Unreal Engine 4

To any Unity folk reading this post, here is my suggestions on Unity Pro price adjustments:

Full upfront flat cost:
Entire life cycle for every major version -> 1000$ (500$ for each additional platforms, consoles excluded). You can upgrade to new major versions for half price (as usual).

Subscription without royalties:
- Yearly cost -> 500$ for desktop/web (250$ for any additional platform, consoles excluded).
- Monthly cost -> 50$ for desktop/web (25$ for each additional platform, consoles excluded).

Note on subscription models: If you ever license this model and your yearly or monthly subscription expires, you can keep using the Pro version but Editor only (no cycles updates, no publishing). If a new major version comes by you must pay the full price, no discounts. You are free to unsubscribe at any time, no penalties.


After all this, if you still don't want to pay a dime to Unity for their nice efforts, you can always get Unity Free (actual license terms applies).
What do you guys think of this suggestion?

 

I'm sure if/when it pays off in the end it'll be worth it then.

I get where you're coming from we just seem to be completely on the opposite end of the spectrum. If I had pre-existing art or employees or anything like you do then I'd be considering a lot more things than I currently am.

 

Already terrible. Additional platforms should not cost money, since all those licenses do is give you feature parity with the pro license you just bought.

So basically if your yearly expires, your editor is functionally useless.

Not being able to use the editor is a penalty. Especially considering the competing engine offers the exact opposite of this.

This is actually just as bad as the current system.

 

Sounds fine to me. Lower cost for perpetual license, and multiple subscription options. Maybe add an option to lower costs with royalties?

 

Those parts go in DLLs. They probably are already or it would be too hard for UT to upgrade. It's how UE4 solves the problem too.

 

Okay Dynamic GI is in beta as someone listed earlier. Found the link

 

If you can propose something better than my suggestion (where both Unity and its users will be happy) I'll be the first one to jump in. So what's your suggestion?

 

This thread by now is THE go to thread for me every day. From the day the info bombs went off to see how the mood is changing slowly from "Wow" to "Anger, I just upgraded" and "All is lost" to "Unity is not so bad after all" and now towards "What realistic options are there" is more exciting than many movies I have seen lately! Even though the tone sometimes is off I really like the many thoughtful comments made here.

I totally understand the argument that for pros the investment into Unity today does not matter and is appealing. Sure. Can I afford them? No. Do I need the pro functinoality to do anything meaningful? Most likely. Do I develop for mobile and need all platforms? Sure, mobile is a huge market. So what options do I have? Suprisingly, I am not even considering switching to UE4 for now. Not out of ignorance but maybe out of hope.

I have lead many projects as a professional developer and I have seen it happen so often. Either you have a product out but at some point become complacent and don't innovate so much anymore or think you are in an unbeatable situation. Then suddenly a competitor comes along. Or you plan to release and shortly before that someone else releases something super similar. Or what was the most amazing to me so far: someone releases also on the SAME day.

All of these situations first created panic in me and the team, as I think is quite understandable. But after a couple of days, thorough analysis and thinking, this has ALWAYS been a chance and a welcomed wake-up call. Competition is great. It really is. We have to embrace it for forcing us out of our comfort zone.

Now I see the Unity team in this position. I am sure they were and hopefully still are super proud of their Unity 5 announcement. What enthusiasm there was in the original announcement thread! I am looking forward to that SO much. BUT. Someone now challenged their market position and perceived value. I am sure that the team had some tough meetings the last days but I also believe having a common enemy unites them even better, speeds up needed decisions, brings in new creativity, new speed, maybe some extra hours and effort and reignites the passion if that should have been needed.

So from a product perspective, I am totally sold (I actually don't care for old Mono, GC and some other things that are constantly brought up here yet. My games simply are not there yet where this matters). Do I expect some changes on prizing? Yes, simply because the competition has a much easier and clearer message.

