UE4 3k price drop and democratization

Ok, Hippo... so let me ask the question like this:

- Why should I pay money to Unity, if I get better with UE4?

or

- Even if I throw turd at UE4... currently it would be better looking turd than with U4 (U5 currently is in a galaxy far far away). Why should I pay more than for UE4?

As I said, currently for a customer I have to remove the splash screen for Android and iOS distributions. That is the only pro requirement I need... costs me $3.000... basically the income for the app...

And as long as we don't have the U5 free version, don't tell me how great the free version is. The free version is chicken S***...

 

12k a year is more than most of the more than 7 billion people on this planet get. Sad no, if they don't need such money to enjoy life in their life's circumstances. Sad yes for you if you think they are sad for not living your lifestyle. If you try to say they needs those things such as you have to 'enjoy' life clearly you have a desire to create artificial needs where they aren't needed to pump up a business' bottom line.

 

It's a big deal to someone who doesn't have $3000 to spend. End of story. There are a lot of people with more time than money and this works fine.

If someone can make the product and save $3000 in the process, then more power to them. If they are happy making 20 games that average $3k per quarter each, then who are you to argue? Heck, I wouldn't mind that quarterly paycheck. It's still $120k per year. Yes, at that point you could just buy the full version of Unity, but you wouldn't need to.

You can't fault people for choosing not spending money they don't have.

 

There really is nothing to debate. That is 3k off my royalties dues. Less money out of my pocket.

 

Because I've made so much in total for 5 days work with my own little 2D engine doing a bouncy ball game on iOS? I made so much from it that I made it free when I moved on.

The engine graphics is *never* what makes you money at these scales. It's what makes you money if you're spending a year on development. And you spend a year on development *not* expecting to obliterate 3k? W T F?

See what I'm saying yet?

Unity free is *overkill* for making a game that obliterates 3K in earnings. If you don't make much much more than 3k with Unity free then you *are* making the wrong games for a living.

In short if someone isn't making 3k (this is probably a lot of people) and they want to make a living, they need to focus on many more important things like speed of development for one.

 

You either completely misinterpret my comment, or you quoted me by mistake.

 

[slightly off topic] Hippo, can you link me some of the games you've made if possible? Just out of curiosity. I would like to look up the titles you've made.

I just love looking at indie titles- no ill intent planned lol

 

My signature has 2 titles

+

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/film-creatives-runner/id670350759?mt=8

+

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/barnyard-bounce/id369794530?mt=8 (this little thing was done in C++ with my own engine yet made the most cash overall !)

+

many more client apps

If 3K is the problem or deal breaker then, it's better to go with rapid dev than anything else, and focus on a clear title that knows what it is

 

Hippo i think you dont understand that i CANT buy Unity Pro.
As I said in some previous post, if you remove the economic factor, perhaps the decision would be different, but in fact, the 3k does not change this for me.

ok, I can use unity free, but why do it if I can use UE4 that perhaps will be better than U5 Pro.
On the other hand many people work on other things for a living (in my case i work with IT software, but not games) and make games as a separate activity or simply passion, and in my situation there are a lot of people, maybe i can never make a living from games and maybe never earn a dolar.
And secondly, why do you assume that EU4 is / will be slower to produce games that U5?

 

@Hippo, these titles look really great! I have an iPhone I will check some of these out! Thanks

I am trying to play more indie games so I can get a better handle on designing Indie titles that a small team can make.

 

I've moved away from mobile for a bit, but the key thing with mobile is: focus! an app that's small but focusses on one specific thing does much better than focussing on a grand big thing

(Flappy bird took this to extremes and people loved it too I guess!)

 

AAA studios (and large studios) don't pay royalties. It would make no sense. The big engines don't cost $10mil to license, they are in the high 6 figures, and apparently Cry did break a million. Also, have there been any billion dollar games made with Unreal?

 

I'm speaking from the perspective of an indie or a small group of indies. If you're a big company with a big budget well then you have the budget to create bespoke art and bespoke code by simply screening and hiring competent professionals.

