Unity offers subscription

^ this.
Gigi

 

It's about volume. A small percent of 2 Million users is a big number, since most of those are currently Unity free.

10% * 2 Million * $30/mo => $72M/year. With a $60/mo version with ALL Add-ons - you've got real bank.

Gigi

 

Add iOS and Android to the $75 subscription fee and i'm ALL IN even at 12 month commitment.

 

@#$% @#$%@#$% *(*( - F' it... $245 a month or face a full upgrade every year... seriously, can you guys figure out more ways to screw pro users?

 

I'm very happy about this announcement.

The flexibility and accessibility of a subscription is preferable to me than a full purchase. I held off getting Adobe Creative Suite for years, instead using open source and free software (GIMP, FlashDevelop, Inkscape). When Adobe announced Creative Cloud, I jumped onboard. I'm a happy subscriber despite not using half of the applications in the suite. I hoped Adobe's success would inspire Unity to adopt a similar model and they have. Fantastic!

That said, the pricing doesn't seem well thought out. $75/m for Unity Pro ($1500) is nowhere near as good a deal as $50/m for Creative Suite ($2500). If I were a mobile developer and had to pay for iOS and Android subscriptions separately, I would be outraged. Thankfully I only develop for desktop.

I feel certain that if Unity halved the cost of it's subscriptions, it could gain far more than double it's subscriber base. But I'm not an MBA so what do I know? Just that at $35/month, I would be signing up right now, but at $75/month I'll be using Indie until 80% of my game is complete, which could be months.

Eventually, I'll sign up for a subscription. But at this inflated price, I will be waiting until the last possible minute.

 

You know who doesn't have an MBA? Bill Gates. You know what he has? Billions of dollars.

 

This is exciting news! I was hoping Unity would offer a subscription service because there's no way I could get pro otherwise.

 

Can you really expect a conversion rate of 10% though? That's high by any business from my understanding, most of the time i've seen numbers for this when relating to games its down in the 1-3% value and thats often for stuff that just < $10 to buy. Again whilst there might be 100 or so dev's on the forum clamouring for this, that does not equate to 200,000 users.

I think its very easy for us to throw numbers around, claiming Unity can make this amount of money if they just get this % of subs, but its not our job's or our company that is on the line

 

I'm one of those who asked for a subscription plan when answering surveys. I am pretty happy that they have made it possible now.
But there are a few things I don't like and some things need clarification

What does that mean exactly: "may do so" and "only available until July 31st"?

Example:

I'll subscribe until July 31st. But Unity really decides not to offer the subscription plan anymore. But I decide I like it and renew my subscription each year.
What happens after a few years? Will they ever end my subscription? And if so, what happens then? I would have actually paid much more money for the product over all those years (because the price of upgrading a perpetual license is just 50%). From one month to the next I would be without Pro. Would there be any discount when buying the perpetual license then?


Now to the things I don't like:

Assumed the timeframe between Unity major releases is 24 months:
As a perpetual license owner you can update for 50% of the regular price. Why don't you get the same rebate on your monthly payments after being a subscriber for more than 24 months??? Paying more than twice the amount to keep the license working is not fair and it makes no sense to switch to a perpetual license after you've paid for 2 years because you won't get any rebate.

After 24 months you will have made a really bad deal regardless whether you continue the subscription of buy a perpetual license.

This makes the price of the subscription way too expensive. I am fine to pay a little more than the regular price for the benefits a subscription offers. But paying more than TWICE after two years is a showstopper.

It would be fair to offer a reduced 24 months subscription plan after a subscription is active for more than 24 months.

 

Hmm unless you are really short on money now, the subscription makes no sense at all. An upgrade is 750 USD which happens to be the subscription price for 10 months. Since Unity is not even close to ship major version updates every 10 months, why would anyone go the subscription way? It's way more expensive than simply buying upgrades for 750 every 20 months or so and if you can't afford the upgrade right now you can still use the old version while if you don't continue your subscription you are left with nothing. I understand why they made the 12 month lock-in (because otherwise you could develop your game with unity free, and then just use unity pro for doing the final build so you get all the features for $75) and I also understand within these 12 months the monthly fees must yield something comparable to a full license for the Unity devs, but at the end of the day the offer is not better than buying a perpetual license in the first place.