From my product management perspective I'd say they should really go for an all-in package, no more add ons, no team server and all that mumbo jumbo to chose from. One price for perpetual. One for subscription. And if they feel the urge then also jump on the royalty train. If I'd have to say what from my situation would be a fair prize I'd vote for keeping it < $2000 per year. This would be a level where bonus payouts and similar things can finance such a hobby and are in line with e.g. photography. This would translate for example to $3000 for full or $150*24 = $3600 for subscriptions for a full two year cycle. I don't say that fits Unity's business plan and this is no prizing democrazy here but I have the feeling that this would be an acceptable level for the enthusiastic hobby developer group with the ambition of publishing a title that is not meant for the dumps.

 

Wait, even for compiled libraries there's some license restrictions such as dynamic linking/access to those libraries where Unity isn't allowed to provide support access to it. A good example of this is Beast lightmapping.
And what's telling you that Unity have full code access to all their middlewares? Unity may well paid those companies to integrate their compiled DLLs into Unity for cheaper prices (I'm not implying this is the actual case but could be).
Isn't really about getting source code access to those libraries, but just the fact that Unity provides internal support/access to those libraries that could break their license terms.

 

Just to clarify, you can generate lightmap UVs inside Unreal. In general, if you want better control, you should do it by hand. It is a lot quicker than making normal UVs as well. But, most 3d apps can give you a good approximation density/UV space anyway.

Unity uses the same exact thing. You can't have overlapping UVs on lightmaps. Unity can also generate special lightmap UVs.

 

If its just Beast (probably not) then it wouldn't be an issue as beast is gone in Unity 5.

 

Somebody still explain to me how Unity having GI and Unreal not having it is a valid point since neither actually have it(officially for unreal). I'm not sure what version you guys are using but I don't see any damn GI around here, only promise. I mean this is like saying the Dodge Charger is better than today's Dodge Viper: "cuz dah 2020 year model of the Charger has promised to fly" Wut.

 

Additional platforms maintenance/improvement/features cost money to Unity folks so either you pay a full lengthy price that covers all platforms or you pay for each platform you need.

In my suggestion for a yearly subscription, when it expires you editor will keep working (so your immediate work won't get affected), you just won't be able to build your projects.

I can understand and makes sense to keep using the Editor (even for a monthly subscription) when license expires. I've updated my initial post to reflect such changes.

 

I've never had an issue with Unity lightmaps, anyway I figured out what was going on three seconds after you mentioned. That, if you fancy a man hug you know where to find me ..

 

I'm just giddy with happiness that I never need to lightmap again. From now on, I am a beautiful butterfly with enlighten.

 

0. Keep the free version with limited feature set.
1. First, keep the "major versions like 3.x/4.x/5.x update on a two year cycle thing."
2. Keep charging $1500 for a license in the 2 year cycle, but bundle it with iOS and Android Pro.
3. Keep allowing for upgrade pricing.
4. Have a $100 per month with a UE4-like "drop out at any time" thing.
5. If a person doesn't pay the $100, they lose the ability to purchase from the asset store and download new updates to the editor and their assets.

Basically, this benefits long-term purchasers of the license with a discount, which will help encourage loyalty in small-to-mid sized studios since they get a discount. The $100 UE4 like model will benefit hobbyists who are working beyond the capabilities of what Unity Free can offer them, and the $100 price tag offsets the fact that Unity updates pretty slowly and wouldn't really benefit from a $20 model.

Except you're not paying for platform access, nor are you paying for new features. You're paying the nebulous "UNITY SALARIES." If you've paid for pro, you're paying again for features you already paid for. Saying "WELL THEY NEED IT" when it offers nothing new is just shameful.

Which makes it useless.

 

UE4 GI will come in a future update, it will be totally real-time and cost your cpu/gpu arm/legs.

 

Yeah.

Enlighten. Looks. Awesome.

