Unity 2.6 is out (and free!)

I say that if it continues in the free version will succeed against other engines.
I hope it remains that way long.
Not only for the engine and also more people to use Unity3D and Turner it popular.

Too bad not to have certain things that other engines have it.

As an example, an editor of "Path" (Waypoint) and Pathfinder.
And some improvements Unity3D more
performance in the editor that supports older video cards. In my case I use the video card, "ATI Radeon HD 2600 series AGP" whit-512 Memory Size and Memory DDR2-Type. DirectX10.
Some bug detected and have already submitted to the team's unity, support.

Keep a good job, in my view is an excellent 3D engine.

 

Thank you, that's good news too.
Buy PRO and start to dev for iPhone soon 8)

 

The discount offering is per-Indie license that you purchased so I don't know that we'll offer you multiple discount opportunities for one single Indie license purchase.

You know this now but Unity iPhone Basic can be added on to Unity, Unity Indie or Unity Pro (only Unity iPhone Advanced requires Pro). More important to me now is to ask where folks are getting it that Unity iPhone Basic requires Pro? I ask as I want to be sure that we don't have some sort of misinformation posted somewhere so please let me know, thanks!

This is not a temporary maneuver, this is not something we're doing for kicks/marketing/noise generation, this is a permanent move as it's one we feeling strongly is right.

 

I saw somewhere here, in this forum. I will not sure you, maybe I understood wrong any post in this giant topic

But now is totally clear, thanks.

 

C'mon now, it's "only" 27 pages, should be easy right?!

 

Thanks man.

I'm sorry that you don't trust us. I think there's not much I can say except to point to our five-year track record of overdelivering and continuously updating Unity to be better and broader in scope. Knowing our team and how passionate we are about this, it's hard to imagine we'll let up anytime soon

(not sure how you could lose your money with Unity Pro, it's not like we could afford to make it free anytime soon)

d.

 

Ok, I will confess to you that it was the first time I read more than 10 more pages of a topic.
I needed to know how this will finish and a answer from Unity Team.

Like others users said: now I can install in my 3 PCs (not only 2 I have ).

 

I don't think this applies to "pro" owners "yet", I am hoping they lax that rule for independent pro owners. Who knows, the sky is the limit, can't mix pro and indy license, so it is slightly baffling on how that plays out.

 

Dear David,

On that note, I'd like to cast my team's vote for the Unity's team.

Coming from the second most expensive Quest3D licenses, we can say that using Unity Pro has been a breeze and actually a lot of fun.

We have been very happy with what you guys have come up with and have been able to deliver quality applications to our customers on budget and in time.

Unity Free is good for us in many ways, even as Pro users: I truly believe that most of the customers/users here will come to terms with what they feel is wrong about it, specially when you are making yourself available and, above all, listening to their claims.

From our very limited POV, there's one thing we'd like you to hear: we've dropped Quest due not to their licensing scheme (which wasn't that bad), not for their lack of innovation (they innovated a lot) but for their apparent reluctance on delivering bug fixes quickly enough, opting for major solve-all packages that came in, quite often, too late.

Snow Leopard, 2.6 release and Unite surely had an impact on your ability to focus on a few rough edges showing up with the current app (a quick look at the forums will confirm) and that is expected.

But please, let the habit of *publicly* releasing frequent bugfixes become the rule. We rather download and install ten updates a day then wait two weeks- a month for a solution. In a world of tight schedules, a extra week can be the difference between a fat check and litigation.

Again, congratulations for the bold move and good luck to us all on these new, exciting times.

 

I for one am very happy for what unity has offered with the "free" indie version. I am currently teaching a Unity college class (I am also the academic director of the Game Art program) and am now encouraging all of my students to download the free version for use on their own computers.

Coincidentally we have licensed a full lab of the Pro (education) version of Unity.

Exciting times....

