Why Unity 5.0 is STILL a good deal

Yes

/agree

 

Why do you say that? Did you try UE4 Pipeline?
Do not misunderstand me, I really want to know why you say this to have more information when i make a decision.
In particular, It do not seemed no better or worse than Unity in this respect.

Im not sure what you are referring to the "cinematic" , the video is a sample project that you can download just to better understand how to implement effects or certain characteristics..

Sorry for my English.

 

I really don't think he's ever used UE4 to be honest. The workflow is very similar between the two engines.

State Machines + Blueprints is very similar to Mecanim (some say it's actually easier to setup than Mecanim)
Drag and drop editor.
In Editor compilation (unless you need to build project)
Blueprints for basic quick solutions or prototyping...

Really not sure where he got the idea that they focused only on shiny graphics and not at all on the workflow of their editor...

 

why did this thread die!?

 

I mean, there is so much more left to discuss, right?

 

Funny how almost nobody seems to understand how this work.

For Unity you have to pay in advance, no matter if you sell something or not.

For UE4 you have to pay from what you earn (%5 from nothing means nothing). Even more, 5% still means nothing. UE4 is free. If you argue that 5% is to much from earning, then you fail at business. Some one is giving you an AAA engine for free basically, you just need to pick it up..

I love Unity, and I think Unity management should see very clear how waters are right now. They should be smart enough to keep Unity profitable. I personally think they should just give Unity Pro for free and be happy to make any income from assets store and console licenses.

Time will tell us who was wrong.

 

Well, it's not 5% from earning, but 5% from revenue. If the profit margin is 10%, UE4 take about half away. If you earn nothing, it will turn break even to loss.

 

Really? 5% of $100k is $5000. 5% of a million is $50,000. And so on. Yes, that might be a "good problem to have", but that's not the same as "nothing".

But yes, you're right, time will tell. Banter will not.

 

10% from RANDOM sales??? Hahaha... Think again. I am curious how you predict a budget based on random sales.

I want to make 1 million in sales with next game, I will not really care to spare 50k from them. Everybody wins.

 

Do you know the different between gross revenue and earning? UE4 takes 5% from gross revenue, not earning as you've stated.

 

5% from something UNPREDICTABLE seems VERY fair. That's the point.

 

That's cool, but it's still not "nothing", and it's still one of many things that should be factored into decision making.

Also... what are you on about re: "RANDOM" sales? Edit: "Unpredicatable" is not at all the same as "random".

 

He said he works with a 10% profit margin, I am just curious how you can predict the number of sales to can put 10% profit, very interesting.

 

It is just an example to show that 5% from gross revenue is far from nothing, or free. It is not about fair or not. It probably is, but, the point is that you can have 1 million USD on sales but only 100,000 in earning. In that case, you have to pay or UE4 royalty half of your earning ($50,000), not just $5,000. If you think that should be considered nothing or free, think again before you laugh.

 

BTW, predictability have nothing to do with this. They don't care how much is your sales. They take that 5%.

 

You tell me that from 1million, 900k represent cost of production and what keep the store (Apple,MS,whatever) ?? And you keep only 100k? And from this 100k you have to pay a license?

Frankly and friendly, if this happen your doing something really wrong, and you should re-evaluate the whole business.

The UE license is not good in only one case, when all cost of production/storekeep/etc are more that 95%... in that case you get nothing, and congratulation you fail at business.

 

Well you said it yourself that sales is something that's unpredictable. We can estimate, yes, but result might not be what we expect. So you suggest that we all should do our business without planning for the case that the sales might not be as good as our estimation?

I did not say at all that UE4 pricing is bad, I just said that you talk like 5% from revenue is nothing is very wrong. Talk to any businessman, and they will say that adding 5% to cost structure is something you should definitely make careful consideration.

 

Your game can sell good, or can sell bad. It happens all the time, there are games who don't sell, is nothing new. You can't predict the number of sales.

But in that special case when you have a 900K budget (or you go to 95% +5% license = aka nothing left for you), and you can't make a good game, then something is wrong really the business plan. No everybody can afford that money to produce a game, except big dudes. And if you can put that money into a game, then you are smart enough to put in computation the risk of losing them. And again, even with super proper planing and market research you can't predict the game sales, and you can lose all the money invested. There is a risk.