 

1. Okay, you are right. If you aren't a serious developer, Unreal Engine is a better choice.

2. What does Unreal Engine have that overshadows GI? In my larger post I mentioned some advantages Unreal Engine has, but none of them add up to the sheer power that GI can offer. Even if you never use realtime GI, the realtime GI still runs in the editor as a preview for your lightmap baking, drastically increasing iteration times. No matter what your workflow is, it offers huge advantages.

3. Have you used Unity? They ripped off Unity's UI, which is fine, but it's obvious who is ahead in this battle and who's playing catch up. Put differently, what's better about Unreal's usability / accessibility?

4. Read my longer post. In the future, Unreal will be more extendable than Unity if it's asset store catches on, but how long will it take for that to match the sheer size and breadth of Unity's store? 2 years, at least?

5. Unity has effects you can add to an individual sound or mix, audio streaming features and FMOD support in addition to DAW quality mixing in Unity 5. What does Unreal have?

6. That is the case with any engine, which is why I listed it as a plus for Unreal as well. However, this is the Unity forums, so everyone is already using Unity and might consider switching. This is a reason not to.

 

I would have been developing with Unity since 3.x if UT had a more reasonable subscription model (or any subscription model back then. ) As a hobbyist with a full time job as a developer, a young kid, and more house projects than any sane person should have on the go, I find it hard to dedicate time for working on game development (especially art.) As I said previously, I've been on the fence with Unity since 3.x and was tempted to pre-order 5 until I read about UE4. I'm a tinker and access to UE's source was a real plus for getting me to subscribe.

If Unity offered a subscription package for $30-40/mo that included everything and had no minimum commitment, I'd subscribe immediately, as I do like the editor and the ability to write code in C#. The most annoying thing about UE4 coding is getting used to C++ again but more than anything, it's the prolific use of macros that drives me nuts.

 

Up until now studios paid hundreds of thousands to millions to license the Unreal Engine. To imply that Unity is somehow now the choice for AAA and Unreal is for people who aren't serious developers defies logic.

 

The free version is a great way to learn and evaluate the product. But lets be honest here... unless the game you're creating is extremely simple, at some point you're going to need to buy pro and maybe a one or two addons.

 

What I meant is with the current licensing. If you actually want to make some real money, Unity is a better deal.

 

Come on UT, this topic is hot and keeps on growing.

Make some announcement, consolidate your platform charges, bring some sense to the subscription or whatever. Just announce something, so that after cheering for a while, we can all pre-order Unity 5 and get back to discussing and speculating about upcoming features, rather than ranting about UE4.

 

I don't think they are going to significantly change their licensing in response to this news. They might make their subscriptions cheaper, but I don't see any drastic changes any time soon. I know for myself, Unity is still more appealing than Unreal without any licensing changes.

 

My suggestion would be as follows. I'm under no illusion as to its worth; this is strictly armchair and I don't know jack about this stuff. That said:

• I would like UT to focus on making Unity the absolute best engine in existence for making a wide range of games quickly, easily and well. That is, to aggressively target indies from small to large.
  
  
• Consolidate the existing features. Don't worry too much about matching UE and CE for fancy stuff that most people won't use. Go for solid, useful features, and improving overall workflow, learning curve etc.
  
  
• I think most of the pricing suggestions made here suffer from too much complexity. To attract indies and hobbyists, I'd like UT to keep it simple. Horrendously complex schemes will confuse people as to whether they can or can't use the editor after a year, what updates they get, what the differences between all the license options are, and in general could be a strong turn-off.
  
  
• I'd like them to make Unity entirely free, with all features and platforms, for users with revenues under, say, $10k. After that, the existing Pro licensing applies, probably with a slightly different subscription model so that indies who unexpectedly make a buck don't suddenly have to shell out $4500 in licensing.

The idea being, it beats UE4 in up front cost (zero) and in long term cost (no revenue cut) while alleviating concerns about small devs still needing pro-level features.

Additionally, source access for Pro licensees would be hugely beneficial to devs AND UT. As others have surmised, it may not be possible due to middleware licenses, even with closed DLLs, so that may not be possible.

