Suggestion for pro-rated upgrade window

I've noticed an issue with ill timed purchases regarding new versions of Unity. Without any warning of when new versions are likely to be released some people inevitably get kind of screwed. If you bought 3.5 two months ago you now have to pay another $850 to stay current. So I propose a solution that I think would be fair to both customers and Unity and promote a more stable cash flow with less worry from customers.

So it works like this. You purchase say 3.5 Pro for $1500 on Jan 1st. You get a credit equal to the cost of upgrading to the next version, so in this case it would be $850. There is a six month window where each month that passes in which a new version is not released $850 / 6 = 141.66 is taken off that credit until it reaches zero after six months.

Here's some examples.

Purchased 3.5 Pro Jan 1st for 1500$. 4.0 is released April 15th. 3 months of credit is subtracted leaving you with a credit of $425. So if you wanted to upgrade to 4.0 it would cost $425.

Purchased 3.5 Pro March 1st for 1500$. 4.0 is released April 15th. 1 month of credit is subtracted leaving you with a credit of $708.34. So if you wanted to upgrade to 4.0 it would cost $141.66.

This is just an example, the exact numbers and length of the window could be adjusted for a better fit.

This would give people some insurance that they're not going to get screwed and will only pay a fair amount extra if a new version is released right after you just purchased a package at full price. It would also be fair to Unity giving them a little extra money for providing the obsolete package for use for a few months.

 

Going by this logic you will have a credit of $0 as you have right now cause the Unity 4 release is still quite a bit off. This is the start of the preorder window, not the release.
Thats exactly why UT has the pre order window to prevent that anyone got 'tricked'. Its long enough to ensure that any even semi unrealistic grace period for upgrade entitlements is covered.

 

So if I purchased 3.5 six weeks ago and Unity 4 is released August 15th that's 3 and 1/2 months. So a person in that scenario will have paid $850 to use up to date software for 3 and 1/2 months, that's kind of a raw deal. With the system I proposed it would be $425 extra, not $850, isn't that more fair?

 

Yes but you invested the money cause you wanted the Unity 3.5 Pro features and you obviously used them until today so you got what you invested in, what you wanted and declared as needed.

Nothing forces you to go with Unity 4 at its launch, you can upgrade a year later too so are you gonna pay extra then cause 'you didn't pay them right away', kind of 'interest payment'? I doubt you are interest in that so why would they be interested to grant you the opposite right?

I see what you are after but it does not change the fact that there is no way to make it fair cause there has to be a cut off date and from what I heard its June 1st.
Unity is no different than others here.

 

Personally, I purchased 3.5 about 2 months ago with the belief* that GUI improvements would be included in a 3.5.x release. I am disappointed.


* Yes yes, I get the buyer beware, only pay for the features you know are in argument, and I have no animosity towards UT. I'm just disappointed and in the future will defer purchase until I am sure a feature will be included. Unfortunately, as more people start deferring their purchases, it will hurt UT.

 

I'm not really understanding your argument, no Unity doesn't owe anyone anything, a purchaser of 3.5 does not have a right to future software Unity produces. This isn't a technical argument to be debated in court about what the law says. This is a way to smooth over an issue that would result in happier customers. And yes there is a way to make it fair, I believe I just laid it out.

 

Thats your missconclusion cause you are not objective on the matter.
you talk about what would subjectively make YOU happier. But what about someone who bought 2 weeks earlier than you?
Right he would alter the maths in his favor etc.

Again, the preorder window is to even out the field and be fair.
Anyone who bought before it did so cause he had need for pro and could hence justify the cost or cause he should learn the basics on technical and software evaluation before performing investments which he regrets cause something new was released, otherwise he would lose sanity in the current world of mobile where your hardware is old before it hits ya.

anyone who buys it now likely does so cause he might have need for the 3.x pro features but even more as an investment into the future.
Thats a thing you did too, due to which you can get into 4.0 and the whole 4.x lifecycle for $850 instead of $1500 like the others despite the fact that you used pro for quite some time for your project already.


You seem to life in the believe that customers are ever happy so please be assured that hell will freeze over and pigs fly onto your bbq before customers will be happy if the fee is > $0 and even then they complain about things not working

 

You're not really making sense. Making the statement that I am drawing a mis-conclusion and I'm not objective doesn't mean anything, why do you think that exactly?

