Using Unity for a non-IT company

Hi!

I work as an IT support for a multinational company. The company doesn't create software or any IT related products, but my regional manager decided that we will use Unity for marketing purposes and he wants to use Unity personal.

Do we need to purchase Unity pro or is it allowed to use Unity personal for inside office development until it become public that the company use Unity?

Cheers,
Maci

 

If your company makes over 200k annually, you need pro.
https://store.unity.com/

 

You have any subsidiaries without revenue you can use?

 

The Unity license terms don't require the licensee to actually create products in order to enforce the revenue limits on the lower tier licenses. The license primarily governs the use of the editor itself. If the company will use the Unity editor and has total revenue at $200k+ then it is a violation of the license to even launch the editor prior to getting the proper license tier.

 

Hmm,

Now I wonder about individual people who just have a compensation over 200k annually. Are they allowed to open the editor without a pro license?

 

Depends. The 200k mark is revenue, not income. If your salary from an unrelated job is over 200k, then no, you can use Unity personal. If you develop games for a company and are compensated 200k+, still no for your personal use. But obviously the company you are working for is required to have pro (assuming they use unity). If you are freelancer using unity and your income is above that then yes.

If you have a specific scenario that doesn't fit, contact Unity sales for specific information.

 

Thank you for your quick answers!

He wants to experiment with Unity, but doesn't want to pay the license until it is something come out of it he can use for the company.
He is considering licensing an outside office with outside computer equipment and put people from our company there,I'm not sure what it would that be called, but let's assume he setup a "daughter" company who will receive funds from the main company, but less than 100k and this office work as a research team. Would that be a problem for licensing?

 

Even if the license could be interpreted to not allow a Unity Personal license for those with high paying day jobs but work at home on their own game projects, it is not being enforced by Unity with that interpretation.

 

That doesn't fly. Here's the actual license terms which covers tier eligibility. This daughter company would undoubtedly fall under the second bullet point I've bolded. So finances of the daughter company would be calculated based on the parent company's revenue, not its own revenue.

https://unity3d.com/legal/terms-of-service/software

Wanting to wait until a project is successfully completed in order to license software used to create such a project is a little nonsensical by the way.

 

It's not that expensive to license pro for a year in terms of normal business costs.

The idea of "doesn't want to pay the license until it is something come out of..." is kind why the thresholds exist really. You could set up team of hundreds of people, use unity for free, and then when the product is ready to launch, get one pro license. No, if you are using it for business, they just need to license the appropriate tier and not try to find ways around it. It's pretty cheap, it's pennies compared to what you would pay staff.

 

Not only that, I'm having a tough time imagining how it would really be more cost effective anyway. Any which way, the cost of the staff is going to dwarf the cost of the software.

 

I've looked. There isn't really a way around this. Unity's license doesn't let you dabble on the side. Its all or nothing.

If you do want to experiment, this is the one place where Unreal's licensing terms work out better. If the product made with Unreal is never sold, the engine has no cost. Which means you can make and distribute internal tools to your hearts content. (Check their actual licence, don't trust me on this.)