Why are we doing this subscription thing? Our CTO Joachim Ante explains

Joachim has responded to you all through a blog post the following message:

Over the last days I’ve been reading all comments and first of all, do know that we are very carefully listening to everything, discussing a lot especially what we can do to make the subscription pricing appealing especially to Indie devs who have been using Unity Pro for the longest time.

I especially care a lot about this group of developers, who effectively funded this company with us and have been with us on this journey for a very long time. So we will figure something out. Needs a bit of time but we’ll follow up soon…

In the meantime I want to give a bit of background about why we are doing this subscription thing and some thoughts on what was a bit lost in the announcement so far.

Why Subscription?
When we started Unity, we would ship Unity every once in a while on just 2 platforms. Initially just Aras and I, gradually adding a couple engineers every few months. We’d decide on a couple major features and focus working on that for a year and a bit, go through beta and then ship it.

Today Unity lets you target 28 platforms. No one targets all platforms at the same time, but the ability to choose to easily switch your game to any platform gives Unity developers incredible advantages.

Each platform is supported by a team of dedicated engineers. We have teams focused on different areas of the engine, working on improving each major area all the time.

We ship a patch release every week. Supported by the awesome Sustained Engineering team.

We ship point releases with major new features and improvements multiple times per year.

All of this is necessary because the platforms we support rapidly change. In today’s world, we can’t leave customers behind for a year because we are in the process of releasing a major version. We think it would be very bad for Unity developers if we held features for a full number release, rather than launch these features along the way, when they are ready.

With this in mind, we want to be clear. There will be no major Unity 6 release.

In the dev team we wanted to stop doing major releases for a long time. With the major releases model we had done up until Unity 5, it has always forced us to bundle up a bunch of features and release them in one big splash. Usually it results in that good & complete features would be artificially held back for a long time while other features are still maturing, and eventually releasing some of these features before they are ready. All in the name of creating one big splashy release that customers feel is worth upgrading to. It’s what we did because we had to in a model where we worked toward an unnatural new major release every few years. This is not some evil marketing team pushing for it, it is the inherent nature of that business model. It was always a painful process for us and you and it really serves no one.

With our switch to subscription we can make Unity incrementally better, every week. When a feature is complete, we will ship it. If it is not ready we will wait for the next point release.

Our switch to subscription is absolutely necessary in order for us to provide a robust and stable platform.

Pay to own!
Along with the new subscription model, we are introducing “pay to own”. After having paid for 24 months of subscription, you can stop paying and keep on using the version you have at that point. Of course, you would also stop getting new features, services or fixes; choice is yours.

If you are upgrading from a previously bought perpetual license of Unity and you are switching to subscription after March 2017, then you get “pay to own” right away with your subscription license.

Pay to own applies to everyone; there’s no special “license option” you have to get. Simple!

Thanks for listening, I hope this gives some much needed background on our switch to subscription.

 

@Joachim_Ante : Im fine with the subscription model, the pay to own model and think that your conception of development and shipping cycles are spot on. May i ask what the decision (your decision?) behind the MWU splash screen in Unity Plus was and why you think it’s justified to add it in a paid product?

 

Is the pay to own monthly price the same as the subscription price? If so, if you pay to own plus for 24 months, do you still own it? If you own plus will you still be stuck with the splash screen?

 

Problem is not subscription by itself, it’s rather the options provided that make no much sense, some feel that they pay for more than they need compared to the previous model, while some others certainly benefit from it.

What would make sense, be fair enough to everyone, and still a realistic model from Unity’s business perspective in my opinion is as follow:


– Dark skin everywhere. This is NOT a feature, please understand it once for all, we’re in 2016, this is a joke and not a good one.
– Unity splash screen in the free version only (with alts to choose from?), Unity’s splash screen is an advertisement that must not be forced on a paid version.
– A revenue cap for both Personal and Plus
– No services for Personal and Plus (minimal services?)
– No one month option for Plus (as defined in this comment), because we understand you’re aware 90%+ users only care about the splash screen and it wont be lucrative to Unity if people just paid for a month whenever they wanted to publish their games.
– Minimum subscription duration 6 months (maybe at a slightly higher monthly price compared to longer commitments?)

