Why Unity 5.0 is STILL a good deal

Even with the initial 12 month commitment, a subscription including all those add ons would sound much juicier and attractive at the price point you suggested. The current situation is, that with Unity mobile developers (of which there are a lot more small ones than amongst PC devs) need to shell out twice to thrice the license cost of a PC dev.

 

History much? Tim Sweeney's Unreal engine was the industry standard, long before Unity was a gleam in anyone's eye. I remember when Sweeney introduced the concept of a fully-interactive 3D editor. Licensing aside, it's clear who copied who.

Gigi.

 

And what is your point you want to make?
Companies are always on the lookout for what the competition does, and tend to "copy" it in a similar form into their own products. That's completely fine and normal and accepted.
Infact without doing so, innovation stops ultimately. It's more about HOW a competitor implements the copied part (and the adjustments or improvements it made along the way = innovation), than the fact if the competitor copied it in general.
Note: An exact copy however is likely to be forbidden, because of copyrights/patents etc etc..
But we are talking about copying in terms of similar functionality/presentation, not exact. (otherwise both products would be exactly the same )

But, ok, let me bite, just for the heck of it:
The list Unity has copied from Unreal Engine is remarkably longer (since UT had it way earlier than Unity did (even base things like a 3d viewport for instance, or scaling or particles or mesh property editing the list goes on and on), hence for quite a few things, Unity did not even exist back then!) Would that make Unity bad? Stealing? NO! that's called competitive development and that a GOOD thing, implementing things you copy from others in a slightly different way. It will improve things for everyone.

So again.. what was your point again?

 

Oh boy. Here comes the "copy" team.

 

that's because you've never seen this: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/212477-NEW-Genesis-3D-Engine-Unity-s-RIP-OFF!!
hahahaha

 

I'm surprised that isn't raised as a significant issue more often. C# was one of the main draws to Unity for me in the first place.

 

Why not just rip Epics model for Unity 5 (meaning no more free edition after 4.x) It´s a brilliant model.
Pulling numbers from air:
with 100.000 subscribers users they make 22M$a year plus another 100K users drop in drop out every month that's another 22M$
Thats 44M$ on year + what they can scrap from asset store etc - 3party licences etc..
+ 5% royalty's on top (or pay up front same as current model)

PS: Unity says it as 500K/ month active users http://unity3d.com/company/public-relations

 

Alright so now CryEngine is $10 a month subscription, NO royalties ever. Unity is going to have to do something here, I can't pay $75 unity, $75 ios, $75 Android per month that's absurd. There are now two far cheaper options out there, I'm only sticking around because I am comfortable with Unity and hoping they will respond with something similar. If not, it's not worth paying $200 a month because I'm too stubborn to learn a new engine.

 

Unity needs to "copy" its competitors terrain engines for a start.

UE4 doesn't include any restrictions on rival developers looking at its code and reporting back to their company.

 

Not at all. It's Crytek dude. They have no details on it yet, and it's 10$ for the 'first-tier', so it's probably like a more restricted Unity Free that costs money or something.

 

Just quoting so people get to make sure they read this wall of greatness Fascinating insights, and valuable - thanks.

 

Articles state it's tier 1 of the subscription program, not tier 1 of cryengine. Subscription will be full version and include all new features with no royalties.

 

Directed at me? I'm not offended.
You quoted a guy who quoted a guy who...just go back and read it. Now look at the statement you just made.
When Unity 5 comes out, the first statement you should make is that it looks like a copy of Photoshop.

 

Unity: Y is up
Unreal: Z is up?

Unity wins

 

Haha, yeah

Isn't there an option to change that?

 

Yes, point your camera to the floor

 

Is anyone really questioning whether Unity is still a good deal? Cause it is.

The problem comes down to perceived value, immediate cost and willingness to take a risk. UE4 currently has those down with what they're offering.

 

How so? If you are a mobile developer its a terrible deal. Mobile market is fickle. So there is high risk attached to mobile games in the chance they make nothing. So if you spend $4500+ and it flops, you are S*** out of luck. With UE4's deal, your risk of loss is mitigated on chance of success vs none. So if you have success you'll pay more, but if you flop you pay nothing. That alone makes Unity a bad deal.

Not to mention if you pre-order you are pay high for something that isnt even close to being out, so you have no clue what you are truly buying.

 

Unity has way, way more support out of the gate for ads, for gamecenter, for all the little things that you can spend weeks getting right. Unity has all this solved and we do not consider Unreal 4 suitable for mobile in the slightest. For us, mobile is not about PBR and dynamic breast mapping with billions of shaders. It's about making apps fast and efficiently. And we have released a ton of apps to clients over time with Unity plus two of our own so this is something we're quite sure of.

Even if we were using Unreal 4, we would continue to use Unity for mobile. It has that really sewn up into a trouble-free experience.

For us, the questions about Unity vs Unreal come down to the big budget stuff. It's something Unity needs work hard with, and mobile still remains something epic needs to work hard with.