If you look e.g. at Adobe who sell their CS6 master collection for a whopping 2.6k EUR. The CS6 monthly subscription is 62 EUR/month with a yearly commitment. At that rate the subscription is a way better option than buying the full thing (you can have the subscription for 41 months until you hit the price tag of the full version and within that time you probably get at least 2 major version upgrades for no extra money). I guess that's the reason why Adobe will actually be successful with this. But then again Adobe has no "Master Collection Free" which could threaten that business model.

So if Unity really wants to be successful with subscriptions the pricing needs to go down a lot. And ultimately the free version is going disappear or be majorly cut down because otherwise it would threaten the subscription business model.

But well, in the end everyone can use a calculator and determine the option that provides the most value. Though I doubt that many will opt for the subscription model after doing their calculations.

 

Does no one else feel the price has been set way too high? I currently pay $30 usd per month to Adobe for a subscription to the creative cloud which gives me access to essentially every Adobe product on the market. Considering the cost of buying all the different Apps separately its an enormous savings. Buying everything I currently get access to through subscription would cost in the neighborhood of $10, 000 usd. Meanwhile unity is a paltry $1500 and costs $75 just for that plus more for all the platform moduels? I'll pass thanks. If you are going to charge $75 per month, absolutely everything should be included for that price.

 

Price is too high.

I really hope subscriptions ALWAYS will be OPTIONAL. If not, I'll just stop using Unity and switch to another engine.

 

Ys, I'd go with this too, $75 that includes all pro licences, so $900 per year gets you everything then I too would do it. Currently they are losing out as I don't upgrade, not will I buy the $2700 per year subscription.

 

You won't be thinking that once you have actually created a product on Pro that you want on all mobile platforms!

 

This is not a business model that interests me, but the idea of "paying off" a freehold Unity license as a monthly payment until owned outright is something I'd look closer at.

 

I have similar feelings. I just don't like the idea of subscriptions in general. A payment plan sort of thing is more appealing to me.

 

Yeah I definitely could only afford the desktop pro at $75 per month, but I sure as hell couldn't afford mobile pro perpetual either so there's no difference there.

If Unity will make it so that subscription works out to cost no more than perpetual in the long run as well, taking into account perpetual pro upgrade discount, then I'm very happy. If they don't, then that's pretty messed up to target higher prices at the poorer people.

 

While that may be nicer, I think it's more of just the idea of not feeling like you own it but are just renting it that bothers most people. I don't think it's a practical problem though. At least not if you're the type to stay up to date with Unity and I can't imagine someone using such an outdated Unity where it would be cheaper with perpetual, but maybe I'm wrong. Well I mean if they have a discount for subscription that makes it cost no more than perpetual in the long run as well.

 

So I need to ask something crass...

What's stopping someone from developing a game with basic, then getting the pro versions just to compile and throw in some bells and whistles before release? Or from having them forward it to someone with a pro license for that matter?

I respect Unity too much to do this and would not mention it if I was considering doing something like that, mind you. When I'm ready I fully intend on going pro.

 

I think the price is too high.

Unity Pro + iOS Pro = $1800 a year.

Now keep in mind, major unity updates seem to happen every two years (so far at least). So your license fee of $3000 for unity pro + iOS pro permanent license is actually for 2 years, it is really $1500 a year. Then the upgrade is half that, and is $750 a year.

Unity is trying to charge $300 more a year for the subscription service, and then if you stop paying, you lose your ability to use it.

When it comes to upgrade fees, they are charging $1050 more than the permanent license. 4 years on subscription will be $7200. 4 years buying a permanent license will be $4500.

Anyone would be better off just charging the $3000 for Unity pro + iOS pro to a credit card, then paying it off over 2 years.

What are they thinking here? This seems like a horrendous deal. It's a worse deal than you'd get with a credit card!

Giving up ownership of the license is supposed to come with cost saving incentives, not just be a form of penalizing those who who can't front the cost immediately. Come on you at least have to make it a better deal than just buying the permanent license on a credit card.