 

Iphone basic can only be used with Unity Po came, I believe from your sales page which stated this on the Iphone Basic option. This has been removed / updated

 

We are 2 developpers a little disappointed because we bought in June 2009 :

2 Unity Indie version Licenses.
1 Unity iPhone Basic Licence.

Today, we learn that unity Indie 2.6 is now Free. This is something really interesting for new Unity Developpers but for the one who paid to get licenced this is quite unfair.

Is there something that can be done to don't think having been ripped off. (you can email me or PM me) ?

Thanks a lot for the time you'll accord to read my email and to contact us through private messages...

 

In my view and as Higgy posted the whole launch was a bit of a mess and I personally believe it was wrapped up slightly in marketing Bullshit...however in saying that I really respect the fact that David took time out from counting the money he has got stashed under his mattress and tried to Explain the situation ..how Many Managing Directors do that...so Kudos to you David! and Higgy we love you man!

 

Thank you for free Unity Indie 2.6.0

I've been looking for a good 3D engine for a while and am not content with moddable FPS engines. I really want to make a 3rd person platform adventure. I'm still a total newbie though.

I understand the complaints of my countrymen since the several hundred dollars, the original price of the indie license, was still one-half of an average professional's monthly salary.

Anyways, you win some, you lose some. I got my Playstation 3 one week before the Slim came out.

Anyways, I don't have a portfolio yet, but I'll keep lurking and learning on these forums, and hope to surprise people after a couple of months with the tool.

 

I honestly don't understand everyone getting upset about it going free. Sure it's a bummer you couldn't foresee into the future to know what would happen to save some money. It is the way things go. Things get cheaper or prices go up. If you buy something from a store and 3 months later its on sale do you go to the store and demand a refund of the discount?

I bet if instead of going free it went up $200 no one who paid for it would complain and with that would it be ok for UT to be upset and want you to pay the extra $200 that it went up?

Don't get me wrong I feel for everyone cause I'm one of those that paid for it as well, but oh well that's the way life goes.

 

When you made your purchase did you feel that you were getting great software at a great price? If so then please explain how that value proposition has changed for you. You still have that great software, you still paid a great price and nothing has changed. Do you spend all of your life worrying about whether or not someone else gets a better deal than you on everything? Or do you make purchases based on whether you're getting a good enough deal at go from there?

FWIW, with your logic we would never be able to lower prices, they should only increase in the name of "fairness" right? Wrong!

If you're truly feeling ripped off then I'm sorry you feel that way, but I just don't understand. We've already put out an offer for Indie owners to upgrade to Pro or to get another iPhone add-on and in those cases the discount offer meets or exceeds the price you paid for Indie! How deep do we have to dig?


And before anyone casts stones at us for not being in your shoes, please remember we too use and consume goods and software, we have been in your shoes. I bought an iPhone and then Apple dropped the price significantly. Was I bummed I missed the price drop? Sure. Was I all up in arms and angry at Apple over it? No, that's life and that's business, good on them for making it more accessible. Did I take them up on their offer with that iTunes or whatever coupon? You bet! So we've been there, but we still feel that delivering our tools to the masses for free is the way to go.



So, y'all who paid got a great deal and the software is still worth every penny you paid for it. Can't we all just get back to making games instead of worrying about the better deal newcomers are getting?

 

Touché! I might have to start using that analogy. By dropping the price people are feeling that's unfair as they didn't get the same deal so they want something back. If we raise the price would those of you complaining step up with a check to pay us extra?

 

Visa or Mastercard commercial
Priceless!

Ray

 

Worth a try :wink:

 

Just finished reading all 28 pages of this thread, in case someone else already asked this, but no.

