Unreal Engine 4 FREE...

I'd rather pay a flat fee than give up royalties. You publish on Steam or App Store, there's 35% of your revenue out the back door. Independent start ups need to hold onto as much of that as possible

 

you guys... oh boy...

how about static batching, code stripping, pathfinding, occlusion culling or dynamic lights? if you are not happy with this announcement fine, but your comparisons are ridiculous. If you gonna start an argument saying the difference is "JUST" this thing here and ignore all the rest simply because thats all you care about or even know about then you are just trying to find an excuse to be angry about nothing. You got a huge engine upgrade completely unlocked for absolutely zero and you still complain.

Might as well start requesting unity to make the games for you.

I'm not saying Unity is all roses, there's still stuff to fix and improve, but to completely ignore such a huge step is "JUST" mind-boggling

 

let me make a topgear analogy for you:

previously:
pro version == james may driving a pagani.
free version == james may driving the reasonably priced car.

now:
pro version == james may driving a pagani with additional sat nav
personal version == james may driving a pagani without sat nav

see the parallels? dunno about you, but i want the stig to be driving in any case. plus now we get to inform folks that we couldn't afford sat nav..

 

I need a sad face button for this post

 

In NZ wages are typically only around half the cost of having an employee.

I'd also be interested to see if you could skirt the 100k requirements by treating workers as independent contractors and requiring them to use there own licences. You'd want to consult carefully with a layer on that sort of structure. The licences may be cheaper then the lawyer.

 

Forget customizable splash screen. DARK SKIN IS MORE IMPORTANT !!
We need DARK SKIN TECHNOLOGY!

Dark skin is what we all strive for now.

 

Extremely pleased with UT's announcement. Great week to be a developer.

A better analogy would be James May driving the very same Pagini while wearing a t-shirt that says "Pagini - Outreach Program"

 

Epic Games release the entire source code of UE4 on GitHub. Can I access to the source code of Unity if I want to?

 

You can, if you have the Pro edition and want to pay extra $$$.

 

No, you can't finish your MMO because Unity removed the "Make MMO" button in this release... the following is actually in the release notes:

 

I think it will interest many new developers. Even if they have to pay 5%, it is only after they make 3000$ per Q1 per game.
90% of indie developers will not make that much money at first, so I think having full game engine at their disposal is very tempting choice.

Edited*

 

Good thing Unity is only $1500 after your first $100,000, then.

You really need to go check out the download page again.

 

Yes sorry I did not read all the news

Well this then seems very great news after all

 

That's because you either didn't read the feature comparison or are intentionally omitting a very significant part of it. Like ... almost all of it ;-)

So - what changed for "Free" users? Almost everything: You get every old Unity Pro feature except light skin (which IMHO is much better for screenshots and screencasts anyways - I'm using it a lot and never really like the dark skin ... I only use the two skins to distinguish easily between my main Unity versions) ... and except custom splash screens (which I think is highly overrated). In other words: You now get an awesome engine with awesome graphics features, an awesome profiler, totally awesome audio and so much more and can make up to $100,000 gross revenue with your games ... for free. But yeah, waste your time complaining about a skin and a splash screen while others create awesome games.

So - what changed for Pro users? A LOT:

• You get Unity Cloud Build (at least for 12 months) which can be quite a timesaver and give you a much improved development process especially in larger, distributed teams
• You get Unity Analytics Pro (which I think is a fairly awesome service)
• You get the Team License (which gives you Cache Server which is totally awesome ... Asset Server ... well, I use it and I'm happy but it certainly deserves more love, like, in form of a full rewrite ;-) )
• You get Game Performance Reporting - which is another fairly awesome service (the only problem with this one is that people apparently tend to confuse it with the profiler which it has nothing to do with ... maybe they should rebrand it to "cloud-based crash logging and reporting" ... or maybe people should simply learn to click that little (i)-button)
• Beta access (to be honest, this is the one that scares me most, as a long-time beta user ... on the other hand, they apparently like their experiences with the public betas of Unity 4, Unity 4.6 and Unity 5, so I guess it'll be a good thing in the end)
• You did mention Asset Store Level 11- personally I'm not that enthusiastic about that one but I still think it's kind of a nice idea (as long as they also make this a good deal for the asset developers) ... I'll skip "Future platforms included" because I don't think that's a good idea (and probably future platforms will also be included in the Personal Edition, so yeah, this one could really be hot air)
• Professional Community Features ... quite a few people won't like this but it has also been requested from quite a few people in the past ... it's "coming soon", so we'll have to see ... might also related to "beta access"

So ... you skipped all this and then you complain that nothing really has changed for pro users. Oh well.

