"Unity Technologies weighs its options, including a possible sale of the company"

The reason it hasn't gone bust is because it has a very affordable price for indie developers. No royalties is a big plus.

 

there is tons of reasons, like because its more easy than every other engines.
but definitely not because of the price, as its a pretty expensive engine. and yes you need pro if you want to polish your game using profiler, better shadow, light map, asset bundle, render to texture, Lod, ik etc

if you want cheap engine there is lot of open source engine for free, but we are in the same case as unity free. its limited

 

A price tag of zero bucks is not really expensive, and I for one have not yet found a reason to buy Unity Pro aside from having my own loading screen. And I do believe there are lots of other hobbyists that think similar. For me, Unity costs 120 US-bucks a year less than UE4 would, and that is why I stick with Unity.

Also, I am really fed up with people claiming that everybody hates the current pricing model, because that totally marginalizes my opinion and, I believe, that of many other people think the same. If your opinion is that other engines are cheaper for your usecase, that's fine. But then say that other engines are cheaper for your usecase. Don't claim "Unity is too expensive" as if that was some kind of universal truth, right next to "E=mc^2" and "toast always lands on the buttered side". Thanks.

 

im fed up also with people claiming the opposite, if unity free feet all your project its fine, what does not feet me is the obligation to waste 1500 $ for nothing if i only want to publish on ios, you still need to buy windows pro licence.

so please try to not generalise your case as an universal answer. thanks

 

I did not generalize my case as an universal answer. You're welcome!

I can see why some people are not happy with the current model and I'm sure it could be improved, but not everything is horrible and for me, things are pretty much great as they are. I don't need cool shadows, LODs, Asset Bundles (okay, they would be nice, but not more than that) or anything else from the things you listed.

Please respect that this is also a valid opinion to have, and then there can be a reasonable discussion about the whole topic.

 

If it were Facebook, I think we'd all be screwed... let's hope to God not.

Autodesk? very doubtful considering Unity has already dropped any further integration of Beast for another lighting solution, and even tools support has waned a tad. These are clear indicators that Unity is not working closely with Autodesk at all... if anything, it has put pressure on Autodesk to find alternatives (hence the Bitsquid acquisition). I would suspect, that because of that result... Autodesk attempted to acquire Unity (the comments of Helgason about those things), the timing seems like they (Autodesk) had options and was exploring them. They've been trying to do that for a while now.

Apple? seriously doubt it... they're too busy making watches apparently.

Microsoft in my opinion is the more likely candidate. They've always acquired, integrated, and dropped to fit their model. Considering how much they've been involved with Unity to get W8 and tools integrated, all the publicity and other efforts to get more traction. I can see this move being more applicable.

Now, if whomever it is has a plan to also acquire Crytek (seeing how bad of shape they're in right now) as well as Unity... damn, that could make for some interesting times ahead.

 

Yes but the price may not be the same

 

It will be interesting to revisit this conversation in a year. My prediction is an even smaller and ever dwindling community.

 

@Taschenschieber, I really doubt any developer would realistically consider releasing a finished product onto the market without first optimizing/polishing with Unity pro.

The free version of Unity is a great way to try out the engine and get an understanding of the workflow, etc but the model is not very scalable. Even if you get bulk pricing like EA who got the pro licences at $1300, we're still talking about a multi million to billion dollar publisher, how about for small indie companies growing one or two seats at a time? What kind of incentive do they have? What if they lose a seat?

Unity needs to make there pricing model more flexible for hobbyists, indies, and other studio sizes before they lose to much market share to other up and coming SDKs.

 

That would be really sad to see as the community is probably Unity's strong suit, but I agree if the pro pricing model is not revised then expect to see Unity filling a small niche as the small 2D engine that could.

 

Another way Unity could improve its development cycle is by aqquiring more asset

Why would Facebook be a bad thing? They are platform independent.

 

Unity really should start buying up more asset store packages and integrating them into the engine because the added cost of implementing these features that should already be there just adds insult to injury on top of the $5000 software bundle.

