Unity iOS and Android Basic licenses FREE until April 8th

Credit goes to ployer from this thread for the discovery.

You can see at the store they are indeed free.

Facebook/Twitter message from Unity:

Licenses must be activated before April 8th or they will not work.

Licenses do not expire once activated.

I will edit this post when more information becomes available.

Enjoy!

 

Yes, it is indeed free!
I have found the info on the same topic, and obtained them! This is fine day!

Thanks Unity!

 

Holy crap, and to think on Wednesday I was going to spend $800 on both of those, this is most excellent news I was actually hoping for a discount around GDC, but this is so much better


I'm guessing here that they're pushing Unity for a more Freemium model. They give out the software for free, and recoup their costs via the asset store and up selling the Pro versions + Support.

 

Guess christmas came way early this year! - Thanks Dman for the notice, and Thanks Unity! This is unexpected and very very awesome

Edit: The key just came in the mail - it's hard to express the exponential awesomeness that is the Unity team- If I ever get the chance, I will buy each and every one of you a beer! (and all your future software of course).

 

Unity! Despite getting an automated congrats, how did you know it was my birthday today? Huge amount of Kudos to Dman and Unity.

I'm having a hell of a time signing in to take advantage of this offer. If it continues I'll send a report, but I'd imagine this is an issue of people overloading the server.

 

wow, store seems to be flooded with visitors... so it seems. :/

Unity, add some extra horsepower to the store (extra machines e.g.), with such an offer you could have expected major attention in visitors numbers (means lots of traffic and computing power needed).

This is awesome if it is genuine offer (not hacked store e.g.)
I see no mention of this special offer anywhere else on the website though... odd, you would expect this (e.g. in the news, or blog section at least)

 

Wow!
The Unity Store doesn't work for me,unfortunately.It says 500 Internal Error,i'll try again in half an hour

Also,thanks Unity!Meanwhile:

 

thats great!, BUT sad for me i just bought unity ios basic few months ago .. hahahaha the same happened to me with unity indie and then unity free.

its until april 8, says on facebook and twitter

 

Awesome opportunity Now I'm biting my fingers because I bought Android license some 3 weeks ago

 

I was ABOUT to buy it 3 weeks ago and someone unnamed on the forums recommended to wait until GDC for a "potential" discount. Looks like that worked out well

 

astounding new!!

 

The 1000$ question;

Is it "free to buy" until April 8th without expiration?
Or is it "free to use" until April 8th and expires then?

 

Free to buy I assume, Free to use would make no sense as you can already get a 30 day trial of Unity pro iOS/Android at any time.

 

More than likely it'll be free to buy until April 8th without expiration. After all, you are receiving a license key for this, if I read correctly. I'll let someone that knows better than me give a final answer.

 

Agreed.

Time to upgrade all my Pro+Team licences to Pro+Team+Android Basic+iOS Basic.

 

if you are lucky to get the store working hahahaha

 

Got one month to do it. Worst case scenario; I'll send an email to sales AT unity.com

 

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/126313-Wish-Don-t-punish-current-customers-!

 

For every good thing to come around, there's always someone ready to complain. You bought it for $400 because you felt it was worth that much to you.

 

$800

 

Point still stands. Worst case you still get to upgrade to Unity Pro for $1100 per license, versus the full $1500 for the "free" users.

 

and you didnt buy it because of the expense? if you have downloaded it for free then the only thing stopping you was the fee, in which case the point still stands as a hypocritical one

 

these things happen in life, i've experienced it myself aswel (not unity related, but some other product i purchased, and a month or so later it became free)

But this case it's a bit different, it's not a permanent free offer, only a month. So not everyone will have it, e.g. people who found out too late.
For those people it's even more harder to swallow, because if they only had been notified a few days earlier they would have had the chance to get it for free. (afterwards is harder than infront, in most cases).

You brought it, because you thought it was worth it (and it is still, but not this month).

 

I will add the twitter/facebook post to the OP when I get back to a computer. The license does not expire.

 

I was going to purchase it in 2 days actually, and I would have purchased it regardless. If they released it for free 3 months later I wouldn't complain either.

 

and its not free forever , its free until april 8, but yeah its a long time... some people can be hurt.. but these things can only help unity to get bigger and stronger, and if unity becomes bigger and stronger that benefits all of us.. unity 2.6 becoming free was the determining factor for unity to become so huge right now.

so even if that happened to me twice, im still glad for unity to do these kind of things, because its for the best in the long run..

in my case i still can have unity android for free yay! so i will take it like i paid $400 for both of them and be happy with it

 

right you are. in your own words.."I was ABOUT to buy it 3 weeks ago and someone unnamed on the forums recommended to wait until GDC for a "potential" discount. Looks like that worked out well "

so im not sure why you wanted a discount if it was worth your while anyway? therefore you cant judge anyone who's not happy having paid $800 for it.

anyway dont get me wrong unity is worthwhile having paid.... i just dont think its a good way to keep your customer base happy


ps. by free forever i meant once downloaded it wont expire

 

I'm a little irked by this as well but I bought my license 13 days ago and not 3 months. I totally would have waited to "buy" now and have emailed sales to ask politely for a refund. I suggest you do the same. Never hurts to ask.

 

I paid for iOS. Does this mean I can judge?

I am happy this is happening as it makes it easier to get additional licenses for potential future collaboration.