And fallowing your percent numbers, you put 90% in cost of production, and from 100K rest, you buy Unity Pro and not UE4, you keep 95K, you realize how close you are to get nothing also? Because of cost of production is way to big? 90%+?

 

In an instance where you have that sort of budget, you'd negotiate a royalty free deal..

It's not cheap mind due.

 

I think you entirely miss my point, but whatever suit you.

 

People pay 30% for steam. Nobody whines.
Epic Games charges 5%. End of the World...better go back in time and build our game out of sticks and stones.

If I clear $1 million on steam using UE4...I pay out 35% of that for those two licenses netting $650k pre-tax.

 

Nobody whines about 30% because they think it is worthwhile as it give the game more exposure, so more profit. If that is the case, it is a sound business decision. The same mindset should be applied to 5% of UE4, and everything else you will invest in. If you think it is worthwhile then go ahead. If not find another option.

I didn't say 5% is the end of the world. I did say 5% is not free and not nothing. And it is not 5% of earning, but of gross revenue.

 

The reality is that it costs money to make game that makes money. You aren't going to make a game with that breaks a million in sales without spending a considerable amount of time and money. You will have high development costs, and have to have a marketing and advertising budget, not to mention operating costs if you have a social/networked game. If you are serious about making an actual profitable game, you will have to make every dime you spend count, and the engine cost will only be a small part of that. Unless you are paying royalties on it. I believe that sanpats was simply saying that when you actually are building a real business model around making games that 5% is no longer a small issue. As a hobbyist or lottery dev, it is practically insignificant as a vast majority will invest more that will ever make.

Its a curve, you have invest to earn. At first the margins are low, if your game is a hit, the margins get wider as it grows. So even if your game is making money, you may still not be profitable for a while, and you will still be paying for engine. And if your game does hit and make a lot, then your engine costs just keep going up. For an actual game company that is (or plans to be profitable), royalties on tool doesn't make sense in that context. Your engine is a tool, not a partner or investor. The engine is not what determines wether your game succeeds or not, it is work and skills of the people who built it. But all that is largely irrelevant, as most people aren't remotely in that category.

Not to paint a bleak picture, but most games on the app store don't make any money. Half of the ones that do make money make under 3-4k. There is a middle area above that is small-ish, and those do better, but with very rare exception those are from studios and publishers with decent budgets. This section is growing, but is mostly due to new companies jumping into the arena. There is money to be made there, but it requires a sizable budget to participate at this level. (this area is growing really fast, especially in the bay area). And finally there is the top end of the spectrum. That is really only handful of publishers. For the last several years, about 20 or so publishers make over half of all the revenue made by the app store. And that is only getting wider, as the bottom levels are growing in size and without the funds to market are just splitting up the small revenue in to smaller pieces.

Or to look at it in another way, if you don't have the $4500 for Unity pro, you don't have budget to make a profitable game. It's a hobby at that point, and arguing over 19$+5% is better than Unity (Free) or Cry @ 9$ is all moot anyway. You should pick the one that has the features you want and that you justify the cost. If UE4 fits that, go for it, it is a in that context it is a fantastic deal. I don't understand the need to try to convince others that it is a better deal for them, everyone has different needs. Make your call, and start building. Arguing on the internets isn't going to get your game built any faster.

 

Exactly, that 30% percent for the stores is just a cost of doing business. It is also paying for a ongoing service. It isn't just a cut of the sales, it pays for building, maintaining and marketing. But then again, you don't have to pay that 30%, you can just sell it yourself. At that point the 30% will start looking pretty good.

 

Exactly.

 

I would really be curious to know if they have modified their license fees since they are now banking on a large influx of new users. I can just imagine a small company using UE4, thinking they are doing well at a couple of hundred thousand, and calling them up to wanting to negotiate a royalty free deal. If they haven't adjusted their fees, that could be a heart breaking conversation for them.

 

This is a strange way to formulate profit margin. If you put your game up on iTunes for $1, Apple takes 30%, but you'd make a lot less otherwise. Similarly if you use a lower quality engine (eg. neither Unity nor UE4). It would be odd to say your profit margin is "40%" and *then* subtract Apple's fee, because there is no per-unit production cost. Yes, in the end, you earn 5% less revenue which eats into profit at a higher rate than 5%, bit it's not something you can describe as a profit margin.

