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Why are we doing this subscription thing? Our CTO Joachim Ante explains

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by SaraCecilia, Jun 5, 2016.

  1. knr_

    knr_

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    That price point would probably swing things back to Unity for us; that or a similar pricing model like Unreal. We really wouldn't have any issues paying $30,000 on $600,000 gross revenue (netting $570,000); or $60,0000 on $1,200,000 gross revenue (netting $1,140,000); or $90,000 on $1,800,000 in gross revenue (netting $1,710,000). If we succeed, we'll gladly give a percentage back. There are obviously other costs involved to us, like paying everyone on the team and putting something away to fund future development, but we believe that the 5% figure on gross revenue for the tech is more than reasonable.
     
    Last edited: Jun 7, 2016
  2. AlanMattano

    AlanMattano

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    Excuse me J. I'm learning English. And also JS, U.C# and ...cl2cpp My old books in angelscript and unrealscript are in a corner full of dust and thinking what was the real reason I left one U. for this U. ?
    The fast answer, probably similar to Hippocoder: The feeling of freedom.
    That a subscription can't give you because you must be there ready to pay no matters stress ulcer at the end of each month. Just a draft idea to let you know, the biggest note here is 100 and is 7usd. So here we need 18 notes of the biggest ones to pay Pro each month and 5 of them for Plus. And I pay 200 notes of the biggest one for purchasing Unity 5. And I'm happy I was able to do that and take out the stress, fell free.

    Where will be that feeling of freedom for making a indie game in a plus or pro month rent?
    Unity can understand that.

    In more detail here is the problem.

    upload_2016-6-7_4-23-47.png

    With the futures subscription I feel like in jail because means that: I will make a bank account that actually I can't afford..because is far or else. With an extra cost via cards duopolio. So I can only downgrade from pro to free and, if I can pay from home, then "plus" because 125 is far from my actual capacity
    (unless btc) and I prefer spending 125 in Aapl or better Unity stocks if is posible, since I will be married this yr.

    I wish a pro option to pay all in one purchase as upgrade Yr. for just (one platform desktop)

    The feeling of freedom is what some of we are loosing in this new payment proposal.

    Ps: Also I think that in the expensive version Unity is too cheap. bigger prize (bigger than 125 ) can help. Hopping it will be more stable and extra studio license with just 100 feedback votes probably can help Unity costs. (125 pro | 500 studio month or more) a cup of 1.200.000 revenues that ask for royalties fro example 15% in a big pay when you can? etc.
     
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2016
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  3. ShilohGames

    ShilohGames

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    I think is probably true, but I doubt Unity would take the chance.
     
  4. rsodre

    rsodre

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    So basically the money I already paid for Unity licences is lost.
    Or do current perpetual licence owners get a special price during the first 24 month period?
     
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  5. elbows

    elbows

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    Special pricing, but we don't know what until they contact us.
     
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  6. AlanMattano

    AlanMattano

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    The debt creation:
    Sorry if I'm long. The money we pay was not lost, was for fixing bugs and creating the new pay and free services, the improvements, the certification, this web, the upcoming community etc...and this new idea of doble the cost for same users. It can be intercepted like financing a debt. More money you give to it more it grows. If Unity is a team that makes incremental software debt, then can be a problem. Is like when you give to Alias money and they create Maya. If you are a game developer you like that but if you are an industrial designer you do not like it. Plus old 1996 Alias bugs are still there in Maya booleana 2016. That is the reason why we say maya and alias are old products while we look for else.

    I agree with the idea name unique "Unity" naming model (like chrome) but there must be a final version that we can trust and ship and the beta.
    Naming: probably you wish to avoid Unity 2017.6.6.6f | etc.. but for example: Unity 4 in china means literally unity muck and there was a problem? no, because there will be a number 7 version. If you are superstition you can call it 1 Unity but there will be a final vr "number"(I hope) silent updates are great if you have the skills for making a unbuggy product. And a revert Unity option just in case.

    If there is not finish product then is hard to make a game. Each Unity developer makes bugs and is like "the cube", in which room I'm? the Input room?. Game developers soffre all the different bugs. And yes Unity developer must make a final release. I remember when there was a time I press ESC to quit button in my game and crush for month until it was fixed and after that there were other bug problems and I couldn't release my game And that was a real problem. Then I upgrade to 5 and I started one more time my game from scratch thinking "when 5.7 will be publish also my game will be finish and final Vr". A case means a finish tangible product that people can purchase in this case; each month and that Unity can be proud for. Unity is taking that responsibility of all bug fixes and that days are gone! Is it coming out from "debt of bugs". And we are not paying for increasing a exponential bugs expiation.

