Unity acquires Bolt

I bought Bolt 2019 from original site. Still waiting email promised voucher code. Asset store does not show me free update yet.

 

I went ahead and bought it. So far I'm really liking it. I hope they integrate DOTS into it, or into Bolt 2, and I hope Bolt 2 isn't a year away. But so far, not having had much success with typing code for over a year now, this feels way more natural. Well worth the money, even if it does go free eventually. The new things things I'm learning, all the functions I didn't know existed, all in tables, easy to put into the graphs, it looks like it is worth it even as just a teaching tool to learn how Unity operates.

 

I appreciate your professional manner of reply (Thank you for that).. but the information is quite obvious to me.
Nevertheless, I hope your reply clarifies the details for someone else who may be confused.
Thx RealityDotStop

 

I tend to agree with RealityDotStop, writing methods, even classes, and using them as units in Bolt covers 99.99% of use cases and results in more reusable code. Nothing is stopping you, for instance, from querying the input system in Bolt with a static method you wrote, or creating an object from a class you coded and manipulating it every frame in Bolt. The only time you need "custom" units and not units built from standard code is for advanced features like multiple flows, multiple value returns, dynamically changing headers/gui elements, and etc.

That being said, I would gladly welcome a more robust and straightforward api for custom units.

 

How do i get acces to the unity version of bolt, since I have the older version from ludiq? they are two different store listings.

 

If you have the original, it should show up as free on the unity site. If you purchased it through Ludiq, I believe you have a coupon emailed to you.

 

I purchased from Ludiq. No coupon yet at mail. I did receive email a month ago that I would get one. I did create support request about it earlier.

 

Yeah the vouchers were supposed to be sent out on the 4th and nothing has come yet.

 

Looks like Unity have added Ludiq account emails to their system, and they automatically apply the voucher. So if your Ludiq and Unity emails are different, that’s the source of your issue. You can register a new Unity account with your Ludiq account email to get the automatic Bolt voucher, but the rest of your assets will still remain in the current account. And there's no way of transferring licences.

If this is the case, perhaps try contacting Unity support. Maybe they can resolve this.

Hopefully, someone from Unity can give concrete answers to the voucher situation.

 

Unity acquires Bolt, they still charge for it, and now those who supported Bolt on the Ludiq website cannot obtain a Bolt License? This is absolutely embarassing. You can't even download Bolt 1 from the Ludiq website anymore, which means Bolt owners now have to contact Unity support to get an essential engine feature that should be made free for every developer. Not to mention new Bolt purchasers will be confused why they can't get Bolt 2 because they didn't purchase before May 31st.

Unity, just release Bolt 1 and Bolt 2 for free. The negative press you will get from this won't be worth the extra profits you'll obtain.

 

@AskCarol /@LaurentGibert can you shed any light on the vouchers or how it's been resolved?

Thanks @PanthenEye , but that's absurd without contact from Unity. Doubly so if anyone is expected to have more than one Unity account.

 

Will Bolt be better than visual scripting for DOTS?

 

Hi @Ruchir, we are in the process to figure out a number of details. Sorry for the delays here. We need to be a little more patient.

 

Hi @nagasaidandu, @Dark-Link, @spacename, Ludiq had committed to give Bolt 2 for free to existing owner of Bolt 1. We committed to respect this promise for existing owners and extended the offer for the rest of May after the acquisition announcement hoping we would have figured out all the details for Bolt 2 in this timeframe. Now it's taking a little longer than expected but we still hope to provide clarity on Bolt 2 pricing very soon. So please bare with us a little longer as we are finalizing our plans.

Thanks!

 

Hi @JoKiv, we had to wait a little bit to give a chance to some of Ludiq's customers to opt out of having their information shared with Unity. Now this is being processed, let us know if you haven't received anything in the next week or so.

 

Thanks for the clarity @LaurentGibert , these things can take time. it's a big process.
Glad to know they'll be coming in the next week or so.

 

We had to manage 2 situations, when the asset was bought from the asset store we could process this automatically, when bought from Ludiq website, we had to obtain customer information from Ludiq, and for privacy reasons, Ludiq had to offer to opt out of this process for a period of time before we could get access to that list. Now we got it, so this should be resolved or to be resolved soon.

 

Thanks for the feedback @Tanner555, we're working at clarifying those plans and will share back with everybody ASAP.

 

Hey @thanslow, I believe my messages above explains the delay for some of Ludiq's customers.