If somebody bought it two weeks before I did they would either be entitled to the same discount or less one block of discount depending on where the dates fall exactly. It would also be a smallish amount, in the example 141.66. No its not perfect but if you wanted to get anal about it you could pro-rate it by the day.

I don't know what this "alter the maths" is about. This system wouldn't be something that the user creates at their whim to suit their needs, it'd be preset by Unity???

You're doing a lot of talking about various things that just obfuscates what exactly it is you are trying to say. What is all this "you bought it so it justifies itself"? That is nonsensical, couldn't you say that about everything? Again I am not claiming Unity owes anyone anything, I am not claiming the purchaser of software has any special rights whatsoever. This is a suggestion of a courtesy Unity could perform, I am not claiming it is a "right" of the user for this.

Yes you are paying money to use software until the next version is released. In the system I proposed that still happens, just not at the high cost if you happen to purchase at the wrong moment which is what this is all about.

Again you are getting into nonsensical statements that have nothing to do with the issue here. This self righteous rant is of no use.

 

Um.. actually Verax is correct, that idea does provide insurance for people who purchase a version close to the release date of another version. It is also in league with the school of thought that you pay for getting to use the software. People who bought the previous version well before the new version came out had plenty of time to use the first version before having to shell out more money. It's a solid solution. In fact forget my whole post about adding a third license option http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/140344-Choose-your-licencehttp://forum.unity3d.com/threads/140344-Choose-your-licence This idea is superior.

 

But his suggestion is more fair than what you are doing, so how is what you are doing "as fair as possible'? The only modification to the way it already is, is that there is a monthly-based price fall off for those who purchase close to the release date of the next version. People who don't qualify have had the previous version for a long time, those who do qualify should not get screwed over and there is a smooth gradient in between. I don't know if you guys fully grasp what he was suggesting. Furthermore, how hard would this be to implement?

Except a person on one side of the pre-order window has to pay 850 and the person on the other side pays essentially 0. With Verax's idea, the cut off would be 850, 710, 570, 430, 290,140 with each month. Having a gradient threshold means people don't feel screwed for not having bought the license at a single point in time later. If they know that they are 6 months away from the release of the pre-order, they can't complain, if they bought one month before the pre-order what's 140 bucks? The idea is to eliminate the single point in time cut off. It griefs people.

Not if they bought it a month or two before the single 850/0 cut off. it's far more likely they were not aware and would have waited if they knew. There was no safety net. Nobody knows exactly when the next update will be and there will always be a cut off, but the cut off can be stretched out to minimize the lameness of having to pay 850 vs 0 because of the difference of a month or two.

 

Does Unity want happy customers? Yes.

Do they have to make a profit? Yes.

Don't mistake that Unity Free is a great service to moonlighters as them being so anxious to please customers that everytime someone says jump they are going to ask 'How high?'

 

I am not sure I even understand what you are saying.

 

I'm actually kind of annoyed that upgrading your licence is exactly the same cost as purchasing a new licence, since I bought mine pretty recently too, especially under the promise of a new UI system. I had to stretch pretty hard to afford that licence, and another $1500 just isn't going to happen. It would be fine if upgrading was at least cheaper in some way, but there's no benefit of upgrading vs new.

 

What? An upgrade is much cheaper than a full new license...

I don't understand why so many people are making that mistake.

 

Major new Unity releases are always timed around their annual Unite conferences. Unity 4 is expected to go live in time for this year's Unity 2012 conference, so it's no exception.

I can understand some of the criticisms about the updated GUI features, but UT have always made it clear that new features will be rolled out when they're ready, not rushed meet some arbitrary deadline. They've never said new features were guaranteed to appear within a certain time-frame, but they have tried. Lead-times for new features can be very, very long. (For example: a headline feature included in Unity 3.4 was being worked on as far back as early 2010!)

It's not as if there's a shortage of good GUI alternatives on the Asset Store, and they're pretty reasonably priced too. (Certainly a lot cheaper than a Unity Pro upgrade!)


It's also worth bearing in mind that major new tool releases can—and often do—break compatibility with existing projects. If you've already started your project, upgrading to the next major release mid-project is a recipe for disaster. Stick with the major version you're already using. Only when you begin work on a new (or sequel) project should you then upgrade.

