Unity 4 Details

I don't think you know what indie means. It doesn't mean "we are broke all the time!" It means "we are an independent development studio"

 

These games are already top sellers. The Indie Bundle, should it really be Humble, needs to be showing us things we haven't already been bombarded with PR for. Also, when your publisher is Warner Bros. as with Bastion, you lose the ability to call yourself an indie game developer. I had the same reaction with a previous bundle and Shank - published by EA.

Also: Psychonauts? As much as I enjoy a Double Fine game, they're far from indie.

But maybe indie just means something different to me, and it irks me when it's used as a PR term for street cred.

 

Indie is a meaningless marketing phrase, just like AAA or "next gen."

 

I know that is what Indie means. I'm just pointing out that, when the Humble Indie Bundle first game out, you would have NEVER seen any game nearly as popular as that.

 

That's not what you said. What you said, and I am using your own words here, is that these games aren't "true indie."

 

Until purchased by their publisher, and by your definition, Infinity Ward was indie, and that was never the case and is not how the term is typically applied. That seems to be changing, what with EA's indie bundle last month which, again, was not really indie at all. Back to that PR usage of the term again...

How about we move back to talking about Unity? It being the Unity forums and all.

 

We're getting off topic, but before merging with Activision, would have you have considered Blizzard Entertainment to be an Indie studio?

 

No, because long before that Blizzard was bought up by these guys.

 

Yes I did. I wholeheartedly agree

But again, that could be taken that way. True Indie is often described as "Unknown"... I'd say Amnesia and Psychonauts is pretty known.

Regardless, back to Unity 4.

 

Some history facts
They were never indie, as Blizzard acquired 1994 by Davidson Associates which was lated acquired by Vivendi so for the past 2 decades they always had some instance above them, which directed them and made sure that timelines were held on, there was enough money floating into their pockets etc.

 

So a corporate structure denotes what "indie" is? Are indies required to be partnerships, S-Corps, LLCs? Are C-Corps allowed? What if one indie company owns another indie company? What if an indie is in financial distress and gets a creditor injunction? Are loans allowed? Venture capitalists? Your uncle bob's inheritance?

Or is it like pornography, you know it when you see it? (ie: you just make S*** up as you go)

 

Linux Support is a great news!

 

So? Indie games can't make money?

 

Not nearly what I was saying.

I was saying, Amnesia is pretty damn well known. The money was just bad wording for that lol.

Most indie games are not well known. And one definition of Indie is practically unknown.

 

When you get owned by another company, you are technically not independent anymore as the owning company dictates the course of the acquired company. This is the point where you (as developer) lose your independence. You can not make anymore what ever you want to, you have to make what your supervisors told you and what they think is the best way to "monetize your work".

 

Nope. You can be owned by another company and they could have non-controlling interest.

 

It's not quite so easy as that.

 

Can we get back on topic? Maybe something to do with Unity? 4.x specifically?

 

Bullshit. Minecraft was an indie game, and was/became very popular. Popularity has nothing to do with being indie or not.

There are a few things that disqualify you from being indie
a) You get acquired by another company
b) You have a publisher who financially supports you. This automatically means, they want to make the money back and that they will push their "ideas" into your game, to exploit it more and maximize profits
c) When your Indie company turns into a stock coopoeration. At the moment, you give the ownership of your company, even if its just small parts to other people, they get the right to "vote" where the company is heading into. By definition that's what shareholding companies do. Share holders expect money, and they expect much of it. Hence their expectation will change the way the games are developed in order to maximize profits (i.e. reduce development time, cut features, add other features to make the game casual friendly etc.)

 

Guys we are getting derailed here!


I have to say, the Unity 4 presentation is bit lackluster. 90% of it is "mecanim is really cool" and for everything else there is little to no-info and the wording is deliberately vague... My guess is they have finished most of the groundwork for the new Unity, but have yet to produce a lot of actual features...

 

I would hardly consider Minecraft and indie game anymore.

And at Acid Arrow, I thought the same. Their video was cool, but then I was like, okay, where's the other new features? Mecanim is awesome, but... other features pl0x?

 

Because I paid $150 last time to upgrade iOS Basic from 2.x to 3.x and now the price is raised to $250 just after a big freebie license give away. That makes it look as if the higher upgrade prices were indeed planned as a way to pay for all those free licenses given away in an accountant's and marketer's wedding vowels.

While I don't suspect Unity for a second of planning something like that it surely does given that appearance. I suppose the money to pay for the Mecanim aquisition has to come from somewhere.

 

We have a while to go before Unity 4's release so we're staggering our output of feature videos etc... more to come over the next month.

 

No you can't. Because the owning company has a financial interest, which most likely conflicts with the indie mentality of making games which are fun instead of making games which maximize your profits.

A owner company will never allow a subcompany to produce a game with "very experimental" gameplay and a high risk of failure. This is where the independence stops. Indies are often small teams, of 1-10 people. Some can be bigger. Some are unknown, other are well known.

 

I am very excited to see other feature videos

 

When's that by the way?

Anyway, it seems like exciting times are ahead of us!

 

I can't wait. And I definitely agree

 

Being unknown has nothing to do with developing game under "indie" terms. Would you say that Minecraft was not indie game ? There werent milions spend on marketing to become popular.

 

That's your personal opinion, which greatly differs from the definition of "Indie development". Unless they were acquired, turned into a stock company or are doing a project for a publisher who invested money into it, they are still independent.