I tried the demo version about a year ago, was impressed with the software and documentation, but one major problem it had made it a no-go for me (so I've been looking in the open-source direction so far). It came bundled with Pace copy protection (of which no mention was made on the download page, or anywhere else on your site). Anyway, Pace interfered with my virus scanner. The response I got from customer support was that they were not aware of this issue, and that I should contact Pace for a solution. Well, I downloaded a demo of Unity, not Pace (and never would have). A note to UT management: that's not much better from back in the days when LimeWire came bundled with hidden spyware. I can't remember if the demo came with an uninstaller or not, but there was no way to get all traces of Pace off my computer since it messes with hidden files in the OS, and possibly the file-system itself. I had to reformat my hard-drive, and re-install OS X and all my software to get rid of it completely. About 2 days of work, which I did not appreciate at all. So my question is: is the new Unity really free (as in, also free of any type of DRM)? Actually, I would have happily paid $200 for Indie a year ago if it hadn't been crippled by a restrictive activation scheme. That's one of the things I like about Cinema 4D. My work isn't shackled to Maxon's fate or whims. My serial numbers will always work, which is one of the reasons I've bought more than $4000 of software from them so far. The free unlimited edition of Cinema 4D GO (their "Indie" version) that was distributed a few years ago got me hooked too. So making the basic Unity free is a good idea. :wink:

On a totally different note, I also have a technical question. I'm working on a game concept based on my computer animated movie project (using Cinema 4D of course ). I want to put cut scene videos between level changes (while the level is loading, à la "Knights of the Old Republic"). Obviously this can be done with the Pro version using a video render to texture, but I don't need any of the other features of Pro (at least not for version 1.0)… and there's also the whole software activation nightmare (and likely Pace) which I don't want to get into. Can the basic version do this? I don't need videos playing inside the game, only fullscreen between levels. If not, could it be done using AppleScript and QuickTime? I don't mind if I'd have to compile each level as a separate app, as long as they could all reference a master variables file to be able to pass data from one level to the next.

One last thing… There's mention on the comparison page that the basic version has a splash screen and watermarks. I understand the splash screen bit, and don't mind it. But what's this about a watermark? I don't recall the demo watermarking any of the sample projects I compiled. :?

 

Unity, even the free version, still uses PACE as our licensing system. The free version requires you to use our website to obtain your free serial number which you enter and away you go. And worth noting is that neither we nor many others (the vast majority of others) see this as crippling so there's not much compelling us to change course just yet.

The playing of videos, whether full screen or as a texture, or the use of render-textures won't be available in Unity (the free version) as those are Pro-only features.

The "watermark" is a brief logo displayed in the bottom right corner of web player builds, the splash screen is shown in stand-alone builds. If you never compiled for the web then you wouldn't have seen the watermark.


Post up if you have any other questions as we're here to help!

 

First I couldn't make it through all the posts in this topic as there is just way too much noise. There are some good points in there, but many people upset that they paid $200 for a now free product and just as many people telling them STFU about it.

Second, I purchased the Indie version at the beginning of summer. I had been using the trial version, and it was about to expire, so instead of using a few simple methods to by pass the time limit, I purchased it knowing that I wouldn't have alot of time over the summer to use it (being the busy season for my business), but wanted to support the company and their product, and I would have a little free time to start learning the ins and outs of it.

I think alot of people had the same idea of supporting the Unity Tech and it's great product, but now feel they are not getting the same support in return. Also they are thinking that in the future, the new features will be mainly for Pro, thus making it more attractive then the Free/Indie version. Only time will tell if this will be true or not.

That said, I'm not too upset about buying a product that is now free, but I do feel slightly insulted about the upgrade offer. The real problem I have with it, is it's only an extremely limited time, with Christmas being a month and half away. UT should really (must) extended the offer for another 3 months, then I think it would be feasible for alot more people to upgrade.

Also as pointed out in several other post, the discount is really only $200, as I was already eligible (for all of 2.x life time) for a $200 discount on Pro. But you are offering a bigger discount on a less expensive product (iPhone Basic) which I really have no interest in. I know this won't happen, but the discount for Pro, a more expensive product, really should be greater then for the less expensive product.