    I purchase U5 thinking upgrade...there will be no upgrade price?

    SØREN LØVBORG JUNE 7, 2016 AT 7:23 PM /
    We will have an option to pay for a whole year (or even two years) at once, if monthly payments are inconvenient (e.g. in regards to billing clients), though it doesn’t change the actual price.
    replay: http://blogs.unity3d.com/2016/06/05/subscription-why/?replytocom=330208#reply


    Thanks!

    Creating a debt or silly is simple. Creating something with nice proportions is difficult. So fix prize are perceive different in each country in relation of what Unity can offer, and clients will pay in relation of how Unity is performing.

    I do not like the idea of segment prize by country because it force moving people from one country to a cheaper stable country [and it happens and is horrible] or using hiding ip that is not sustentable in a long run . For a segment of consumers Unity can't cost more than al the Adobe cloud for each country.


    Is better to have a big number of posible pay options and different way to pay rather than 2 or 3. I Pay thinking for what Unity can create and in proportion of our environment and natural skills for making money.

    From startup to wealth is better a lather than a 2 step stair to climb. And the steps are the 2 option payment. I wish a slider: stable bug fixing vs open research team.
    So I live in the center of NY or isf i'm making goods I can pay 1000. If I'm in close low budget small complex environment not exactly the 1° world, I can pay 3usd via westerU or else payment system and feel i'm helping too. Force to open a bank account for paying do not helps. Is better something in between the old bank with regular payment and the free option. For this step PayP. was making well because was the middle man connection.

    An automatic payment system service that is link in a mutual account for ...options royalties? (as optional) with a slider and we move the slider over or less the average as an optional, are just examples. Something like the multiplayer service idea but just an account server. Multiple ideas and ways of paying can help to democratization process and do not create more debt. Unity putting a limite of 125 can be a limite of incomes for the Unity community.


    We all wish to grow pretty fast but is better if we all grow slow together in a stable way.
     
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2016
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  7. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    Your length is fine... but that blue italicized font is very difficult to read compared to the default settings.
     
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  8. Rod-Galvao

    Rod-Galvao

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    As Mark Maratea (Principle Gameplay Engineer: Zynga, Ubisoft, EA) said on Quora about big companies not using Unity:

    “Frankly that is all bullshit and unaccpetable for a professional project. I’d estimate we burn around 20% of our week on 'unity issues.'”

    (https://www.quora.com/Why-dont-big-...or-their-game-development/answer/Mark-Maratea)

    It seems Unity Technologies is in trouble. It can’t even produce a stable version anymore.

    It is trying to embrace the whole world of platforms while there is little focus on what matters to its indie customers. Theres *too much* focus on graphics. It's a “shinning graphics fetish” that's not the only selling point for indies. There are old problems with nested prefabs, scene serialization, lost configurations, slow and buggy asset store and lots of glitches, bugs and crashes. We're losing the right to the whole Unity 5.x updates and there won't be the old Unity Pro "major-version-perpertual" anymore.

    And now Unity is asking for more money. Way more money. That looks like a joke. A tragedy-comedy.

    Maybe that’s the main problem.

    When someone bought Unity Pro “Perpetual” he didn’t (or shouldn’t) expect more platforms. It’s great you have more platforms to sell Unity, but don’t expect someone to fund (by this new pricing model) the 20+ newly introduced platforms that one didn't expect and doesn’t need anyway.


    You’re spinning too many plates at the expense of old loyal customers.

    Yesterday I installed Lumberyard, Cryengine and Xenko. I didn’t knew about this Xenko until yesterday. All of them are free alternatives. For desktop developers Lumberyard is promising (a fixed Cryengine). I suppose people are at least having a look at future alternatives. We won’t change now. We'll finish the current game because it would be worst to give up now. But if things stay like this proposition we won't use Unity again. Now things aren't predictable anymore. When will be the next huge price increase bullshit?

    I’m really frustrated right now to have chosen Unity as *the* game engine. I’m client since 2.x and already spent a lot of money on Pro and in the asset store. I decided to trust you in the long run and now I’m locked in, because 200+ assets like shaders, script editors, mecanim animations and the like are not portable. If weren’t that I would not fall for sunk cost fallacy and change right now.

