Still no plans for Linux editor support?

I won't argue that point since I agree.

 

Yup they are a step ahead in that regard. I'm talking Linux as a major player depending on the success of steam machines of course.

As someone who develops professionally I typically like developing on the platform I am targeting.

If unity can't afford it they can't afford it. Still something they should keep their eye on if the market turns. For now Mac is a decent alternative.

 

It's nice when you can do that, but it's not a possibility for most platforms. You can't* develop directly on phones, (most) tablets, or game consoles. It's certainly an oddity that we're talking about a PC-based platform that you can't develop on directly, since the usability reasons that exist for the other platforms don't exist here, but it doesn't make it any different to developing for most other platforms.

* There are of course coding programs available for some of those platforms, so technically you could, but they're pretty limited. And, importantly, this could change as our various form factors continue to converge. But for now, as a general rule, you can't develop software on most platforms where you can use it.

 

I've been spoiled in this regard as my professional career has been almost entirely writing server side software for Linux.

If you are a game company that wants to make something big with legit networking that can handle Battlefield sized servers or even bigger like something Darkfall did with clusters.. You are going to want to utilize what Linux has to offer. It hands down can not be beat by Windows in this regard.

Sure you can develop those things w/out Unity, but it still helps to allow that developer to load and test in the editor. It just makes it all around easier. Or if that person has more than one job it would just be a pain for them to have to keep switching back and forth.

End of the day if they sell most of their licenses to people making mobile games though then I understand why they don't really care.

Maybe we'd have better luck asking Apple to port their GUI layer to Linux heh.

 

I'm also for a Linux editor. But in the case you describe the Unity code and sever code are very likely 2 different code bases (developed by different teams). So it is no problem developing the server on Linux and the client on Windows. And the client can at any time connect to the server running on another computer.

 

Yeah I said it could be done without unity, but that it would make it that much easier with the editor. Obviously you have to have a client connection. Especially in the early phase of development the person writing the server code is going to have to at least try out the client interactions as well. Most likely he'll have to develop that layer so that whoever is writing the game play can easily tap into it.

So he'll need some basic test level access to unity. They don't just develop in the dark and pass it over and see what happens.

Obvious work arounds with the virtual machine, but it's still besides the point.

 

Or some form of remote desktop. I think that's the route I would go for anything long term as a virtual machine doesn't always cut it. Especially for any application needing modern graphical hardware features.

 

Then again, Unity's streaming clause...

 

...only affects streaming content that's distributed.

--Eric

 

They should make a version that runs on a Raspberry Pi....

I'm not sure why though.

Just because.

 

Graham,

I'm not interested in trading a product that your company does not currently have. I will not even commit any money without a reasonable certainty that the product to which my company is interested will be ready and when.

I can't base my project and its costs in the expectation that it can be exists one day, if and when you guys get enough money to start and time to finish. I can buy licenses for software, no steamware. From the moment we accept start a project, we have a schedule and penalties for not fulfilling it.

When we create a product here, we built it first and only then sell it. This carries a risk? Yes, but that's how the market works.

If you guys want to understand how many people or companies can compromise his wallets on idea, I suggest Crowd Funding, at least those who pay can get your investment back if the product does not happen. But become premium just to continue to be required to use your product through a virtualizer? This is a waste of money, no deal.

For the other user, asking if I made my account just to comment here:

We started looking at the Unity platform a long time before finding this discussion. After it was shown to me, I ordered finish the research because the product is not feasible yet.

And since you doesn't represent the company, I have no satisfaction at all to give, anyway.

Back to Graham: However, a further contact is not disposed. If and when one day Unity support our work platform, so a premium license can be again an option. Sure, if this time the clients are being treated properly.

P.S.: no problem with cars analogies, i love Lamborgini (and its very interesting history... You know about?) too. I have some problems with use of arrogance with potential clients. But i already complain about that, I do not mean to upset you again with this.

 

No one wrote that it is necessary to buy Unity licenses before the editor version for Linux exists. If a real person from a real company with real interest in Unity for Linux shows real interest to buy licenses, it makes a huge difference. The more of those show up, the higher is the potential profit for Unity and as such the higher are the chances that Unity will invest money to create a Unity version for Linux.