 

UE4 actually "markets" games much better than a Unity badge ever would. MOST PEOPLE (wrongfully) assume that a game built in an engine like UE4 is automatically better in some way simply because of name recognition. I've seen more profitable games created in Unreal Engine than any other engine on earth...and all of those games display the little Unreal Engine logo when you first boot up the game. People know what Unreal Engine is. Most non-designers have no clue what Unity is at all.

Case in point...I know PLENTY of gamers who have no clue about game design. If you mention Unity to them, they have no clue what it is and assume it's some crappy "free" game engine. If you mention Unreal Engine 4 to them their eyes light up and automatically assume your game is going to look like the second coming of Christ...simply because it's made in Unreal Engine.



And as people have already stated...if you release a big hit OR have a big budget, you can renegotiate licensing with Epic Games to pay out of royalties. Obviously it wouldn't be cheap.

 

I thought we are discussing about the significant of royalty fee here. That is just a simple example to convey my point.

If you want to nitpick about the definition of profit margin then fine. But everything have per-unit production/development cost. It might not be a fix amount but change as sales go up. There are fix costs and variable costs. At least this is the way I was taught in business school.

 

Make up your mind...are we talking about true indies or a team full of game devs who all expect to be paid on schedule?

A team would factor 5% royalties into the price they sell their product for...because they expect to be paid X amount of money on time. These teams plan around any licensing because they HAVE to. They usually have an up front budget and would likely negotiate royalties up front if they chose UE4 versus Unity.

A true indie or team of indie developers (who don't base their income entirely on Game Dev) don't expect to be paid X money on time unless you release the product. Generally you're not paying a pre-determined amount of money for their time/work. These types of teams just want to develop a game and possibly release it. Payment is usually negotiated closer to release IF the product ever gets there in the first place. It is usually based on % of PROFIT per team member or flat payments for things like contracted Audio/Art work.

I'm sorry...but a team of AAA-experienced game devs does not fall into the "Small Indie Team" category. Lol if you think Hawken or Torchlight are "indie" titles.

For a true indie or small indie teams...you don't need to worry about production cost per unit. If you sell your product for $15 per unit on steam...
Steam takes 30%
Epic Games takes 5%

As a result you have a profit of $9.75 per Unit sold pre-tax. It's really that simple.

 

A lot of Indie Developers are doing serious business. For example, Jeff Vogel of Spider Web Game (http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com), Irontower Studio (http://www.irontowerstudio.com). Your definition of true indie for me is hobbyists develop game for fun.

 

Well the term "indie" has evolved into something more along the lines of an independent musical artist.

ORIGINALLY, indies were classified as people who were trying to break into the business. Usually 1-3 man teams trying to get experience under their belt by developing a project together...usually as a Hobby because game dev is not (yet) paying any bills.

There are 2 ways to break into the (any) business...
1. You create something on your own (indie) or
2. You work for an established company, gain experience and knowledge in game design/dev, and then move up the ranks OR leave the company and create something of your own...thus no longer falling under the original "indie" classification.

Big names in the business, or AAA developers that wanted to work independently, noticed the "indie" tag being a profitable way to market themselves and their own business. They leave the publisher that they work under, team up, and create independent companies...and stamp the word "indie" on their product. Simply because there's a large market for "indie" games.

The meaning of "indie" has changed to more accurately reflect the state of being "independent". To further push my point...see the development of Doom and other classics. NOBODY referred to these small independent teams as "indies". Tim Sweeney coded the original Unreal Engine 80% on his own. Epic Games is HIS company...why is it that the original Unreal was not considered "indie"?

 

Because they had a publisher. When sales through internet wasn't possible, you will have to put your game on physical shelves. And after the period "we do our game in our garage and sell on floppy disk", you needed a publisher to distribute your game.
Now that is more feasible to distribute your game yourslef, you don't need a publisher. So you are independant by self-publishing your work. And you don't use the money of a publisher or its distribution channel.
Indie mean creative independance for most people.Some attached to it "small".
It's logical because behing able to auto-financing a big team is really hard. That's why most indie start small.

About this 5%. If I remember right, form Dust force sales numbers, they got 63% of the gross revenu in their pocket. so to that you need to substract 5% if you use UE4.
That's 5% of the gross revenu, not on your benefit. So even if you loose money, you will have to pay.

