New products and prices coming soon

Or still use the 5.X.
They will not add functionality to the 5.x after March 2017, but they have planed to fix major bugs.

 

Thank you for listening and responding, Unity. I'll very happily welcome being able to subscribe to the Plus plan!

 

Nice!
will subcribe for plus in anytime soon..

 

The deal is still terrible for perpetual Pro desktop-only owners.

So basically the options are this:

A) Go with Pro subscription:
- Pay more than double than what it was before (especially if you want to own it)
- for the exact same features we had before
- with the extra bonus of iOS and Andriod Pro (which we dont care about to begin with, since its a deadend and flooded market)

or

B) Go with Plus subscription:
- Pay more overall than it used to cost for an upgrade
- for far less features we had before
- cant own it

Yeah, okay .... how about no to both. Both options suck. And both options cost FAR more than we were paying before to upgrade from one Pro license to new one.

 

Why do you need Unity when you develop Desktop only?

 

What a weird remark is that?? So, because Unity has more OS available than just Desktop, you shouldn't use it for Desktop only?

I totally agree on that. But, i don't really care. I'm already switching engine for my game.

 

Great, now what do I do with all these pitchforks?

Anyone want to buy a second hand pitchfork? As new, only used for gentle prodding, no bloodstains guaranteed!

 

Again - unity Pro is intended for people who are making serious Money already with their projects. If you are in the range of actually having to pay for Pro (which is now 200.000/year turnover - I mean ... S***! ) then this increase is not much of a concern for you. Otherwise Plus is the thing for you and you get everything you had already with your current Pro plan PLUS mobile without splash for actually 46.6% of the former price. How do you really still complain about that?

Another question: Do you think it would be fair that people who earn siginificantly more money should be taxed more by the state and that people who earn less should be taxed less?

Nonsense! Unity has had pretty much a 2 year cycle by now. Pro only was 750$ upgrade price for 24 months. That included splashscreen for Mobile (Android and iOS) and you'd still need to buy pro if more than 100k/year.

So your price increase is 750$ / 24 = 31.25$. Actual price increase of 3.75$ per month with the bonus of having the equivalent of Pro for all three major plattforms that used to cost an update price of 2250.

And you do get the same amount of features. What less features do you actually get?

 

I think the point was there are many great options out there and many are cheaper, for desktop especially they can't soley rely on what they have now to remain competitive.

For e.g. if you can put up with visual scripting and LUA Stingray is still cheaper, has a platitude of decent middleware that accounts for lacking features in Unity and from what I can see has a pretty solid core that addresses many legacy and new issues Unity has right now. Just to top it off you get an awesome DCC included in the package.!

It's cheaper than their "plus" tier with no limitations on revenue.

Now Unity isn't behind a "release wall" they might be able to at least catch up to the competition. At this point I'd settle for "on par" as opposed to innovative..

Raise the price? No issues here, they just need to make it worth while.

 

- updated, new pricing -
thumbs up from a long term Pro license holder

Thank you for listening to our concerns!

This new pricing is a reasonable trade-off between financing the widely spread future development of Unity and still regarding and appreciating the support you received by 1 to 2 person studios who payed and supported you right from the start without using all platforms and services.

As for perpetual Pro license holders: considering a major release cycle of two years, March 2017 (plus / minus a few months) would have anyway been the time to decide how to proceed further. The transition offer is a great concession and the improved plus license now also makes sense.

Thanks again also to Joachim Ante for taking the communities' reservations seriously.
Cheers!

 

Wait, slow down a bit:

The only difference in features between subscriptions are in the services. If you use all the services of Pro, I agree, it is more expensive for the same benefits. But then again, you don't expect them to offer all those services for $31 a month? Especially if you consider they are developing more and more services, which would cost even more than that? Pro sub. is more expensive, but you will get more out of it.

If you don't use the services (and are below the 200k cap), Plus gives you exactly what you had with perpetual, for about the same price. Nothing is lost.

iOS and Android are not bonuses. As the blog post said (and they are right), iOS and Android as separate licenses were an oddity, after all, you had Windows, Mac, Linux, Windows Phone, WebGL, VR, consoles and even Flash in one license, but then you had to pay more to get two mobile targets. They must unify all platforms, can't run away from it.