 

When you view it on your monitor, you're streaming it from your computer... Okay, that might be stretching it but that's the basic idea. You're the only one viewing it so the clause shouldn't apply to that.

 

crowd funding is a great idea. Not only help pay for this feature, but get major PR while doing it. The Linux community is large and major moves to port big software packages to it do not go unnoticed.

 

Not sure how useful crowd funding is when the lowest amount you can pledge is 1500$. At the end what counts is that there have to be additional customers who pay for it, meaning they would need to buy a pro license. The reason is that there is not just an initial investment, but the platform needs to be maintained afterwards. Maintaining it costs money which can only be gotten through pro licenses.

 

Maybe UT and GabeN can make a miracle happen. Surely some Valve persons developing SteamOS might be interested in porting unity to linux. Sixense Stems have begun arriving. The current oculus has HD resolution. VR is becoming affordable and Unity already has support for the two aforementioned technologies. VR is looking more and more like the future Now we just need a game dev environment that is reasonable to use and has an editor on all platforms! (or at least linux because linux is free).

 

Microsoft spends so much time trying to push their OS that they fail to realize how successful Visual Studio could be on other platforms. I would love to have it for OS X and Linux.

 

@Ryiah: You should probably contact the Microsoft sales deparment and state how many versions you and your company would like to buy, if it would be available for OS/Linux. I heard it's common business practice recently.

 

Isn't it common business to spend resources without seeing a chance to cover the expenses?

 

Do you even kickstarter?

 

Nah they could get creative with it. Linux community is quite large, but tight nit. Any dev willing to take a chance to build something for the OS will get some attention.

They could give out gear (shirts, stickers, etc).. Or even have a donate pledge for 5$ that gets you nothing but satisfaction that you are helping the cause.

It's the way of the world now days they might as well give it a shot. Worst case they don't get enough interest and they can tell us to leave it alone. Best case they get so much interest that it not only affords them the ability to create a linux editor, but gains them tons of publicity in all the right spots.

 

Pledging $5 to an open source project may have meaning because their expenses are minimal, but this is a commercial entity that has to maintain hundreds of employees, potentially multiple buildings, legal nonsense, middle-ware licenses, etc.

 

It's all about volume.. Most kickstarters have a low pledge like this and do fine

an example:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen

Besides that though. Most of the underlying code from the mac should port over with little issues. I run mac with ports all the time and I've yet to find a linux app that doesn't compile on mac.

The GUI part is what would have to be redone, but it can be done without a huge team. Especially if there are no time constraints.

They would be crowd funding a very specific operation for the sole purpose of making sure it doesn't interfere with their normal business so the 100s of employees and building and what not have nothing to do with it.

 

And here are the replies:

 

But I suggested UT starting kickstarter a long time ago! Still, they didn't see merit in this genial idea.

 

Star Citizen is an exemplary example but it is very much the exception and not the rule. Out of 4,900 successfully funded projects only 37 of them have been over $1 million dollars. Most of those projects were in the $1,000 to $9,999 and $20,000 to $99,999 ranges.

Additionally those 4,900 were out of a total of 14,434 projects. Only one-third of games projects have been funded.

https://www.kickstarter.com/help/stats

 

Except, Unity is so high-profile middleware that if they'd state "Okay, we would port editor to Linux, but we need $1M to get it started," they'd certainly earn that much (most likely even more), since all gaming, game-dev and Linux sites would write about it and point to their KS campaign. Success here is almost GUARANTEED and even if KS fails, no one will get hurt and all money will get returned to backers.

 

You know I'm beginning to feel like modern Linux newcomers are out of touch with reality.

 

The original problem is still not solved with that. Who covers the cost? The cost is not only the initial development, it also contains the maintaining of it. Even if I see a chance that they would get enough money at first, the risk that they wouldn't get enough additional Pro users that would cover the ongoing development is very high. To prevent that, they would need to have a minimum pledge of 1500$, which would most likely not be successful.

 

@Dantus: I just think that with this current way of gathering information it will never expose a chance to see the ability to cover the expenses, because no company would approuch Unity and say: "we would really really like to have a linux version of Unity". They will just go to alternatives which support their needs, because they can't wait a year or two till the linux version appears - as some post already said that.