This is not a big deal for hobbist or small team. But as soon as you grow its far from negligeable.

 

Dunno what you guys are talking about any sort of loses, here in Canada you pay taxes for the money that belongs to you. That 5% doesn't belong to you, the same as the 30% that belongs to Apple, Steam, Sony, etc. It doesn't mean that by touching that (5%) it will belong to you and you'll have to pay taxes for it, otherwise I'll hold taxes onto that 5% (and make Epic one of my employees)! Which won't make any sense.
But I'm not sure about others countries, so take it with a grain of salt!*

 

Thanks for correction on Doom/Wolfenstein3d/Unreal. I forgot about their publishers. HOWEVER, you're still stuck on the literal definition of "indie". "Indie Games", to A LOT of people does not literally mean independent. A simple google search will attest to this as you will find MANY discussions on what an "indie game" actually is. All indie games are naturally free of a publisher by the nature of how they are made.

http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/08/what-are-indie-games/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indie_game -lol wikipedia..but it describes it quite well.

http://sinisterdesign.net/what-makes-a-game-indie-a-universal-definition/

When a game is classified as "indie"...people think of games like MineCraft, CaveStory, Risk of Rain, Terraria...

Not Torchlight and Hawken, which were created by teams of AAA-developers free of publishers.

"indie" is more of a category of games...not a literal definition.

 

"Indies" means independent. It was originally used by companies or collectives that were independent from a publisher or external investors. Back in the day it was very different, as games almost all came from publishers. You would have to produce the physical media and get games in stores. Indie studios were self funded and/or produced the game first and then sought a publisher (instead of have a publisher fund the production). All it meant is the studios drove the development and weren't accountable to someone higher.

With digital distribution, and easy tools/frameworks/platforms, it has become a catch-all term that have very little definition. Download Unity and you can call yourself an indie. Meh.

Nope. Just like AAA, Indie describes of the product, not the individual, it's not a title. Mostly folks are just game developers, some times terms are used to denote level of experience, or often professional/hobbyist. Many professional developers bounce back and forth.

Yea... doesn't really work that way. In fact the reverse, indie studios are very quick to cite their AAA experience.

Because it was a big game, co-developed with other companies and by the time Unreal was released, Epic was a fairly large publisher, and licensing out their engine.


Sorry, but for the most part, your comments indicate you really don't know much about the game industry, a lot of it is just nonsense really.

 

This is exactly how it works. Epic would then pay taxes on the 5% they receive from you. Steam pays taxes on the 30%.

It's IMPOSSIBLE to not generate a profit using a royalties model. If you don't sell anything, you don't owe anything. The only way to exceed your profit (and net negative) is if you spend more in production than your product generates. This can only happen when flat rates are brought in. IE I pay an artist a flat $10000 for Asset creation on game. My Product then only generates $8k AFTER royalties...I'm now $2000 down.

 

If Epic is publishing their own games...regardless of how large or small their product or company is...BY YOUR OWN DEFINITION, they would be "indie"

I know many true "indie" game developers personally. They all hate that games like Hawken began attaching the word Indie onto their products.

Indie game conventions used to be about displaying true "indie" games.
Kickstarter used to be about obtaining backing for true "indie" games.

And now those convensions are dominated and watered down by AAA-experienced big shots flying an "indie" flag above their product. See Star Citizen generating $30million+ on Kickstarter through flashy tech demos and a "20 years of experience" badge. If you consider Star Citizen an indie title...I don't know how else to explain this to you... you're too stuck on the literal definition of "independent"

calling a game "indie" is akin to calling a movie a "michael bay movie". "Michael Bay Movie" has been used to describe many movies not literally related to Michael Bay in any way shape or form. It has nothing to do with the literal definition of the word.


Calling a studio "independent" is one thing. Calling a game created by a team of AAA developers "indie" is pollution of the phrase "indie game"

 

Epic (the publisher) doesn't make games, that isn't how it works. There are studios that answer to the larger company, and the companies/investors that own Epic.

And as I said, "indie" has become a virtually meaningless term. Everyone has their own idea of what it means.

 

see "Developer"...not publisher.

Valve developed and released the Half-Life 2 independently from a publisher. Is Valve also indie?

How about Bethesda games?

