UE4 3k price drop and democratization

They sure are!
Its a reason why they started suing and this whole Samsung/Apple/Google/HTC/Nokia mobile phone mess.

Also, its not a good business sense if they don't fix the fundamental problem of their pricing structure. Trying to retain a tiny advantage on Asset Store while ignoring the real problem of competitor pricing means the market will eventually go the other way (as it always had) and that tiny advantage of Asset Store will evaporate when there is no longer any user base to sustain it, by then, it will be too late.

 

I agree, I think Asset Store is ridiculesly biased - they continue to feature certain group of developers on the front page, while shunning the rest.

Antares Universe for example, was one of the VERY FIRST Unity extension, and the very first visual scripting extension on Asset Store; and yet they were never feature on the front page of the Asset Store and worse still when David Helgason was doing the Unite last year showing a slide of the visual scripting extension avaliable on Asset Store - they featured PlayMaker, uScript, and then a DEAD EXTENSION called Brain Builder that was at the time already no longer on sale (and removed from Asset Store) or supported (due to unpopularity and poor sale - I think they sold maybe 5 copies (?!) judging by the number of people in the Brain Builder support thread).



Another one :
UT seems to be "pushing" Alloy Physical Shader Framework a lot featuring it on Asset Store front page (even featured it in the newsletter some months back), while Jove: Physically Based Shading System Asset Pipeline which is almost identical (and came out first on Asset Store months before Alloy) was never mentioned in newsletter nor was it ever featured on the front of the Asset Store.

Biased? You betcha!

 

Its more like you release nipple invaders on platform Venus and Venus does not allow you to release nipple invaders on platform Mona, nor tit invaders or boo..If that's enforced unilaterally by Unity on all publishers, definitely not kosher on my book
Its probably more on the line of exclusivity agreements per publisher/ asset, like console exclusives, still don't like it but fair game.

 

Exclusivity is terrible. Whether it be software, games or art assets.

If Unity wanted people to sign it though they'll have to show that it is beneficial to the developer/artist/whatever to sign that.

 

The thing is, what can Unity offer as advantage for this exclusivity when UE implement their own Asset Store and become a much bigger user base (and hence bigger customer base)? Most people who put asset on Asset Store wants to make money and they follow their customers - and the only REAL incentives that UT can offer are all already played out on the mobile app stores space - like lowering the 30% cut to 25% or even 20%, or even more drastic measures like giving away money to lure app developers to develop for their app stores. Even with these kind of offerings, majority of these strategies failed to attract the developers to their app stores. These app stores failed because the underlying problem of the platform they were trying to sell.

 

There's another one that never gets mention from UT, Lux, probably because like the other assets you listed it's the high performing cheap option.
All the options that Unity features cost $$$, the ones they ignore are free. It's clearly a bias in favor of making more money from the asset store.

 

You sure do! I know you guys probably have a special section of the forum (not visible to normal users) to hang out in! Like a secrete lounge where you all hang out in and bad mouthing users you don't like! (Probably me!......or most likely me!)

 

Well there's Eric's place but we don't go there much any more on account of all the wires and lines that trip you over or poke you. Then there's Thomas's hangout which nobody visits because he's a grumpy sod. Then there's Richard's place but he doesn't let just anyone in since he's always cooking something really tasty and doesn't want to share.

Aurore's place is hidden in the mountains, where there's no real access except for the booby trapped path.

Regarding U5, IMHO: Amazeballz describes it fairly well, and oh 'It's better than UE4'. I'm not sure the price needs to change, but obviously I'd be thrown off a cliff (on Mars) if I mentioned anything so keep your eyes on Unity's blog.

 

So basically Epic is not using the subscription as a profit center but instead they are allowing hobbyists and Indie developers pay for the privilege of helping Epic refine and polish their engine. While at the same time protecting their backside in case a Indie strikes gold with the royalties.

Nice model if you can do it.

Of course there is always the possibility down the road that Epic decides the engine is in a state that they don't need those 10000s of 'helpers' and that they want to make the subscriptions into a profit center.

 

It's not unreasonable for Epic to make Unreal Engine entirely free to develop in. They're partnered with a corporation which earns a billion every 3 months. Your subscription fees do not matter, and never will matter. The 5% does matter. That's good. But I don't think people realise just how good Unity 5 is. They'll find out once it goes live and then realise that perhaps Epic has work to do (as strange as that sounds)

In short, none of these discussions are important. What is more important is posting on the Unity feedback thread, and answering the OP (Brett) with clear answers about what you'd love to see from Unity. Discussing the same pros and cons between each other isn't as effective as talking to the man with the means to make a real difference.

 

@hippcoder

I don't understand why you guys blame x company because they have money or any other reason. This is how basic economy works. Peoples are free to put whatever prices they want, is all about request and offers. The point is, you need to be competitive with prices. Is very simple, you have to resist on market with a product, no matter what product is, else is something wrong about that product price/quality. You can't blame the competition for lowering prices, is not correct for a free economy. You have to adapt.