    How long will development hell and horrible marketing take to reach a point of non-return crash?

    So, suggestions:

    • Never say "It’s democratization of development at it’s best" and raise the price this high again. This is called bullshit. Cut costs. And find the money somewhere else, not this way.
    • Focus on the 10 most used platforms
    • Release 2 versions of Unity. Personal would have everything Pro has, except, as the name says, "professionally" looking features like image effects and soft shadows. No dark skin limitation, that doesn't make someone professional and just makes you look bad
    • Unity Pro would still have a perpetual license model like before
    • The main difference here: Unity Pro would be mandatory for those with revenue above ten thousand dollars/year
    • Fix the incomplete Unity Networking
    • Fix the asset store problems. Including the organization mess. Create standards for assets locations, installs, uninstalls, package dependency and version management. The absence of standards creates all kinds of troubles like assets that crash because they have too much free access to hack Unity. Example: Fix things like having to chase duplicate imported classes (and fixing its consequences) because of third party assets have too much liberty to mess with a project. That reflects on your engine anyway. Also, as a plus, create standards for menu creation by third parties (Extensions menu, maybe?).
    • The lack of organisational standards is such that we spend a lot of time tracking which assets were imported in a project. And worst than that, were them updated? To which version? Where are they located? When you have projects with a few dozens assets imported it is a pain to manage. Let alone 100+ assets. That's a lot of creativity time wasted.
    • Fix the script startup initialization problems. One hasn't a guarantee that they will be initialized in a specific order. There are exceptions that make the initialization quasi-random.
    • Fix the bugs, glitches and crashes
    • Fix issues that prevent a better workflow, like nested prefabs.
    • Forget about being better than big boys' graphics. You're already good enough.
    • Buy the Asset Store's most promising de facto standards and transform them into de jure standards. De jure standards help to give predictability to where the platform is going. And predictability means more money spent.
    • Change the name of MonoBehaviour to 'GameComponent' ;)

    What would differentiate you the most is if people says to a friend: "yeah, cryengine/unreal is great but I don't need all of that. Unity is very good and, what's best, it has a plug-and-play approach. It is very easy to create a game with it". So focus on asset integration, development collaboration and intelligent workflow. Better off-the-shelf assets would be great. That would require package dependency management. Suppose one wants to create a "FPS Template Project" using the best assets from the asset store. UFPS, Behavior Designer, AAA quality guns etc. S/he wants to publish it on the asset store also. So s/he would buy those best assets, integrate them and sell them on the asset store as a product that 'requires' UFPS etc to be installed correctly. Asset integration is the key to expand Unity's functionality at a lower cost while creating de facto standards that come included in your competition. For indies, better asset integration is the next big step after the great idea that was the asset store.

    My 2 cents.

    -- EDIT --
    There are better examples of asset integration, those involving script editors. Those would be tools asset creators could use to build upon. An example: a node-based graph editor targeted at asset store's publishers. On its own it has no purpose, but as a product targeted to other publishers it is interesting and saleable. The next step of Unity's ecosystem is to ease the creation of a new layer of fundamental tools. Again that would require standards, install/uninstall processes, package dependency etc. The main point is, although you don't have fuel to build so many editor extensions, you could give it a push with standards and organization.
     
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2016
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  9. Rod-Galvao

    Rod-Galvao

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    Another point of concern about Unity's heath as a company:

    It is great that Joachim, the CTO and founder, is posting here, but how about the CEO showing his face in such an important issue.

    Is he too far from the reality of its customers and ordered the price increase anyway?
     
    Ghosthowl likes this.
  10. MS80

    MS80

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    +1
     
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  11. RoguePointer

    RoguePointer

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    All these posts where customers express how they feel ripped off because features they don't necessarily need or want are being arbitrarily bundled together and used to justify price hikes.

    So I'm fascinated that the response from unity is: customers should subscribe so they can subsidise more features!
     
  12. AlanMattano

    AlanMattano

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    Ok dark will be
     
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  13. salgado18

    salgado18

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    +1 all the way.

    But, you know, I never ever had a problem with script initialization order since I decided that there would be a controller that initializes children, who initializes their children, and so forth. Never rely on Start or Awake or OnEnable for initialization, that's serious cause for trouble. Instances should be initialized by the instantiators, who are initialized by the game controller, etc.