That would make many people happy. Free users will jump to Plus, actual profitable companies will either choose Pro because of the services or will have to use it by reaching revenue caps.

The subscription is not a bad idea by itself, just fix what is included on each subscription. One can’t accept ads (splash screen) in his game while he’s paying a monthly subscription, pay for dark skin is a joke, and pay thousands of dollars to remove the splash screen is a big NONO.

We understand you wanna make a one package kind of deal that is fully featured with amazing services, no more individual platform supporting and whatnot, but please keep in mind A BIG chunk of your customers only need to target one platform, and use no services whatsoever. Those pay too much for nothing much (there are free alternatives on the market).
And although you probably can only move forward making Unity a fully featured solid product regardless of customers specific needs, I’m sure you could still figure a sustainable business model close to what we see fair. Some things we can accept and understand, some others we just can’t and you’ll have to rethink and balance.


As far as I'm concerned, I was so close to upgrade my perpetual Unity 4 license as its support just ended couple months ago, but now I see no real value to that (for way more to pay) and will stick with Unity 5 Personal edition and my good old Unity 4.7, while checking UE4 and keeping an eye on Unity's move to make things right.

 

My concern isn't really about cost or pricing but the direction of Unity itself.

• Don't understand charging for a product that still displays splash. Change the sub min period if it's a problem.
• Don't understand charging to change the colour of editor. This is a joke gone mad.

I am more concerned with the decisions behind running Unity as a business. Yes, it is my business as my business depends upon it. As if important things like this are a shambles, then I wonder at the future engine direction because decisions are decisions. And there's some crazy decisions so far.

As you know I am one of the biggest supporters Unity has. I devote substantial time in ensuring that the community we know and love is thriving, and Unity remains a strong asset to my own business. Whatever engine I use, or wherever I am, I seek to support and improve that environment, as what goes around comes around.

In any case it's perfectly fine to agree to disagree.

 

Subscription based is better long term for everyone, however there is still a big concern:

• Up to 3 times the price increase for desktop only pro users (on a 2-3 years cycle)

This is a big hit for us, especially since Unity still has a lot of catch up to do versus Unreal for mid/high end desktop features (Terrain, visual effects, vegetation, Lightmapping, ...).

You end up paying for a lot of features/services you won't use.

I think reintroducing a ~75$/month subscription with a bigger revenue cap and no Unity splash screen would be great.

 

My primary complaint regarding the new pricing is the massive price increase for the new Pro subscription compared to the previous Pro perpetual license upgrades. Unity is quadrupling the price for staying upgraded. With perpetual licenses, we could upgrade a Pro license to the next major version for half price. A Pro license was $1500 up front and then $750 to do the major version upgrade. Those upgrade cycles were 3-4 years, and now are 2 years. Even at a 2 year upgrade cycle, the upgrades would average $375 per year.

The new Pro subscription is $1500 per year. As a Unity 5 Pro user with a perpetual license, I am most upset about this issue, since this amounts to effectively quadrupling the price to keep Unity upgraded. If Unity needs to force everybody to a subscription, then price the subscription in line with the previous upgrade price point.

In addition to that, the Plus plan makes no sense currently. It is an excellent idea to add a mid tier plan like Plus to monetize some the free/personal user base. However, nobody will buy the Plus plan if it still forces a splash screen. If Unity wants to sell Plus licenses, then Unity needs to let Plus users customize and even disable the splash screen.

And finally, it is time for Unity to get real about hiding the dark skin behind a paywall. That only serves to make the editor look less polished for free/personal users. That hurts Unity's image, especially with new users who try out Unity for the first time using the free/personal version. Unity needs to make every version of their editor look as polished as possible. The dark UI is not something people will pay for, but it does look slightly more polished than the light UI. Hiding the dark UI behind a paywall is a stupid and self injurious move on Unity's part.

 

I guess if unity add custom splash screen in the Product Unity Plus this simple change can improve the public acceptance.

 

The good part about allowing all tiers of users including personal to have the dark UI is they won't go to a competing product and think "wow this dark ui is so much more professional than Unity!" because they'll already be used to Unity's dark UI.

So there's that.