 

Hi @Dragymeow, we hope not!

Let me clarify: we think about Visual Scripting as an important asset for new learners, for creators with limited development skills, for dev teams seeking for high speed iteration, easier reusability and maintenance of code logic... And all of this is valid regardless if the project uses DOTS or not.

While today Bolt and DOTS VS are different in many ways, we hope to progressively provide a unified workflow for Visual Scripting that achieves the value proposition described above, and it seems having similar experience and capabilities will help.

As we provide more information on follow up plans, we will also think about how to get there, which will definitely be challenging for many technical reasons.

 

Thanks from the info. I'll let you know if I receive anything.

Email (month ago. From ludiq) were worded as "This voucher will automatically be sent to this email address on June 4, 2020. " so it might have made people nervous to wait more.

 

Nice move, Unity... nice move... </sarcasm off>

 

It is not like they didn't tell us before...

 

@HasanUAS @AskCarol If this is the case can you tell me why you're luring people into buying a soon to be deprecated asset with a 70% off sale RIGHT NOW?

Also, last time I checked, there was no warning about this on the store. People should know they are buying into an asset that reached EOL.

If the goal is to annoy your customers that would do it.

 

How is it being deprecated?
Bolt 2 will be a new asset with a new codebase. Bolt as it exists now will go on, and they could simply continue development on it.
The single biggest question being raised right now is whether Bolt 2 will actually exist.

I think the likely outcome is that Bolt stays as Bolt and what would have been Bolt 2 gets rolled out in a few months as "Unity Visual Scripting" or something like it.

 

They should stick with the Bolt branding, like Blueprints it's more personable.

 

It's been a week. And now 11 days past the original date
An update or an ETA would be nice. Thank you.

 

Hi @thanslow, yes. Here is the latest. The file had been shared on time, but we messed up a little bit in terms of ownership, wasn't clear who had the action (face-palm). Apologies. Short story, we got it back on track, gave it to the right folks, and they have the action to send it out, this week as I am being told. I will check on the status every day.

Sorry for the delay.

 

Hi @LaurentGibert
Do you have any updates on Student Plan users receiving a coupon for Bolt 1?

 

Easy enough to slip up, thanks for letting us know.
Glad they're on the way.

 

Hi @LaurentGibert,

The asset store says: "2017.4.39 or higher", but some of the previous posts on this thread have described some 'issues', so what is the highest version of Unity that's been tested (and works relatively bugfree) with Bolt 1.4.12?

My biggest issue with using Bolt in years past was that whenever I tried to update the Unity engine or Bolt, something in Bolt or Unity (respectively) would be broken causing me much grief in trying to debug the issue. Several times, I just gave up on an update and 'rolled back' to a previous version. Ultimately, I ended up moving over to another gaming engine for the past couple of years because of this.

Anyway, I think Unity made a GREAT decision in acquiring Bolt, so 'hopefully' the integration between Unity & Bolt updates will be much better. I LOVED using Bolt 1 in previous years and I am looking forward to using Bolt 2 in the 'hopefully' near future.

THANKS!

 

Bolt is the only paid Unity Technologies asset on the store, other than small art assets. I really hope this is just an administrative failure and not an emerging precedent.

 

After some thought, I'll go out on a limb here and make a prediction:

Bolt 1.4 will never be free. It will soon be pulled from the store and Bolt 2.0 will be made available in the Package Manager as a preview package under a different name. A year from now it will be released from beta, just in time for 2021.1f1.

 

Why can't Unity sell assets too?

 

Because you are then competing with an unfair advantage, asset store creators pay Unity 30% and Unity itself won't have to pay it

 

lol, it is like saying that Valve shouldn't sell games on Steam because they won't need to pay for their games there... as long as the asset is actively supported I don't mind having to pay for it.

 

They can, but they're selling assets in an environment where other engines offer the same content for free. While Unity increases subscription cost, Unreal practically removed any kind of pricing for indies earning under a million (which is most indies). Unity now asks money for official packages/assets, Unreal release assets for free every month and award their mega grants to talented asset makers. And then there's Godot, which is quickly becoming a strong contender, at least in 2D space, but it's a few years away from being a true competitor.

If Bolt 2 ends up being paid, Blueprints will still be free and the internet will keep touting UE4 as better because of Blueprints. It doesn't matter that this message is mainly reiterated by wannabes who have never made a thing. A potential new user sees all of that and he'll try out UE4 first, because there's no barrier to entry. And because Blueprints is free, there's a vast audience for content makers who produce books, courses and YouTube videos.