    Otherwise, agree completely. :)
     
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  14. AlanMattano

    AlanMattano

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    [learning english]
    The bug problem: Is better a smaller house made with real stones or bricks than a big house with lots of features that looks very "cool" outside but can burn or blow away.

    I think if Unity is made with silent updates and 3 version:
    • Final
    • AlphaBeta
    • Experimental
    It can force the Unity team to take responsibility in bug fixing more seriously and a tremendous GB amount saver.
     
  15. Rayek

    Rayek

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    Ah, what a shame. Call me old-fashioned, but I severely dislike subscription-only services. I have nothing against companies providing a subscription-based version alongside a perpetual licensing option - but subscription only? That is a no-go for me. I severed all ties with Adobe a couple of years ago when they went Digital Serfdom on me, and switched to various alternatives in my workflow.

    This, of course, is a personal decision.

    For my next (2d) game I intended to use Unity, and pay to remove the splash screen. I am not interested in mobile, so PC/Mac are my target platforms. Aside from the subscription-only caveat, it would be too expensive for me anyway in its new subscription incarnation.

    Perhaps I am wrong, but I cannot fathom what the advantages of these changes would be for small indie developers who are not interested in mobile dev.

    Luckily, many extremely good alternatives exist. This time I have decided to go open source, and start development with Godot which I found to be quite pleasant to work with during my research phase - together with COA tools for 2d puppets in Blender/Godot I have everything I need.

    Now, I already purchased Playmaker and 2d Toolkit. Is it possible to give those away to someone else here?
     
  16. AlanMattano

    AlanMattano

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    That is a nice point. i can't sell my game engine or assets software as i do with, my car, my pc, my old games boxed, my old photoshop boxed, windows, etc.
    Adobe can't by Unity. Unity is more expensive.

    But Unity is open source.
     
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2016
  17. Gruguir

    Gruguir

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    The related and controversial blog post should be called 'Terms of subscriptions, why ?'. I can't stop thinking of : either Unity is in a bad financial position, or we are just being fooled. Maybe Unity want to get rid off a whole range of users, and being seen more as a Triple A middleware rather than an indie friendly one (FYI 'indie' is not only hobbyists). Maybe for evil purposes they try to upset their customers, and i feel sorry to even have to think about that. I removed the superlatives as i don't want it to sound like drama. And for succesfull developers who legitimately don't understand, simply put, i was able, for many years, to afford Unity Pro and then happily spend money on the asset store, soon i won't. It's not just me, i'm worried of the repercussions on the community.
     
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  18. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    Unity isn't open source. You must be referring to another engine.
     
  19. axianical

    axianical

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    Obviously some people are just completely opposed to a subscription based service...but for me, and I think a lot of others, it isn't the subscription that is the problem. The problem is in the cost vs perceived value.

    For myself, I see no value in Plus, and Pro is not worth it at this time either.
    Remove the splash on Plus, and I think a lot of Personal users will bump up to Plus.
     
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  20. AlanMattano

    AlanMattano

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    Yes sorry Unity is not open source. But is possible to contribute for same parts.
     
  21. wm-VR

    wm-VR

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    In my opinion making a product completely for free (like UT did) only works with the royality tier.

    The more features for instance UNREAL delivers as a free-engine, the higher the chance to get royalitys from a developer. It's simple math and very comprehensible. They don't have price-issues. It's fair and easy to understand for everyone.

    A clear selling point also.

    Unbenannt-2.jpg
    compared to UT's "free"

    Pasted-image-at-2016_06_01-09_10-AM.png
    Screen Shot 2016-05-31 at 20.23.39.png

    This is almost an invitation to start a debate about splash, dark-skin, network-features, UT for education, why paying so much more as a desktop user and and other "should-haves or not-haves" ...

    UT has the problem that they also deliver UT and all it's features for free and now they don't now how to get money. I mean ... u set something for free and know u want 125$ if u want a really "free" version?

    Additional features aren't a good selling point, obviousely. I buy ONE asset in the asset-store when I need it. I don't wannt to spend 500 $ for the whole asset-store... just as a logical comparison.

