New products and prices coming soon

So, basically many pro users here pay for pro, only for the splash screen? So what about a separated cheap option only for that?

 

So let me get this straight... Unity is literally taking everything people have complained about for the last 2 years and ramped those exact things up to make it even worse?

Okay, what is the fascination with "pro-ing" the dark skin and splash screen? These are two things that shouldn't even be on the table when it comes to licensing. It has nothing to do with professionalism! Is the team putting these proposals together so completely clueless that they actually can't come up with any better ideas than that? Really?

I don't know why I'm even bothering to criticize these changes, it's extremely clear that nothing we - the actual userbase - are saying is being taken into consideration.

 

The only question is, what kind of guarantee you've got that there won't have another price hike at the next unite ? Basically if this one pass, then it means that your customers are locked in the product. So why not another 5x price increase next year ?

 

I have the exact same opinion.

Yes, this is really great for multiplatform, but if you don't want multiplatform, you end up paying much much more for Pro or Plus. This is pretty bad for any team doing single-platform development.

The new pricing model now inverts the complains about the pricing and platforms. Now the multi-platform is good but single-platform is not.

I don't even mind the splash screen that much. I've been using the Unity's logo in my videos for a long time, on purpose, since i liked showing that my game was using Unity, and i'll have it in my game when it launches, but the dark skin is probably something i find necessary for me. Every single software i use has many themes and custom made themes, except for Unity. It's like a feature but it's not.

 

I am a Unity Personal user. The plus plan is most likely targeting current free users who want to optimize their game before release. We have a team of 6, three using Unity. So my guess is if we want to use it for optimization (which really means analytics and cloud), we would need to purchase 3 licenses for a month or so. Not too bad and probably could do. I don't care about the splash screen so that is not an issue.

However, there are other options for both analytics and cloud. We would have to look carefully about whether it is worth getting tied to a subscription of $150, even if only for a couple of months.

As for the other options, how are they useful to us? Dark screen? My eyes actually do better with the light screen and neither of my programmers care. Flexible seats? We get free seats with Unity Personal. Our networking will not use Unity's services so not a problem.

So..not even tempted, sorry.

If we make over 100k, we will have the issue of having to pay for mobile that we don't use. Of course, maybe we will use them by then. I will worry about that when or a big IF, that happens.

I do feel for the pro users that already hit that 100k and now will have to double the fees and those that want perpetual instead of subscriptions. On the other hand, hard to feel sorry for someone who made 100k already! Those small sized teams though will probably hurt the most.

 

But... that's what it said all the time. The "Personal Edition" was the problem, and appearantly that part is removed?

All is fine then!

 

Absofuc*inglutely !!!
I already have gotten and paid for all the assets I need, and don't need the extra bloatware in Plus to justify a paid free version of Unity that still has the UT splash screen.

 

All that changes for free users is the splash screen, so yeah, they can't really complain.

 

All subscriptions are on a yearly basis, you can't get one for "a couple of months".

 

It's not double the fee, it's triple, quadruple, and even x5 or x6, depending on the platforms you use and the size of your team. It is ridiculous.

The Plus plan absolutely fails, I don't know who came up with it, but I can't imagine any Personal users switching, as it brings absolutely nothing important to the table.

 

With Unity Plus you can use monthly, but you pay more. 49$ instead of 35$ : http://blogs.unity3d.com/2016/05/31/new-products-and-prices/

For Unity Pro, it is a 1 year commitment

 

Actually, you can get the Plus for a couple of months but it cost $49 a month.

 

You can with Plus. It's $35/month for a 12 month plan. $49/month, for a monthly plan.

 

I am happy about that too...but I can no longer say "Unity Personal Edition" in a sexy voice. So some trade-offs.

 

I believe that is changing in the free version as well.

 

And as for Pro -- as we are royalties free, we ask for a 12 month commitment for new Unity Pro, after which you'll move onto monthly subscription without contract.

 

BTW, the asset bundles....more than likely they will be stuff we already purchased. I have that issue with the Speedtree Modeler. I rarely get a tree I don't already have.