Unity isn't intended to be backwards compatible with previous versions in perpetuity; that's how feature bloat happens and games do not, by their very nature, tend to have a lot of reusable code with a long maintenance lifecycle.

 

Yes, I've read your other posts.

 

No no no no no, they have a rebate system already, they simply look at their sales database and retrieve the information for when users bought the program, a single line of code could return the rebate value each user should get. Do I have to write out the logic? Come on Unity, you have beast programmers, this is nothing for you. A first semester college student project difficulty at best.

 

It would not be a problem with sales. How could it be? Give a single example.

They already have a rebate, it would just be 6 more rebates, they can handle one but not six? It's simple, these are the people who bought during this time period they get this rebate, it can even be asset store credit.

 

We're always looking at things we can do to make our customers happier. Do any of you know of any software companies that provide the kind of scheme that the OP suggested. Would be good to have some real-world examples to present to our Marketing team.

As SuperPig said, the problem here is not a technical one.

 

let me just mention I haven't purchased Pro, so I'm not arguing this for me.

Well it would be asking Unity to be a good guy. It doesn't earn Unity more money, but it does alleviate some of the angst people feel about having to lay down the 850 when they just bought 3.5 and didn't have sufficient time to make use of it.

And if the rebates are in the form of asset store credit it would be a sort of stimulus I imagine. If people have store credit they will spend it, if people sell on the store they will desire to produce more products, it would help the life of the store.

I don't know if any other company did something similar, usually things like that are to account for a mistake they made, in this case Unity didn't really make a mistake. This is just an idea to soften the blow. As far as how to implement it, you could easily generate a list of the qualifying customers from your sales database, then systematically offer them the rebates with a message like "We felt you didn't have sufficient time to make full use of 3.5 before the release of 4.0, if you purchase 4.0 you will receive a rebate(or discount) of $x.xx" I don't see the difficulty.

It is sort of the fault of people who could have known 4.0 was coming and bought 3.5 anyway if they planned poorly. But this incentive could cause more of them to buy 4.0 instead of stick with 3.5, unity could actually earn more this way.

 

I don't see this as planning poorly. Typically customers evaluate using the 30-day trial, and decide that Unity (3.5 in this case) is the product that they want to use to create their game. Unity announcing that a new 4.0 version will be available one day doesn't change the evaluation and purchase decision. Customers can crack on and make the game that they planned to make. Unity will help them and support them with 3.x.

Obviously we understand that there is a bad-taste-in-the-mouth about features they hoped would arrive in a 3.x upgrade or features they see arrive in 4.0 which they wish they had access to. When they made their purchase decision, it was with all the facts available at the time.

The ability to make a game, and make money from the game doesn't change. Unity hopes that each customer is hugely successful, and when their game ships in 6-9-12 months time and begins making money, the customer will then upgrade to 4.x. We're selling software that is designed to help you make money, not take it off you.

 

^^^ This.

Unity 3.x won't suddenly stop working the day Unity 4.0 is released. Everything it does now will still be there, working for you. If you've already bought Unity 3.x, you did so because you felt it met your needs. Those needs aren't going to be met any less just because Unity 4 is coming out later in the year.

And, of course, if you took advantage of the Unity iOS Basic and Unity Android Basic sale—they were offered for free for a while about a month or two back—you'll only be paying the Upgrade price for those as well.

I do wonder if Unity might not benefit from a subscription scheme though. Monthly payments feel psychologically a lot less painful than $1500+ roughly every two years or so, and it's a more stable revenue flow. That's about $63 per month. Many of us already pay more than that for our internet connection.

 

I'm going to add something here. You have to think of Unity 3.x and Unity 4.x as two entirely different products. Like buying two different brands of chocolate. Just cause you bought one, does not mean you are entitled to the slightly better chocolate bar. It means you've payed for one single product, and not the other. In a way, you're lucky there's an upgrade discount.

 

Sure, some people bought 3.5 who wanted its features two weeks before they could have 4.0 and they wanted the feature so badly they couldn't wait a short time or they don't want to have 4.0 and 3.5, just 3.5 even though they could have both at no extra cost by waiting a short time. <--Sarcasm.