Hippo doesn't assume the UE4 is slower to produce than Unity. That is his experience. And he has I'm sure many assets and his own code stash to speed up his development in Unity.

Now you, that's another story. Why should you pick Unity over UE4? Strictly speaking, if you are experienced enough and if you want to release to mobile and / OR be able to buy known and available assets to speed up your development then you choose Unity Free over UE4. Everytime. It's that simple now. That could change later though.

Those things are a given already with Unity it just takes your patience and experience to learn which assets you need and how to utilize them if you choose Unity over UE4.

If you have not the experience and must learn allot then you have the luxury of spending time learning UE4 while they bring their asset store online and add modules that allow publishing to mobile devices. With UE4 it is an article of faith that you will eventually get to release to mobile and have many assets available to save you development time. Will those things be available in UE4 one day? Almost surely. And in the meantime you can learn UE4 because it seems you have a lot to learn before you can cost effectively utilize an asset store anyway.

And before you even say it, even if you don't want to publish to mobile the Unity Asset Store is a major time saver that UE4 doesn't have. The Unity Asset store actually has more assets for desktops than for mobile anyway so that's not a good argument that you aren't targeting mobile therefore Unity isn't as good as UE4. The assets are very important to indies. So with experience you'll know what to buy and it's cheap enough that you can buy things you'll likely need 'just in case' you decide to do a game that uses them. However, you still have to have enough experience to avoid buying indiscriminately or becoming a bit collector unless you have a lot of money you don't mind 'wasting'.

 

A game like Barnyard Bounce that netted you 3k with only 2.5 stars seems more like plain luck than anything else though. If you were to release that same game now, I doubt you'd get anywhere near as much.

Basically you can't extrapolate that it's easy from that experience.

That makes a difference how?

 

Um no, it made 50k+ plus I am privy to the sales my clients have made with games we've done without marketing. All of them broke 3k without making any sweat.

They're small, they're focussed and above all they didn't need any special tech (or marketing, or luck). Just nice, simple presentation, and a focus on one specific area of gameplay. If anything, by contrast, TOB is the lowest earner (given team size and dev times).

People aren't making money on mobile because they do not know what the mobile user likes. And by large that probably isn't going to be compute particles, lensflares and so on. It's something fun and mildly addicting. Anyway we're going well off track here, and not even discussing the topic, which is why I will step back for a moment.

But if 3k is what people feel is the general reason they should pick UE4 for, then it's a bit misguided.

 

Barnyard Bounce is an excellent name with an excellent, cheerful advertising graphic. So good work there. After checking how you play the game and in-game graphics though I skipped it. However, the game play is typical for mobile and fun for short periods which is what you want in mobile.

 

I never said they did pay royalties. Not until now, where it makes sense to charge them royalties with the massive potential price, though I'm not sure if they would agree to it. At least, not 5%.

And yes, I've heard UE3 getting around the $10m mark, though the evidence is anecdotal.

About UE3 games breaking 1 billion - I'm not certain. I know CoD has claimed to have made over $1 billion (black ops 2 hit 1$ billion in 15 days), though that uses a modified Quake 3 engine.

On further research, it looks like most UE3 games have netted less than $400m. I could have swore Mass Effect 3 made way more money. Well, either way, a royalty package would probably suit Epic just fine. Especially now that they are crowd sourcing and getting a ton of free programming time.

 

We just signed up for UE4, downloaded the source, and started playing with it. Not completely jumping ship just yet but it most likely will happen.

With Unity Pro, we've hit several snags and limitations, not too mention aggravation for items such as Mono, basically useless support, and excessively long delays between needed features. If I remember correctly there was an announcement of the stencil buffer not too long ago, as if it were new technology. I'm sorry but that's been around for a while, something we used with regularity.

We've become custom to Unity's interface, and really like the Asset Store. . .but that's it.

 

Have the added any kind of IDE with UE4 or are you still expected to use notepad?