 

Are you able to offer the Unity Pro MS&T Bundle under subscription?

 

What would be really great I think is if the subscription fee was based on how many months you subscribed for.

3 months would be $100 a month

6 months would be $75 a month

12 months would be $50 a month

That would include all add ons.

Then people who have been developing a game on unity free, but want to put in some pro functionality at the end of development could drop $300, implement the functionality, build the game, release and then be done with it.

But for people who do want to do long term development on it, this would work out to $600 a year.

 

Great post techmage. I love the subscription idea but they need to make it at least cost no more than perpetual, taking into account the upgrade discount. I really hope they do. Otherwise they're targeting the poorer people with higher prices.

 

With each upcoming "news" from Unity, they are trying to push users away. Subscriptin model does nothing good for developer, and that's why I will not use Adobe stuff. Say you complete a project, then after 6 six months, you find a bug, and you need to fix it. Great, you have to pay for another year of subscription, where as previously I can fix it with my existing installation. It locks you in to Pay and Pay forever. even if future projects I do not use Unity anymore. As a business, I calculate all risk and cost upfront, and with this subscription model, it not only cost more than current model, and more unknown future cost. Great job pushing us away.

 

The first thing is that it's probably going to be a bit more work than just a few fancy image effects.

The second thing is that should you ever need to ad, change or upgrade anything (e.g. "suport") you need to buy again.

The third thing is - you need to opt for 12 months right now - not just a single one.

 

Ah, that all makes perfect sense.

 

Yeah plus developing with pro-only profiler. I think that may be pretty useful though I haven't even started using Unity yet so I don't know.

 

As it was pointed out, with $75/module/month this subscription makes no financial sense. A major Unity release has a shelf-life of about 3 years, so a user would pay $8100 for 3 years for Pro licenses of Unity+iOS+Android. That's verses $4500 of the straight license price. I'd rather put $4500 on my credit card and use the rest of $3600 to buy assets and/or hire artists. For 6 year span (2 major releases), one will pay $16k for subscription, but will pay around $6-7 for full licenses + upgrade for the next major release. Does this makes sense?

I think the subscription makes sense at $45/module/month which makes it around $4860 for 3 year span for unity+ios+android. I would also pay $250/month for buffet mode (all platforms, ios+android+wp8+tizen+bb10+vita+win/osx/lin).

A business should use subscription to pickup users that cannot afford buying licences, but at $75/module is more like profiteering rather then getting extra business at fair rate.

 

Well I really like that they're putting on the table alternative business models for us.

My *personal* situation is that I'd happily spend the $1500... if I were working on a game that needed pro features right now. Maybe in the mid-term future I'll spare that amount even it's just to play with the amazing features. And while we're at it, I'd buy an oculus rift, and a last gen videocard, and go nuts...what! We work hard guys we deserve it.*

But a more feasible reality right now would be getting the $400 android license instead. Put on paper and develop the little platformer in my head and hopefully with that $$$ plus some savings I'll fund my nerd gadgets!

*Also, a great application for this is you take an architect's blueprints for their building, model it and furnish it.
Present it to the client so he can see his building in 3D before even starting to build it. There could be money in that.

 

That's incredibly feasible, since the other big announcement this week was that the $400 licenses are now free.

 

Not everybody wants to have the latest Unity version. If I'm doing a big project that spans 4 years, I will stick with the unity version that I have worked on when I'm closing to release. Since Unity is touting for next gen dev, instead of buying the license once, I have to pay for subscription, and if my project overruns, I have to pay more! This is counter intuitive to what Unity is promoting for nex gen dev.

If Unity goes the subscription route, I will never use it for large projects. There was previously an subscription XNA engine called Blade3D which I considered but luckily did not use, as it shutdown later and my project would not be runnable.

Unreal/Crytek is looking more attractive with its free development version.

 

But Unity isn't promoting this as an approach to long-term development. Clearly if you're in it for the long haul you should be buying the perpetual license because it's... you know... perpetual.