How about Blizzard games pre-Activision?

 

How about we bring another term to the table that functions exactly the same way as the term "indie game"

ORGANIC FOODS - Organic literally means contains carbon. By the literal definition, all foods deriving from something that was at one point living, is Organic. So why aren't all of these food products considered "Organic Food"

Simple...because the term or tag "Organic", when placed on a food product, means that it is free of pesticides or unnaturally occurring additives.

 

"Indie" and "Independent" have similar meaning in today's game industry. The difference is mostly scale size (budget, teams, projects). For example Remedy and Crytek both are Independent developers (despite partnering with Microsoft for publishing on Xbox platform), you can check out their web sites they self proclaim being "independent" developers. As for "indies" it's all about small teams and small budgets/projects with self-publishing products.

 

The size of a team has to in some way include the experience of the members on that team. A team of AAA developers isn't a "small team". A 5 man team of entry level engineers would not be considered the same as a 5 man team of veteran engineers in any industry.

The Veteran team would likely have a large network of established connections along with a higher market value due to the notoriety and experience of the team members.

Microsoft independently makes Office 2170 and sells it for $1999 (thanks to inflation!)

I gather a team and make an exact clone of Office 2170 (I'm psychic) that functions literally the exact same way as Microsofts version. I release my product 1 year before Microsoft. Can I also sell mine for $1999? No. Nor will I sell as many copies, even if I sold my product at 1% of Microsofts price.

 

Everybody has his own definition of independant. But with every definition I read none includes a publisher.
Like every word, everybody can have his own meaning base on context/cultural background etc...
Common element of all definitions can still be put in a dictionnary (not linked to a publisher).

 

I agree with you that there is no publisher. That is the literal definition of independent.

All indie games are made by independent studios.
All games created by independent studios are not indie games.


The only reason I bring up the whole "indie game" definition thing is because I keep hearing how terrible 5% royalties are for indies...which isn't the case.

I don't consider any established, profitable game dev companies' products "indie". Any established and experienced game dev company has the ability to balance a budget. This is a fundamental requirement for running a successful business.

True indies are more akin to someone trying to launch a small business. The Capital invested for an indie game developer is their time as opposed to a small business loan. An indie may even try to launch a business, but because it's not established to be profitable, I would still consider it "indie." An indie team likely does not need to take any small business loans out, even if they want to establish a recognized business, because everything can be done online with resources they already have.

Royalties can only screw you if you are hiring salaried employees or contracting development over budget. If you net negative, it's because you didn't balance your budget. It's not because you paid Epic Games a 5% royalty for using their engine. If you're at this stage, you're no longer indie. Purchasing $5000 of Unity licensing and Assets per seat could screw you in the EXACT same way.

 

Ok guys,
Indies and Independent means a lot of different things for some and we all agree on everyone's points about that but keep the thread on-topic! Back to Unity vs UE4 yeah baby! ^^

 

I don't really understand the fuss about the 5 per cent. That's not really a problem, unless game devs consider Unreal Engine to be worthless, and that they would easily be able to recreate what Epic has done with Unreal Engine 4.

If I were cost conscious like that, I'd attack Google or Apple or Amazon before Epic. What do you actually get for 30%? Not much. Some storage space, a link, and membership of a sales list or two. It's not like there are people who sit and do that manually. It's up to the game dev to promote, market, and sell. I'm not sure if that is worth 300k of 1 million, as opposed to 50k of 1 million for the thing that actually enables you to make that game without writing it from scratch.

 

No one want to attack anyone.
If you can recreate an engine like Unty for 1500$ etheir...
Just people magically forget this 5% when they compare engine.

But you're right the price should be a big deal for pro campore to the huge benefit.

 

Really, for 99% or more the 5% is a non-factor.

 

I agree. I roll my eyes when I see people using huge numbers to show that 5% is a big deal when for 99% users the 5% royalties will never get anywhere near the price they pay for Unity. For a few people the royalty is a valid argument, but that is mostly for the larger studios making bigger games. Lets say you have just 2 people making a game for mobile (IOS + Android). The licenses are $4500 each so $9000 for 2. To have to pay $9000 in %5 royalties your game would have to make $180,000. Honestly, how many people here arguing that %5 royalties are such a big deal have ever in their lives made a Unity game that made over $180,000?