UNITY, you are losing so many new devs to UE4 due to Oculus support

EDIT: Linked is a Oculus subreddit thread showing a sample of just how many devs and hobbyist devs there are in the Oculus community who have had to use UE4 instead of Unity because of this:
http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/2gitmt/question_from_unity_employee_to_me_how_many_new/

We need a ton of people to respond here and hopefully get Unity to change this paid feature to a free / cheap one.

I am sure this is brought up all the time, but in order to develop for the Oculus Rift, you need to have Unity Pro, it cannot be done with free Unity. However, UE4 allows this functionality for $20 a month (actually a one time payment of $20 if you don't care about updates).

I am a major Oculus forum and subreddit lurker and Unity has gotten a very very bad name there and all suggestions to new devs goes something like this: "unless you're rich, get UE4"

So Unity, find a way to allow Oculus rift support either in the free Unity version or create a 3rd tier that can compete better with UE4.

So many people are excited about the rift and thousands of them have the device and nothing to do with it except learn to make something for it. You are losing out, and the Unity community is losing out from not having these new devs on board and adding to the asset store/ knowledgebase etc.. etc..

http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/2gitmt/question_from_unity_employee_to_me_how_many_new/

Thank you for your time!

 

If you can afford to waste money on a product that has yet to make it to market, let alone prove it will sell, then I don't see the problem with spending money for Unity Pro. At least Unity has proven itself.

 

Thats a pretty dumb remark. $350 compared to $1500... and spending $350 will not only allow you to mess around with developing or develop hardcore, but also play lots of cool stuff and experience something really unique.

I don't think you should be willing to surrender the thousands of new devs so easily to UE4 simply because you think they wasted money on the Rift... And I wish the first post in this serious request wasn't you trolling it.

 

By your logic we should support every esoteric platform so long as it achieves a certain threshold of developers. Like the Raspberry Pi which barely has enough power to run Android.

Having developers, thousands or otherwise, does not guarantee a platform will be successful. If someone is willing to dump $350 into a device that has yet to prove it has a future, I see no reason they cannot spend $1500 on a platform that is capable of paying for itself.

 

You don't know what you're talking about at all. It's not a "port", The only thing keeping the rift from being fully supported is that only pro allows image effects to be applied which is necessary for the barrel distortion. If that one feature was allowed in the free version, boom, Rift support would be possible with free Unity.

 

You don't need Unity Pro to implement post processing or image effects.

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/in...uality-post-process-fx-to-unity-indie.198568/

 

The hell are you taking about?
The Oculus is a gaming device, whereas the Pi is a mini computer that has little relevance in the gaming world.

 

At least the Raspberry Pi has hit the market and proven itself in the niche it occupies.

 

While very cool, whatever this guy did to achieve these post processing effects does not allow support for the rift, I would have definitely heard about it on the Oculus forums.

EDIT: I will bring it up there to see if it's possible using this method.

 

Let's be honest here. They're ugly and I don't see why anyone would want that in a game.

Maybe the webplayer demo is purposely bad, but it looks better with them disabled.

 

It is also possible that nobody has tried it yet.

They're CPU side so they have to be efficient.

 

Holy hell dude, stop trolling this thread please. Dunno why you're raging against the rift. I'm just trying to get something done here for people who care about this topic, not fight about the rift, how people waste their money buying it, or how relevant it is to the Pi

 

Which still doesn't change the fact that the Pi has pretty much no relevance in the gaming world.
It's just a useless comparison.

 

I'm not raging against the Rift, but I really can't stand people who believe they're entitled to something because they dumped $350 into a toy. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see RenderTextures in Unity Free and I'd love to see virtual reality become big.

Thousands of developers though does not make a product successful. It merely indicates it has successfully occupied a small niche. Right up there with the Raspberry Pi and Dwarf Fortress. Both are very impressive for what they are, but they're not sufficient enough to make a meaningful difference. Which is why I mentioned them.

Nor are they worth the effort of making polls, petitions, etc to try to convince a developer to donate a feature for the sake of their use. If you want the functionality of the Rift, use UE4 or buy Unity Pro.

By the way, I'm estimating this thread will be locked solely because you brought UE4 into the discussion. My contributions weren't going to change this, so I gave my opinions.

 

There are like 3 Million people who have ever tried Unity. You are telling me that possibly 10,000-50,000 more users who are devoted and excited enough to spend actual money on the Rift would not be an overwhelming good thing for Unity? It's not a drop in the bucket by any stretch.

And I hope you're right that Unity 5 will support it without the full $1500 investment.

 

And your source of this astounding info is?
Link?
Or you pulling this out and making another thread about how great the competitor is and again for the millionth time price?
And you want to make what kind of game that will use this technology?

 

I remember a statement by a developer when someone asked if Unity was getting a Linux editor. He asked "How many copies of Unity Pro will your company be buying?". He had a very good point as Unity's development is funded by those who purchase licenses.

