Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

It's a waiting game... the assets I was going to sell would help character artists improve the look of their games.

 

If you don’t then don’t. I work with proprietary engines and Unreal. Both have advantages, but the proprietary stuff is harder to work with because of less documentation, churn, gaps in knowledge and legacy code, and on and on and on.

Unreal projects are all using source and contain many patches and customizations for each project’s needs. It isn’t hard, it’s what happens when you work in a games studio that is properly organized and staffed.

But if you only need the bog standard stuff, you know like class-leading Renderer, mind blowing world building tools out of the box, and only one version of the editor - the free, “dark mode included and not just recently” version that everyone uses, whether you download the binaries from the launcher or the source from GitHub.

There’s more but I’m not here to sell you another platform, because Unity are doing that just fine.

I’ve used Unity since the first iPhone release, and l always be grateful for the doors it opened. It is such a shame seeing what it has been transformed into, and that’s not even just the price changes — that is just the first beat of inevitable finale.

 

New spash Screen should be:

Ruined by unity

 

General opinion is yes, it is a downgrade. As a Godot fanboy(yes you should at least try it): Unity was always AA at best with pricing leaning towards unreal and feature set(working!) leaning towards typical FOSS engine. To me it always looked like either unreal or FOSS, but there is a clear spot between AAA and FOSS where unity simply was best in slot.

 

HAHAHHHAHAAHAHHAHAAAaaaaaaa

 

Depending on what your doing and where you switch, most engines will be a downgrade. Unity has been around 18 years and has thousands of people working on it now. All the other engines have been going a few years with a few people working on them. Godot for example is 9 years. If you think platform growth is exponential - more years, more users, more devs, faster progress - you can see that new engine plain can't catch up just like that. Assuming Godot follows Unity's trajectory in adoption and finance, you'd expect it to be broadly where Unity was when it was 9 years old. I dare say new engines will surpass Unity in multiple ways, being able to start from scratch for modern techniques and architectures, but they will be severely lacking in many areas.

The exception to that is Unreal which has been around a long time and is massively supported.

I think those looking to abandon Unity will need to refocus their projects around the strengths/weaknesses of their new platform. Perhaps shelve that dream project you know would work in Unity and start something that fits Godot or Flax or Unigine.

 

You are mistaken. Unity did not come with a free license until version 2.6, which appeared in October 2009. At a time when Unity was already successful and leading the market.

Prior to this, the entry-level price for using Unity was the purchase of a Unity Indie licence for $249.

EDIT: And building for mobile became free much later: May 2013

 

While GODOT, is certainly a downgrade for immediate return, long term growth is just a straight path up, unless the source is hijacked, but then a FORK from some dev will most probably have you covered. It has proven to be somewhat successful, and has more features projected on inclusion in the short-term and long-term development goals. Also, you can literally leave the editor running and it doesn't do much.

Also, when you download GODOT, you OWN your GODOT copy (depending on the license of the fork you are using). Like, that individual download is yours to own (under the specified license terms you have it downloaded under, such as MIT, or some sublicense from a user fork for example).

 

This brings back so many memories
Recently had to use 3DS max because Unreal has ready-made Max scripts for some of their vegetation workflow.
Been using Blender since 2.5, but never realized how good it became compared to other stuff

 

Wow man I feel for you, I'm working on improving Unity's foliage shading by providing a more optimized, lightweight, and better-looking shader solution. The fact that the smoke started to show itself as I was close to the publishing date is a huge kick in the ballz! Either way, I have more long-term strategies but I think lingering around over these discussions would slow us down so by tomorrow I'm going back to work as stuff keeps developing in the background. I wish you good luck, my friend!

 

how it's going: https://unitedgamedevs.com/

Azur Games

Voodoo

Homa

Century Games

SayGames

CrazyLabs

Original Games

Ducky

Burny Games

Inspired Square

Geisha Tokyo

Tatsumaki games

New Story

Playgendary

Supercent

KAYAC

TapNation

Matchingham Games

Moonee

YSO Corp

MondayOFF

PeopleFun

MagicTavern

Lion Studios

Zeroo Gravity Games

Zenlife

Belka Games

Athena

MachineZone

Clipwire

Super Free Games

 

Depends on what you're doing and in how big of a team. 2D is viable as evidenced by recent indie hits like Dome Keeper, Brotato, The Case of the Golden Idol and Usagi Shima. 3D is less battle tested but still could be viable based on what the goal is. Unity has more features, but do you really need those features or it's just a nice soundbite? Godot also has features that Unity doesn't.