Of course, you can always say "but I don't need those features". Well, I guess that's true for quite a few other Unity features as well. When you don't build 2D games, Unity 2D is completely irrelevant. But saying Unity 2D is "really nothing has changed" just because you don't need it is just as ridiculous as saying "nothing really has changed" with the announcement from yesterday.

/rant

... I kind of like the fact that this discussion is happening in this particular thread. Muahuahua ;-)

 

Did not read everything written in this topic, but David said it is possible to have weekly updates now that they have the personnel. I think this counters some of the complaints of Unity taking too long to update.
I've gotten used to this on the beta list and am excited to see if this is will be implemented, possibly Pro only, though.
I continue to feel my investment in Unity is well worth it!

 

I agree, people don't look at all things available in the personnal edition.

They are never happy even when you give them all features

I agree Dark Skin make us more confortable and more productive with Unity. This should come in the Personnal edition.

 

I think at some point Unity should make a Pro version for the Dark skin ONLY.
Or an additional 20$ subscription for the dark UI.

 

The irony in this post is higher than the tip of that building of the company that finances unreal engine.

 

The big difference is that the new changes for Pro are service based.
I think the value of Pro has steadily declined throughout the years as the 'free' edition got more Pro features.
For me it's obvious that they've tried hard to find ways to make Pro valuable while at the same time making extra money from Pro customers (they have the cash). The service based offering is the typical vendor lock-in strategy. The more you invest in UT the less likely you will change to other tech (e.g. unreal).

What if you only require the custom splash screen option as an extra? Yep, that would be US1500,- per platform, ridiculous really.
I find Epic's offer more elegant and most of all more honest. One product for all, the more you succeed the more you pay. It's simple as that.

 

It's internet gossip, nothing more, what did you expect ?
You are disappointed because i use both Unreal 4 and Unity, and because i'm not a fan boy

Also Source 2 is coming, so all indies will have a good choice now :
- Unreal 4
- Unity 5
- Source 2
- Crysis

 

Come on, I was obviously joking

 

Since when is Crysis(CryEngine?) a good choice for indies?

 

Some courageous little indies are able to work with poor documentation and hard to use engine and make a game.

 

Some people are be able to make great paintings with finger paint

 

I can understand the first cost hurt for all platforms (it was a lot for me too back at Unity 3) but crying about the splash screen over and over again seems kinda silly after all what they offer. First its $1500 for only the initial investment. With future upgrades its down to $600 and the update gets you 2 years so its only $300 a year and you get a bunch of good services. If you can't earn the $300 per year per platform you are barely indie and more like a hobbyist which should not care about splash screen at all. If you are indie doing random contract work and the splash screen is killing you then you should account its costs in your fees till you get over it.

With the Cloud build you already should save over $300 in man-hours with your mobile platforms. Level 11 will probably have great value too during all this time and then all the other things you get...

PS. I agree the splash screen should not say anything about personal edition. Without knowing about it and seeing such text in appstore/market game would make me think someone used some trial like product to create a commercial game...

 

The downside is that you will pay all your life.
You will have to take care about your revenues and not forget to send the money, it's a whole money management work you will have to do if you are success and they will have total insight on your business.

So it is not the choice of all people to have to deal withy royalties. And lot of people will just say no to C++ , and will keep easy C#.

Unity provides you all features for free, so that's normal you have a splash screen advertising the engine. I would cry lot more about the dark theme than the splash Screen.

 

The problem is not the splash screen as a whole. It actually looks cool.

The problem is the text "personal edition" which does not do unity or any developer a favor.

