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

Are people so emotionally invested in defending Unity's pricing model that they can't allow for any wiggle room? That they can't even entertain the notion that it might be useful to Unity to occasionally change the feature set of the free version?

 

Because if it isn't free, who will make the slenders, the flappy birds and rolling ball games?

 

While everybody in this thread has been arguing about whether Unity Free should support Oculus Rift, Epic announced support for more VR platforms, including Samsung Gear VR and Google Project Tango. That creates a lot of buzz for Epic.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/unreal-engine-samsung-google-vr,27702.html

 

Unity doesn't make the Oculus Rift. You don't have have to buy Unity Pro to develop for OR.
They do have a price tag, because it costs money to develop. Demanding that Unity give you free stuff so Oculus can sell units is nonsense at best. Go over to the OR forums and ask them to provide tools more to your liking.

 

Unity Indie used to cost $200 and both mobile licenses used to cost $400 each. So they are giving us $1000 of free commercial use software. I'd call that quite a change in their pricing model. Not to mention that they recently added Pro features such as Nav Meshes and real-time shadows to free which I'd say is a very big feature change of the free version.

THe only reason I upgraded to pro was I bought both mobile licenses 5 days before they made them free and got that money applied towards Unity Pro, otherwise, I'd be happily working along in free. But then again, I target mobile platform, so I don't really use most of the Pro stuff.

 

But Unity already has support for Samsung Gear and people are already making games for it.

"McNeill: I'm working in Unity, and just like the DK1 and DK2, Gear VR has an excellent Unity SDK available from Oculus. Getting the game running in Android was a cinch."
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/225130/QA_Developing_games_for_the_new_Samsung_Gear_VR.php

http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/...loper-ustwo-but-its-only-for-samsung-gear-vr/

Oh, and Unity is proven on Android, whereas last I heard UE4 to Android is a fairly buggy and troublesome process.


I have never heard of the Google Project Tango; what is it?

 

I hope Unity has Project Tango dev kits

 

How about $200-$400 for Unity Free with Rift? Unity obviously has to make money. I would guess that the only reason that they offer a free version is that they believe it makes them money in the long run. It isn't too much of a stretch to think that the same reasoning could apply to offering a free version of Unity with Oculus support especially considering the competition. I'm sure that their current policy has made them a lot of short term money with Rift devs like me going pro. I don't know if that is sustainable with current pricing. But this is a business decision on Unity's part and not something that they owe us. It is important to keep that in mind.

 

I am bitterly disappointed I can't use the Rift with Unity Free. But I do get, Unity is a business not a charity.

I would go for your options GoesTo11 if it were available

 

Unlike those who are emotionally invested in defending the Oculus Rift and believe everyone should cater to their needs, I am realistic and understand that Unity Technologies is first and foremost a business.

I am further realistic in understanding that the Oculus Rift, which has not yet reached the stage that it is easily available to consumers, has not yet proven it will be a success amongst consumers.

No, proof that developers have bought it is not sufficient because often developers will buy a gadget that most consumers would ignore solely because it focuses around a cool concept or the latest technology. Sometimes that technology makes it and sometimes it does not.

 

Huh? Over the years I've been using it both the pricing model and free feature set have changed to greatly increase accessibility. I don't see anyone saying that shouldn't continue to happen.

 

It's the first consumer grade smartphone with a depth sensor built in, opening up a lot of new possibilities.

 

I was stoked and bought the Leap Motion the day it became available. I started developing for it the minute it arrived. Unfortunately, pretty much no one else bought them. (I bought one of those dice thingys too.)
So, I am content to wait until the OR has been out in the marketplace for a while and proved itself before I get too excited about developing for it.

 

Common, the Leap motion and the dice things are no were near as good as the rift.

 

I wasn't commenting on the rift, of course you are correct about that. I was commenting about devs getting excited about shiny new gadgets.

 

Exactly, the Free feature set changes so why is it so unreasonable for someone to suggest a small change which may bring in some more users who instead are going to a competitor?

I think its pretty clear there is a fairly strong sentiment suggesting that the OP has transgressed by suggesting Unity add a new feature to Unity Free.