"can't own it (Plus)" THAT is complicated. Since 24 months of Pro is $3.000, it is way more expensive than what was before. And I suppose you can't subscribe for 12 months, spend 2 months without a sub, then subscribe just one more month? Unity guys, if I subscribe for 12 months, drop it for a couple more, then want to go back, do I need to make a second 12 month commitment? Or can I pay single months after that, maybe if I do it before a certain period (like 6 months)?

 

They'd be paying around $10,000 to Epic for Unreal so it's really not that bad.

 

Bingo.

I like that Unity listened and made some changes and I agree that the splash screen is a double edge sword since it's use also highlights bad games.

I love that the splash screen does not say personal edition. That is a big improvment.

I am curious if anyone has found a actual revenue hit between having a splash screen VS no splash screen?

 

You'd pay $0 with CryEngine...

His point was, just because a game is bringing in 200k/yr doesn't mean everyone on the team is getting paid well. So Pro is not automatically easy to afford, regardless of what other engines are charging.

 

That's their problem though. Once you get to those scales, you're paying far, FAR more per person than a mere unity license.

 

Is that really a viable option right now?

 

Sure, but this was all in response to this:

Which is wrong an over-simplification.

 

Care to explain? any business which has overheads where $125 is the tipping point needs to be taking seriously drastic steps like cutting staff ASAP.

Has anyone actually run a business *properly* here?

 

It's just I think people whom this affects aren't actually very good at business, or are making it up as they go along. The point is to get to 200k to begin with you *really* shouldn't be more than 2-3 people, max.

It's probably like "oh we've got 10 staff, half of them underpaid and we will get crippled if we earn >200k" which is cringeworthy noob hour in business. You shouldn't need more a handful of staff to get well past that figure. If you required a lot of staff to get past that figure, your business has already failed, or is already in serious danger regardless if you use Unity, or switch to something completely free. It won't change that fact you're doomed unless action is taken immediately.

My point being that it's serious risk if you're affected by $125 pm with more than a couple of staff, because, maths. You should not engineer the situation to begin with.

 

No, it is not, especially if you are paying decent salaries and benefits to your employees. But...it is the price of doing business. If you are using a licensed engine for a team people and it costs $7500 to purchase those licenses, then it is worth the cost. You have to budget for your business expenses.

If it is too much, then yes, you must drop to a cheaper engine without UE's royalties or Unity's license costs.

Hippo posted while I was writing this and I agree. You have to scale your business based on your revenue. If you can't afford it, you scale back. That is how a business works.

Consider non-game development businesses. A guy who owns a restaurant pays out a lot of money for salaries, food, etc. If he can't make enough to cover his business expenses, then he has to make changes to survive. He can rant and rave all he wants at the higher wages he has to pay to keep his employees as the cost of living rises, or at the suppliers for an increase in produce, or at the electric company for increases in his bill....but the bottom line is that he has to adjust or close down his business.

Unity has been more than generous at helping us get started in game development. But they can't hold our hands forever. Sooner or later, we have to jump off and learn how run our own business profitably.

 

How do you go from "a concern" to "the tipping point"?

 

First I'll ask you to explain why $125 is a problem for any business regarding $200k cap.

 

But.. expenses in their country are a lot less than some. Housing, food, transportation, etc., cost less in areas with a lower cost of living. That doesn't mean they live as well as others might, and some things might still be very expensive for them. Unfortunately, the cost of doing business with international companies means sometimes it is not fair.

On the other hand, should a company like Unity that operates in several international countries lower their costs to benefit those in poor countries at their own expense? They are paying for offices in Seattle, California, Europe, etc. Those can't be cheap to maintain. Maybe they should pack up and take those jobs to some of these less expensive countries? That just causes more issues for those left behind.

The good news is that Unity has given people in those countries a chance with free and low cost versions of the fully featured Unity engine. Of course, if the developer in a lower income country makes $200k in US dollars, he is going to feel very fortunate in his country. On the other hand, if he paying salaries and for tools in US dollars, he might struggle.