So in response to your question, what good is getting more developers like you if none of them intend to buy licenses?

 

Source for what info?
Unity is a superior product and I want to see people use it.

 

With Mark Zuckerberg's money and John Carmack's brain, I wouldn't bet against the Rift. That being said, it's assuming a lot to think that everyone who has an Oculus wants to make games for it. A lot of people bought it to play games on it or try out the new technology. So your numbers are inflated with regards to the number of supporters that Oculus support would bring in. That's also assuming, of course, that none of those game developers are already Unity customers. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be able to make Oculus games with Unity for free. But I also understand that Unity needs to make money. I think they know their own finances better than we do and whatever threat UE4 poses to those, whatever adjustments need to be made, likely aren't driven by Rift support.

 

Only 3 times a week.

 

You'll never get rendertextures in free... its one of the big selling points of pro.

If a developer is serious enough to want to develop for rift in unity they will shell out the coin... If they choose UE4 power to them. Its not exactly an easy alternative.

You have three selling points for Game Dev Engines...

Fancy Graphics
Cheap
Easy to User

You can pick two.

 

As @Ryiah said, the Oculus has a long way to go to prove itself. Developing a game for the Oculus means you're placing a bet and hoping the virtual toy will be marketed cheap enough for people to really buy it, and that those people will actually like it. Yes it's supercool to try out for a while, but there are tons of question marks. Like, just to mention one, will a big enough amount of people (other than gamedevs) want to isolate themselves or their children even more while playing?

Camera effects and RenderTextures are part of Unity Pro for reasons that have been discussed an infinite amount of times here. I don't see Unity changing their policy for the sake of a bet.

 

You stated "Unity, you are losing so many new devs to UE4 due to Oculus Support"
I was wondering where you got your information from that is all.

 

I would like statistics and data too.
On the other hand, Helgason stated in the Unite 2014 keynote that Palmer Luckey said that about 90% of Oculus games are made with Unity. Hardly a statistic that reflects thousands of people apparently leaving for VR in UE4.

 

Another useless thread, someone dreaming of Unity Free having more Pro features, you should stickt to UE4 to not be deceived. I don't think Unity will change UT free features as this is a entirely free tool for mobile and desktop games, it's given to indies with no royalties, nothing to pay.

Im' not sure that's people leaving UE4, as you can see people coming to UE4 to use occulus also. I would trust numbers coming from neutral sources instead, it's 90% of how many games ? 5-20 maximum, prototypes or games sold ?
But i agree people needs some easy engine , and mainly take Unity.

 

Neutral sources? Its from the Founder of Oculus! And apparently its 'all games'.

 

@Andy

But this wasnt mentioned next to epic announce or a bit later? If yes then this statistic is a bit useless NOW because price drop on ue4 side change everything. actually unity to be honest should place oculus as pro only platform. As compromise i think unity could move rt to free but with some limitation (like hard/soft split shadow) so poeople could publish to oculus and no more

 

The only thing Unity should drop to Free version is the dark skin, as i don't think people will buy Pro exclusively for that. For many people this would mean to work in lot better conditions, les brightness for the eyes, more confort.
Please Unity bring custom themes possible like Blender for all.

 

This was stated about a month ago.

 

Yeah but developing game take some month to years (someone reminder when epic announced this price drop?) To see full impact we should wait 6 month - year? That i have in mind when i say 'a bit later' xD

 

Well DK1 shipped with free 4 month sub to Unity pro so everyone could use it with Unity...that is not the case with the DK2 which just shipped recently. Not saying it should be in free or not but that is clearly misleading going forward.

 

Epic announced their price drop after we announced Unity 5, back in March about 6 months ago.

 

I agree with OP.

I do have a UE4 subscription for testing the oculus with. I've also been playing with unity 5 beta, but can't get plugins to work atm with it.

I have unity pro at work, not at home. I don't have any released games so no reason to spend money on a pro license..... I use it for my day job at work but they supply the pro license.

 

Unity does not have a bad name among the Rift developer community. This is because the Rift developer community at large does not post on the forums or subreddit, the hobby devs & troll swarm is too great there, and they are much more inclined to unjustified whining about more difficult things. There are some shortsighted issues, but its nothing out of the ordinary.

If you have weighed the situation and still feel that UE has a better offering then you should take it. Your financial circumstances are part of that weight and should be considered. It is unreasonable to expect a company do make a paid feature free on the basis that you cannot afford luxury features.

 

In that case power with you unity in what you doing. Im only worry that unity might wake up with hand in sink after vr 'revolution' like nokia after smartphone revolution (impact will be smaller ofc but im sure helgason would like to earn money as much as possible)...

 

I really don't think in any VR revolution, many people just play mobile casually, others will stay with joysticks or with mouse/Keyboard and normal screen. Not all people are VR fans , without saying it will make you exausted using VR too much time compared to a simple screen as the 3D effects makes yopu do more effort to bring the 3D effects..