 

Exactly, the model changes, the feature set changes, but its almost an unspoken rule here that a poster (particularly a new one) can't suggest a change, if they do they will be flamed in to oblivion. It makes little sense.

Everyone can see that UT changes, and being responsive to market forces is good for Unity and good for the users, yet even great posters like @zombiegorilla make statements like : "Demanding that Unity give you free stuff so Oculus can sell units is nonsense at best."

 

It's all about risk vs. reward. If someone makes the game that everyone who buy rifts 'needs' on day one then they have won, if you wait until a week in or so when sales numbers come in then start development you have no chance of being a early success.

 

You could at least offer the basic respect to read my posts fully, as being patronising doesn't really sell the continuing sense of Pro investors absolute superiority over free users well. I said stereoscopic rendering for VR HMDs be supported with calibrations for the most well known, the optical technology is similar between all headsets and the one image effect needed is a barrel distortion to counteract lens distortion. Oculus aren't the only guys making these things.

 

Actually

https://www.leapmotion.com/product/vr


Which will do nicely until

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1663270989/project-perception-neuron

 

Which VR units are supported by Unity Pro?

Which VR units are supported by Unity Free?

 

Yes, I agree that suggestions are reasonable, and for a bunch of reasons I think this is actually far more reasonable than most.

On the other hand, I also understand the feeling that plenty of community members seem to have towards the constant stream of threads or suggestions of the form "Can you please add X to the free license [so I don't have to pay for it]?"

 

Sure but as you say this post was entirely more reasonable, the OP was talking about a whole community of people, people who are posting a place we can go look at ourselves.

And for me at least the numbers are overwhelming, there are tens if not hundreds of people who wanted to use Unity but didn't because of the availability of a single feature in the free version. How many of the rift users are active on Reddit, and happened to have seen and replied to that post in the last few days? 5 percent? 10 percent?

 

Yea... not being patronizing or 'pro superiority' blah, blah. You are droning about having one company invest resources to provide you more tools so you can continue to not purchase their products but develop and sell products on emerging tech. You are clearly very passionate about the OR and VR in general. Turn that passion into a solution. Whatever happens won't be any time soon, at least probably not before 5. Making games is about solving problems. Unity is one tool (well, ok two tools). People are making games for OR right now, on a variety of tools. Talking is all well and good, building games is better. Unity is great and all, but if it doesn't do what I need or there is a better tool, I'll switch with hesitation. Be a GAME developer, not a Unity developer.

 

Alright wasting too much time on this, so its my last post, but here's some 'napkin' numbers...

Estimated cost (of building a barrel distortion shader without opening up all of render textures):
Engineering: 4 weeks ~ $20k, QA: 4 weeks ~ 20k, PM: 2 weeks ~10k, Resource Acquisition Cost: ~$25k
Total: $75k

Estimated ROI:
Users gained: ~1000
LTV: ~ $170 (80% - $0, 15% (asset store purchases) - $50, 5% (pro for 2 years) - $1650 )
kFactor: 0.1 (For every ten users gained you organically gain one more)
Realised Value over 3 years: ~ $200
Total: ~$200k

Obviously many things on both sides overlooked, but this is the ten-thousand feet view. For example I would expect more than 1k users gained, but maybe a lower LTV, project cost may baloon due to suppor, web site, etc, etc, etc, investment is worth more than the ROI due to taking customers away from competitor, etc, etc, etc,

But as far as these kind of quick calculations go this is the kind of project worthy of putting in the time to develop a business case. In the end the result may still be a no, but its worth a bit of time and effort.

 

I see you're on a soapbox but could you kindly step down from it, i'm a grown qualified adult and I don't need lessons in software development, you seem to have missed the bit where i'm a pro user, i do develop for the oculus, i intend to bring the cardboard sdk to Unity to open it to all mobiles supported by Unity, i've invested quite a lot into Unity over several years and much of it has been towards developing for VR and you again, extremely rudely, didn't bother to read my posts remotely when I explained the reason Unity support VR headsets for free because 1) It actually liberates the creative abilities for those with very little money in a very generous and proactive move that if you'd bothered to even use or understand this hardware you'd possibly identify with and 2) brings a great deal of good will and support to what is a new MEDIUM. It is not a gaming peripheral, it isnt a waggly controller, its a new way to consume information, like a monitor or a speaker and as such would tend to suggest it start to be considered to be given similar integration.