 

I'd be OK with that.

 

That is a weak argument. Yeah there is a high risk in mobile but a licence of pro you can do as many games as you want. So if one of your games doesn't work out, well you can make another without paying more. With Unreal you are paying per game.

And if none of your games are successful or if you just want to mess with an engine as a hobby, hoping one day it will come to something, then Unreal is the better deal of course, or it might a sign that is it time to change your career to something you can make a living with.

 

This sounds like a really cool feature.

 

Well, I think he has a bit of a point. However, even if you disagree with that, there's still the point that a mobile dev has to pay one license he doesn't technically need, the base Pro license. And that's where this whole Unity pricing and subscription model is awkward. A PC dev gets all the bells and whistles with a single license, whereas a mobile dev spends three times this amount unnecessarily, since one of those licenses is not really of interest.

Naturally this makes sense when you got a nice PC game to convert to mobile, then this "add-on" thinking might make sense. Otherwise, it just doesn't.

 

Can't wait to use that technology to make it more realistic.

 

Cartography just got interesting.

 

How does he have a point actually ? You work to create a game in order to make profits. If you don't then making games is not for you, or if its for fun, just use the free Unity (yes its free) or pay 19$ for Unreal. If you don't make money from your games of course buying a Unity pro licence cannot be justified.

Otherwise, yeah, it would be nice for mobile to be able to only have pro for mobile if they don't use desktop. So you'd be able to get Pro for Mobile while having the free Desktop one. This would be a good change and I agree.

 

Wouldn't Unity be the way to go if you have a big budget? There's no learning curve, you seem to be 100% knowing of the Unity documentation, it has real time GI and fancy features. I don't see how UE4 could compete on any level, except for cost.

 

That's all correct of course. Nonetheless we're talking a lot about perceived value here. Notice how many people quoting the UE price actually forget to mention those 5% or seem not to worry about them, even though they technically should.

The point I see about this, that lots of small upstarting developers (and wannabes) will make irrational decisions about this. And it doesn't need to be that way. I just wrote in another post about how I believe the current subscription model could be changed in order to make it more competitive, by bringing the subscription prices roughly in line with perpetual license cost spread over a release cycle.

 

It really should be split into Pro editor features (profiler, version control, etc), and Pro deployment per platform.

As far as the subscription pricing goes, Unity will probably just run the numbers and do their own royalty-based subscription (being keenly aware of UE4's model). I just hope they keep their existing pricing as well because I would prefer paying a bit more up-front to be royalty-free. If they keep both options, you can run the numbers yourself and pick which one you prefer. Everybody wins.

Personally, I still think Unity is the way to go right now, but Unreal is aggressively stepping up to challenge them for the indie dev market. Six months from now, who knows.

 

The subscription price for Unity at the moment are too high compared to just paying for it upfront. That needs to change somehow, that is for certain.

But you cant expect them to match UE price and go at 20$.

Remember that many AAA use unreal so even 5% then becomes a lot of money from the AAA games that sell many copies. That is probably why they can go so low. Unity doesn't have the royalty system and no big AAA games from which to take its cut so I doubt it can compete on the same level. Instead the indies have to pay more, but this engine was first made by indies for indies, not like UE who one day decided one day to change as before that didn't care at all about the little guy.

 

Again, the royalty option isn't the ONLY option. You can still get a custom license, and the big studios will use that.

 

If there's an award for most helpful post of the month then you have just won it. Thank you for the comprehensive overview.

 

Yeah but the cost for the licence with no royalties is really really high so again, it makes up for it, trust me.

 

Currently everything points that Unreal 4 is aimed at the indie segment, and Unity is appears as a boutique tool with some really weird position in the market.

PS: By "indies" I mean developers who actually release commercial games. For people who insist on not spending a dime, there is Unity Free.

 

yeah I already said that above :

 

Why would I trust you? For UDK, Epic said you should contact them about a different license when you reach 100k$ in revenue or something like that.

 

It was just a figure of speech not literal but whatever, you don't have to trust me. Anyways, yeah that sounds about right, triple AAA companies will wait until they have made 100k to change the licensing terms. Right, that makes a whole lot of sense…

Edit: we are NOT talking about UDK but UE by the way….

 

That's a good point. I think UT probably has 6-12 months before UE4 stabilizes and fleshes out any missing features such as UI, multiplayer services, the marketplace, etc. Within that time there will likely be an explosion of new content, documentation (which is quite strong for a first release), and marketplace add-ons. I think this gives UT a bit of breathing room to adjust their pricing strategy and evolve their existing plan for future releases.

I haven't even looked at the iOS features of UE4 yet, if any other than "compile to" (lol) and from the research I've done on Unity, I know there is strong support there. I can tell right away that when it comes to 2D and UI, Unity is definitely the more mature product at the moment (especially considering assets store add-ons.) Graphics capabilities and editor ease of use seems to go to UE4 at the moment; I did try Unity 4.3 when it was first released and wasn't overly impressed with the editor's performance but it was reasonably good.