So..kind of like throwing dice. Not worth the cost. I would prefer to buy only the assets I need, not ones picked out for me...which probably would never be used.

 

IMHO, Plus should have all the PRO benefits for 1 platform (except services), all other platforms being "Personal".

 

I did exactly that. Not because i would ever hit the limit of 100k. I made a few bucks on the side like a visualisation of an item or some VR-Demos. Nothing fancy and nothing to get rich from.
So far i bought Unity Pro to support unity as a company because to me it was a very fair pricing model from a cool company. I could chose what i needed (i never needed anything like iOS Android or such). Getting rid of the SplashScreen was the final positive aspect. I want things to look how i want them to look. Immersion from the very start.

But that all changes now. They force iOS and Android and what not on to me and for this "services" they charge alot more. So much more, that i can not afford it anymore.
At the moment it looks like they made the decision for me and i feel very unwanted by the company that i believed in.

 

Just as an aside... I freakin' loved RealBasic!

 

If you are not profitable (statistically 90% of the time), Unity still kept the money the entire 12 months
Unreal got 0 90% of the time (and you paid 0).

The model: pay "before you succeed, and even if your not", was interesting with a low price. Now that it became an investment, it's a lot less interesting.
The money you spend on unity license, is money you can't spend on paying people.

 

I'm sure they can, I know I could, but i'd still not be happy with this subscription pricing over perpetual because at best its a hike of $750 or at worse $2250 over a two year span, depending on which add-ons, if any, you would would have updated.

This is one of the issues with the subscription plan its is disproportionately hitting a good number, i'd even argue considerable number of Unity's user base, resulting on average with a doubling of what Unity used to cost. For example prior to these new plans I might pay $1500 every two years for Unity Pro and iOS. Now with these new plans I'm paying $3000! Sure I get the other mobile platform, but I didn't care in the first place.

 

You have to be a great game and approved by epic to use the unreal splash screen. I maybe wrong with epic policy but there are crap games made with unreal that do not have the splash screen. They only want the best showing their logo. Unity is different beast allowing everything to show the logo.

 

Forgive me if this turns out to be a silly question. But how do you know the cost when they haven't given you your personal upgrade offer price yet?

For example I had a perpetual Unity 4 Pro desktop license. When 5 came out I used a subscription to licence it, and the monthly price for me was way lower than it would have been if I didn't own 4 already.

 

I don't think that would work for majority of the users unless it would be split into only categories as in desktop/mobile which it already kinda was already but in a unfair way to mobile devs. Most mobile devs want of course to release at least to both iOS and Android and on desktop it's now almost all about having support for all three or two platforms.

Note to everyone that currently every pro mobile dev not interested about desktop has been suffering for paying extra pro cost for years.

 

But if you then cancel when in the monthly phase, and then re-sign up later, you have another 12 month commitment?

 

So - much - this.

Here's why: on mobile, every second until your player is playing your game counts.

*every* second.

I don't care how short or customizable it is, any splash screen at all is an app killer. That first run is vitally important to getting people to play your game, and that 5 seconds of splash screen is 5 seconds of time they're not playing.

A compromize: first run, no splash? Any following runs, splash.

 

First up, I think Unity missed a trick by not making the new Pro subscription cover the first 2-4 seats for smaller developers. They'll still have the cash cow of bigger developers throwing per-seat money at them, but allowing small teams a bit of flexibility would certainly make the Pro option a lot more palatable and encourage more use of the new team based tools.

We're considering a drop to the free version now from Pro + iOS Subscription. Currently our self published titles are under the $100k a year mark and with the market awash with Unity Personal games, I don't think having the Made With Unity (Cheaply) splash screen on the front makes much of a difference any more.
As we're not doing f2P games with a big team none of the other Pro features really seem worth it. Certainly not 'free' assets as we create our own.

The current pricing model of Unity Pro does seem now to be towards a money grab from the bigger studios who are already invested in Unity and can't retrain for another couple of years, publicity from all the free users and basically being almost entirely the wrong model for anyone in between. It's great if you're learning to code and hoping to be employed in a big company (or a code/asset farm somewhere maybe) but not such a great deal if you're a self publishing indie with professional standards.