What you seem to mix up is: Independent == unsuccessful, which is wrong. There are successful indies, there are less successful indies, there are successful non-indie companies and there are also the unsuccessful non-indie companies.

The other thing you mix up is to connect indie with 2-man teams, which is also wrong or with games of low (graphical) quality, or with something that was called "home brew" (games made for consoles/console emulators w/o official toolkits) into the emulator and console scene a few years ago

 

Originally indie? Yes. Now? No.

I am not saying Independent == Unsuccessful at all. I guess I don't really know how to express what I mean.
I never said Indie == 2 man teams.
I never said Indie == low graphics/quality
I never said Indie == Home brew.

 

Could you guys take the indie game discussion to another thread please?

 

I don't expect Unity to add support for new iOS features, thats what plugins are for. My fear is Apple releasing a new resolution and Unity not automatically supporting it. I am actually not even sure if the iPad 3 retina is supported... don't have one to test.

I guess this will fall in deaf ears but for everyone else: Unity 3.5 still works. This is not a required upgrade. Unity is a tool, just like a hammer is a tool for a carpenter. Just like the carpenter, you are free to buy the new one if it's better than the old one.

You only replace your tools if they break or a better more appropriate tool that actually offers an advantage is worth the price tag. It's kind of software tool makers to actually offer an upgrade price at all, unlike real world tool vendors.

 

It's been that way in Hollywood for a long time and now with Gamasutra and these 'indy fund raising' sites big companies using indy for street cred, free marketing, and 'fund raising' has reached Hollywood proporations.

 

I will no longer reply to the discussion on it

 

Giving away free licenses for iOS and Android was a good natured initiative on our part but of course it also has sales and marketing implications in the long run. We hope you find the tool useful enough to keep using it and maybe even reciprocate in the future by paying for an upgrade. But if you decide not to then you still have, in our minds at least, a powerful tool for making games on mobile devices. I can't see how we can get skewered for doing things like this ;-)

 

I don't know about the IOS/Android bit, but i'm reciprocating for a U3D 4.0 pre-order now - here's hoping we don't see some 4.0 freebies any time soon!

 

What? The only possible one that might not be considered "true indie" is Psychonauts. Anyway, look at the percentage of revenue going to Linux for these bundles and try saying with a straight face that it's irrelevant, considering the bundles sell millions now.

Not too keen on the increased Unity 4 update pricing. Surely the moved-up release schedule would be sufficient for increasing revenue.

--Eric

 

I'm all for Linux support

I guess the only one I really question of that entire bundle, besides Psychonauts, is Amnesia. The other three I had never heard of. I did my typing wrong. Heh

 

Traditionally indie meant meant a small, financially limited group of unknown artistic folk. All artists outside the 'film' world could be considered 'indie' as their chances of earning an independant living from their art is so small.

It also often means an approach to a genre that is new, so by that definition I would consider 'Crayon Physics' indie but not any of the 1st person shooters or zoombie games as indie but matter who made them.


But anyway, for Unity's and other game engines makers' points of view I'm sure Indie means those that make games in the moonlighting after work sense of the word. More succinctly: paupers that's can't afford (or shouldn't given the low probability of having a ROI) to buy Pro licenses.

 

Concentrate on Mechanim

 

I want information on other features.

Enough on Mechanim, it's sweet, but it's not the only feature

 

Sorry, I'll to go back and change that, I meant latest iOS versions, not features. I'm hoping that Unity 3 users will be able to use the latest Xcode, current iOS version, and new devices for quite a while yet. Apple requires something at least recent, preferably current. If we don't have that, Unity 3 iOS does become obsolete.

 

We have two good videos on Mecanim:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGXns8GemU0&feature=plcp

http://video.unity3d.com/video/4655480/unity-character-animation-gdc

 

Yes your right, I would like to use 3.5 for another year to realise a game working on now, and probably won't upgrade to 4 before.
So iOS xcode support should remain current for a bit longer.

 

Does Mecanim have a Facial Animation feature?

 

I want to know to, is there anything like FaceFX?

 

Some sort of a grace period would be nice. I just purchased Unity 3.5 Pro less than two months ago and I've hardly even touched it yet.

 

Yes, it may have been a good natured initiative, but the problem with it is: It came very close before you announced that 3.x will be abandoned.

Back then I already knew, that the 3.x product line is going to end with the next major update, 3.5. Though since 3.5 didn't included the promised GUI rehaul, I was at least expecting that you guys would have the guts and bring 3.6 before switching to 4.0.

This is the real issue with the current announcement, as it reads like: "If you don't want an half-assed NavMesh and crappy GUI system, you have to pay for upgrades".

Basically it all about two features, either halfway introduced in 3.x or advertised to come in a 3.x update
* NavMesh
* New GUI system, which solves the performance issues and allows making resolution independent/flexible UIs.

The current GUI feels like anno 1995

I've heard of 4 out of the 5 ones, take out the sword of sworcery. Limbo did get quite much media echo a few years ago, when it was first presented and Microsoft secured themselves an exclusive period where it was excursively available on xbox for the first few months. It was the one of the most successful Xbox 360 games (third highest selling game on Xbox Live Arcade) in 2010.

 

Huh, really? I guess that's why I never heard of Limbo... I don't have an Xbox

 

Hi,
A quick tip : I bought Pro, took the voucher number, entered it to the Online Store and bought IOS basic upgrade for 50$ ( instead of 250$ ). That means more or less 1,5 year of free updates and a ~ 1000$ total cost of the next similar update.
After 4 years I finally managed to buy a Pro license.
It feels great