    UT should go back to the old days. A clear distinction to the unreal-engine. A simple convincing selling point and a fair price. All engine-features only in PRO version. On the other hand no royalitys.
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2016
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  22. Ostwind

    Ostwind

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    Feature cut from free just does not work anymore these days. Most of the new users would just skip and use another engine even if all features would be behind one time $10 fee or subscription.
     
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  23. wm-VR

    wm-VR

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    There is a personal/free and a PRO version out there. I don't know exactly what engine u talk about but for me it's clear that there is a feature cut. Otherwise we would not need a "pro". Unreal for instance don't have a "Pro". But a market u can buy assets like unity have. Unity could also put the "engine-extentions" like cloud-build in there. That would be fair.

    Both companys seems to have a different understanding of "free" and "free".

    free and paying royalitys ... fine.
    but "free" and paying 125$ for "really free" and all features like black-skin?

    Maybe thats why UT calls it "Personal" and not free ... idk... this topic and this price-increase just annoys me since days. sry for renting here.
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2016
  24. Ostwind

    Ostwind

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    I was talking about Unity and thought you were referring to Unity 4 style free/pro difference when you said back to the old days :)
     
  25. wm-VR

    wm-VR

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    That's true. I was referring to UT4. But the point is, that I got more than the skin and the splash in the old times.
    It wasn't free at all but I gladly paid to get all features and I did not feel betrayed. It was one of the best days in my life when my father bought me unity 4 and 5 to support me. (in case of UT 5 before they announced that it will be free, I pre-ordered it)

    And above that: I had more features to compete with all the "free's" out there ... special beta access to U5 for instance. How exiting it was when i downloaded U5 for the very first time before the rest had access to.

    Today it's all free and I get .. one moment ... let me think... now it comes up to my mind: a black screen and the splash option.

    In other words: In the past I had the feeling to get something valuable for the money. It was worth it. I paid for something I needed.

    I told Unity my story ... u know what they answered me? "Ask for a refund. U5 is free. Pay when u need it". They used not exactly that words but that was the essence.
    Compared with my best day when i bought it - that was my worst day when Unity told me that "I'am not used to be a Pro-user".

    No offense here. Don't get me wrong :)
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2016
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  26. salgado18

    salgado18

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    I think that's the biggest mistake Unity has made in their entire career: making it completely Free without a good and clear plan of revenue.
     
  27. wm-VR

    wm-VR

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    I understand that it is a challenging issue for UT to find a suitable business-solution.
    Unreal always had the royalitys so it was easy for them to cut off ("just") the monthly fee.

    But unity has no royalitys. Never had. Setting their engine free means: there is no way to get revenue.
    Adding tons of features, the vast majority don't need, isn't obviousely a suitable solution for most of us.

    On the other hand it seems that after hundreds of post about this huge price increase UT can't make any big changes in favor of their customers. It seems the span of a possible price reduction isn't given. It seems to me they are struggeling with their business a bit. They just talk about considering a semi-customizable splash screen for Plus. I do not expect any big changes, to be honest regarding to the price.

    It seems UT needs a strong partner as a shelter. Then they get the opportunity to try out new business-solutions like royalitys or PRO for 35$ a month in order to see if it fits or not. And everything without worries about employee's may loosing their job or bankruptcy. I don't want to be the prophet of doom and gloom now but maybe it would be a chance to grow into higher levels as a business.


     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2016
  28. AlanMattano

    AlanMattano

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    Unity is giving a lot. But...
    For example: Why Star Citizen didn't choose Unity?
    Posible answer link.
    Making open sections of Unity code can help.

    Giving away Unity community:
    If Unity gives not more than 5% of the shareholders stocks in to the community. (subsidization[In this way Unity is giving away 5% in its entire life to make it grow more than 5%] carrot hard to implement?). There is always the problem of the product quality direction, that I hope for the best.
     
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2016
  29. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    That's like asking why did Square Enix choose Unreal? It's probably the best fit for them.

    It's pretty simple what I want out of Unity, sort out some of the long standing issues and have feature parity with CE / UE. Then I give them money / everyone is happy.!
     