The problem with just giving splash at $35 is that you can cancel the plus tier membership. This is too much for Unity. So something needs to change if this will change.

 

I agree with this, and I think some other people posting or commenting on the blog(not sure which if not both) that they would be able to see them taking away the month-to-month option for plus. Maybe they could offer both like they do now, but only with the 12-month contract does the splash screen go away. On the other hand, you have to remember that many devs(not all of course) intend on supporting a game after release, which means that they would have to subscribe each month in which they intend to release updates.

 

Even if free/personal users upgraded to Plus just for the months when they released something (either initial build or game patches), then I suspect Unity would actually make a lot more money off of free/personal users than they do now. There would still be a revenue cap to force users to upgrade to Pro if they made enough money.

 

Can we get the splash screen removed for the unity plus version please? I was excited to see this option but when read still has a splash screen was dissapointed.

 

I Agree with all that, I would add a forced 12 months duration for Plus and Pro subscription... so users won't just pay one.
I have the feeling you just quoted me from a post I made on facebook XD... but yeah pretty much that.

The Dark Skin Should not be a selling point for the Engine...No one will compare 2 engines and say:

"Oh Engine X has this awesome Lighting that will make my game look very good, but on the other hand in Unity I can Pay $35 to get a Dark Skin for the Editor... I think I'll choose Unity "

what it actually is, it's just an annoyance for current users... I mean even Microsoft Word has a Dark Skin... This should not be promoted as a "Pro Feature", Unity should promote real advantages over competition to get people interested on paying extra.

I think a reasonable deal is to have a 12 months contract.

Also I will just throw this idea up the air, I don't know if it's even possible.... but What if the Splash Screen on the Built game, validates the Developer License? and if the developer stopped paying, the Splash automatically becomes Unity, but if the User is currently paying the Splash remains custom?

 

Sounds like the worst idea so far, actually worse than royalties.

 

Wouldn't that mean if you cancel the Plus tier after a month or any month then the splash screen customization would disable by the end of that month? At least that's how it is with the dark skin.

 

It means though, that it devalues the pro license, so that causes the revenue drop. Anyway, it's not my concern or responsibility. It's clear Unity has a plan. I enjoyed the discussions and what-ifs and tried to keep threads clear for Unity to really be able to read your feedback, but I'm done with the discussions now, I have a game to make

 

I don't really agree with that method of engineering for a development tool like Unity. It's fine for something like a website, or even Photoshop where future versions are compatible with older files and the user's final deliverable (an image) is no longer dependent on the software used to create it.

Unity's idea for weekly patches seems to be that each weekly release doesn't have to be compatible with the previous week's release. And each release squashes some bugs while introducing others. There is never a stable release of Unity. And these bugs aren't just in Unity's software because Unity is a development tool, so the bugs end up in our games too.

 

problems:
- price for mid tier
- splash screen

I'm fine going with unreal for some jobs

I can have both, let unity specialize

 

Sorry, but this post makes zero sense. People (the majority) aren't mad about subscriptions in themselves. I personally don't like them, but hey, I can get over that and I think most people can also.

What people aren't cool about is that the current model of subscriptions doesn't make any sense for these reasons; most importantly, financially:

• Pay for an editor color; yeah, this is petty.
• Pay a monthly fee, yet still have splash screen.
• Pro got much more expensive; especially for existing members and desktop only crews (See below from other thread that surmises this as shortly as possible)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
These are the real issues. Sorry, but it seems upper level management is a bit out of touch. Did you happen to skim over the 1000+ posts details these instead of actually reading them? If not, I don't have another explanation for missing the entire cause of the great backlash.

 

Im Sorry, but i don't understand the relation between custom splash screen in "Unity Plus" and people canceling their membership.

If the problem is the people paying for 1 month the same problem appear in the pro product. Or do more benefits for the people who paying per year.

I have Unity Pro and Android Pro Perpetual and the major reason is for the custom splash screen. I don't have a idea who wanna pay for a product with water mark(MWU Splash Screen).

Unity Plus is for the Indie People, persons who some times and with lucky can sold a Unity App (Games obviously and aplications) and gain money for paid their needs and with that part of their earnings to pay monthly unity.