Unity is an extremely pleasant development environment, it offers people who might not otherwise be able to get to grips with development get a good start in. As far as I remember Unity actually got so popular and lauded based on this freedom given to just about anyone to actually make a, you know, real proper game. So how about the genuine application that vr could have for mental health treatment and education, or the enormous market it could move into going into arch-vis, on every level, and these ideas be thought up by bright young minds on a limited budget

'Sorry lad, go get notepad++, i spent a bunch of money on this software so i'll be buggered if you'll share even a fraction of its features'

Unfortunately your head is shoved so far up your arse I don't think any kind of sense will make it through to your incredibly blinkered and selfinterested cranium though, so thanks for the frankly ridiculous lack of respect or plain reading comprehension and i'll only hope my experiences with reading your posts improve. Maybe after you start reading other peoples posts

 

Oh I read all your posts, they just all boil down to "if Unity makes things I want free, rainbows might appear!" But since you devolved into petty name-calling and think that because I don't agree with you, I don't "understand", well then, good luck.

 

I didn't call you a name, i suggested your head was up your arse, since I already have everything I need to make oculus rift work fine, i do not personally need Unity to provide it for me. Two points of many you lacked the cognitive ability to recognise while they were in perfectly clear english. It's simple enough however, i'll apply this enlightenment to any further posts of yours as it seems you're unable to climb out of the drudge you started from by lacking some basic human qualities like respect, empathy or readability which tend to be formative for basic writing abilities in successful forum posts

 

You've got far more patience than me if you're willing to read his nonsense.

 

So, trolling, on a games development board, this is your idea of progress? pathetic

ahh yeah, post any further correspondance to 'ignored'. you guys are a genuine drain on videogame development and i'm hoping you grow up one special day

 

Well, clearly I didn't read it, because if did I would have agreed completely with him. (also I lack the basic human quality of readability) I'm sad now. Who will tell me what my opinions should be?

 

If so you must be among the most progressive. I've rarely seen a post from you that isn't insulting or trolling. Your posts may have some good points, but when you resort to those to try to get your point across you lose my attention.

There have been over 100,000 sales of the Rift so far and there are over a third of them in that Reddit section. Out of those figures though, only 344 have posted. I don't have the patience to sort through every single comment, but I do know a few were actually not in agreement.

It is rather amusing to skim through a few results though. Namely those students who apparently never realize that a $99 student license exists for Unity Pro. Only one of them, namely SuaveZombie, specifically mentioned it. I've now pointed this out as well in the Reddit thread.

Another post, by Schlagv, mentioned that their university had purchased Unity Pro so he's using it.

To answer your question though, the number of posts made in that thread is definitely not 10 percent or even 5 percent of their Reddit section. It is about 1 percent.

 

I have no plans to be using OR on my android so this doesn't bother me yet

 

Wow you guys sure have a lot of time to argue about absolutely nothing, don't you?

 

Have you heard of google cardboard, or Samsung's pretty comprehensive integration of VR capability (with their enclosure) in the Note 4?

 

That's just because we have no Unity Pro licenses. Just give every person in this thread a free Pro license and the discussion will die because we will all be busy doing games for our Oculus Rifts.

(Just kidding, I don't even have a Rift.)

 

So what's the official word from Unity on this? "Go use UE4 for an affordable solution, dirty hobbyist"? "The only hobbyists we allow to use our tools are basically all of them except people developing for the rift"? Or let me guess, something more along the lines of "you can purchase the pro version for full rift support"?