 

I have no use for subscription based models. I don't want to rent my tools. I'd much rather eat the up-front cost of development, then deal with recurring licensing fees.

That being said, I have no problem with Unity giving a subscription option... and even better, would be the rent-to-own model where you get a prorated discount on the full license at any point during your subscription. But retaining the full license (or the new euphemistic term perpetual license... (whatever happened to just license?)) would be mandatory for me.

I understand the income benefits of doing this from the Unity side... if you can convince your customers to go for it... especially in regards to software piracy. But I hate to think of Unity pulling an Adobe, a company which has slowly been self-destructing over the past 5 years due to arrogant management decisions.

 

Yes, this would be perfect.

They are promoting it exactly like this: "we wish to evaluate popularity...we're new to this"

 

Yes. That would be perfect.


Maxon do it the other way: If you have a recent license you can opt-in to an anual fee for always being up-to-date.
I don't know whether the last bought license remains permanent, though, as I don't use their serviceplan subscription.

 

TechMage, it's interesting that we are thinking in the same way. I think anybody who runs their own business start evaluating similar options based on the 2-3 year span.
Some people argue that you want to upgrade often because mobile is changing too quickly and "old stuff no worky", but in reality, the smartphone turnaround is 2-3 year in the hands on consumers, thus we have 2-3 years of the shelf-life, plus historically Unity's major releases have 2-3 year of shelf-life as well. Thus, at the current price level subscription just does not make sense....
Adobe tried to charge more for Creative Cloud and nobody was buying in, so they went down and got TONS of subscriptions, it was so successful, so they are moving cloud only ahead (which is bad in itself)...

 

Yeah I've lost my interest in the subscription after doing the math and realizing that my mom, who actually has good credit, would probably get a bank loan for me to get the perpetual.

Now I would only be interested in subscription if it was significantly cheaper in the long run than perpetual or if it was near equal in price to perpetual and rent-to-own. At the very least they should provide a 24 month subscription for a really nice deal for those who want Unity longterm.

 

Chingwa, this already exists - it's called a loan.

SomeDude, good call.

Personally, I really like the idea of a subscription model, but I also dislike the idea of feeling like I'm getting less when I ultimately pay more.

 

*If* unity starts to make major updates yearly, then subscription gets more interesting..(like with 3ds max)

Would be nice to have some extra benefits for "Unity Cloud" subscription though..
alpha/beta access, MS&T bundled in with pro?, or even monthly "free" credits or fixed % discount an asset store items..etc.

 

Just wanted to point out that the Adobe price of $49 is only for the US, it varies by country. For example, I'm paying approx $85 a month, just because I'm in Norway.

 

I like the business model of subscription. But this very expensive $ 75. I know that no software or company has a lot to do with one another. Adobe offers all of its software suite, 20 giga cloud, constant updating, 5 sites in Business Catalyst, PhoneGap Build, Typekit and many others for $ 49.99. Microsoft Office 365, all applications for office, 20 giga skydrive, installation in 5 different machines, skype 60 minutes every month, always up for only $ 9.00. I think the sales team Unity should rethink this strategy of business. I think with a lower value would be greater adherence, many of the free Unity users think of the possibility of purchasing this plan. Well this is my point of view.

 

I know that Adobe's international pricing policy is awful. I really love that Unity give the same price for any country.

 

I got my subscription. Love playing with post-processing effects. $75/month is a fair price given that I have access to the pro version and can port to PC/Mac/iOS/Android.

Subscription pricing = Democratization of game development.

 

+1 on this. I'd definitely sign for the 12 months if it included EVERYTHING. Still, noone has answered my question as to why add-ons cost as much as the Core Engine?

 

That's utter bullshit. It's digital ffs.

 

Without sounding 'bad', that's because Unity isn't a US company. Rest assured if it was, they'd be charging internationals through the roof.

 

You can't 'port' to the iOS and Android as well for only $75 a month. It's 75 for EACH module (225 a month in your situation)

 

Haha, yeah I guess that's true... except if you stop paying your loan, you still have your Unity License (along with a bad credit rating).

 

All points very true. Unity please look into this. I would like to move into a subscription but this is just ridiculous!