REAL cost: Unity vs UDK: Small Team, iPhone, PC/Mac Release + Android?

Nice giant assumption, where does it say that Epic will help you? And why wouldn't Unity want to help with Union, after all they do get 20%. That's a nice chunk of change.

Sound like Unity has more incentive to help the developer that Epic who is swimming in money and has no need to help your tiny little company. They can make more off of their giant developers who have licensed real versions.

Where does it say that exactly? I'm not being rude I really want to know. Where is says they will help you. Not your assumptions and predictions of which you spew for a lot based on your bias, see there it is again. But real cold hard facts.

 

That workflow dont work. If the designer, integrates the all assets, setup characters animations, create materials (or shaders), setups lights rigs, do bakes, etc, he wont simply have the time to do his real job, create gameplay(or level design)! Hos gonna place waypoints, triggers, change level entities properties, test gameplay? The programmer? mm, dont think so. If the programmer do the designer's job, hos gonna do the programmers job? Sorry but your assumption doesn't work.

If your company is such large (50 artist team) you'll provably have a source license of Unreal Engine or Unity and this does not apply to this post main subject.

I said every developer, not your entire company. My example was clear, a company with 10 developers (designers, artists and programmers).

Again, they will have a hard time working on their own stuff and creating/doing others developers job. You cannot replace an programmer with an artist, or an artist with a programmer. Unless your two man dudes are highly skilled in all areas (programming, art, design), which turns out to be very very rare but assuming that, they spend most of their time integrating stuff.

Your marketing/business team or QA team? Yes, i give you my point on that.

If I'm an one man solo team, earning 100 000 is affordable. But if my team is composed of 5+ more developers, 100 000$ as revenue isn't affordable but i still need to pay for all pro license (cause the 100 000$+ eula).

 

Sorry but both (Unity and Epic) are working towards the same goal, "build a nice community and money". Same goes for us, we are working to create cool games and get some money. Dont forget that, back in november 2009, Unity community was pretty small and tiny, same for Epic, before they release UDK their community was composed of modders and pretty small.

 

Ok, I'm done beating my knuckles against the wall guys. You refuse to listen.

I've been there, worked with big teams, seen the real stuff and yet you still want to tell me I'm the one who's wrong. Ok you win. Good night. Go waste your time and money, I don't lose anything.

Thanks for the boost to my post count though!

 

think you've missed my point here. I'm trying to solve my problems, from my perspective, to get to my objectives. It's inherent that it's ALL BIASED TOWARDS ME!

so everyone on here is a solo venture? I didn't realize that, and apologize if my comments been misconstrued as a blight on solo man ventures. I'm aiming for something that, even with my limited knowledge of game development, know is way beyond the realms of one mans production capacity in a realistically useful space of time.

We're talking about a user case scenario right? Not Unity vision of the whole world. It's through this prism I'm looking at Unity, not rose colored glasses either way, this line was intended to be a throw away.

You're going to want to lean on this one a little harder. especially "you don't know anything about game development to begin with"... there's a crutch you're going to relish throwing out. Sling harder. "next big game idea"... no, read a little more closely the rest of the thread. I'm trying to help my daughters multi-lingual language development in a timely manner. If others like it and buy it, so be it. If it's a commercial flop but helps my daughter, I'm still stoked.

No, I avoided for your benefit, and tried discreetly to assist you in seeing the contradiction in the passage of your previous post relevant. You considered $23k "Colossal Money" yet referred to the incomes presented in the scenarios as "Modestly successful". If that's your idea of "Colossal Money" I've completely run out of adjectives for Sales Scenario 4 in this threads initial post.

Oh, I get it. You think I've got a graphic designer/ visual consultant on staff telling everyone what they should be creating and how it all should look. Kind of like a concept artist on steroids. No, don't have this guy, and not really intending to be operating in a "staffing" style scenario. I'd like to see the creativity of the guys in the team explored. I've used the word "team" a few times for a reason. Each member of the team is given a solid brief on the ideal look of the game, and some conceptual artwork, and then expected to bring their talent and ideas into that direction of creation. Artistically and stylistically it's not autocracy. Objective and gameplay is.

I think he's successfully disputed your comments. and then some.

yes, enjoying myself more than I should.

 

I came to the same conclusion. All they really want to do is to bash Unity and convince themselves that they are right. Logic, reason and facts are irrelevant to them at this point.

lol

@tatoforever / dissidently - Congratulations, you've been moved to my ignore list.

 

@Llama : and Union has done what so far? There's an assumption. btw re read what I've written regarding Epic and the income from me. I've clearly QUESTIONED "when" ie "how much" before they're willing to help. It's inherent in any tail end agreement that help comes for future mutually beneficial growth. That's just common sense. The question is "how much?"