What's the scenario for developers who drop from Unity Pro to Unity Free? Will all our projects import into Unity Free or do we have to effectively scrap them?

 

So that makes it okay? At least you got what you paid for, more platforms...and you could pay for only one platform if you wished. Desktop only users or those using only one mobile platform are paying for more than they need.

 

... and now you are locked into it. So the question then is what are the terms of the special deal contract? Can Unity increase the cost per month on a whim? Aren't you going to be forced over to this new pricing model sometime in the future, will you still get such a good deal?

Its another area that concerns me, as Unity roll out this subscription change that they will offer decent deals to existing users, but these will be a one off, geared to get you on-board now, but then faced with paying the full price afterwards. Otherwise what is the point? If they can make the pricing more attractive to existing users why not simply do that in the price plan to start with, why hide it all behind special deals?

 

I'm not locked into it, since I subscribed far more than 12 months ago so can cancel at any time.

The new pricing model is not worse for me because I already moved to subscription. The new pro pricing, even if I don't factor in the extra platforms I get, is about the same price as what my upgrade deal subscription was. And since they will offer me an upgrade deal on the new subscription model, it will be even cheaper still.

Unless I've missed something I'm assuming that all the people complaining about increased cost and paying for things they don't need, are people who haven't already switched over to subscription and were used to the perpetual licensing model instead? Because I don't see how the new model is worse value or greater cost for anyone already on a subscription, but maybe I missed something?

 

If you are asking them for clarification it's probably best to ask them for clarification rather than accuse them outright of hiding it. Is it hidden or just plain not released yet proposal? Last I checked it's still being worked up.

What's the confusing part?

Maybe some kind of bundle deal is possible for smaller devs, a bit like steam where you can buy 4 copies...

It's good you posted this, as far as I can tell Unity are interested in real thoughts about it and real voices rather than just drama or threats (which have sadly happened earlier in the thread). So do voice what would make it work for you if it doesn't at the moment - perhaps good things will come of it.

 

Good question!
The keywords are in the last phrase of my reply: "At the moment it looks like..."
I will see what comes my way now.
But i have no high hopes. I doubt they will be able to make me jump around in my room yelling: "Yes! Thats my company! This is how every company should do it! F*** [list of competition] Haha... in your face!"
Ahh well... i am sad right now... better go outside and grab a few beers and not disturb this thread much longer.

 

Everyone has spoken their concerns, so I'll just add some suggestions, hope everyone agrees:

1. Unity Free with splash screen, Unity Plus without splash, Unity Pro adds all other features

2. Dark theme adds nothing of value, either give it to everyone or don't put it in price tables

3. The splash screen, instead of a full-screen animation, could be a small watermark at the corner of the screen, that is forced over for 5 seconds or a bit more. Then, either one of the two:
- Watermark is forced on Free, over everything, off for everyone else; or
- Watermark forced on Free, comes forced in the initial splash then vanishes as the first scene is loaded in Plus, off in Pro

I'm trying to think here of benefits both for customers and UT. People who want to earn money with their work should be able to disable the splash for a small entry price, and people who want the power of development should be able to get them for an extra premium.

Also, in the scenario above, where splash is only for Free and features only for Pro, why not make Plus a $20 monthly sub? I'd subscribe that as a hobbyist making small games, even with no revenue!

 

Nothing is changed for personal (free) users, so there's not much to complain about. However, the "plus" version is not actually much of an improvement for anyone except for those users who complained vehemently about their eyes burning from the light UI skin. It doesn't seem like a demographic worth targeting.

How would charging $35/mo to remove the splash screen not make them money?

It's common knowledge that the Unity splash screen is the badge of a bad game. No, not every game with the Unity splash screen is a bad game, but the stigma is very real. It is also painfully clear that people are willing to pay to remove the Unity splash screen because they do not want that stigma attached to their game, but don't need the rest of the Pro perks. This was Unity's opportunity to fill that need and bring in that middle-tier between personal and pro. And what did they do? They made a middle-tier with a bunch of unnecessary garbage features and NOT the ability to remove the splash screen.