Isn't that true though in every situation? If I were to order something from a country where the dollar is deflated, I would also have to pay more. However, I bet a lot of you have hired artists and programmers at lower wages than you would here. So sometimes, doing business internationally allows us to pay less....even though those programmers have to pay the same as you for Unity. So really...is that fair?

This is not Unity's fault and I see no way that they can fix this. Unity has to charge what they need to grow their business in their own economy.

 

I never said Unity has to do something and I keep repeating that I think the pricing is fine.

I feel like I'm receiving counterpoints for arguments I did not make.

Should I delete my posts?

 

No, don't delete them. I am not calling you out at all. Just responding. You bring up some very important issues.

 

I don't disagree with anything you said.

Before I had made any money from games, making 10k sounded amazing. Then I did it, and it was fun, but it turns out it wasn't as amazing as I thought it would be?

And there are several monetary milestones that appear "magical" before you reach them. "if I made X amount from gamedev I could afford *anything* and it would be magical".

But as you grow, your expenses grow as well (plus for example, other software has the over 100k limit and then you have to change the license so costs start creeping up on you).

I think 125$ per seat at over 200k from Unity is more than reasonable. It's a good deal. I don't want Unity to change anything. I just wanted to point out that 200k is not a magic number that makes all your problems go away (which was the feeling I got from @the_motionblur 's post and why I replied). It's not a so outrageous number that makes any cost (like, say, 125$ per month per seat) completely insignificant. (But it's also not a "problem", or a "tipping point").

And for the record, we suck at being professional and at running a business and we wouldn't have it any other way. I mean we are preparing what is becoming more or less the sequel to our game and we plan on adding it to the main game for free. Which I guess makes no business sense at all. But we want to do it. We don't really care about making too much money and we live in a country where we can get by with not very much. So we can afford to do that (as long as we keep our costs down). And if we could find more people with similar mindset we would ask them to join us. We are just 2 at the moment though.

And also once again.

UNITY'S CURRENT PRICING IS GREAT, I WOULDN'T CHANGE A THING.

 

Why don't just remove default Splash Screen instead of taking time and money to improve it? It's not greedy but better for both. Just scale revenue less like a half or a quarter for a year.
Example Free: 1/4 * $100.000 = $25.000. Upgrade 1 year plus is just $35x12= $420. Too small, just around 1.7% of total benefit in a year. Developer surely upgrade the license without thought and you can attract more developers to Unity when they read some comparison

Take time to improve Cloud Build like Xamarin and Amazon. You can attract companies when they can do a test on several devices instead of buying a lot of real devices to test. Look the Android, too many version and OEM. You can do a quick test with NFC. NFC on Android 4 act a little bit different with Android 5 and it is different between producers. NFC on Sony work better compare to Samsung or Asus ... Or when user report bugs with small project you can quickly know what caused that problem. I saw few times user report bug and you say you run no problem in forum

Improve Support Services like CloudFlare. Support based on tier/priority. Enterprise first, then Business, then Pro and Free last. You can see here: https://www.cloudflare.com/plans/
There's a very little different between 4 packages such as if you got ddos and need protect you must go from Free to Business.
I see a good in you is if people want dark theme, they can pay small for Plus to get it and better support. 2ez

 

But that is the beauty of it. As you grow, your expenses grow...but you are given a chance to grow.

Yeah, other software will require updating and it will be more expensive. Ironic that the goal is to make money but no one wants to spend money. lol Unfortunately, that is the way it works. We all hate it but we do it because we love doing it, even knowing that it is an uphill battle.

Making games is risky and not many become rich on it. A few do, but like any art, those are the exceptions. So..if you love making games, keep doing it. Find a way to do it, even if it means diversifying to make some money.

Reminder..I am responding, not tossing accusations at you or anyone.

Edit: We are similar to you, AcidArrow. We are hoping to earn enough to support the game, but we are not expecting to live off the income, at least not until the kids are out of college and we can retire. lol

 

First explain what business wouldn't be interested in keeping operating costs low.

 

I think that earlier complains about Pro pricing refer basically to individuals, not businesses. $125 a month is not much of a good deal to a hobbyist or solo dev without funding. In fact, in these situations, it's wiser to implement Pro's services from free alternatives (analytics, multiplayer, in-app, etc). That is the target demographics for Plus.