 

You're both wrong. End of story.

 

dissidently, I really appreciate your wisdom about UDK, it's really an eye opener.
I definitely need someone to tell me what engine to use for my project.

Thanks, you're totally right, UDK is the greatest thing on earth, i bet my game will sell millions as long as I use UDK,
and the licensing policy is indie friendly too.

Have you gone to Torque, Shiva, C4 and other forum to make the same thread about UDK ?
They definitely need to hear about this great engine, don't keep your wisdom for yourself man, you need to spread the love ...

 

Well danged tootin', if that wasn't the blitherfest to upend all blitherfests. Game, set and match goes to Llama. Looks like dissidently is shilling for UDK IMO. As far as Union.. Take a look at the Unite videos and see who is on board. Currently there are 40 games going down this multipltform pipeline. Does UDK have that? I don't know. I just know that for what i wish to do with game engines that an FPS or RPG based setup is very restrictive and kinda last gen. I can write FPS scripts pronto so I don't need that "help". I have no need for RPG based inventory and health systems. Unity gives me what i need. The ability to do off the wall research and development on non standard game mechanics and prototype them rapidly.

BTH

 

FWIW, i could play the Bioshock games on a system where the Unity military demo was jerking.

I'm looking forward to monkey. :O)

 

What do you mean by FPS or RPG restriction? Theirs no restriction in UDK. You can create your game from scratch or extend/modify existing classes, that it. The provided Unreal Tournament is a bonus, you dont even need it to create your UDK games. Same goes for Epic Citadel source code, you can create your mobile UDK game from scratch without the need of any existing class.

 

The restriction from my reading around here is that UDK is based around an FPS type engine and to do other kids of game styles within it requires working around that core framework. For example..and correct me if I am wrong without getting all wadded up about it, I wanted to create a game that was a hybrid puzzle solving/minecraft sandbox/martial arts melee/musical weapons involving a huge machine with levers and gears to shut various pipelines, cams and gears on or off, constructing the machine in various configurations, whilst keeping track of chemical reactions. How will UDK assist me there? I already know I can do this in Unity and have prototyped parts of it rapidly and found other brilliant packages from the community. My understanding is that UDK has strong points for FPS and RPG..i.e.character based rigs and shooter type environments and classes relating to such. My understanding is that it is tough for a single individual to get into the guts and code things other than that which revolves around and supports FPS/RPG style of gameplay. I am not at all interested in recreating Citadel. And I will be damned that any agenteur gets 25% of my cut that already gets a cut out of it from the various outlets.

Best Regards
BTH

 

One really cool feature of UDK (and UE 2 - UE 3) is the massive use of
GPU-Instancing.

All the level in the UDK Examples massively rely on the use of instanced Meshes.

A Feature i really miss in Unity, but the demand isn't that high:
http://feedback.unity3d.com/forums/15792-unity/suggestions/164242-graphics-gpu-instancing?ref=title


EDIT:

@taumel:
Yes, this is very odd, while Unity performs very well on low- and mid-ranged systems, the performance on the high-ended pcs seems very choppy compared to other engines

 

Not having read through all of the posts in this thread I think tere are two things to remember with figures like these:
1. It's also a matter of how much you lke to use your software and how many problems you'll encounter on the later production phases.
2. The figures are only for ONE (!) game. Not for all the follow up costs for any game released after your first production.
And let's face it - the first production will most certainly not the best since every team will be learning new things abouth production and software quirks along the production.
The cost for all the other software assets and things (software can get very epensive for a team - BEYOND Unity - one Seat Maya/Max ranges at about 4600 EUR here in Germany - consider THIS in all of your calculations as well!

There's a lot more to consider if you're going to produce a game and invest in thechnology. I don't really thing it's that easy to compare UDK and unity like in the first post of this thread.
Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Still: I think there's much more to consider than the few low numers in the given calculation. So .... my consideration: it simply depends on your preferences and targets. I don't think one license model really is superior to the other.

 

It's a shame that whatever angle is taken, any thread that mentions UDK always ends up as an action replay of the same argument.

 

My argument is against people who don't listen. I'm fine with debating about others engines, I used to work in Unreal3 and I think it's a horrible interface and over complicated; but I did still work in it, and is has some awesome power. (I used to teach UDK at Stanford) I've worked in proprietary game engines without visual interfaces, where the only way to test the damn game is boot up the PS3 and run the game. Seriously! Does UDK have it's advantages over Unity, of course it does it's been under development for over ten years.