Maybe getting 3 to 6 months out that might actually be true, they may have bought 3.5 and not cared about 4.0, but there are certainly people who feel screwed who bought just before the cut off.

 

Car manufacturers update their models once a year too. If I buy a 2011 FIAT Punto just before the new 2012 model comes out, I don't have the right to a free upgrade to that new model. I can negotiate for that option in the sales contract, but it's not a right.

Caveat Emptor.

Website forums are also filled with plenty of people whining about Apple releasing a brand new laptop, phone or tablet just after they bought the older model, despite Apple refreshing each of their product ranges on a consistent schedule each and every year. Something pretty much anyone could have found out with only a few minutes' research on the web.

Just like Unity releases, in fact. Major releases are always timed around their annual Unite conference.

If you don't do your research, you really have only yourself to blame. Most customers don't wander into a manufacturer's own "factory outlet" for the sheer hell of it: if you're on the Unity sales webpage, it's a pretty fair assumption that you're planning to buy Unity.

The onus is not on the product's manufacturer to inform you whether a new version is just around the corner, or of some rival product that might fit your needs better. Their core business is selling you their stuff, preferably right now.

Note: This is not the case for a reseller, which is why independent retailers have their place. Their interest is in selling you any of their stocked products, but they don't particularly care which one, as long as they get your custom.

This stuff really should be taught in schools.

 

I never said it was anyone's right to get a free upgrade, I simply suggested a broader scaling cut off date as opposed to a single point in time cut off.

 

You do know that Unity 4 isn't actually released yet, right? They've merely announced its release sometime later in the year—my money's on "late August" as that's when their Unity 2012 conference is being held.

Last time I checked, it was still June. That's two months' advance notice of the new release. Given that a major new release of Unity is usually announced at, or for, their annual Unite shindig, I really don't understand all the expressions of shock and surprise.

Note that people who order Unity 4 today will get a free license for Unity 3.x. while they wait for its release. I'd hardly call that unfair.

 

You didn't even bother to grasp what this thread was even about. I'm well aware it hasn't been released yet but there is still a cut off time between those who have to pay 850 to upgrade and those who don't. That point in time has passed already. Do you get it? There could and probably was one guy who bought Unity 3.5 and has to pay another 850 for 4.0 and the next day a guy who paid 1500 for both. Please try to understand this concept before you reply.

 

What about a system where we agree to pay the full upgrade price but only when Unity deliver a bug free version of the full feature set planned for that release. We could pay in instalments based on feature set delivery. And some percentage of the price could be allocated for features not yet announced.

Or we could go the Kickstart route with Unity providing feature options and we can fund the ones we like.

 

I meant programmers of beastly skill not programmers of beast lighting, and max programmers are terrible evident by their horrible 2009-2012 programs.

 

I bought Unity 3.5 on May 25th, five days before the date they will give the free 4.0 upgrade to. I am so pissed, I spent 1500.00 last month, bought a ton of assets and now find out they are giving what I paid for away for free and want another 600.00 from me to upgrade. Obviously they have no clue about "customer service" and keeping new customers happy. Feels ripped off.

 

And you get to use Unity 3.5.x forever, which is what you bought. If you say, well, I want to move the update deadline five days back to include me, then there's going to be someone else who bought it five days before you who will want the same again, and so on ad infinitum.

I understand what people are going for here with the staged update rebate timeline - I think it's clever idea, and not one I've seen before, but I don't think it's a workable business proposition.

With software, people seem to expect free or almost free updates forever - the business fact is that once the target market is saturated, you would then make no more money at all -> no updates at all. No-one ever expects this with a physical item like a car, despite the fact that work goes into upgrading both.

You knew what you were buying, and that's what you got. UT didn't promise you anything about Unity 4 upgrades when you bought it, did they?

Anyway, you still get to keep all the assets, and they will still work. Also, if you're making a game, you really shouldn't be doing a major engine version upgrade in the middle of your project - that's a sure fire way of breaking code in devious ways....

 

You missed the point, seriously did anyone even bother to read the topic? If the upgrade window was spaced out incrementally then the guy who bought it 5 days earlier would only be paying 100 or so dollars more. There would be no single point in time full price/free cut off date.