Wait, from what I just looked at... are your only options now to alter the source code OR use kismet, without any scripting to add functionality without modifying the engine? Did they make kismet 100x more powerful since the UDK? I recall UnrealScript still being necessary to make anything other than a shooter.

 

Don't underestimate the value of having thousands of *other* people having access to the source code. I've never touched a line of Linux or Apache code, yet I benefit greatly from other people having access to it. Significant fixes have been contributed to UE4 already. It's also a lot easier to find/fix bugs in your own code when you can dig down properly into the layers below.

 

Visual Studio Express, XCode, VI, emacs or whatever you prefer your C++ with.

 

Kismet is gone and replaced by the far superior Blueprint system. The more I use Blueprints the more I fall in love with them. I am rarely adding code in C++ (only added a tiny bit in my Game DLL to override their Roll/Yaw/Pitch addition and replaced it with Quaternion math). My iteration times are really fast there. I have the added bonus there of having built-in networking. I am really happy on that side of the fence. But their framework really suited my game since it's a 3rd person shooter. Other's mileage may vary

 

I'm in the same boat as you, issue is the circumstances on which someone will change is completely dependant on so many factors. I try to explain who I am and what I do NOT for bragging rights / insults etc. but to set some basis from where my thought process is coming from. I wish others would too.. I work on MMORPG's, MMO's, FPS games and my main project is a AA sector RPG.. I'd say I'm in a minority and immediately makes me biased in my expectations of a product. I much prefer the one man band route, that's how I started off with Unity doing a top down hack and slash.. It was a much cheaper less risky time.

As things evolved, Unity became more and more out of it's depth.. From speaking to people doing large games, it's not been an ideal journey. But we are few in number and if numbers is a bargaining point, there would be little reason for Unity to try and extensively compete against UE4. I still see the two as different tools.

Although things change, U5 could be the answer. Nobody will know until it comes out!.

 

No you are not a bad person cough* cough* cough*...
But yeah, Epic don't want to monitor really small revenues while at the same time they want smaller developers to remain on board. But there's a benefit with this awkward model, due to the fact that it's game based, you can then sell multiple games and make less than 3000$ each quarter (which would give you a 12000$/year per game) and still you don't have to give Epic a penny. If for instance let's say you've made 3050$ in a quarter, then you'll have to pay 5% out of those 50$.

 

UT and GoW franchises have broke the billion dollar revenue.

 

Interesting. We set our initial expectation low to head off any disappointment. Our first project with Unity was more to measure what it can/cannot do, and design from there. However, we had to remove a feature because it was completely unreliable. We posted an absolutely minimum project that replicated the problem every time, and got no response from support. Eventually we did have contact with support, and surprisingly we were directed to speak to ourselves about the issue since the "poster" knew more about the problem. Stated another way, the support engineer didn't make the connection that we were the posters, reporting the problem. We were finally left with go vote on it.

 

It took me about 5 mins to add networking support to my current small prototype in UE4. And it was just some C++ macro decorations! Meh!

 

I think what you pointed out is the real issue, bugs are fine they are unavoidable. But you can't have them breaking projects, especially when you're paying for a product. As for CryEngine SDK / UDK and Unity free there should be no expectations.. Because err well it's free

I don't really care what I use as long as I can get my game out there and move on and it's a whole different matter when you spend 10 - 15 hours a day in front of an editor. Small problems grate quickly.

UE4 has democratized games in there own way, small fee to everyone. AAA tech demo's for you to reverse engineer, quick bug fixes and fast iterations + plenty of tools. I wanted to release my own commercial engine and do something similar, but UE4 has nullified a need for it.

 

Someone posted that UE 4.2 will bring a new 2D framework/tools. Is that true?

 

It says on a video with the tech director and two senior engineers that they will be.

 

It would be awesome...

 

As franchises, yes. But I was asking about games, as the license fees are usually per title. Also those are both by Epic.