Unity ,for me, is simply a combination of nice interface, simple workflow and powerful scripting for both editor and engine. It's definitely some steps behind UDK and perhaps always will be. But this is like arguing that a sable hair paintbrush will make your paintings better than a synthetic brush. A master can use his finger and an amateur can buy all the high tech painting tools in the world and still, the master's will look like a masters and the amateur's an amateurs.

The argument often seems to boil down to: "The artist is only as good as his tools." Which is wrong: Only the developers can make the engines work for them. Using one engine over the other doesn't increase your marketability. Contrary to popular belief, only fun games general sell and warrant being noticed. Not simply because it's powerful by Unreal does it make the game more enjoyable, that's just bias talking. To assume because you've used one engine over the other in your development will result in a better out come is boulderdash. It's all about making a fun game people want to play and then, when you're puking money, you can worry about which developer is going to pick you up. All the hypotheticals in the world have no place until it's proven. No amount of common sense means anything when it's backed by bogus assumptions powered by a huge bias. That, is no longer common sense.

I'm arguing against stupidity. Not for any particular engine.

The end result is always the same: Fun Game = Money. Bad Game = Flop. Engines and dreams won't sway your game to one side or the other, only time and effort will. Now that, is common sense.

 

Guys, you should calm down. The problem with these arguments is they are all opinionated.

 

Listen to what, your personal opinion?

Is not because Unity have a lightweight interface due to the lack of features/tools that is better than UDK one. I would like to see what Unity Interface will looks like with all the middlewares/features/tools provided by Unreal Engine, you'll provably stop arguing that UDK interface is horrible or over complicated.

First off, Unity isn't few steps behind Unreal Engine, Unity is years behind Unreal Engine.

2 - How an artist will work without tools? Its like comparing Ms Paint vs Photoshop. You'll never be as productive using ms paint.

I agree with you, we must stick with Unity provided tools/features which turns out to be less richful than UDK ones.

The better your tools, the higher chances your game'll be more enjoyable.

This topic is about Unity vs UDK (cost-wise), there's no need to say that UDK is superior than Unity, we are already aware of that. So calm down son, go back and keep beating your knuckles against the wall. Whatever you say, you wont make Unity any better.

 

Why are you adding asset server, don't see how it is necessary for a small team. Or if you keep asset server, at least add nFringe cost to udk ( 10000) because you really need that with udk

 

I think the reason is quite simple, it's due to a lack of experience in engine design/optimisations for those needs.

Unity is coming from a Mac and beat Director direction. The not so convincing performance of typical to more complex PC desktop scenes, ongoing shadow issues or the lack of quality of the deferred renderer pretty much illustrate this. Epic Games on the other hand are doing this stuff since more than 12 years. Now whilst they aren't id or Crytek, it would make them look really shabby if they weren't able to provide a better and more solid product in this time. Whilst saying so, i also think that Unity is doing pretty well on simple scenes and that's most probably what the majority of their audience uses. It just all got messed up with V3 (forward rendering, ...). Unity still needs time to mature and evolve. We simply are still not there.

 

If you want to keep your project and workflow productive (even on a small team) the Asset Server (or any other source version control) isn't mandatory, its a must have. Unfortunately, you cant do any kind of source control without Pro.

 

No its not high only if you use totally unrealistic decisions as base like "all 5 of the team need all tools" which is bullocks.

Also you forgot to factor in other relevant aspects like "to use UDK you must be on windows, to use udk you must use a tool that generates FBX and to use UDK you must own a monster machine, not some mac mini class machine with 2GB RAM".

you are obviously omitting and oversimplyfing stuff just for the sake of making up numbers that are bullocks from minute 1 on and make them look as if they were real.
This here isn't the US Senate so please safe us bullocks that anyone with some brain CAN detect as being made up for this very purpose, cause here all can put their voice out not just the other elites being payed by a Lobby!

Yes Unity can be expensive if you don't have any success, no question.
But if your game has even basic success unity with reasonable seat amounts (ie modellers don't need it, texture artists dont need it, sound engineers don't need it) will end up worlds cheaper.
And that without considering that you pay Unity once for unlimited projects, not 25% on every single project you will ever do. This on its own already crushes your stats because you forget that indies, to reasonably survive, must produce 3-5 titles a year, UDK will eat 25% of each of these titles, while Unity, if we would evenly spread the costs, already after year 1, only cost $300 per pro license and they won't imply further costs in year 2

UDKs only benefit is the Career aspect but its discussable how large that is as UE is not exactly a fav engine in the field. Its a well known name yes. but like CryTek you don't need more than 1 hand to count the number of games per year using it, so don't bet on it as being of use to get a "real job" (aside of the fact that the idea of this comparision is to compare the techs on the base that YOU have success, not that you are going to use it as a jumpboard to work for someone else). Unlike 3DS Max and Photoshop, where skills will get you a job as they are broadly used, UDK will help very little. I'm willing to bet that by now, indepth Unity experience and a Unity track will get you a job much more likely due to the web - iOS - Android - OSX - Console nature of Unity.