If you think its worthwhile having paid, you won’t care. If you are unhappy because of this, then you didn’t really want to pay.

Keep in mind this also is not "forever", not entirely. Unity 4 is likely hitting by the end of the year and that will require an upgrade. You can always stick to the old version, but eventually something in the new iOS or Android OS will break the old version and you will be forced to upgrade.

 

nshack,

While I empathize with you, there are some points to consider.

If this is true,
Unity has done something similar before. Remember once upon a time Unity Basic was not free. Then they made it free. I am guessing it was for strategic business reasons which we can only speculate.

There is an upside for you as well when you consider the fact that, there will probably be more members of the Unity community developing assets with mobile applications in mind

 

Without wanting to drag this one on, the answer to thats down the personal circumstance. i guess to some the initial outlay is nothing

now it makes sense. i also didnt know this had happened before, guess i'd have waited a bit longer if so

 

Extremely valid point. Though it is not 100% certain... but if they do what happened at Unite '10; Unity 4 WILL release there in Amsterdam.

I'm really hoping for multiple 3.5.x releases or a 3.6 until then so we can have a stable experience until 4.x stabilises. From the looks of it, 4.x will implement DirectX 11 (look at the GDC talk). I'm not expecting to upgrade to 4.x before winter '12/13 unless there is a game-changer feature (magical 2x performance increase!).

 

This is AWESOME. I already had iOS basic, which was totally worth it, but getting the android version for free is great!

 

Well maybe if enough people complain we can get a sweet refund

 

This is AWESOME...THANK YOU UNITY!!!

Unfortunately I cannot add anything to my cart...apparently I am getting endless redirect loops I assume that others are having this problem as well?

 

Unity: I hate you. You have forced me to buy a Samsung Galaxy Player.... oh the shame!!! How will I face my family ever again...

 

I wish I could "Like" your post, it amuses me.

 

Unity you do relise i spend over a year saving for a licence and now you give them away for free..... the good thing is that ill get ios basic for free? come on i know all you pro users would be pissed if unity gave pro away for free.... stupid.I demand you give me unity pro android for free so i can collect it once i buy pro.

 

I own iOS pro and Unity pro licenses. I would not be upset if they gave it away for free because I've owned the software and used it toward a potential monetary goal. This is Unity's product and if they decide to give something away at a discount, it's their prerogative.

When you spend your money on something, you have to learn to accept the fact it's a sunk cost. What have I gained from my purchase? The ability to use the license at the time of purchase and create products with it. You go through the same mental gymnastics when debating an Apple purchase. You know for a fact they're going to release an update in X number of months. You can keep waiting until that releases or you can buy the product now and get to work.

 

Smart move indeed, which makes me ponder:

1- The 3.x cycle is over and next update will be 4.0

2- Mobile arena is flooded and not worthy any more, business speaking

3- UT bet this way they can get many more updates to 4.0 than new buys

4- I really think Unity 4.0 license fees will be revised up


In every case, there is plenty of time to get this offer and I will surely do.

Thanks a lot UT, you really raise the bar every time and make a shock.

 

Please...be respectful and thankful for what you get. At least you still get iOS license for free...that's $400.00! If I were you, I wouldn't be complaining. If people keep complaining every time Unity is nice and gives away free stuff, they won't give stuff away anymore...

 

And you had no licenses before this? i am loosing $400 and gaining software worth $400 but i can't use it because i don't have a mac, giving basic users a free upgrade to pro is the only decent thing to do for there customers that have spent loads on unity.

 

These people don't give free stuff away just for the fun of it you know. Like several users have pointed out, this is probably the precursor to Unity 4.0. And giving away Pro licenses ($1,500 each) is WAY more than they're doing now...do you realize how much money they would lose? And if I'm correct, you will be using Pro to make money yourself. It's not really fair to ask that much of the Unity staff.

 

At this moment clicking on the Upgrade will result in a circular redirect loop. I hope tomorrow (GMT+2) will be solved and all America sleeping and not browsing

 

I get the same. Man this is a good gesture from Unity. I save myself $800 gringo.

The store is getting hammered though.

 

Love this gesture, but damn, I just hope this doesn't really mean Unity 4 is near, as someone is saying... I just bought Unity Pro (with the Android basic license)!

 

But consider this...

There will come a time when less people will be buying Pro. Those who are really serious about developing games with Unity already have it - and those who are trying to build their game for free never will shell out $1,500 unless they start making money from the game they made using the Free version - and we all know there are a lot of games that will never make $1,500.

I mean, if Unity sells 10,000 Pro copies @ $1,500 a pop versus, 100,000 @ $150 a pop, they still make $15M, so why is the price of Pro still so high? Unity is making a lot of money off of their cut from the Asset Store, so at what point do they decide to drop the price of Pro or give it away for free?

It would be great if Unity would share the number of active Pro/Free copies, as that will certainly give us an indication of what the herd is thinking. I read somewhere that Unity has over 500k downloads, but it doesn't mean much in the big scheme of things if only a fraction of those are actually being used - and only a fraction of those resulted in published game.

So the question I have is, what is the motivation behind releasing these products for free? Is it as GiusCo states, the "Mobile arena is flooded and not worthy any more," or are they trying to spur more interest in developing iOS and Android games with Unity?

 

What people think of you is worth something too ...

 

He's 16, meh.