 

I realize that you didn't say that. It meant to say they "won't". Even low earners can overshoot the normal license fee. And if they scaled the percentage way down, then it wouldn't make sense for the engine developer, as AAA studio's have a budget up front. Sometimes there may be additional contracts or agreements along the way, but those are typically fixed costs by one method or another.

They really don't over a million, not UE at least. That may be the total a studio paid to Epic over several years and titles. I have heard of one studio that paid over a million for an engine, but the story I was given that price also included additional features to be developed by the engine provider for the game. (It was big IP game that had a hard deadline). The thing once you get much over a million for a single title, it becomes more cost effective to build your own, especially for a franchise or multiple similar titles. That is why so many of the studios have in-house engines.

Yea, not sure either. Over the last couple of years there have been several titles breaking that billion dollar mark.

 

Thing is so many people post about UE4, but they post here. It's so telling. If anything, it's a message to Unity to stick to their guns because everyone's still sticking around

 

+1

 

Aren't you like an anomaly or just really lucky though? Don't most the vast majority of devs make less than that.

It might be a little misguided but it removes extra risk. You get a AAA engine for peanuts and have a further reduced risk. Some of us have way more time than money. Hell I get by on way less $3k per quarter.

I don't necessarily think it's that. Some people still have current projects going on with Unity and will stick around until they're finished with them. I'd give it at least 5-6 months for Unity to really know the effect UE4 has had on sales and what happens with the community. It's the current position I'm in.

I don't think they should stick to their guns. Perception has changed of the value at least on the subscription side of things which I've always said was a bad deal

 

re: 50k

Not an anomaly, just know how to play the market really well. Everything I touch makes way beyond 3k and consistently hits top 5. I know what to do regarding marketing, contacts, pushing, blurb, icons, that sort of thing. In Barnyard's case it came out about 4 years ago so it's had time. But I agree its probably not representative of most people. But I think <3k would be absurd for anyone spending a month on a title even these days. I guess people just throw their stuff out there without any care over the blurb, or drumming up a little press interest. Possibly they use any old icon or feel like they know best, and then turns out they probably don't.

(Back on topic) - well we'll have to wait and see for any Unity responses to happen. I don't know anything what they're thinking in this regard, I'm just a moderator who gently tickles Tatoforever from time to time.

 

Not a really a valid correlation. Forum activity is never an accurate representation of a larger group, for any demographic/sector. Maybe 30 or people are posting on these topics, out of 2+ million users. It is statistically insignificant and a self-selected sample group. Could be that most users aren't concerned or that most of the paying users aren't concerned. Or it could be much worse. I am sure that Unity is building an accurate picture of the impact with a lot more realistic data a handful of people posting on a public forum.

 

That is probably no the right way to read the current situation. A lot of people would love to stick with Unity, but are dabbling around with UE4. At this point, you are seeing feedback from people that want to stay because they have more experience with Unity, but will move if Unity does not make their subscriptions more competitive with UE4's pricing and terms. You should interpret these lengthy UE4 discussion in the Unity forum as as last chance opportunity for Unity to protect their ecosystem. If Unity "sticks to their guns", people will leave in droves and the Unity ecosystem will be weaker as a result.

 

More like thin ice, we are tied into contracts until December. Most will be mid project or near the end, the swedish guy is releasing his MMO this month. Others will be in support cycle.. Im willing to give U5 a chance but nothing more..

I hope these threads bar some odd bickering, have given enough insight.

@ ZG all I can do is talk to other devs doing similar projects, feedback has been pretty consistent. Bar some wip stuff Im the only one of about 30 devs I speak to that post regulary. Bar Tato and hippo obviously..

 

Well there are definitely fewer MMORPGs threads and if those threads were invariably noobs as was always the claim they'd know nothing of the forum's past and post their MMORPGs to the forum anyway. So there are fewer noobs and those that come, post a few posts and hopefully go off to the Learn tab at the top of the forums. That's were I think most noobs go now so Unity has done good in that regard.

And they must have a Unity ping count daily, probably when it checks for upgrades.

 

Darn, that's why I love you!

 

Never said it was, I only pointed out it because it was comparable to hippocoders post.