 

@up

Ofc you might be right thats why i used 'might' but im sure some people said something similar against smartphone... this is hard to predict it will be revolution or not...

 

Haha, if only these guys could use their energy to create games instead of spamming the forum.

 

It's not just render to texture but also plugins needed to support the Rift. As others have said these are two of the most important features of PRO so it's very unlikely (and probably unrealistic) to ever see them in Unity free.

That being said this is the only platform I can think of where Unity is at a clear cost disadvantage to UE4. It is also the only non-console platform that has no free option. If this platform takes off Unity will be at a clear disadvantage. It also gets many developers (myself included) to use both engines where we would have been very happy to be Unity only otherwise. In general I would think Unity would want some sort of free offering for the Rift to avoid some leakage from their ecosystem to epic.

I would point out that most of the content that is made for the Rift currently is mostly Unity but I think those statistics will change drastically going forward because of the clear price difference to develop for the platform.

 

As much as it sucks, this is a super good point. A balance has to be struck between growing the community and Unity actually making sales.

 

I can't see how the cost comparison is any different to any other context. UE4 has lower barriers to entry and a comparatively high post-sale cost. Unity Pro has a comparatively high barrier to entry for Pro features, but zero post-sale cost.

What does throwing a Rift into the equation do to change that? The only thing I can see is that you can't Rift without Pro, where you can easily still make most other games in free (though, for whatever reason, many people opt not to).

People keep waving around the $19/mo flag, but that's brushing the real cost under a rug.

 

While I agree with both of your sentiments I don't think that the sales of Unity and trying Unity upfront in the free version is unrelated. I have no statistics to back it up but I would gather the majority of eventual sales came from users using the free version and eventually upgrading because they like the engine and because after a few months they saw how the PRO features would help their project. Also, from unity's perspective don't forget about the asset store. Free users that buy assets still generate revenue for Unity.

I was only pointing out that the Rift does not have this duality (free and Pro) to keep new novices that will eventually become buyers in the pipeline. If I was a new developer that got excited about VR the choice would be an easy one since new developers don't usually have a lot of cash.

Obviously, Unity has those statistics privately for how many new developers use free for a year or two and then eventually upgrade, so perhaps they aren't as high as I guess they would be. I myself used free to release a simple game on all the mobile platforms (was simple so didn't need PRO features). During my next project of larger scope next year I will be buying pro. My impression is this would be a very common route to sales for PRO but maybe not.

 

The best oculus game made to date has been a game where you control a dragon and control the flight direction with where you are looking and the game translates all the noise you make into dragon breath. Screaming -> breathing fire.

 

you can do nice things in other fields too:

actually i think the problem is not unity free should have more, its unity pro should have some more accessible licence, avoiding us to buy desktop licence for nothing if we only publish on IOS

 

Right but without buying the dev kit version 2 (and waiting what 6 to 8 weeks??) or 1 if you got it before are you going to be able to play it. There isn't a commercial version yet. I can't run to Best Buy and get one even if i wanted.
It is great people are developing for it but goes back to the gamer not being able to run out and getting one.

 

I'm posting on the oculus subreddit to try and get a sample of how many people have actually been forced over to UE4. But honestly nearly every day on there I see someone asking for comparisons, or someone in shock at the cost of entry for a hobbyist Oculus dev etc.. etc.. It may seem small to you guys, but you have many thousands of people who are only excited about making something because of the Oculus, and they are all forced to UE4 currently. 70,000 people have bought the DK2, something like 40,000 bought DK1. Granted probably not even half of them are going to attempt to make anything, but many many will and are.

 

I switched to UE4 due to the pricing scheme, as well as Oculus Rift support specifically.

 

/agree

With the endless comparison posts and "requests" for more pro features in free is it any wonder UT is considering it's options?

 

A few months ago I met with a start-up folks doing Oculus Rift development, they have already secured a number of contracts doing commercial fit-out walkthroughs and interactive fashion shows (they are using both Unity and UE4). Their demos were pretty fun.

- - -

Back on topic, whats with all the hate? All @Stankiem was suggesting was that it might be a good idea for Unity FREE to support the Oculus Rift. Maybe a little bit passionately and but whats wrong with a little passion?

Regardless of commercial markets for VR games the people buying these devices at the moment are people who are intent on developing for them, and I'd guess that a big portion are more about tinkering and having fun than betting their business on it. To me it seems like paying four times the cost of the device for development software when there is a much cheaper alternative would be a barrier to Unity adoption in this space.

I don't have enough information to make a statement about the commercial viability for UT but I doesn't seem like it would be technically difficult to enable an effect equivalent to one specific render texture via a new component.

 

This thread will turn into UE4 vs Unity 3D.

Before that I must say that I don't want to pay 5% royalties