I really like Unity, and I really don't want to switch. that sample size from the Oculus subreddit had hundreds of users who really didn't want to switch. We are all being forced to by reason of prohibitive cost, and i'm sure they won't come back once having learned the new tool =(

Why in the world are so many of you hostile to the idea of Unity changing this policy? I understand that this is what Unity wants to charge at this time, and I think they are making a fairly big mistake. Are you all that elitist? Or are you all that invested in Unity's current pricing scheme etc...? I just don't understand the hostility shown by the community members and the dismissive attitude by Unity employees here.

 

So unity, If you are willing to surrender the thousands of hobbyist Rift devs to UE4, that is fine, just say so. But if you are working on a solution to this, or are in contact with Oculus, or if this is something you plan to allow in the future in the free version or third paid tier of feature set, it would be amazing if you could let us know!

 

Haha, sorry, just had to.

I think Unity Free is an amazing product, but it would be even better with native VR support.

 

As Pro user I'm on your side that it could be part of the free version but only if it does not take much too effort aka money from them to implement it. It might not be viable at least in 4.x to add code all around the engine and editor to get one WIP device to work in free and same time lock out the the pro features from other use. It could happen in 5.x since it seems to be a lot more modular than 4.x is but the thing is that they are already super busy with 5.0 and its not even coming out for some time yet. There are paying people waiting for 5.0 and its new features which we need to run our business. If adding the support is just a walk in the park then I don't think anyone disagrees if it would be even in the 5.0 beta but at this point its about priorities.

 

If they are planning something better then '$1500 or nothing', for Rift devs, they really need to tell us. It would stop most people from switching products for sure as most of us would just work on our games and add the SDK in later when support for it is available.

 

Here is the relevant section from the blog entry regarding pricing back in August.

 

Well I don't think they are planning anything like that just to rush for some Oculus users all the sudden. There was way more deserter action when UE4 was announced with $20 and still it was later officially said at Unite not too long ago that there are no plans to do any price changes for a while.

 

Maybe UT will offer a Unity Free solution for the OR once it has proven itself capable to become relevant on the market. But before that happens, I think the devs can spend their time with more important stuff.

 

love this, did you make this? lol

 

I don't know if this has already been discussed, but the way I see it...OR support requires post processing effects to function in Unity. This means that short of hardcoding support for OR directly into the Unity engine, the only way to get OR support in Unity Free would be for UT to add support for post processing effects in Unity Free.

So the real question therefore is whether or not UT plans on adding post processing in Unity 5 Free.

Another thing to think about: if you're making a VR game, good graphics are even more important than with regular games since the main draw is the immersion. If Unity Free supported VR but none of the high end visuals/PostFX that come with Pro...well that would mean that UE4 would still be the best option for VR. To remain competitive, you'd need Pro anyways.
So having VR support in Unity Free in reality probably wouldn't really do much to curb losing VR devs to UE4. Oh it might stop some sure, but with only 50k-ish Oculus developers out there, that's not exactly a huge loss, especially if they aren't even paying customers...

 

The whole master race thing was coined by the amazingly awesome yahtzee. You can read more about it here:

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-glorious-pc-gaming-master-race

I just edited the original image.

 

It is true that all the owners of Unity pro are elitist pigs, right?

You've got yours and want to deny the repressed free users! You should be ashamed of yourselves!

All the Unity Pro features (they want) are a right not a want or a privilege!
Everyone knows this to be self-evident!

Don your beret! Vive la révolution!

Back to reality:
The balance of pro vs. free features is fine the way it is, imho.
Unity provides plenty of value to free users already.

 

Damn straight!
As of midnight last night, we released on the other 3 platforms, and we'll be featured a app in all stores. Calm before the storm, this week has been very quiet around here as we switch from the chaos of launching to the chaos of live ops.

So, yea, arguing on the internet is a form of relaxation by comparison.

 

To make it free they have to open a part of the engine that makes the paying customer base dwindle. If all you VR for free in Unity devs are so awesome spend a week on a freelance iOS or android temple run clone or other and pay for the tools you need. Whining doesn't get much sympathy from many of us who pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps and talents. If you cannot get a freelance gig or two to pay for your fantasy then you probably don't have enough ass to cut it in making an interesting game that makes use of the VR, making the squawking and whining amount to so much squawking and whining for someone to foot the bill for your playtime.