These points have been raised in some fashion or another in this topic, and I am a little late in 'chiming in', but I felt it was important enough to raise them again.

 

Well...

Epic Games release today the Unreal Engine 3 for free, you can do it noncommercial projects for Pc.

you could use this tool to learn the engine and having a job as a developer of AAA video games.

Is a good news too.

 

I would not worry about them starting to only add features into the Pro product. I think they will continue to improve and add new feature to both products (like the animation editor for both and the profiler/external SVN support for Pro in 2.6). Of course only time will truly tell.

 

This summer I paid $200 for Unity and do not regret it. It's a great product and I am very happy to see that they are making the indie version free. I have already started pointing students and game development enthusiasts to the website to download the indie version.

What I am not happy about is that I have till Dec 31st to invest in Unity Pro. The holidays are upon us and people are already budgeting to spend their money on their friends and families. If the Unity Team extended the promotion deadline by 3 or 6 months, I think they would find a lot more indie users jumping on it. It makes better business sense for them to do so as their conversion rate would likely be better.

Just my $0.02.

 

I agree. I purchased the indie version within the 60 days for a refund (made it by 2 days lol) but I decided to go with a refund since I knew that I would not have ben able to upgrade to pro for the same reason since the holidays are here.

I feel the offer should be extended indefinitely to users who have already purchased the indie version so that it gives them a chance to save up the money.

Way I see it hey whats it hurt. In the end you will get more users who already purchased the indie version eventually upgrading to pro which gives Unity more $$.

This is why I opted for the refund cause I knew I would not have the $$ to upgrade within the promotional period.

For now I will just work with standard version until I can get up the money for pro at a later time.

 

Just wanted to say "congratulations" to UT in the official topic. I think this is a very bold and very intelligent move; and like all bold moves, will ruffle some feathers. Good luck; it is definitely a good time to be a game developer!

 

Looking forward to Torque going free purely to count the ruffled feathers

 

Yes we still have great software but we paid for it months ago and these people who could not afford it before can now get their poor paws on your great software that developed by the investments of those of us who paid for this tool months ago. Clearly you people should give some kind of bonus to those of us who purchased Unity 2.x and followed it loyally till now. Bad bad move. Lets face it... Unity will never compete with UT3.

Yes upgrade to Pro for $1,000? Thats really reasonable advantage you guys can offer to loyal followers of Unity for long time? Maybe less upgrade price tag might help us feel better. HiggyB.... you don't understand? Well then stop being a douchebag and a dick. For being a evangelist... you truely suck at promoting unity's image.

We all paid and we still get great tool... right... Just out of curiosity... when did you guys actually decide to change the indie license to free? I'd be really pissed if you guys made this decision long time ago and kept from us and still allowed people to make purchase.

It would be prudent and smart move for you people to refund all puchase of Unity 2.x. There will be less pissed off people. Me? I really don't give sh** about Unity 2.x and Unity iPhone but your move to make indie version free just makes me feel ripped off. Give us something thats better than the free version. And quit your job as evangelist... lol wtf you think your response to some people are smart and persuasive? You are not helping image of Unity or change your nickname to "Unity Douchebag" lol

 

bambamyi, name calling and getting personal isn't really a good way to get your point across.

 

Looking through the looking glass subjectively, first Higgy rocks, ok, past that point, I've only been a follower of Unity since 2007, so only got 2 years under my belt using it, I purchased Indy originally, saw that I really wanted pro becuase at "that" time, the only way to build for Windows was through Pro, so I paid the difference to go from Indy to Pro for the simple solution to build for windows.

But wait, you come along and you can buy Indy, which by the by, allows you to build and run and use the editor on Windows and Mac without having to own pro, but you throw up a stink about the $200? Indy for me was $250, Pro was same price as pro is now and Higgy helped me get through the process of going to Pro from Indy.