 

Yeh what would add insult to injury is paying additional fees for all the broken/buggy assets on the store - I can see why they don't do that. I can see your point however, UT just want to have their cake and eat it, best of both worlds and so on.

 

Do you mind to share what kind of features you mean?

 

I am referring the the assets that are not broken/buggy, and even so they would get patched while being integrated anyway.

The asset store should be for game assets, not Unity patches.

 

Like?

 

A sideways rumor that a company MIGHT one day sell itself to a larger entity is holding YOU back from finishing yer S$@t? PS - UT already sold out... and you didn't even notice... Whether using Unity Free or Pro, you need to reduce your scope and finish your game. No excuses.

Gigi

 

I'm imagining a crazy universe where Microsoft pays Notch $2.5B for Minecraft which he then uses to buy Unity. ...
Gigi

 

InControl to patch all of Unity's gamepad controller incompatibility (Unity is only compatible with Xbox 360 controller, and has a sepatare api for Xbox 360 controller on mac, etc.

SECTR is another example of a feature Unity is planning on releasing, when its already available on the store.

All types of game kits/templates for shooters/side scrollers etc (UE4 has all these project templates)

Destruction

Final IK or make Unity's buggy IK available in free

Proper Networking - which they have promised but probably won't be available until 5.6 or 6.

etc.

Here is another list:
http://www.gamedevelopment.biz/articles/my-top-10-must-have-unity-assets-2013

Note: Unity already acquired the developer of NGUI for their new system which is pretty much just an integration which they could have done a long time ago.

 

It might interest you that I have not only considered just that, but actually done it. I am a hobbyist and not in it for the moneyz, however.

See http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/a-one-week-danmaku-shmup.267438/, which I post as proof of my argument, not as shameless self-promotion. Who do you think I am?

 

That's great, but for a large segment of the community that intends to make money from their project, pro is currently an obstacle for them, including myself.

 

Unity is working on a new input system, which should resolve lots of issues for us.

Unity 5 is going to get a heavy audio upgrade. Don't know whether other functionality is going to be covered.

Unity 5 is most likely going to have a bunch of templates.

I hope you are aware that destruction will not just work, but that all the 3d assets need to be prepared to allow that.

The IK functionality is fairly limited in Unity at the moment, I absolutely agree that this could be heavily improved. Though, I am sure the Mecanim developers are aware of this lack and I would be surprised if it is not on their roadmap. But I believe it would be pretty stupid to just buy Final IK and integrate it into Unity, even if it seems to be a very good product.

You already know that this is in the works.

Unity can not just buy the rights from some asset store publisher to integrate what they have done into Unity. We have higher expectations from official Unity products and expect them to be really nicely integrated. We got uGUI with Unity 4.6 (not sure if it is still called uGUI). This is the result hiring the developer of NGUI, working with him for more than a year (as far as I remember) together within a team and after he left Unity, the team still had to spend a huge amount of time to further enhance it and to tightly integrate it into Unity.
I have the impression that you highly underestimate the amount of time it takes Unity to integrate new functionality.

 

Now we're Goalpost Shifting, aren't we?

 

Ups, went off topic as well like crazy. Sorry about that.

 

GUI has been reboot several time over several years.
From what I see, they just through what the developer of NGUI did (the new GUI has nothing in common with what the NGUI dev as shown during a conf). And they were right. I predicted they would end this collabaration and I was right Obvious conflict of interest...
NGUI is not close to what a proper GUI need to be, but it is ok.

 

The point is that they could not just take one of the leading GUI solutions from the asset store. It took them a significant amount of time to integrate it properly and more tightly.
Sorry, still off topic.

 

If your implying that the discussion has gone off topic, I am going with the flow, as I said earlier if you actually read the whole thread its hard to talk about acquiring Unity without discussing other SDKs and features, etc.

There is no need to instigate childish he said she said arguments here, this is intended to be a speculative/comparative discussion about Unity.

 

@Dantus, Its good to know that Unity is patching these issues, but once again these are all promises with no ETA. Also, I agree its easy to underestimate the time it takes to integrate new features but it still faster than writing them from scratch.