So why keep forcing the splash screen even in this middle-tier? Either the people at Unity making these decisions are hopelessly clueless, or, they know exactly how damaging the Unity splash screen is to a game developer's reputation and they're exploiting that. What they're really selling is the ability to disassociate yourself from the likes of asset flippers. Either way, that's pretty sad. And frustrating to Unity users. Think about it from the perspective of a desktop developer. Unity finally announces the missing middle-tier and what's the result? Instead of the happy medium everyone was begging for, their cost just increased from $75/mo to $125/mo.

So if can you understand that, then it's pretty clear why people are upset.

Those words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.

 

Paid for what? more platforms as in 2 platforms for $4500? while on desktop pro users got 4-8 platforms for $1500 It was never fair. On mobile you pretty much always need both major platforms cause it's all social media, friends etc.

In every official survey I said that I hated this mobile 3x cost policy more and more as we paid more while a lot of the development features went only to desktop/webgl/vr etc.

edit: new costs are not good for nearly anyone, its 2-6x increase in costs

 

Really? That pretty much makes free only useful for prototyping. Won't help anyone sell a game and buy Pro.

 

Wrong. One of the main problems (I'm a moderator here so I read a lot more of what people say than most do) was that they strongly objected to the wording of the splash screen. They didn't want to be associated with "personal" and Unity did listen, and now free users get "Made with Unity" which is something that is very welcomed by them.

It might make them less than you think. Fewer people going pro may still make them more money for that particular reason than a few people wanting splash removal. Remember, it's only a smaller percentage of people who actually get to that point where removing a splash is important. A lot of voices were just super unhappy about splash wording, and that got fixed.

In addition, Sara pointed out that the plus edition may still be open to suggestions regarding splash, such as extended customisation, or a middle ground that pleases everyone (such a hard job tbh, considering the free edition is really kinda great at this point).

Please keep suggestions flowing and thoughts everyone.

 

Please remove the splash screen and revenue limit for plus. The splash screen has been tainted for a long time. The revenue limit although many wont reach still imposes a restriction.

 

Huh? lol

Talking about the new prices...at the moment, you pay more because you are developing on more platforms. Yes, I know..you don't use desktop, but Unity makes you buy desktop, maybe because you may actually use the desktop to develop, or most do. Even if you don't build to desktop, you might need to use it. That is only a guess...

If I used Pro, I would now pay for only desktop.

However, in the future, I would have to pay for mobile platforms too, all of them. The price goes up for those who just develop on desktop. I would pay more but not get anything of any value to me for the extra money.

For those who use mobile platforms, your price is going down, but you get more. I am happy for you.

Just because you paid for all these years, does not mean it is okay to now turn the issue. Revenge is not good for the market. Look at all the people here who use only desktop who are now considering going to Unity Personal.

I happen to agree with you that the cost of all three platforms for you all these years was not good for business.

Unity should have offered a Pro for Desktop only at the original price.

 

Nobody would pay for Mac/Linux separately because those markets are so small. iOS/Android are big enough on their own to warrant it.

 

Maybe, but it seems to be doing wonders to UT's bottom line. It's as if they know very well the stigma attached to the Unity splash screen, and are happy to charge a premium in exchange for removing it.

It's kind of brilliant actually. When life gives you lemons, give them away for free and charge a king's ransom for water and sugar.

 

I feel like more people would be OK with this if it were just honestly framed as a price increase instead of a "restructuring" with this new $35/month tier that seemingly serves nobody. Anyone on the smaller and lower revenue end can almost certainly get by without the stuff in Unity Plus, and if you can't get by with Unity Personal, you'll probably be going straight to Unity Pro.

 

I have bought perpetual license. Although i don't needed it 100%. I wanted to get dirty with Unity 5 beta. But still haven't refunded after subscription model was going into action. Simply because I said to myself that I will support Unity, maybe I will use level eleven and beta access was plus. (although in actual phase I do not use it) Simply from rational side of view, personal edition is good enough for me. I would like to believe that priority support for bugs is important thing. But sorry, I wouldn't pay for it based on my empiric experience.

