What happens to the forced splash screen if you open your project with the free version again?

So, you create a project in the Unity Plus version and removed the splash screen there. Some time passes. You find a bug in the game, but you currently don't have a subscription running.

If you edit that project with the free version, will the splash screen be added back?

 

I would expect that, yes.

(Although the best way to find out for sure is to write to the support)

 

Why don't you test it? Backup your project, install Unity using unity hub. Have one with your pro activation and one with the free activation and test it. If you load your project in unity free, build and run it and it shows the unity splash screen then it answers your question.

 

Not on a subscription currently.

 

Read the rest of the post.

 

I also don't have free access to project made in Pro right now. That was more of a what-if question.

Lots of customers expect nowadays quite long patch-support (there are people on Steam forums asking for patches for 15 year old games). So, in case you don't have a subscription anymore, but you need to patch up your years old game, that question sprang to my mind...

 

If you build your game on personal it will have the splash

 

From a practical perspective:

The splash screen only gets applied when a build is made. So you can work away as much as you like on a project. Its just when you hit build that the splash screen is applied.

Any .meta files you modify will be tagged with "pro" (for pro/plus) or "personal" (for personal). Currently this issues a warning if a personal .meta file is opened again in pro. But other then that it has no effect on development. I assume it also sends a note to Unity analytics, but so far I haven't heard of anyone getting stung for it. The .meta data will also be in your game build, so Unity will be able to tell if personal was used on a project. Which is relevant if the project is going to make a lot of money or get a lot of attention.

In theory there is nothing stopping you writing a script to manually change the tag in the .meta files before a commit. However such a deliberate attempt to bypass the license terms isn't going to go over well if you get caught.

If a game were properly built using asset bundles, there would be nothing stopping you from making upgrades to the assets without needing to use pro/plus, and without adding the splash screen. This might be more work then the cost of the subscription justifies.

From a licensing standpoint:

You aren't allowed to mix licences, except as a third party developer of assets. You can upgrade or down grade a project completely.

 

Wait... really? I would have thought you'd get a warning if a "pro" file is opened in Personal, a license downgrade. Surely they want us to upgrade and thus have nothing to warn us about if we do...

 

My data is a little old. But back before the freelancing license issue was cleared up, I was using free with a few clients on pro. I didn't get warning opening or working on their assets in the project. They would get warnings every time they downloaded one of my commits.

I have no idea if its changed since then.

 

We have alot of mixed meta in our game, It comes from third party assets etc. No warning, no nothing. Only time I see it is when I change such a file from within my Plus license eidtor and git shows the change from personal to plus when commiting.