As for you UE4, I can understand why your view is biased, on Unity forums.

 

It's good to see that actually other people acknowledge that.

It's incredible frustrating and daunting for a lot of hard working asset store vendors. I've been saying that for a while now.
And apparently because of that, they hold back my own sales campaign I've been asking for since almost a year. At least that is my impression.

Read my post here and see another prime example how biased that store is handled.

It's problematic these days. The Store is quite crowded today. Especially in the 3d model section with 5000+ models. So if you're not Michael O and his team with epic art packs, or have a incredible useful tool that fills one of Unity's gaps (shaderforge, NGUI), you have a hard time to get noticed, no matter how good your stuff is. And your marketing range is quite limited, because of this specific niche.
The Asset forum to promote your stuff might be your best bet, with thousands of daily visitors.
Unfortunately, your threads get buried within hours, because nowadays, this is also used as support forum for some of the high roller assets like Skyshop with dozens of requests per hour.

The responsible person, Caitlyn, don't even look into this forum, or at least does not respond to these concerns, or other problems regarding the store.
Last time I saw her was weeks ago, to declare how "phenomenal" she finds that "How can we serve you better" thread and that's the place to bring all the itchy stuff about the Asset Store to her attention.
That's what I did. And since then not a single response to any of the posts concerning the store.

Eventually that is not just a problem for us vendors, but for customers as well.
Because they always get the same obvious stuff to see, that everybody and their grandmas already aware of. And lots of hidden gems vanish in obscurity. I would even go so far and say that UT loses money because of that.

Another example of the store bias..

 

You say people don't realize how good Unity 5 is. Well, since nearly none of us have ever seen Unity 5, that probably makes perfect sense. If you are a beta tester who already has it, then good for you. But the rest of us have not even gotten the chance to see Unity 4.5 and 4.6, much less 5.0. Everything is stuck behind a long time delay for all of us common folks outside of the beta tester's list.

I am a hobbyist. I am finishing up a couple small projects in Unity 4.3 Free, and I am also using/learning UE4 for $19/month. I also have the option to pre-order Unity 5 Pro today for $1500 per platform, but I won't be able to use Unity 5 Pro for many months. Honestly, Unity 5 Pro is vaporware to me until it ships, and I don't know when that will be. So I am left comparing Unity 4.3 Free to UE4, and UE4 absolutely smokes Unity 4.3. That is the comparison I get to make right now, because those are the tools available to me right now.

I am excited to someday see Unity 5. Enlighten support will make a big difference, as will the 64bit editor. But I cannot compare Unity 5 to UE4, because Unity 5 is not available to me yet (and won't be for many months). Meanwhile, UE4 is already available and constantly getting updated.

 

You don't necessarily need to be competitive with prices, even if there are equivalent competitive products. Look at Diesel and jeans. Change nothing and jack up the prices and WHOA THOSE JEANS ARE EXPENSIVE AWESOME STATUS SYMBOL WOOOOT.

 

1. If Unity's developers (and executives) displayed more videos (instead of acting like the NSA/CIA), we would be able to agree or disagree with you about how good Unity 5 is. But this "cloak and dagger" stuff isn't helping Unity's case. Just look at all the Unity vs Unreal/ CryEngine threads popping up daily.

2. We all,..I mean everyone in this forum, knows what CryEngine can do. Unreal Engine 4 isn't shy about displaying what it can do. But Unity is still trying to hold on to it's loyal fanbase and asking them to wait. Why wait? most of the fan base is already leaning Unreal Engine 4 and waiting for Unity 4.5, 4.6 or even 5 is only making matters worse for Unity.

3. I come from UDK (prior to learning Unity for the past Five months) and a couple of my friends are constantly showing me what they can do on Unreal Engine 4. I will give Unity credit for making it to the major leagues. I say major leagues because it's part of the "big 3" Game Engines (CryEngine, Unreal Engine and Unity, in no particular order), but with this status comes great expectations. Expectations that are not being met.

In closing I respect you moderators because every day you see more and more Unity vs xyz threads popping up. That's because we have expectations of Unity that are not being met. You know how good Unity 5 is, but if it's that good why won't your boss release Unity 4.5 or 4.6 yet? It's obvious our cries, pleas and rants on this forum (and many others) falls on def ears. With that being said, Unity isn't treating this PR nightmare very well.

 

PR Nightmare? Really? lol

Because they aren't done yet? Duh.

 

I'm more excited about U5 now after reading some of these posts, even if all the money I spent on assets the past 3 months is out the window I can't complain.

 

Sometimes things are weird. I have unworn 20 year old Levi's 501s that were actually still made in America that I could probably auction as valuable antiques.