On the other hand, you guys discussed a lot about Pro for a business, and all of you agreed it makes sense, and it's not even expensive. With Pro, a development team can focus their efforts and resources on making the game, and using the plug-and-play Unity services. Just imagine supporting Google's AdMob on a large project, with all it's dependencies and third-party libraries, and compare that to one editor switch and one line of code of Unity Ads. That is the target demographics of Pro.

(I know Unity Ads is not Pro exclusive, I just used it as an example of Unity and non-Unity services, because I used it and AdMob in other projects, and the difference in workflow is staggering)

 

You forgot freelancer, not necessarily unity freelancer but for example visualization, architecture, etc ... who create interactive output for contract, it's a business, not the kind of business you think in your post.

 

As there was always an early bird offer with each new major version, one was able to get the Unity upgrade for $600 - which comes down to $25 a month. So in comparision the new Plus subscription is indeed a 40% rise.

On the plus side there is of course the ability to deploy to mobile without splash, however we don't own Unity anymore and get a degrade in services (especially Level 11).

I think the new pricing is a somewhat reasonable compromise - but it certainly is not "good" for everyone. So the complains are valid.

 

OK I'll bite.

I'm not sure what you mean? all or any?

 

Yeah, why wouldn't it be? Check out warhammer Vermintide..

 

Maybe..but there is a balance. If they prefer Unity, have team members trained in Unity, and have half finished projects using Unity, then sticking with Unity, even at a higher price might be more cost effective when you consider the time spent and money spent on assets. It takes time to get a team trained on a new engine.

So yeah, keep operating costs low but remember time, training, and money invested into the engine (assets) count as costs as well.

 

I can't believe people are still arguing after the changes. Just wanted to thank unity for listening to the community, I'll finally become a paying customer!

I'm sure desktop users who are annoyed about having to "support" mobile will eventually be thankful when mobile improvements make their way to desktop (IL2CPP anyone?). This unification is a huge plus for all platforms.

 

That's not exactly a mobile improvement. If anything it's an "We're too cheap to pay Xamarin" improvement.

 

It was Unity's answer to the lack of 64bit on iOS. Sure, they could have just paid Xamarin but what we are getting instead (IL2CPP) promises a lot in terms of performance improvements once it is complete. The point is Unity doesn't have to worry about prioritizing one thing over another any more based on money and that's a good thing. Less fragmentation the better.

 

Obviously, they listened to the community, except for the Pro users.

For some of you, the changes are better, that's true.

Seems you weren't a paying customer before then. I was paying my share to support the engine, which now it looks as that wasn't enough.

Are you saying that desktop users haven't already supported mobile when they payed their Pro license?

 

I regret kicking this hornet's nest. Truth be told I thought you guys were complaining about plus! Carry on

 

Practically all of that stopped with the new announced changes. Only complainers left are the desktop-only pro users.

 

Interesting read. A couple of things I wanted to comment on.

First some people are talking about Adobe, Autodesk and I will throw in SideFX as having cheaper prices. So as far as Adobe goes they have a massive economy of scale. SO sure they can charge less because Photoshop is used by a massive amount of companies that simply don't use 3D or game engine software. As for Autodesk and SideFX. From what I could find both are a cap of 100K revenue to use that version. Autodesk is $30 a month or $240 a year. SideFX Houdini software is $200 a year. Unity is FREE. Both of those other software packages also have limits on polycount, render size etc. So if one goes beyond the 100K revenue one is looking at anywhere from 2k-6k for those 3D software packages. Unity is at $420 until one hits the 200K mark at that point then it is $1500 which is still less then most 3D packages once you hit that income level.

I do agree with those that say the splash screen should be optional or actually Unity would be wise to request permission to use the splash screen. Since right now Unity does have the issue that it is more common to see the splash screen on bad or just first time game makers VS those who are making over 100K in revenue. However I see that issue as more of a Unity problem then a developer problem. If a developer creates good game play videos to promote their game then that splash screen should have less impact...at least in theory.

It also appears that Unity really drew a line in the sand to say they want to continue to dominate mobile gaming with the new price structures. The PC only developers got the short end of the stick.

