but I do have the grounds to complain about price difference. Does it change anything? Nope. Do I have to stick with Unity? Nope. Will I? For some things yes. I've been using it since 2010 so I understand what strengths and weaknesses it has.

 

You are getting free 5.x.x updates are you not? As for the next major upgrade, you can expect anything you want of course, but Unity still has the right to change their pricing model however they wish. If it's not a change you like, you have a decision to make if you'll go along with it or not.

 

They're referring to the idea that a Unity Personal developer will always be able to upgrade to the latest version whereas someone who isn't will be stuck with an older release if their subscription and thus having to deal with workarounds rather than actual bug fixes.

That being said the whole premise requires that you be able to stop your subscription in the first place while still working on your games to some degree. If you're at the point where you're no longer over the Personal income limit though you likely have bigger problems to worry about than bugs.

 

I get what you are saying, but I don't think that was what he was saying:

 

Ah. Yeah I totally misread what he was saying there.

 

That was kind of my point. Why should two of those platforms cost more then any of the others? There is no sense that iOS and android cost more.

I get you are upset by the price hike. That makes sense. But complaining about mobile exports you don't need isn't really valid.

 

They shouldn't cost more than the other platforms, what I'm saying is that I would be going from ~$60 a month currently to $125 and that mobile developers are going from ~$188 to $125 for the same time frame (I bought the license mid-2014). I was mentioning a reason why perpetual license owners were cranky when the new subscription model was announced with the price cut for some platforms and doubling the price for others. Pro level members got shafted, sure, but the Plus level allows for newer or smaller groups to develop for cheaper than any of the previous payment options before.

 

Let's put it this way, the desktop only pro users had the price unchanged for years even tho they received more platforms for "free" every year and more and more features were added. Mobile only users paid for the desktop pro too on top of the mobile addons even tho many did not ever use any of the desktop platforms. Now it's more balanced. Also not all pro members got "shafted" as plenty of them use multiple platforms and now there is no extra addon pricing.