There's also the aspect of cost. If you have to pay for Plus to get splash screen editing, and pay for Bolt 2, and potentially more official or unofficial assets per each seat to get basic engine functionality, the costs can crop up fast. Meanwhile, other engines offer this functionality at no extra cost, which helps the bottom line.

Unity are not some small underdog who can't afford to release these engine features for free. They're a 6+ billion company, they have hundreds of millions of investor money and if I recall correctly they have insane profit margins already which is why they're attracting lots of investment money in the first place. Unity engine is one of the largest engines in the world and absolutely dominate markets like mobile.

Recent acquisitions stay paid because they want to attract new investors. They want to do IPO this year. That's all fine and dandy, but the ever increasing cost of using the engine actively hurts their existing indie user base. They've probably discovered that the real money is in AAA, movie industry and non-gaming related industries like archviz and what not. I recall some higher-up mentioned that the engine is growing the fastest in non-gaming related industries. Hence why MARS is priced at enterprise level and doesn't consider actual AR game developers who usually work in small, often under-funded teams.

But most of all, if Bolt 2 stays paid it limits the potential reach it could have. It limits the community size; it limits the content makers' potential audience; it limits the potential for extending Bolt 2 like Unreal's community have embraced Blueprints. Unreal Marketplace has hundreds of Blueprints based assets. Barely anyone will extend Bolt if it costs $100 or however much they ask for it. A paid asset can't spawn a Blueprints like ecostystem but Bolt 2 can absolutely do it if it's free for everyone.

The only reason to keep Bolt 2 paid is for short term revenue benefits to boost their IPO numbers. That's it. There's no other benefit. Long term more money will come in from hundreds of Bolt 2 based assets, but they're doing the IPO now, not two or three years down the road.

If Bolt 2 stays paid, I won't leave the engine. I've bought into the ecosystem, I know engine well. Switching would incur significant costs on my end. And all my client projects are Unity based, so it's not exactly my decision. But if the trend continues, I will strongly consider looking elsewhere.

 

So, how can I download the Bolt2? Now it is not available on the Ludiq website. I do bought Bolt some time ago from Ludiq and now I can't download again by any means! No redeem code, no nothing!

 

The down side to Unity purchasing Bolt is it will be a blow to other asset developers who have created their own Visual Scripting system. If Bolt remains a paid for asset then this is probably not as much of an issue but if it is released for free, then I am sure it'll be a blow to these other developers and all their hard work.

 

It has happened with a lot of tools. Ferr2D vs SpriteShape, Anima2D/AnyPortrait/Puppet2D vs Unity 2D Animation, Amplify Shader Editor/Shadero Sprite/Sprite Shader Editor vs Shader Graph. I'm sure there are more that I don't recall right now.

Sure, some of these mentioned tools are not being developed anymore but many of them still get updates to this day and survive because they have more features than native Unity tools or they offer niche features Unity tools do not cover.

What is different this time? Why should VS scripting tool devs get an advantage that none of the aforementioned tool developers ever got? That's not how business or life in general works.

I understand many people wanted their favorite VS scripting tool to be acquired instead of Bolt, but keeping Bolt 2 paid for this reason is... unreasonable. It's an argument that's entirely based on your feelings.

You shouldn't argue for official micro-transaction packages no matter what you think about Bolt as a tool. That's a worrying direction none of us want to go in.

 

For those who wants bolt to be free, perhaps Unity should follow the path taken by Uscript developer ... Bolt 2 personnel edition .. free ... to evaluate and learn for as long as you want ..

 

I would love to purchase bolt, but in the current state, its just to risky I am wasting my money. Why do people before june get a free update to bolt 2, but after that, if you are even closer to the release of bolt 2, not? that doesn't make any sense and punishes customers

 

It was to honor promises made by the original developer of Bolt prior to the acquisition. Unity have not announced their intention of pricing/availability in the future, but they did decide to honor the promises made to existing owners.

 

Oh ok, I thought bolt 2 would replace bolt 1. Still, don't you find it annoying that they put it on 70% off right after the end of the free upgrade to bolt2 without any info on the store about the upcoming version?

 

Unity sponsored Bolt 1 jam starts in less than 3 days: https://itch.io/jam/bolt-jam-9