 

Yea and that's totally fine, I'm sure most people here would be happy if the subscription got slightly cheaper or alternatively included additional platforms at a cheaper rate.

Either way, I believe a lot of people are holding back at the moment and simply expecting some kind of statement.

 

Apex physics, SSR, better post FX, PBR, temporary AA and better particle FX. And the latter one is as huge, as realtime GI for current gen games IMO. Show me where I have correct lit particles, particle shadowing, emitting particles in Unity.

Second,you compare Unity5 with UE4. I have some news for you. Unity 5 isn't out yet, nor has it a set release date. In the meantime UE4 improves as well.

Third. Unreal 4 has already LPV GI. Not as advanced as Enlighten. But Enlighten has also a lot drawbacks. It's not nearly as good looking as SVO. And you have to precompute things here too. Not to mention that dynamic objects are not contribute any bounce light. They only receive indirect lighting.
The other question is, what will it eventually look like in Unity. The GDC demo didn't impress me at all to be honest.

Lastly, UE4 will have realtime GI at one point. And when you look how fast Unreal improves, it will not take long.

 

I can't really agree here. Unity's image-effects are mostly poor. SSAO (even the new version) is mostly unusable. Unreal has better default SSAO, antialiasing, shaders, fog and anything else for that matter, even pre-UE4. Unity could also do with an updated Character Controller like UE4's.

Does anyone know if that white city scene in the preview video was using enlighten without any lightmaps?

Anyway, I would laugh if Unity just kept their current pricing, but added Pro + Addons for free with 15-20% royalties. But someone posted that Helgason said that they tried a royalties scheme once but people just lied about their earnings.

 

Some of these ideas might work, but the $100/month subscription won't catch on. For one, Epic's subscription is $19/month. Beyond that, paying $100/month drives the cost higher than simply buying it in full when you consider it over a two year period of time. The only people that might like a $100/month plan are those people who signup and then quit after a month. People who use it more than a month will think $100/month is a bad deal because it adds up to $1200/year.

I think $500/year is probably the most Unity could charge for a Pro subscription that included every platform, and even then it would be more than double the cost of UE4.

 

Well I generated unique UV's for the models within UE4, it didn't help one bit ..

 

You guys are way too funny...

Actually some of you Unity "loyalists" are becoming desperate in defending your home base...it's entertaining to watch a real-life tower defence.

And why is everyone too lazy to go do a bit of research here and there?

UT said Unity 5 will have Enlighten. UE4 *had* Enlighten but they took it out so they could release the source code. Enlighten *will* be back to UE4. So Unity 5 does not win there.

SpeedTree is coming to Unity 5, for $495/seat. UE4 *had* SpeedTree but was taken out, again, so they could release the source code. It *will* come back. No gain to Unity 5 there either.

Scaleform and Coherent UI are available for both platforms. Unity 5 GUI is nothing special and in a few months there could be a number of GUIs written or ported to UE4 on their Marketplace. How I know this? Because the same happened when Unity opened the Asset Store. Do most of you have memory problems and are getting old?

Bottom line is that whatever happened with Unity through the Asset Store will now happen with UE4 and their Marketplace. Matter a fact it seems a number of assets are already being ported to UE4 Marketplace from the Asset Store. We need more assets available everywhere to make our lives easier. That's the purpose of technology, so we do less work not more.

Bah, why is everyone even comparing an unfinished product (UE4) with an inexistent one (Unity 5) ?!

UE4 is not complete, by far and there's no Unity 5 aside from a gimmicky video. Matter a fact based on that video UE4 beats Unity 5 on every point, and more. Once again, go watch UE4 video tutorials on YouTube or pay the damn $19, and try it out. You gladly paid $1,500 for Unity Pro, $19 is not going to kill you!

I'll just go back to lurking as I always did, and let the "loyalists" entertain us more. Meh.

 

Okay, I'm no professional in this field. I'm aiming for that, but I'm just getting started right now.

My question is... how much do players actually care about graphics? I mean I get that they would like games with good graphics. But do they honestly care about, say, some lighting that's slightly better than some other lighting?