 

What? Is this the splash screen you get if you use the free version? This makes Unity 5 free unusable to make published games. Before the splash screen was fine, it looked professional, even added a bit of value. But if it says "personal edition" it is basically saying "This is an amateur game do not play it."

This can't be true. Seriously?

This is a deal breaker.

So you get a lot of cool stuff for free but now can't publish unless you update to Professional edition whether you're making $100k or not. Unity you've bit off your nose to spite your face there (or some such metaphor).

 

You may think that - but you might consider the possibility that this is a very weird perspective you're viewing this from. It's even weirder than the glass being half full or half empty. It's like having an awesome meal in front of you, nutritious, tasty, all-organic and fair-trade and locally-grown (oh wait, maybe I shouldn't stretch this too far ;-) ), nm, anyways, you have this awesome meal in front of you. And you are hungry and want to eat something. And then you say "this has no value", get up and starve to death the next moment just because the guy next to you got that same delicious meal for free (but there was a catch, you know, they had to post "Thank you, I really appreciate getting that free meal" on Twitter). You see the irony?

The value of both Unity "free" and Unity Pro has significantly increased over time because the engine got better and better and better. Yesterday, the value of Unity "free" which is now Unity Personal Edition went way up, and the value of Unity Pro at least increased very significantly (all the 5.0 features plus all the services). It's not like anyone took any features away from you - instead they gave you a lot more features, a lot more stuff you can do - with both versions.

The value of the engine is what you can do with it - NOT what you pay for it. So just because Unity Personal Edition is free has nothing at all to do with its value. If that was the case it would mean you can do nothing - I spell it out for you - NO-F'N-THING - with Unity Personal Edition. It would have zero value, you could do nothing with it. No one would want it.

That's very far from reality.

So instead of seeings things as if you'd have to pay $1500 "just to remove that splash screen" you'd be much closer to reality if you saw it as "whoa, I can get an engine that's worth at least $1500 for FREE if I simply accept the splash screen and no dark skin and not need those services offered with Pro anyways". More true, more happy, all good.

 

Wow, you seem to have a serious problem with that maybe 3 seconds splash screen.
As people, who know unity, know that personal now has the same engine features as pro - who would care? it's not like a totally gimped pro version anymore like pre 5.
It's not about the engine or version. It's about the game, but many small developers don't seem to understand that. Most of the gamers out there aren't even too aware of unity or unreal or other engines behind the games.
Also, doesn't unreal have a forced splashscreen, too? Like a legally never removable one? - but ohh, that's something different, because it doesn't have the words "personal edition" on it, right?

 

Yes. "Personal Edition" == "Made by amateurs". Would you put that on a splash screen on your game even for 3 seconds?

 

Dude grab a coffee sit back and relax for a sec. Because you're get it wrong.

Also why does a splash screen tag line makes your game unprofessional? Gamer give a damn about such stuff as long as your game is fine. That's what makes the difference.

 

You might as well be having a splash screen saying "This game is a piece of crap". It's means the same thing.

 

That's a stupid way of looking at it, honestly.

Launch any AAA game and you'll have to watch a zillion ugly, crappy splash screens. Who cares? Nobody.

It could have said "Made with the crappy Unity dirty peasant edition" and still nobody would care.

By this point they have bought/downloaded, installed and launched your game. They are going to play your game.

This is like those guys who think shaving their balls will increase their chance of hooking up with a girl. If she's actually looking at your balls I think you're golden.

 

Exaggerate much?

 

Well if it makes no difference then Unity can change it and make everyone happy.

 

Yes, i would, and i will. Until i make my $100k/year.

 

But how will you make $100k a year with a game that says on the splash screen that it is made with amateur software? Good luck with that. Put it on Steam and they will laugh in your face.

 

Seriously, grow up. Look at Besiege. It has been one of the most popular games on steam for weeks or even months now. Made with Unity. It gained that popularity long before anyone had any chance to launch it and see a splash screen.

It makes no difference what it says, but I agree with you. I don't know why they've decided to put "personal edition" there. As they've made it perfectly clear to us there are no differences between the features of the personal and the pro edition. The pro features are just extra services etc. which the end user (player) can't see in any way.