Furthermore as a company you don't just sit there and wait till your customers approuch you and say what they want. Often it is the reverse: You tell your customers what they want (and they suddenly wants to buy it, unless they are stubborn).

In this hindsight the kickstarter is an excellent idea to gain a better overview. And there is not much to lose to at least try it.

Btw who is covering up the cost for the osx version? I wouldn't be surprised that the 90% windows users are partly.
"Democratization Game development! (excluding linux users, no democracy for them)"

 

The OS X version existed before the Windows version did. It wasn't until Unity 2.5 that a Windows version was made.

--Eric

 

Doesn't unity already have 300k+ users?

If they can get a % of current users to throw in, then pickup some of the many linux enthusiasts that would be willing to throw a few bucks just for the exposure and to help the desktop along..

Pretty sure they could pull it off.

As I said. Worst case they find out no one cares in which case they can put the issue to rest.

 

Unity has approximately four million registered users. Those who were already inclined to buy Unity have done so with their $1,500 (or more). Why should they pay more so that those who are unwilling to pay can reap the benefits?

http://unity3d.com/public-relations

 

If they can pull off making a badass linux UI they could just do away with the mac specific UI all together since likely it would work just fine in mac as well.

 

What Mac-specific UI? It's all custom, aside from a couple of bits here and there (such as the option to use the native OS X color picker). They did this to make maintaining OS X and Windows versions feasible, since prior to 2.5, it was in fact using Mac-specific UI stuff.

--Eric

 

Right.. just like me. actually i've paid for 2 versions so it's quite a bit more than 1500. So of those 4 million if just .5% of them are exactly like me you'd have 200k people willing to throw money at it.

 

Did you tell Unity? One big catch with a flat payment policy is that you cannot determine, without being told, with your customers bought your product. This is why Graham stated that they need to be contacted. Otherwise you're no different from any other customer.

 

Yeah they'd have to take a gamble. Another reason to crowd fund it.

Personally I think the tide is turning towards linux thanks entirely to Valve. Unreal seems to recognize it and is following suit with UE4.

Then again I'm bias in my opinion because I'm hopeful that this is the case. The whole effort on Valve's part could fall flat on it's face if no one cares.

 

Unreal 4 is also significantly easier to port. Yet despite this last I checked it still wasn't an official release but rather a community effort.

 

Unreal approached the same as I'd expect unity to approach it. It's not their bread and butter, but they understand it's value especially in the future. So they got it sorta working and put it out there for people to play with.

Long road ahead for all of this even steam machines to make any sort of impact. I'm guessing the stance Unity is taking on it is a wait and see stance. If it becomes a thing they'll look at it otherwise business as usual.

 

If there won't be enough money to maintain it, they always can drop Linux support in editor afterwards. But there will be enough money to maintain it, I am sure of that.

 

Still, that doesn't answer 0tacun question, which was:

Also,

 

Everyone who wishes to develop for OS X and iOS. Because you cannot compile for either without an OS X system.

 

You can produce an OS X build from Windows, always have been able to. (Although if you want to sign it for the Mac App Store, I think that may require a Mac.)

--Eric

 

It might be the App Store I'm thinking of then.

 

Mac users easily account for the cost. You can't really attempt to make a point by just making up numbers.

Linux users have tons of options to develop games and there are several game developers that do well making games using Linux, including big ones like Naughty Dog. But then again, they actually focus on making games and not playing the poor Linux victim. You can make games or you can whine that others aren't providing the tools you want. Pick one.

 

In my experience about 1 in 3 Unity users are also Mac users. That doesn't mean that 1 in 3 sales from those people were necessarily driven by their Mac, of course. I wonder how the global the figure compares to my anecdotal 1 in 3, given how many Unity developers are also iOS developers.

 

http://stats.unity3d.com/editor/os.html

--Eric

 

I found at least one guy that would buy pro (or more precisely does no longer buy pro because of missing linux editor: "I've been using Unity since 1.x and have owned a Pro license since 2.0").

Nathan Warden on gamasutra: http://gamasutra.com/blogs/LarsDouc..._Maker_Security_and_Freedom.php#comment263272

 

Are there stats for Pro?