With that said, it ultimately boils down to cost. Yes, I can afford a Pro + iOS license but my time is limited. I'm only doing this as a hobby (for now) and I'd much rather a subscription model that includes everything I need (basically just Pro + iOS support for me) and allows me suspend development as necessary without continuing to pay. My ideal price point would be $30-40/month with no long term commitment and free access to all the additional kits and upgrades. I'd still likely need or want a few add-ons from the assets store, which is another consideration. I would love to try out Unity because I much prefer using C# to C++.

Does anyone know if Unity 5 has the promised UI enhancements or will that be released for Unity 5 at the same time it is released in 4.6? UT devs have been more communicative in the forums about this but there still seems to be a bit of uncertainty.

Lastly, I think UT should consider releasing their source code as well. There are clearly a lot of talented people here developing great plug-ins for Unity but that are also limited in what they can do because of the plug-in model/bugs/lack of API support. Imagine how quickly development of Unity could advance if hundreds of skilled and enthusiastic developers had access to the source to fix bugs and add missing features. I think Epic made a really smart move in this regard as they essentially have hundreds of eyes now looking through UE4's code base; experienced developers will quickly contribute to the code base to resolve bugs, add missing features, etc all while paying Epic a small fee.

 

Alright, seems I have to clarify.

Triple-A companies would not use the UDK, they would use Unreal Engine 3. So no, Triple-A companies would not have to wait until they've made 100k to change licensing. It was for INDIE devs who released games with the UDK.

And it was an example that indicated that you were wrong (which is why the 'trust me' rubbed me the wrong way) and Epic wouldn't ask for a "really really high" amount of money for different licensing terms, I know we are talking about UE4.

Now, this may of course have changed and for Unreal Engine 4 Epic won't even consider a custom license unless they get a lot more money but I doubt it.

 

Unity probably isn't in a position to release source code, even if they wanted to, due to licensing entanglements, Mono being but one. I really wonder if the Unity source is something people would want to deal with, you really have to plan to make a from source solution.

Epic had to do a pile of work to remove similar licensing issues before putting the full Unreal 4 engine and editor sources on GitHub under this deal.

 

If I understand the legal problems correctly (and there's a good chance I don't), the Mono licensing issue is just that they aren't allowed to distribute the statically linked version required for iOS. Distributing the source code containing Mono should be fine since it's covered by LGPL.

 

That's UDK, not UE3. UE3 required a licence to get. My company looked into it and it was prohibitively expensive, around the same as CryEngine... In the $100ks.

 

In my opinion, that would be the best thing that could come out of this all, I'd gladly pay the full cost of pro as long as I got source access.

The source for the mono used in Unity is already available, at https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/mono

 

Again, I was talking about UE not UDK which you brought up out of nowhere (maybe you misread?). The licensing for UE without royalties was really high. How was this statement wrong and how was your example of UDK indicating that I was wrong ? UDK is not UE, far from it.

I'm talking about apples and you respond about oranges. Please read more carefully next time otherwise, let my comments rub you the wrong way then.

 

Are you bloody kidding me? I'm not going to bother explaining again since you aren't even trying to understand what I'm saying.

So the UDK thing was to get a custom license to UDK without royalties? Not UE3?

Could they have had a lower licensing cost for companies moving from UDK to UE3?

 

There's no +1 or "like" button so I'll just manually type my support for this. Unity's base price is fine but their add-on price needs to be halved.

 

I think this is the only real problem with Unity's pricing model. Having to pay the same amount for every add-on that you paid for the base product is just crazy. Especially when the base product supports multiple platforms out of the box, and you're paying that same amount again and again to add EACH additional platform.

The price for the base product is completely fine in my opinion. Possibly not for hobbyists, but that's what the FREE version is for.

 

@ nesis

Thank you for your in-depth explanation of your experience with the 3 engines (given on page 5 of this thread). Very much appreciated.

 

I'm not one to complain about pricing, but I'll be honest and say that the only thing that's stopped me from buying a Pro license for personal use is that it's not just $1500 to make games for my target platforms but $4500... and that's assuming I'm doing it alone, as you can't directly collaborate with free license users.

If that was instead $3000, or even $2250 + $750 later when a game has essentially paid for its own port I'd be much more willing to say "yes". As it is, whenever I look at the Pro pricing, while it's still tempting I typically end up thinking "nah... this project won't get $4500 of benefit out of Pro compared to free". (And for hobby use I'm not willing to sign up to a 12 month license for a 2 month project.)

 

I think my main two problems are that :

1) the subscription at the moment is way higher than the upfront cost when it should be the opposite.

2) If you only need mobile pro or just a certain platform why pay for the base PC one?

Or maybe there could be a discount on extra platforms add-on you buy, or a buy one extra get one free or something.