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  30. makeshiftwings

    makeshiftwings

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    Personally, I think I'm in the same boat as many people on the forums: I have a Pro license, but I'm not making $100,000 so I don't actually need it. I updated my Pro 4 license to 5 at the time because I had high hopes for Level 11, the new services, early beta access, and I wanted to keep the dark skin. Also I like Unity and wanted to give them some money to help them out. Since then, Level 11 has been mostly useless, I didn't end up actually using any services because they're still mostly broken, and the betas have all been far too broken to actually use for an extended period of time. The dark skin still looks good though. If I don't release my current game and make $100,000 with it by the time the subscription change happens, I will not be subscribing since the only thing it would really get me is the dark skin, and while I want that, like many others have said, forcing me to pay for that alone feels incredibly petty. In my opinion, pricing Pro this high while simultaneously giving the free version all the features is just going to make everyone who hasn't hit the $100,000 cap stop subscribing. I can't think of why I might want to keep Pro at all if I don't need it, and that seems like a bad thing for Unity.
     
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  31. AlanMattano

    AlanMattano

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    You are also financing the free users. In that case if you downgrade from Pro to free because you can't afford it, you will be subsidiary by the Pro ( like you are doing now and you know that ).
     
    Last edited: Jun 16, 2016
  32. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    No, they are not financing the free users. The only thing Unity Personal consumes that is not already being consumed by Unity Pro and Enterprise users is bandwidth. Unless you're hosting the servers in Antarctica the cost of maintaining the bandwidth is pennies at best per download and is more than made up by Asset Store purchases.

    Besides if we're going to use this line of reasoning then you're neglecting to consider the Enterprise users. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if the bulk of Unity's income came from Enterprise licenses.
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2016
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  33. tiggus

    tiggus

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    I don't understand why the differentation between the tiers cannot just be based on revenue. Get rid of pretty much everything else and let the cloud services stand on their own with separate sub plans for those that want them - that is a simplified plan.

    When you sign up for services on Amazon or Azure you don't buy "pro" you pick and choose what you want.
     
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  34. salgado18

    salgado18

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    That is also an interesting plan.
     
  35. knr_

    knr_

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    Xenko will have incredible graphics capabilities for desktop and consoles as well as mobile. Take a Silicon Studios (the company that makes Xenko) separate renderer product, Mizuchi, and their optical effects middleware, Yebis. They were a part of Silicon Graphics back in the day.

    Looking at the source of their engine from Github, they are clearly doing things right if the goal is to create an engine that uses C#. Its incredibly well organized and easy to change stuff to fit one's specific needs.
     
  36. JohnSmith1915

    JohnSmith1915

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    If you need explain same thing many times is because you take a bad choice, then with this new prices Unity will be lost almost pro users.
     
  37. Dogcomplex

    Dogcomplex

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    Jul 10, 2012
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    This makes me sad, I purchased pro in version 4 while it was promised certain things, then they changed to version 5 without finishing that which was already promised so I updated to 5. Now they say you don't get the new features unless I pay monthly at double the cost.

    Sounds a little like extortion to me but whatever its their product, just means I'll make the move to Unreal sooner vs later.

    Good luck Unity i think you might need it.
     
    elias_t likes this.
  38. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    What promised features are you referring to?
     
  39. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    Wait... it was the best day when your dad got you a license, but the worst day when Unity gave that same thing to everyone?

    Objectively speaking, why? That great thing your dad did for you they did for everyone. How is that anything other than fantastic?

    Same deal with not wanting your money until you bust the $100k limit. Isn't that a good thing? Is there nothing else you could spend that on to help your game dev? New hardware to test on? Other software? Assets? Hiring a skill you don't have? Being able to put more time into your game?
     
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  40. Rod-Galvao

    Rod-Galvao

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    A lot of us already bought Unity Pro before all this changes.
    You may wonder why someone would buy a license before a 100k/year revenue.
    Unity Free now have a lot of features that once had only in Pro, like image post-processing effects, native code integration, soft shadows, profiler etc.
    Also, when subscriptions were introduced buying Pro was still a better deal.

    So, for those commited to enter this industry owning Pro was always a better alternative. Those same people, that helped fund this company and decided to trust UT in the long run, are now getting the worst deal ever. From ~$30/month to $125/month.

    My bet is UT did the same mistake you did, not knowing the customers. Like: "Hey, those that own Pro can afford $125/month, since they already make 100k/year". And now there are a lot of angry people.
     