Anyway one of the main benefits of Unity getting acquired is that we will see all these features and more in less time.

 

Microsoft would be pretty much the worst candidate. They have a history of not playing well with others, and Unity is all about multi-platform, so there's a massive conflict of interest, particularly since most Unity games are made for non-Microsoft platforms (iOS/Android). They also have a history of losing interest in things after a while for no good reason (hello XNA). Apple wouldn't be much better. In fact I'm having a hard time thinking of a company large enough to buy Unity that wouldn't partially or completely destroy it, since they'd all have a vested interest in promoting one platform over the others.

--Eric

 

Facebook?

 

No, I am implying you are wrong and resorting to unfair rhetoric tricks.

But neither do I see any point in taking the discussion any further nor do I object to the whole thing being off-topic. So, back to discussing who will buy UT, which is a far more relevant question. Oh, wait, it is not relevant at all because it's purely speculative. Which I have pointed out before but nobody seems to care.

 

Epic ?

Jokes appart, If some sell would happen , it would be by some supportive company keeping Unity philosophy as game democratisation for indie developpers.

 

Apparently OurPalm is making a funding injection into Unity. The report says the status of this is uncertain, but if true I doubt a change of that nature would happen just before acquisition. It is also a reminder that the sale could be to someone in Asia, where Unity is strong.

http://www.pocketgamer.biz/asia/new...ays-its-making-a-major-investment-into-unity/

 

I don't believe we would get more features in less time.

 

Most likely not right away, but eventually the production time would be noticeably faster.

 

What do you base this on?

 

Look at what happened to Oculus after they got picked up by Facebook.

 

It seems like they just sold more shares, which are probably going to be used to get 5.x completed, though I doubt we will see any price adjustments any time soon.

 

Moar moneyz = Moar devs = Moar features per month.

If a hypothetical buyer for UT would give UT more funding or treat UT as a cheap cash cow is highly dependent of who would buy UT with which intentions.

 

Absolutely nothing. They still have yet to get a product to market.

 

LOL, if you have being following their dev blog you would see how much of a boost they got from that acquisition.

 

Until they get a product to market I won't take them seriously. They may as well be defunct. By comparison, Unity has had four major releases and is due for a fifth. They are successful. Oculus VR has yet to prove themselves.

 

You have likely worked in a management position for both Unity and Oculus to know that what happened at one company can easily be transferred to the other. Do you even know how many engineers are working for Unity?

 

Oculus is a hardware company, so that comparison is pretty invalid, though the 2015 release date seems pretty legit.

Don't forget Unity 5.0 is not going to have all the features that were promised.

 

Whats your point? Like Taschenschieber said:
Moar moneyz = Moar devs = Moar features per month.

Note: Moar = More

 

I am curious to hear where they promised a feature for 5.0 that will officially not be in 5.0.

If any company buys Unity, what makes you so sure that they will increase the number of employees?
Even if they hired more employees, more is more is more or less an empty phrase.

 

You're doing it wrong, put butter on both sides.

 

It seems Unity is partnering up with Microsoft:
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/473735/unity-pro-engine-is-free-for-idxbox-devs/

Which is a pretty good indication they won't be selling to them any time soon.

 

So far it's all just very, very vague rumors. These rumors have always been there, as well. One more report doesn't mean much to me in terms of what Unity will or will not actually do in the end.

I hope Unity don't actually think of selling out. Yet if they do Facebook is the one company that would make me jump ship immediately.

 

I think it's noteworthy to point out Epic is partially bought by the big Chinese company Tencent (roughly half is owned by Tencent). I think that's the reason why they are willing to sell UE4 at $20, that they're eager to accomodate changes to the royalties (i.e. that exemption for $3k), and that it's free for educational institutions.

I'd wager they are selling UE4 licenses practically at a loss and the only reason they did that is because Tencent's injection of funds is keeping them well afloat.

Well, if Unity is bought, that price reduction to the Pro license that a lot are asking for may very well be in reach, but being bought out also opens up another can of worms. *shrug* Guess I can't blame UT for not budging about the price issue.