I know as a game PLAYER myself I never really cared about graphics in such a detailed fashion. Games didn't have to look exactly like the real world to make me like them, as long as the graphics were generally good.

But... being professionals in the field, you guys know more than I do about general players.

I just feel like there's way too much debate over some of these things and that it's kind of silly.

 

it would be fair if the loyalist would actually try UE4, but most haven't.

 

Do our research?

https://answers.unrealengine.com/qu...-of-dyanmic-lighting-are-available-and-w.html

^ Unreal have not promised any dynamic GI and Enlighten looks like it won't be in UE4.

 

Exactly. This idea would work. It would end confusion over prices and add-on, and handily beat Epic in the market right now. This idea would grow the Unity ecosystem and lead to more sales through the Asset Store.

 

Well downloaded UE4 clicked on launch and got a crash report. So not a good sign so far!



Perhaps it does't work with the GPU on my laptop Intel HD Graphics 3000. DX10 I believe.

Guess I'm sticking with Unity then.

 

Serious developer? You mean serious indie developer don't you because most AAA companies targeting the PC and consoles probably aren't going to be using Unity. I would even argue that there are a lot of serious indie developers using UDK 3/UE4 for their games.

I think Unity might have the better workflow, at least based on my time with a trial license of 4.x Pro.

The version of Unity that everyone is using doesn't have GI either.

If Unity 5 isn't released until the late summer, that gives Epic time to work with Geomerics on some form of licensing that allows Epic to provide the Enlighten binaries as part of the UE4 subscription. Either that or Epic might work on more on the existing LPV code if they can't work out a licensing agreement.

By the way, developers have been creating games without GI for years and there are some great looking games out there; GI is a great feature but you can still make some very well lit games without it.

No offense but I think you're out to lunch here. Unity "borrowed" a lot of design cues from early game editors like UnrealEd/Worldcraft/Hammer, not to mention 3DS Max/Maya. I see hints of ZBrush too but above all it has numerous design elements "ripped" from Visual Studio's IDE (or even Eclipse.) Let's not talk about "ripping off" editor designs...lol.

 

You still need to lightmap if you don't want real-time lighting, Enlighten will also do such bakes. Even for dynamic lighting Enlighten needs to bake some data to your scene (I'm not really sure how It integrates on Unity) but check out their GDC presentation for more details:

Is not a 100% real-time dynamic solution as CryEngine (two bounce indirect lighting) where you drop your asset and lights bounces on it automatically without the needs of baking. Still visual results are nice but most of all cheaper with little overhead at runtime.

 

I like more the default Unreal 4 lighthing that the Enlighten GI.

 

A pair of extra-large diapers would also come handy.

 

Not a professional but as a long time PC gamer and casual iOS gamer (Eclipse, NeuroshimaHex, Agricola, Suburbia, etc) I would say the importance of graphics depends on the game type and platform. When I fire up a FPS or FRPG (e.g. Skyrim) on my PC, I'm expecting some very pretty and immersive graphics but when I crack out the iPad, I'm not overly concerned about real time shadows or amazing particle effects; I want a crisp and well designed UI with well thought out gameplay elements instead. This last point is where I think Unity has a huge advantage over UE4 at the moment, especially when you take into account the various plugins available from the assets store.

That's why Unity's subscription model really irks me right now. I do want to explore iOS development but don't want to commit to 12-months @ $150/mo AND have to buy assets store plugins to fill in the feature gaps of 4.x until 5 is released (and then have to port everything over.) I have no problem paying $1500 when I get "serious" (direction, ideas, experience, etc) and can commit more of my time to development but right now, I want something flexible and low cost, but with lots of features. That's UE4 at the moment.

 

1. I listed most of those things. For the record, PBR is going to be in Unity 5 so that's completely irrelevant. Not exactly sure what you mean by SSR? Server side rendering? Google isn't helping me here. I can actually agree with you that GPU particles are pretty huge, I'd be really surprised if Unity doesn't add that.