Unity Pro for intermediate companies (not dedicated in use Unity).
And Unity Enterprise for companies dedicated to work making games or using unity all the time.

 

I have no problem with the subscription model. After all I use Adobe products and Autodesk... the real issue for me is the price increase. I think UT - IMHO - arrived at the wrong costing. ~$200 AUD every month for Unity Pro is just too much for a sole operator like myself. I need Pro features, mainly no splash screen (before U5 it was plugins etc), as my clients demand no branding other then theirs at the start. As they have clients that will kick up a fuss if it is there. So basically as a freelancer you have costed me out of my Pro license which I have had for a long time. Look at my forum join date and work it out for yourself.

I will wait and see what your sales team comes back to me with. As I assume I'm one of your long time Pro users you speak of....

Cheers.

 

Please UNITY, dont kill us. Don't kill our dreams.

 

I've never bought a pro license, but by far had been tempted by the splash screen. It doesn't bother me to support the unity engine by showing the splash, but I'd really like to be able to either customize the splash, or at the very least select from a few better looking options, as the default android splash looks very ugly on most devices. If it were a very professional looking image with a background which fit the image properly, I'd not be bothered by it, but it's not.

I see the new pricing structure as fine IF there are serious changes made regarding that splash. Seriously, let me change your splash to fit my apps, please, I'll buy plus if you do!

Otherwise till big bucks are rolling in each year I have absolutely zero motivation to stop using free. The skin color of the editor is irrelevant to me. I couldn't name any other feature I need that free doesn't have... splash screen. SPLASH SCREEN!

 

THIS is excellent. Just call the thing "Unity" and switch to a build mentality. I couldn't agree more that the idea of releasing v1, v2, v3, etc is less and less relevant these days, especially with a product like Unity.

 

What I'am waiting for is a clear and comprehensible explanation for all single-plattform-developers about the huge price increase. This is what most people are concerned about. Including myself. Obviously UT did not read all the comments as carefully as indicated.

 

This hardly tells us anything, only new thing we learn from this is some history and how they dealing with different releases. If this was the blog post to answer 90percent of questions, then its failed as you can see from the replies above. I'm harsh sometimes but I say it how it is..where is the mention of different price tiers and logic to them?
Maybe the CEO should have made a posting..

 

The way Unity is approaching a "Pay to Own" subscription doesn't make any sense.

You pay a subscription for 24 months with the intention of owning a perpetual license, at which point you only own the version you're currently on when the subscription is complete... And then that's it? You just "stop getting new features, services or fixes", unless you subscribe for another 24 months? That doesn't sound like Pay to Own.

Pay for two years so that you can then "choose" to be left behind? Who wants to choose that? Where's the value?

I'm a huge supporter of "Pay to Own" models, they're far easier for paying customers to justify in the long run (compared to a large up-front fee). But a perpetual license or "Pay to Own" model usually includes an extended period in which you can receive new features and fixes, yet this explicitly states otherwise.

The only benefit that this provides over say, Adobe's subscription model (which does not offer Pay to Own), is that you get to use the software for as long as you want after the subscription period. But if you're being left behind in the dust with no updates, even for a limited period after the subscription ends, then what's the actual point of Unity's "Pay to Own" subscription?

 

From Joachim Ante's own comment on his blog post (emphasis mine):

Pardon me, but I was under the impression that I'm required to buy Pro if I make more than $100k, and not that I shouldn't buy Pro if I don't make more than $100k. Is that an official stance now? Pro is only for those making more than $100k and free is for the rest?

I don't know how UT came to this binary segmentation of their userbase into haves and have nots. But it seems like it's based on wishful thinking instead of hard facts. Anyone who spends enough time on these forums (or actually "listening to the Community" as UT likes to say), would get the impression that a large part of Unity's users aren't paying salaries and aren't working in studios, but are instead lone wolves clawing out a living freelancing and catering to niches.

Users in this segment (which either does not exist or does not matter according to the comment above) need Pro. Freelancers need Pro to play with the big guys (thanks to UT's rule that forbids mixing of editions), and the rest need Pro to avoid the stigma associated with the logo. What they don't need are services they are unlikely to ever use or the ability to release on every platform under the sun. It's just desktop, iOS, and Android. Even Windows Phone is off the table for most.