 

That sounds like more than tickling going on there.. Hippo better not be cheating on me.

 

Free User input:
I am one of those who's looking for a reason to stay with Unity right now. IMHO, I'd venture a guess and say that a lot of those who've already jumped ship or are seriously contemplating jumping ship are Free users. That being said, the school I just finished up at (after 8 long, arduous years) is now recommending students to use UE4/UDK over Unity...because that's what they've installed and that's what the students can get easily at home. Now, this is primarily for Rift and other Stereoscopic displays (there are two VR Caves), but the fact remains that UE4/UDK is far more accessible to the students and professors in that regard.

That being said, all I want out of UT is more information. Give us a tentative release schedule, maybe a tentative outline of pro-only features for v5. Just give us something. The only two things that are keeping me here are 1) familiarity and 2) the new GUI. But I just spent the better part of a year getting familiar with how UE does things, and only UT and the Elder Gods know when 4.6 is coming out ("this summer" is entirely too vague).

Again, I'm a Free user, so I understand that my thoughts concerning Unity/UE4 have little import upon the discussion here.

 

If you say that, I think you totally should abandon posting here and go focus make a 3k game each 5 days, that would be 18k/monthly following your logic.

Sorry but I think all of this that you said is BS (nothing personal and nothing as offense, please, just giving my two cents ). I am a full time freelancer game developer for the past 4 years, where I developed around 36 games and none of them sold more than 1-2k. None of my clients profitted with their games, they didn't break even. At least in these projects that are low budget and fast - similar to what you said "3k in 5 days".

Of course one can put a lot of work and come with something original/lovely, but that takes time (see the game 10000000 which took 9 months or the case of most "top" indies that took at least an year (Braid, Super Meat Boy, etc). So I think your logic is completely wrong.

Then, that's why the new UE4's royalty policy is important and will affect most if not every small indie out there. I can now offer extreme high quality rendering for my clients without increasing my pricing or worrying about a $4500 license + at least $300 in Asset Store's packages (shaders, marmalade, etc), since UE4 has everything out of the box (graphics and rendering wise speaking that is). Actually I am already working on an architecture visualization project. Before UE4 was announced I almost lost the contract because I was considering the high Unity Pro entry point price. So I could cut it out of my pricing and then I got the contract (not a game and not going to be sold, but still a point to consider).

Damn even a basic scene with a cube in UE4 out of the box humiliates Unity rendering. To accomplish a similar polish level you need the whole Unity set + at least 2 Asset Store stuff (Shader Forge and Marmalade) and still it won't look as beautiful as UE4.

On the other hand, in the whole UE4 x Unity thing, at least for 2D Unity is still the best option. UE4 is extremely complicated and bloated for 2D stuff (for now).

Don't get me wrong, I still love Unity and I'll keep using it for a long time (specially low budget client projects that doesn't require polished 3D stuff), plus mobile in UE4 is still a pain in the arse. But with time....

 

I still go on GarageGames Torque3D threads even though I abandoned it almost two years ago in favor of Unity. People got used to coming here and it is not like they left because they hate Unity they just don't feel the democratization anymore because UE4 is priced right. The forums over there are Jumping like it used to be here and there is no UE4 vs CryEnngine or VS Unity Threads. If they exist they are scarce. I found something useful to make with Unity Free when I need a break from the UE4 project (I rarely need a break) and will just eat those Pro assets that we bought in anticipation of getting the Pro License or sit on them while I do my big project in UE4.

 

This.
I simply come to these forums, to read stuff from some folks here.
And in the last time, I mostly read the discussions regarding UE4. It's like reading the newspaper You know the people here.
That has not much to do with Unity itself.

 

Yes, it is true, see below.

36:30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUVlKLvSXZk#t=2192

Codenamed Paper2D

https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?3539-Project-Paper2D&highlight=paper2d

Which is already in the codebase and available.

From the above, and the desire from the community, and the fact it is 100% open source, not for long.

 

Ah... fair point then.