2. Comparing both of these engines as they are right now is ludicrously short sighted. Unity 5 will come out and you can plan your game around it.

3. I actually didn't know this. I didn't see it in their lighting demo package. That plus the lack of built in enlighten made me think there is no GI. However, look at Enlighten's demos in UDK. It's the same technology, and there is no reason to believe it will look any different in Unity.

4. Do you mean Enlighten? Because it already "has" that but it costs serious bank.

These are mostly baseless accusations. SSAO for Unity works fine for me. Actually, I've gotten worse results from it in UDK sometimes. AA and fog might be slightly better but not by a lot. Shaders are technically dependent on how good you can write shaders, although I definitely agree Unreal has a much better shader editing system.

Where on earth are you getting this information? Until I get a source for this, these claims are baseless. Enlighten is already for Unreal engine, but to get it you have to "email Enlighten", which means it costs serious bank.

For one thing, you can't say for certainty Unreal's store is going to kick off like Unity's. I agree it is likely though. However, this is not an advantage for Unreal. Unity has the same service. Actually, Unity is at an advantage because it has been around longer. Ultimately, Unreal's store might end up being far better than Unity's, but we don't know that right now or in the foreseeable future. At the very least in a year, probably more like two or three.

If you are a developer thinking about switching, now's the time to start thinking. Which is why people are comparing them. And it's not like they are that hard to compare. Unity will definitely have all the features they say, and Unreal is already a very good indicator of what the final product will be.

 

I hope this thread doesn't turn into some kind of engine war. Everyone is welcome to evaluate and report their findings, but it isn't going to become a "My engine is better than yours" - because the engines are definitely horses for courses and no-one is silly for picking a particular engine Having evaluated Unreal Engine since last year, I am in a pretty great position to comment on why I don't want to use it for the next game. However instead of attacking the engine, I merely highlight why Unity (especially 5) is a better choice for some games. Likewise one can highlight why they feel UE4 might be a better choice for them. Hope everyone can be positive about something that benefits us all.

Just a friendly reminder to ensure it remains civil.

 

The assumption that anyone spending upfront money licensing Unity will get some ROI is wrongly biased. Nothing guarantees that you'll be successful with your game(s), no matter what engine you are using. And that's the main point in this thread, people finds Unity upfront cost quite steepy. Not even mention the current monthly subscription which to me sounds like a real joke.

 

Well anyone who wants to make games on a laptop that doesn't have DX11 can't use UE4 anyway it looks like. Had a feeling that UE4 is only designed for top end machines. So those game developers who like to make simple games on their laptop in Starbucks will still be using Unity.

 

Whats in it for them? Easy .... they keep me and others as customers.

Which means they continue to survive.

If not, then many will eventually switch over, and their profits will tank, and they will beg people to come back, then they will begin layoffs, and cutbacks and if they are lucky they'll keep a float.

Remember, we dont need Unity ...... but they definitely need us! So its Unity that needs to adapt to the changing pricing landscape ..... and not us.

 

If they don't earn profit, then you are no use to them. It's as simple as that.!

 

UE4 is clearly for next gen exploding visual gaming, not for simple games. Their small 2D demos are simple ridiculous examples of what not to do with UE4.

 

Well then Unity's quite safe then. Because big console companies will already use Unreal or their own proprietary game engines. And mobile developers like the people who make Angry Birds and Bad Piggies will stay with Unity and develop in Starbucks on their laptops.

I would have thought if you're making a game like Doom, Unity would be a very bad engine to use anyway, since a game like Doom has special algorithms for culling etc. tailored specifically to that particular game.

I see Unity as a kind of on the same level as Flash but with added 3D. If I heard that a big games company was using Unity that would surprise me very much! I don't take it seriously as a console game engine but it's good for making casual 3D games. Even if it had the best lighting system in the world, the fact that you can't edit the source code to taylor culling algorithms to your game is a major downside.