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  41. makeshiftwings

    makeshiftwings

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    To add to my last post, I just want to be clear that I'm not really angry about this change or anything; I think it's cool that so much of what used to be Pro-only is now free. I'm just saying that at this point, since almost everything is in Free, I don't see a point in paying for Pro at all unless you have to because of the $100,000 cap. The only thing I'll be missing is the dark skin, and that will probably continue to annoy me every day and make Unity a much worse experience, but I'm not going to subscribe to a monthly service just to get the better color scheme. I want to support Unity, and I'd be happy to give them money for something, but paying such a large amount just to get a non-painful UI just feels like a cheap shot; I can't do that. Maybe if I thought the "Asset Store Packs" were going to be awesome I'd get the middle tier, but I'm guessing that it's actually just a dialing back of Level 11 so that we'll be getting even less than we get now.
     
  42. mdrotar

    mdrotar

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    Aug 26, 2013
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    Check out today's announcement: http://blogs.unity3d.com/2016/06/16/evolution-of-our-products-and-pricing/
    It's still a subscription but Plus is a much more attractive tier now.
     
  43. makeshiftwings

    makeshiftwings

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    Ah I hadn't seen that. Removing the slpash screen from Plus makes it a little more attractive, but in this case I'd only buy it when the game is about to release; I'd spend the whole development cycle using Free. In the old days, there were valid reasons to want to have Pro during development even if your game wasn't released yet. In 4.0, you'd have to buy Pro before release if you wanted to use any of the features. Now, there's almost no point to having Pro (or Plus) during development; you just buy Plus when you release to get rid of the splash screen and then buy Pro when you're forced to due to high sales. To me, unless I'm actually getting something useful out of a piece of software, I can't see why I'd pay for it when there's a free version available. The few extra features you get with Plus and Pro seem mostly useless during actual development: you don't need Analytics or Ads until you're actually ready to release. Cloud build could be useful but I just haven't been able to do anything with it due to how our repository is structured. Dark skin is obviously super useful and something that all devs want, but again, I can't justify paying $35 per seat per month just to get the correct UI.
     
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  44. angus_davidson

    angus_davidson

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    Apologies for quoting a long post, however, it makes a very important point about the Differences. It invokes a major point for us in education. Why are we still not allowed to use personal editions in teaching? Likewise, why is their no on-site license manager yet? This having to do everything via online authentication every time the program is run is a major issue. If you seriously don't want to alienate your user base even more than you have since the Unite announcements I suggest you also look at bringing changes to the people who will in the future be creating companies and buying your pro version.
     
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  45. tswalk

    tswalk

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    agreed. Pro would seem to be even more un-appealing to me now more than ever... what's the point of it now? pro tier services? that's it?
     
    makeshiftwings likes this.
  46. makeshiftwings

    makeshiftwings

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    Question: Once you switch to subscription-only and no-major-versions, are you going to have multiple branches? Like a "stable" and "experimental" branch? Will there be a beta branch? Are you thinking of splitting more things up into components with separate installers? I think it would be a bad idea to only have one main branch such that needed bug fixes are always bundled with new experimental breaking features.
     
  47. SteveJ

    SteveJ

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    Isn't the simple answer that Pro is for developers earning more than $200K per year from Unity development? In addition, to the slightly different service tiers.
     
  48. makeshiftwings

    makeshiftwings

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    Yeah, we're just saying that there used to be other reasons to buy Pro. Now there's no point at all to buying it unless you are currently making $200K per year from Unity dev. So it seems like a strange choice from Unity; one that can only result in them having fewer Pro customers.
     
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  49. SteveJ

    SteveJ

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    Yeah I've been thinking about that too. It IS kind of strange. As many of you have said, there used to be good reasons to own Pro. When I bought it (3.x), those reasons were things like occlusion culling, light-mapping, Profiler... i.e. compelling reasons. Now it does seem that the reasons are less apparent, but maybe that's intentional. Unity (the company) are probably quite aware of the number of developers out there making more than 200K who are going to be purchasing a Pro subscription - or more importantly, multiple SEATS of Pro subscription. Maybe they're happy with those numbers. Maybe they EXPECT that a lot of us lower-earning indies will be moving to Plus or Free, and they're fine with that.

    For me personally, I'll probably be trading my Pro days in for a Plus subscription. I'm more than happy to pay SOMETHING for the primary tool that I use, but the feature differences between Plus and Pro (for me) don't justify the additional cost. And, I'm earning under 200K from Unity development.
     
  50. tswalk

    tswalk

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    exactly, when I purchased into 4.x there were very good reasons.. several in fact.

    ditto, the 'transition' offer being promoted in monetary terms makes "no sense" for someone like myself.