Also the 5k free border on UDK is a joke, that does not even pay the start of the project for any development, 5k is great for hobbiests that do it in their sparetime but really only there. If you expect to make advantage of that 5k to reduce costs you are targeting an income that will not even pay 1 persons life, not to talk about the other 4 that also take part!

 

The $5k border is something i also don't get as its way too low for serving its purpose. Either they should significantly raise the border and/or introduce a flexible royalty system tied to your success. Beside of this it seems like a first in between step. Some time ago Epic Games technology wasn't affordable for Indies at all. Now, whilst it isn't the cheapest option, it kind of is. Maybe it takes them some more time to get to a more attractive offer. On the other side they offer proofed quality compared to Unity or Shiva where you can get away with much less.

Question is how much they take this direction serious and how much time they have left. I think a more attractive offer in the near future would pay out for them in the long run. In its current state it just isn't good enough for quite some developers to jump the boat.

Regarding the royalty vs. payed product discussion, this also depends on the number of products you intend to ship in a Unity product cycle because as history has shown every two years you also have to update all your Unity licences.

I once was surprised that RunicGames made the decision to go with Ogre and a few other, also for smaller Indies affordable, middleware which they partly enhanced to suit their needs. And it pretty much worked out for them. I always was jealous about the working shadows in Ogre, also on low spec systems, whilst Unity's solution never was satisfying or available at all. So another vote for there are many roads leading to Rome.

 

I'm sorry, but this is completely false. See this list (You have to go down to the UE3/3.5 part).

 

Indeed, but the list is a bit missleading as it contains games that were not even released in the year mentioned (Dungeon Defenders desktop is still pending. I've preordered it on Sept - mentioning the "baby version" which is offered for free as example on the UDK page is just lame)
Also it contains games from teams where you just will never get a job so including them is not reasoanble.

But either way: Even if you ignore all these points its like 14 games in 2010 ... thats less than projects that were seaking devs alone in dec with unity.

 

No comment about the cost of nFringe, eh?

 

Deck 13 used Ogre for a lot of their early games (Ankh and Jack Keane for example). I don't know if they still do bute - sure. The tech is not the problem. I've seen quite a few people who are really good with Blender and I don't doubt it's power. I just like the handling of my commercial apps better, ATM.

 

Yes i know but the performance requirements for a game like Ankh are a less/different than for a game like Torchlight, which must be fluent, has to deal with many animated objects, ... where Ogre proofed its quality.

 

it's a troll thread from the very start OP just prefers to "forget" that you actually have to buy Unity licenses once and then develop all the games you wish with it. Ha-ha! Very funny! While paying to Epic 25% of your yearnings for the rest of your life.

I'm not going to argue what's better as an engine - Unity or UDK (in my humble opinion the UDK is slightly better - but that's JUST MY OPINION AND I'M NOT GONNA ARGUE!) but I like Unity more, probably because it's so easy to learn and I'm so lazy

But as for the pricing - hell, the Unity is way more profitable than UDK. And it's actually more profitable just from the point of view of customer - you can hire some guys, who already have their copies of Unity Pro and seal the deal without spending a coin, while the UDK offers all the expenses to the project owner - TA-DAAA!! Give your 25% to some guys. I mean, come on! 25%? Why not 50%? Or 75%? It's an awesome ZOMG Unreal Engine ThreEEEE!!!!111oneone
Yeah, right...

 

Haha! +1 on that!

yeah, when I first time saw the price of nFrige my lower jaw was running away screaming "No way, you f#$king moron!!!" $3,500 for a UDK project source editor??? The whole freaking VS Studio 2010 is like $550, lol

 

Its no UDK project editor.
Its an UE3 project editor that happens to support UDK too
But for UE3 scale its peanuts ... as if you see something in the percentage to promille range anymore ...

But yeah they are totally nuts, it costs more than VS and that for an addon for it ...
Unhappily its the only editor with real debugging for UnrealScript if I recall correctly among a few other features that no other IDE and "syntax file" offers.

 

Would be interesting to see the OP's comments on costs after project is released, but somehow I doubt that it will.

So there is no debugging without it? And someone said to me that UDK has great toolset (better than Unity)...