I'm using only desktop platform.

I was thinking that after two years I will update for 600$. And I willl go on while supporting Unity.
That means 25$ per month. Now it looks like I will need to pay 125$ monthly? So basically you will force me to downgrade to personal edition... (I'm not exceeding revenue limit). So you basically repel all enthusiasts.

I'm not saying that new pricing is total disaster. Users of all platforms are probably happy. But you are hurting one platform segment very badly... For me price is raising 5x times? And I will not get anything for it. Not very good trade.

Of course we don't know what will you offer as upgrade. But still this may be only small onetime patch, that will start to bleed with next upgrade...

P.S.:
here is my project Virtual-O on Steam Greenlight
I do not need advertisement I'm just trying to make my opinion personal.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=604035651

Best regards
Peter

 

Oops, turns out I was completely and utterly misremembering what price I was paying for pro subscription in the first 12 months after upgrading from 4 perpetual. It was way, way cheaper than I remembered. But when the 12 months ended and my circumstances required me to go flexible rather than commit to another 12 months, the price I had to pay went up, almost twice as much per month as I had paid per month for the first 12 months. Still a bit less than the standard pro subscription price that was announced today though. So now I'm really intrigued to find out what price they will offer me.

Looking back at what prices I actually had reminded me quite how horrified and displeased I was when I realised that the 'reward' I got for completing a 12 month commitment was to either make another 12 month commitment or see an instant hike in how much I was paying per month.

 

I'll just prefix this with.. I don't care about a splashscreen for publishing its not unprofessional if the engine you're using wants to advertise the platform at loading... So long as they don't make it look unprofessional because how its done, how it looks etc.. I do care about, I think some of these pricing changes will find many developers under the 100k threshold just going off pro and back to publishing with a splashscreen its not a big deal really..

Gamers playing your game and knowing what the engine its running with is fine with me (any performance/engine bugs that as a developer cannot be fixed because it relies on Unity fixing the issues, well those players will be more informed about the engine its running on ) .. All I really care about is if the splashscreen looks bad..ie the one introduced in 5.4, that's really my personal opinion on it, instant flash of white background loading up ain't my preference and seeing that everytime I test the game on a device or desktop.. not to mention loading time seems longer than necessary. I'd prefere a black background really but certainly not worth paying 125$ that's for sure.. Make the splashscreen look better basically.. or give developers the option to choose from a few different ones (that really should have been part of the Plus product from the start).. that will fit with their game style. The animated one was fine.. I don't like an all white background splashscreen its just friggin blinding!

Anyway seems like the only good deal here is for studio's/devs that were paying the extra licensing fees for mobile platforms... the license fee reduction looks good for them, and Unity with the ad platform I'll assume many mobile developers are using, don't Unity already make money additional money on that directly from ad partners.

For users wanting to publish to PC platform maybe mac/linux the pro licensing increase kinda sucks (for an indie...for a successful game /studio the costs might be fine, depending on how few employees), but for indie's, just to remove that currently bad looking splash screen not really worth it. Which shouldn't even be an issue really, would think Unity would want a professional looking splash screen for their game engine, yet its seems to be a deliberate design choice to make look like bad in 5.4 beta.

So Unity Plus sits in the void for me..at a price that is neither attractive for removing a lame splashscreen or having a choice on it (like dark background instead of white), or 35$ to use a dark editor gui... the only incentive to it seems to be the Asset store bundle ...no idea what that would be like..I think Unity's lack of built in tools have to be supplemented by assets anyway.

So the plus model ain't worth it for me, that 35$ (or 50$! for 1 month :S) better off putting that towards buying the assets that you will need to license for your game or to improve Unity increasingly poor looking feature toolset... as said before UE4 pace at feature/engine improvements is getting better while Unity have gone all in on services.. what is going on with actual low hanging fruit editor improvements that are talked about and never seen..that roadmap! No much insight into 5.5 features, and we don't have the source to fix and improve these 'little things' how long do we have to wait for you to do it. Or to get the clue that certain assets are popular, but performance of them in editor using c# could be a lot better if they were just native to the engine.