As for the comments regarding a mass exit of Unity. I don't see it. The ease of use and strong mobile cross platform make it a great choice and it is the main game engine in use right now. I do think that will change to some extent. How much is hard to say.

I say this as a single developer that originally planned to go with Unreal Engine 4 and spent about 6 months playing around with it. What I found is it is a fantastic product for larger teams. But for a single part time dev like myself who also has a focus on the casual mobile game industry since those are the games I play Unity was the better option for me.

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/03/24/engine-dominating-gaming-industry-right-now/#gref

 

Mono is open source(MIT) now. I think UT got jerked around by Microsoft with the whole Roslyn/.NET Core/Mono is now free progression that happened and that really screwed up the timeline.

 

Now with the Plus tier in place, how does that fit into the bug priority queue handling?
Will it still be Personal < Plus/Pro, or Personal < Plus < Pro?

Couldn't find anything in the feature comparison screenshots about this.

 

Not sure if you will ever find as I think they have said it few times in various places (blogs, forum) that the priority is mostly case by case thing based on the severity, bug report quality (details, repro), workarounds, available etc. and not specifically tied to reporters license.

 

@Ostwind "Prioritized bug handling" is a feature on the current store page, but not on the draft/screenshot they sent out for Plus/Pro. It is correct that once a bug is verified by QA, the license does not matter anymore - thanks for reminding me of that! - however if a bug report has been sent to QA, e.g. bug without project attached in Personal vs. bug without project attached in Pro, the license determines which one gets processed first (before sending it to the developers). I'm wondering whether Plus has its own slot here or the same priority as Pro.

 

I think the complaints are from those desktop only users who want to continue the perpetual licenses with the heavy discount, which puts their 2 year costs a bit less than the new Plus costs.

The problem is that Unity is changing the way they do releases. So with that change, it becomes difficult for them to base a "perpetual license" around those releases. Several have used the 3 year costs because Unity 5 came out late. But now, without those firm "release versions", there is no way to say when a perpetual licenses support ends, hence the subscription, or paying the subscription price for 1 or 2 years up front.

The other group that might have a complaint is those making over 200k who use Unity for desktop only. Even if they accept the fact that Unity cannot do the 2 year perpetual license anymore, they still will see a large increase.

My guess is this affects larger teams more than smaller ones, as their licensing fees will be a larger portion of that 200k.

Probably those making 500k + will accept the new rates, if grudgingly.

So...it is a small group that is not happy. Unity did manage to make most of us okay with the new plans. They are going to help those who are moving from perpetual by allowing them to pay the current prices a little longer and giving some crucial updates to those whose perpetual licenses run out. I can't speak for those who are hurt by this, but I commend Unity for trying to do the best they can.

 

Wrong, i'm not a so called 'Desktop Only' Pro user, and i'm sure there are others 'non Desktop Only' Pro users.

Wrong, i haven't made any money yet, and i'm sure there are other 'non Desktop Only' Pro users who haven't made money yet with their game.

Wrong again. We're a small team, only two to be exact.

Exactly. The majority of those who are happy are probably the ones that used free version. While those complaining spent their money to support the engine and those free users.

So, what we will see now, is more free to Plus users, and less Pro or Pro to Plus users. But, i could be mistaken of course.

 

You have good points there Teila. There is no way to keep everybody happy. The only thing that would come close to doing that would be something like offering everything free forever, no limits, but of course that puts Unity out of business so no more updates and we are no longer happy. I feel as well that they have came probably as good as they can to satisfy the most people while staying in business.

I see a lot of compromise here. Sure, they let us remove the Splash from Plus, but they don't have the month-to-month anymore on it. They left the commitment to $35, though, and so you see lots of give and take there, as the removal of the splash screen warrants the 12 month sub so people don't sub for just 1 month to release. It seems fair to me.

As to the few people left that they couldn't satisfy...I agree that it sucks. But like I said, they had to do what they could to satisfy the most people while still making the money to keep going, and I'm sorry that you weren't part of the majority in this case. I guess you can chalk it up as a price increase...I don't know. I DO feel for you though.

 

I am confused. Why do you not go to Plus then?