But wait, I wanted iPhone (some flavor) and they hooked me up with a trial (when at first I wanted to simply shuck out the cash for Advanced, but the trial hook up showed me all I needed was Basic), so I shucked out the entire iPhone basic cost....

I frankly don't care if they charge / recharge / repay / don't pay / or even don't care to repay any costs. The product is still worth more than what they are charging in total. All said, they could charge $4,995 for Pro and people would pay because it is that damn good.

But wait.. (yea I like this phrase)
I have owned iTGE since January of this year and it doesn't have a simple build to iPhone feature and it costs $$$ more than Unity to own but doesn't work. On top of that it currently has no functional path to Snow Leopard and no news on if / when it will work for Snow Leopard, so I am waiting on a (year later) functional product to test on the iPhone.

So lets look at this the right way, the cost of iPhone Unity Basic + original cost of Unity Indy allowed you to IMMEDIATELY build to iPhone with a few clicks of the mouse button, a few more clicks and it is deployed to the apple store, 15 minutes of your life time spent and you have an an application that is making you money.

But wait... your major complaint is those who are getting Unity (Unity Indy old) for free and making games. So, while you sit in these forums, calling people names whom you don't know, have no idea of the marketing advantage this gives Unity, what kind of ripples and signal it send even to what you call AAA engines, those engines now are also Free as of this going free, and I bet it was BECAUSE this went free, those "free" owners are making a game and laughing at your wasted efforts on a non-understanding of long term economics.

This is one of the few products that I will defend till my knuckles bleed and my feet have blisters from the hot coals on fire, simply because I have grown with it over 2 years and I fully understand the logic behind it. And NO, I do not work for them.

Edit:
Forgot to mention, Blake you rock to bro.
FYI, I have owned Torque products since 2005, 2 years prior to Unity, and I did in 1 day with Unity that took me a year to do with Torque products.

 

and Unity Evangelist being smartass is good thing then? How about Unity focusing on getting new customers rather than those customers whose been following the tool for quite awhile and also paid for it... Yeah I am pissed. I have been a owner since Nov of 2008. I paid for it and now you guys are offering it for free and to make things worse make the upgrade price 4 times the price we paid for. You know what? I have browsed through the thread and HiggyB's attitude is totally annoying and ignorant. Not to mention the fact that he's trying very hard to be smartass about the whole thing. We are the customers who paid for your tools... treat us with respect.

Open your eyes people.

 

Charity begins at home.

 

And I tell you.

Unreal Engine 3 is free... and is Unreal that engine.

 

Now that Unreal Engine is free for non-commercial products, would you please consider enabling real-time shadows, reflections, render to texture (so we can display , etc. for indie users (especially those who originally purchased the indie version)?

I wouldn't mind keeping the Unity logo at startup at all.

 

So you've been using it a year. Why are you acting like this is the first time you've ever encountered a company reducing prices? I've got news for you: in the real world, it happens all the time, and you rarely get a refund if you bought it before the price dropped.

--Eric

 

This thread is becoming painful - moderators please step in and lock it.

 

Anyone remember CrackerJacks?

Imagine having bought Autodesk Toxic last year for between $5k-$15k, and this year it's the prize inside giveaway with Maya...

 

Or how about buying Color (or whatever it was called) for $25,000 before it was included in Final Cut Pro.

--Eric

 

Better Yet, Parallels Desktop for Mac version 4.0 is utterly blown for Snow Leopard (sometimes it works, most times it doesn't), so their fix, was to fix it in version 5.0, thats right, you win a cost upgrade to get a product that you have to pay to upgrade just to get a version that runs. Talk about a painful marketing campaign. You either throw what you own away in the garbage or pay an upgrade fee to get a working product. So if you are like me and use Parallels daily, you are forced to upgrade just to get something that functions.

 

I think you need to open up your eyes.

First of all, you think that HiggyB's (who as zumwalt said rocks) attitude is totally annoying and ignorant, well I would say what your attitude is but I can't think of any words to describe it that I would want to put on a public forum.