I find it hard to believe that users in this segment are so small and insignificant and matter so little to UT that they weren't taken into consideration when this new licensing scheme was hatched. If that is indeed the case, then there's no reason for us to vote with our wallets because UT is practically showing us the door.

 

Never really cared about the splash screen... It's one of my personal challenges, to prove what can be accomplished using Unity and get feedback through comments such as: "Can't believe that you've made something that looks so good and fun in Unity!"

But now, I do care more. Unity really should have disabled the splash screen for the free version and forced it on the paid version. That way, the asset-flippin' pile of S*** made with the free version would not get associated with Unity, while the quality stuff (KSP, Cities - Skylines) would

BTW, interesting read here: http://www.merseyremakes.co.uk/gibber/shame/

 

So pay to own now costs double what it used to, and you have to subscribe to get it? This feels really sleazy. The $35 option also seems completely worthless unless you really want the dark theme.

 

3 different versions is insane.
How about you just keep it to two:
Free/personal
Pro $75 a month (minimum commitment say 12 months at a time - but with a monthly option to extend thereafter) (ok maybe a bit higher to allow for inflation). The $125 price is effectively doubling the subscription which is pure greed.
Stop paying for pro and you get to keep your pro version at whatever stage it is currently.
I chose Unity because it seemed a good deal at the time, but I haven't actually released anything yet (despite paying for a pro subscription and ios and android extensions - that's my fault I'm slow) , but I have no income from it and if it goes to $125 a month I won't be paying it - in fact I'm starting to look elsewhere today as I'm not feeling keen on investing more time in unity with this hanging over me. Suddenly a royalty only scheme starts to look very attractive compared with one that seems to be trying to fleece me longterm.

 

The Five Stages of Unity3D Subscriptions:

Denial
This is a joke, right? Maybe a typo? Did they accidentally say that MWU Splash Screen will still be in Plus? They wouldn't still block the dark skin in Personal, right?

Anger
This quadruples our development costs! I'm not even going to use those platforms or services! Why would they put advertisements in something I'm already paying for! Perpetrual licesnes have a premature cutoff! Unity sucks!

Bargaining
A semi-customizable splash screen for Plus? Um, could we get the option on which platforms we want? What about a plus version with no services? Could we get a higher revenue cap?

Depression
Unity isn't listening and I've already worked so hard. If my game needs a small patch in five years I'll have to subscribe for a year even if it's only a couple hours of work. I need to drop down to personal and deal with splash screens and light UI migraines.

Acceptance
I just remembered that Unreal Engine exists! Woo!

 

I believe they will offer a pre-paid option to pay-to-own, possibly with a discount. Yes, it's more expensive, but maybe you pay like $2500 up-front instead of $3000 over two years.

If they don't, then they seriously need to work on their commercial skills.

 

Autodesk's all-rental plans are failing, the Unity will follow the same path?!?!

 

You are ending support for perpetual license in less than 1 year (on Mar 2017) Perpetual license cost:
$1500 upfront which is equivalent to standard 2-year of subscription at $75/month
This does not seems a fair decision for someone having perpetual license for less than a year.

When perpetual license is converted to Subscription model, it should convert to 24 month free subscription atleast for owners who have used perpertual license for less than 24 months on the date of change.

 

I used to have a subscription with autodesk for 3ds max - their prices went through the roof as well going up by about 30% year on year. It was totally uneconomical and not worth maintaining at the prices they were asking - so I stopped subscribing and put up with the reduced feature set (none of which I wanted anyway).

 

I'm on the verge of creating a university course for game development - I have until now been an advocate of unity - but this, coupled with the fact that Unity educational licenses are charged for (unlike UDK) mean I am thinking it might be best to jump ship to UDK - there's no cost there unless you make a profit, and its free for educational use - which makes the course much cheaper to create and run.

 

Nice point, despite not being much on topic, but they really should make Unity completely free for educational use.