 

Unity can claim 1.5 million but most of that is hobbyists. Their create revenue according to their public documents which includes Unity licenses and all other subscription services as a single line item is 760 million/year for 2022-2023. Assuming all other subscription services are $0, that puts a top end of 380,000 developers on Pro licenses. More likely they're at somewhere around 300,000 actual professional developers.

Unreal on the other hand doesn't have to be quite as open about their figures. They claim the number is over 7.5 million, but like Unity I'm sure that number includes hobbyists. Anecdotally I can say that while job searching I see approximately 5 or 6 Unreal jobs for every 1 Unity job out there. If you assume the conversion rate between hobbyists and professionals is about the same, then it's about a 1/6 market share for Unity and 5/6 for Unreal.

 

You have to buyout the public sharholders to go private. It's currently valued around $15b and public shareholders would want a big premium.

Applovin recently made offer to buyout U around $20b i think and it was rejected.

 

It would be better if there was just a commission, like Epic Games.

 

I'm not going to punish the buyers of my assets for what Unity has done. If they want to continue using Unity, I will of course make sure that my assets are compatible with the latest version. Support should generally be discontinued only after the assets have long been removed from the store.

The only question is, how long do I want to leave my assets in the store?
I wouldn't be surprised if many free assets disappear now.

 

"It's surreal how the very same day Godot announced its new development fund, Unity Technologies pretty much did a whole crowdfunding campaign for us entirely for free. We did absolutely nothing."

I don't link the tweet as it includes a funding link and there is already enough salt for everyone.

 

Anyone who thinks platform holders will be the ones who end up paying the fee is a Grade A sucker.

 

This may sound like Hyperbole but with the BS that Unity pulled in 2019 and now this does it really?

Think about this.. Unity changes the ToS in January to make Asset creators pay unity for each project your assets are used in... JR is going to love that. New boat time!!

 

That was 2014. Unreal Engine was pretty different then.

 

Imagine publishing your first asset on the Asset Store 2h before the announcement

(yea, that happened to me)

 

Guys, What thing make Unity can take 100% your revenue? Yes, you are a slave, and the game belong to them because "make with unity"

 

Summarizing. Unity:

- Unity eliminates clauses from the contract that allowed unilateral changes to be avoided.
- Changes the rules unilaterally.
- Imposes charges that can cause significant losses.
- Unity acknowledges that it does not know how it will carry out data collection.
- Unity relies on Microsoft, Nintendo, Steam, Apple, Google, and other companies to provide it with first and last name data about the installs, violating all confidentiality rules.
- Unity is exposed to retaliation from Microsoft and other companies, which could take the same measures since Unity uses third-party technologies for its company.
- Unity could face charges from the European Union and the United States.
- Unity admits that the charges are going to be retroactive.
- Unity recognizes that the installation counting system will be internal and cannot be questioned.
- Unity puts no limits on installations, so they can charge even when developers have been dead for centuries.
- Unity admits that some rules may be excessive, and changes them again without consensus.
- Once the Internet catches fire, Unity's strategy is silence.
- The developers leave Unity, but this does not give the company pause.

And there are still people who doubt whether to continue with Unity?

 

Incorrect Unity only had around 1,300 customers who make over $100k every 12 months using unity services/products Quarter 1 of 2023.
Which assuming 5 million users thats 0.02644% of Unity users are affected by these fee changes.

https://s26.q4cdn.com/977690160/fil...1/2023_Q1-Shareholder-Letter_FINAL.pdf#page=9

 

It was the reason for many to never touch unity since then, thought exactly the same as Gokcan's brother.

 

You are wrong. Nothing happens from empty space. The real truth is that this company was a S*** for years. Their engine/editor has at least half of features not working or unpolished proof-of-concept or missing at all so you need to do it yourself everytime. But you see the problem only now, well... poor you.

 

It gave Unity nothing else but pause. They haven't moved or said a bit for a long time. (No the closed doors meeting with "influencers" doesn't count as any kind of movement and even into that they practically had to be bullied into)

Feel free to keep this to yourself. For many of us, Unity, the product is more than good, even in by your measure, broken. The problem isn't with that. It is the decisions like this. Technically the product is plenty capable for a lot of things.

 

That doesn't sound right. Just by pure Steam numbers, Unity outputs about 3 times the amount of games than Unreal does. And there's plenty of shovelware on both sides. And Unity covers more of the gamedev spectrum.