Next is you purchased Unity Indie almost a year ago, come on man. What if instead of making it free they made it $50, would you be demanding a refund because you spent more a year ago? Something that wadoman said that is so true, if UT increased the price on Unity Indie by 200, would you write them a check for the new price? It is a 2 way street when it come to price adjustments because they can both go up and down and you will eventually get the cost or benefit of each in the long run. You will have to pay more money when you upgrade next if they raise the price or you will have to pay less money when you upgrade next if they lower the price. Everyone should be happy that when Unity 3.0 comes around, no one has to pay anything for it.

Now I am a Pro owner so I couldn't possibility know what the indie users are going through (hopefully you sense the sarcasm). I purchase Pro about 5-6 month ago as I knew I wanted to play around with the pro features even tho I knew I would not need them right away. Now if I purchase Unity Indie to start with, I now would be able to get an extra $200 of a Pro Upgrade. Am I pissed that some people are getting Pro for $200 less than I did, hell no. Unity Pro was worth even penny of the $1500 and I have no problem with some people getting it for a little less money.

One more thing, specific to bambamyi. I don't mind that people are upset about this, that is their right however come on to the forums and start insulting employees of UT is probably the worst was to get your point across (but my guess it you just wanted to get attention, so for that, mission accomplished ).

 

HiggyB has been incredibly patient here.

Frankly, you are being self centered and immature. The world doesn't revolve around you, though you act as if it does.

You should be using that energy to make games.

Or maybe that's the problem isn't it? You have spent a year doing nothing with this product, so you want to blame your laziness and failures on other people?

 

I cant tell you how many 3rd party plugins for 3DSmax I have bought over the past 10 years that eventually are integrated and come with Max for free now and some of these plugins cost well over the $200 we paid for Unity. This is nothing new with software its been going on for years. You think UT is the first to do it? Maybe it's the first time you had to encounter it, but wake up to reality. In the big picture it's best for everyone.

 

Here's my joke to lighten up the thread:
Q. How many Unity Indie developers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A. Free.

Whether it is successful at doing so, is another story..

 

I feel that this is an anti-competitive move.

Just my two cents,
-Steve

 

<Inigo Montoya> I do not think that word means what you think that word means. </Inigo Montoya>

 

30 page thread, I have to contribute my 2 cents.

The you annoying complainers. Ever heard of a successful company reaching a milestone in production and then cutting product costs as a result? You have NO idea how the internal Unity development looks. Maybe the money WE paid for Unity indie helped them put in place a framework that allows them to support unity indie for FREE and developing new features for Pro.

To be honest, I actually would pay another $200 if they said I'd have to stop using Unity if I didn't pay it. Look at the support, community, and integration Unity offers. Just like the name. It's totally worth the cost. I figured the price would go up.

 

"Dumping, where a company sells a product in a competitive market at a loss. Though the company loses money for each sale, the company hopes to force other competitors out of the market, after which the company would be free to raise prices for a greater profit."

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-competitive_practices

 

The first anti-competitive move was making Unity such a great product. That alone, has the potential to force competitors out of the market.

 

In that wiki article it mentions:

Unity does not have nearly the clout to be anti-competitive by this definition. Microsoft gets busted for doing anti-competitive things (like giving away IE for free to destroy Netscape) because they have (had?) a monopoly.

Unity giving away a toned down version of the Pro software is not putting anyone out of business. There are already free game engines of varying usefulness. It's not like GarageGames or the CryEngine folks are going to look at this and say.. oh noes! we can't go on anymore... Damn those Unity people taking our paying users away!... We need to close up shop.

In fact it is the exact opposite of anti-competitive. They are being very competitive in what is a very competitive market. That is what causes the other engines to either innovate or lower prices, which in turn causes Unity to innovate, which in turn makes better products for all of us.