 

My input:
I bought into each and every Desktop/Android and iOS pro license since the initial first introduction of the specific, iPhone version ( before Android module and when Unity was OSX only ). Since then i always and gladly was an early adopter and preordered my pro licenses as soon as it was possible. This because of the upgrade pricing sitting right on a sweet spot and the announced progress and features at Unite simply got my heart pumping of plain awesomeness

With this Unite, everything changed:
The change in the upgrade pricing scheme is a complete NO for me. The Pay to own just being plain rental in disguise. Bug fixing stops right at pay stop ? seriously ? That might be okay with things like Photoshop, where one finds way to work around bugs . It's not okay for things like Unity's mobile export where bugs possibly simply mean appstore rejection. And all the emphasis on services stuff which is of limited interest for me. The rental rate is just to high. If i still use Unity in 2017, i'll downgrade to Free and Unity looses my money, simple as that.

 

I think you mean UE4, not UDK. UDK was the free tier of UE3.

 

How does the "pay to own" idea work, though? As a current Pro customer, can I, say, in 2018 pay one monthly rate to "own" the then-current release from then onwards? Or will I not be able to "own" any Unity release again until March, 3, 2019?

"The version of Unity Pro that they get to own after their commitment period would not get new features, services or fixes." - so any bug encountered post March, 3, 2017 means I have to start a 24-month payment marathon if I want to *keep* the bugfix and not go back to the bugged version? No more support grace period for past versions?

In the past, the business model was very transparent: UT worked on new features and we paid to get them. Money we paid was directly used to develop features (that were back ten only available to paying customers).

Fast forward to the Riccitiello era:

Now everyone gets Unity for free. Revenue from Pro users goes towards maintaining server farms UT set up somewhere that do automated builds (no thanks, got my own), collect telemetry on players (hell no!) and serve ads (not a single positive influence of freemium/f2p on gameplay).

For users, buying Pro currently means: No logo. Dark theme. Free stuff in the asset store. The end. Until the $100,000 line is crossed, there isn't all that much motivation for anyone to buy Pro anymore.

In consequence, there's strong pressure for UT to sell "services" and build a revenue stream. And in turn go where the money is (mobile...) and position itself as the ad-revenue-middleware of choice. The more free users they have creating ad-supported games (of any quality), the more revenue UT can skim off.

I'm not thrilled about the price hike, about my money flowing into services I do not use and which, from my pov, are detrimental to games in general and I don't want one of my development tools held hostage for 24 months during which I have to keep paying of lose access to it.

I have 9 more months to observe and hope, but if this is where it's headed, all I have to say is:

~so long, and thanks for all the fish~​

 

Yes - lost track of acronyms - suffering acronym blindness

 

I'm a part-time lecturer on a university games course. We currently use Unity. It is not my decision, but I would be very surprised if we didn't switch to UE4 when the Unity 5 licence support ends.

Practically every piece of software is free for educational use, even for software that is usually pay-only (UE4 was free for educational use even when they charged a subscription to the public). Unity has a free version, but charges for educational use. It does seem a very odd stance to take.

 

That's what I found - very strange - and indefensible. Even the discounts they give aren't that great.

 

Dear @SaraCecilia

No...We can call you awesome but you can't call you awesome. Gödel's incompleteness theorems

No...Unity was better every week since start with new features and fixes before and in the actual present.

Again No...stability do not has a direct relation with month payment. If Unity is living and depending only in a month payment cycle, then is quite quite worrying.


If you have a grate team that is doing pretty well, there are loby that will push in secret putting in a bad boy into the staff giving small bad ideas (the other insider) and can easily make a factory fail in short time parido so that bank can purchase at very low prize or competition can stand up. And now I show you an example of intruder idea:

...Why? or better how make this new idea I whant the name and the real reason.

 

If you're going to post in a big, bold font and get on a high horse, please at least have coherent arguments.

Also, please don't post in a big, bold font.

 

English isn't his native tongue. But I did agree with some of his points such as:

In all honesty at this point in the cycle I'd probably expect the software to be moving along nice and stable, not stuttering with it's arse hanging out. Got hope for 5.4 though.

 

Ah, good point. I'm a dummy I occasionally don't think of the most simple answer such as that.

I stand by the font comment though - that stuff annoys the poo out of me. There was some dude that posted all in bold RED the other day. What's THAT all about?!

Anyway, derailing. Carry on!

 

Well played