 

Yikes. Never even considered that one.

 

You as well... I've also been following other artists like SakuraRabbiter who has some AMAZING character renders. Hell, I even had a shader that did microtexures (tiling detailing textures) for things like clothing and any surface I desired. I even added a feature for surface wetness that could be easily controlled by a texture mask or even by particle collision (that would require a render texture I think).

Even my skin shader closely mimicked that of offline renderers like Arnold and VRay (used HDRP, no raytracing), where to achieve natural looking skin, I used three SEPARATE skin textures multiplied together (down to the veins under the skin that looked natural when lit). And while it's a kick in the nuts, these skills can easily translate to other engines. If Unity ever became open source, it would be an advantage.

 

I'm not defending anything....But it is not your runtime.. so why would Unity not want money for you using that. The issue the backhanded way this is being announced IMO

 

I read about that yesterday... what a damn shame.

 

If you publish with personal or pro, can you upgrade your license middle way or you are stuck with these license forever with the higher pay per install?

 

1322 "customers" that should has at least tens of developers. Also you exposed the fact that majority of Unity users has no success with that tool for some reasons, but this is different story.

You can close your eyes and hope everything will be good, or you can be smart and notice that existence of proprietary engine on the public access in 2023 its a joke. And now you get what praised to. Sorry, but its time to wake up a bit.

 

trust them bro, its all under control

 

And I was just banned from the official Unity Discord for posting a bottle Emoji when the one mod started ripping on people to shut up about the changes or leave.. Must have been an actual Unity employee. LOL

This trainwreck can't be over fast enough.

 

I don't know I'm starting to think that the competition wasn't as far behind as I thought. I've already seen some features in the following showcase that we still don't have in Unity.

 

Because having lost what they earned this last quarter in SMB going under, they do need the money... So, why not screw over every other market aside from mobile?

 

Whatever floats your rusty boat, my friend. Have a great ignore list.

 

Idea: end-users pay $5 a year to install the Unity runtime. They can use this to run as many games as they want. This way, Unity makes money, developers don't have to worry about installation bombing, and Unity don't have to worry about violating privacy laws. It's easy, for everyone.

 

So it's 0.20 after 200k and it applied to existing games installations. So you pay it. Next year though, when they dirtbag you again, and increase it to 0.40 after 200k, you're going to pay it again, well the other .20 they now say you owe them. They can do this because they have already done it. You're just here trusting that in a year's time it won't increase. That's when you will realize that your business decision to stay using Unity is why you are now in debt, on benefits or welfare, owing this psychopath run company money you can't afford to pay.

 

1 estimate effecting my revenue stream are not good enough
2 the core issue is the break in trust

Had unity not tried to pull a retroactive change in 90 days it might have been some grumbling about royalties and definitely some jokes because Unity has been spewing that sales point for a long time that they are royalty free

But going with a retroactive change, modifying TOS to hide that previously they said no sneaky backpeddle changes ... all that stinks of we are about to run dry and are willing to try anything at your expense to turn it around

In short I think Unity is desperate and has no scruples left and so simply cant be trusted to do business with on a game project anyway

 

They think its "good" tool, LOL.
For years Unity was alive just because of people blindness.
Remind how Unity CEO calls his users? F-idiots? Not my words, just history.

 

You are in for a wonderful ride if you open your eyes.

 

You are user that has more than 9500 posts on the forum and still defend Unity in some way calling it "extremely good tool". From your point there was no problem before fees changes, okay-okay.
This engine is Rusty Boat.

 

Flax is pretty good, when it works. You'll quickly find out that it loves to error out and not work again. Also - in one of the main examples that I tried, the screen blurs to white whenever you are not in the shadows within the scene.
I spent about a half hour on it, and still couldn't figure out how to disable that (I think it's the adaptive brightness, but not sure)... Then, it crashed, and wouldn't reopen. Fun stuffs!

 

This all seems so familiar...but I just can't place my finger on it...WAIT! I REMEMBER!

 

have they reversed the price changes, yet anybody have new news?

 

this looks really good!

 

elon musk started charging for server api calls on twitter by other applications using their services.. to cut costs on server operation costs..

but you know Unity want to do same on the api calls about installations from popular free games that reaches millions.. so what unity decide? to charge devs instead removing the code they put which causes the call.. why devs don't charge unity for sniffing players data???