Unity can change it if they feel like it. Just post a feedback-thingy about it. Just don't try to make it out to be a big deal here, because it isn't.

 

I agree, the should change the name, or use a different logo for the PRo edition or just write Pro.
Personnal edition , makes your game and you the creator like some amateur using some student version of 3DSMAX.
They should really change the name and text or choose another logo or color.
This text don't help the indie , and not Unity as a successfull indie is better for Unity than a non successfull one.

Perhaps that will change if enought people request a logo change ?

 

They're doing a vote on it here.

 

I've seen much worse things having success on steam.
And if 2 or 3 wannabe nerds, who have no idea of things and just go by brands, laugh i'll just have something to laugh back at.

 

Things have calmed down a lot here after the Unity 5 announcement, but I thought this post on the Unity Facebook page was fun. It's this thread in a nutshell. At least how it was before the announcement.



My guess is that all the free game engines now appeal a great deal to the people who used to just mess around in level editors and mod tools like UnrealEd and Hammer. And these people are very vocal it seems. Probably because they are still very much flustered by the thought of actual game development over just modding / map making.

 

Unity will lose a few people to Unreal but it's Unreal changing their pricing AGAIN - it's they who are on the back foot. I've been using Unity Free for about a year now ~(after 2 years on Shiva and only because of the asset store) and don't intend to change again now that Enlighten, Deferred rendering and assetbundles are a Free feature.

However, I think the profiling feature should be in Unity Free. I can live without the rest, I can live with the "made with unity" splash screen because, let's face it, EVERY AAA game using Unreal says its made with Unreal - I'm pretty sure it's a licencing requirement. And you're stuck with C++ if you want get deep down and dirty.

The problem you have with Unreal as an "indie" is using it to its full potential. Without a team of 50+ AAA artists, you just aren't going to do that. I think using it for a 2d game might be a bit overkill - but I will have a look and see whats available.

I think the Unity Pro license is way overpriced. I think IOS and Android should be included in the editor price. Most users will never make their money back on those platforms.

Anyway, I'm happy to use Unity Free for now.

 

Profiling is included in the free version.

edit: some people might confuse it to the new service which is Pro only

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/game-performance-reporting-preview-faq.305997/

 

I think you misunderstood. The value of the 'personal' edition is awesome. It's just over the years the free edition grew more towards Pro, increasing it's value compared to Pro.
Unity 3 free -> no shadows
Unity 4 free -> shadows (pro feature)
Unity 5 free -> all pro features!
You have to agree with me on that, right?

 

@redmotion profiler is included too just download and try for yourself. Btw for unreal you are wrong epic have COMPLETELY different policy in this case

for example controversial Hatred is made with unreal but Epic OBLIGATED developers to remove this splash screen to ensure that bad karma dont hurt unreal engine appearance... AAA use made with unreal because of buzz word and all that marketing stuff not because of license, made with unreal have positive appearance thats why

 

Yes it's a good label , while "personnal edition" just sounds like personnal hobby, not indie developper.
Let's hope Unity will make some good step in the good direction, i don't think they were aware that the label just sounds lot more hobbyst than indie.

 

Funny thing is if they'd just dropped the price of Pro to say $15 a month I would have gladly given them some money for No Splash screens and RenderTextures, Soft shadows etc. This is from someone who makes most of their money from using Unity Free and would be happy to give something back. But $75 is too much at the moment. But they do get some money from me if I buy assets or people buy my assets. I suppose you can't please everyone!

 

You can use the spare change for analytics, asset server, or any number of actual services to benefit your game. Multiplayer is coming along with many, MANY more features and possibly more services in future, and this means you actually can afford those now, plus asset store is healthier.

Is it a risk that Unity went right to the heart of the matter to give you this? Yes but bold thinking requires risk. You can reward Unity in turn by actually being happy about it instead of letting people moan and bitch which kind of sucks all the joy out of the forums.

The forums aren't for moderators to moderate only (just if it spirals), users can self-moderate and govern themselves too! it is your forum after all