And the services offered with Cloud/Analytics/Multiplayer .... these services for me are for the most part completely unnecessary. Yeh they offer uses, just don't see a lot of value in them even though the licensing fees are going towards providing them and pushing developers towards using them.

The Pro license fee increase, that's off putting for PC desktop publishing imo.. maybe not so much if you consider previous costs to multiplatform publishing or knowing you're going to release a successful title...

It really does make the case for switching engine like Cryengine a compelling choice where initial investment and longterm license costs are a concern.. Or the Unreal way where you only pay back when you have success with a game, both seem more indie friendly for actually selling a game with no idea on how well it will do ie the royalty model....though I'd take a look at it some more to be sure.

So its totally fine if you're happy with publishing a game with the engines own splash screen .. nothing has changed... its really just how the pricing changes and product tier benefits don't seem to have been completely thought out or not enough options to keep all happy. Kinda figure Unity thought these changes would go down better than they have thinking most would be happy with the Plus tier.. but its not for those already paying previous pro costs, its def got more expensive. I think many would just like a cheaper way to use a darker gui.. than paying 35$ for a bunch of extras they probably don't really want... Or going pro just to publish a game without a meh looking splashscreen for 125$ a month.

I can only assume the pro price increase is to fund the development of awesome Unity features...which with all of 5.x really hasn't been much. I think I could be using 4.6 and not notice a huge difference apart from the bug fixes in 5.3 fixing mainly bugs from 5.x issues. And I think that says more about the slowness of progress on development features, editor enhancements.. unet phase2 anyone? nested prefabs?

And maybe next time make Unite less about --Ads, Analytics, Marketing.... because honestly it would have been more fun to have watched the Unity hack week team project showcases.. it was just kinda boring, though Clive Downie's presentations do sell it well it.

Well that's my take on it.. Unity is great engine but damn got so much to sort out.

 

I wouldn't expect their "personalized" offers to be too generous. Even if the price will be lower, it's just for the first period. Later you'll be paying the full price.

 

The editor is not the same as developing for desktop, heck even the installer has desktop platforms as their own separate installers . I've been only developing for 2 platforms or could even say only one if I compare it to the way people say they dev for "desktop". They could have disabled the desktop output ages ago when they switched to more modular distribution of runtime players. It could be said iOS and Android are not much different target than PC/Mac/Linux or than PC with all VR supported.

I also did not say anything about revenging or etc. but just gave general comment when previously multiple comments seemed to be only desktop oriented with suggestions making it even worse for mobile devs than it already is. The new pricing scheme is not better and my price is not going down. At the moment is seems it will be doubled while I see that for desktop users it will be even more.

Personally I think this new pricing scheme is a disaster with all the current info available and will also have to research other alternatives. Only way stick with Unity would be to have find a way to utilize all the features that are included so I would have to start doing desktop too. Cloud build was improved in the keynote but a lot but for other stuff... a lot of the stuff advertised for Unity 5 as features or services have been a FAIL. A lot of stuff are beta quality or hanging out in mysterious categories in the roadmap with no idea if they will be as late as the "UI" was. Damn I don't know how many still use Unity 4 just because of the lightmapping.

Damn, haven't been this angry here at Unity forums for long time

 

As Drakenwolf mentioned above, any sort of splash screen on mobile that isn't directly pertinent to the app (i.e. the developer or publisher's) is both a delay before the app is active, automatically losing a percentage of your players who just won't wait the extra few seconds and when there are so many amateur (both good and bad versions of the word amateur used here ) games out there with the free unity splash screen on, it makes your game look immediately less polished if it starts with it. So far I think it's the only reason we've stuck with Unity Pro, to keep our games as professional looking as possible so our players aren't put off before they get a chance to play the game. So it's a big deal.

Having done our first desktop game in a while last year, I can understand why devs who are only targeting desktop on Pro are feeling a bit peeved. It's a big price jump and there's still some massive issues (especially on the Mac side) with Unity 5 for desktop. You can't even customise the about box without doing it post-build for instance.

Reiterating my previous suggestion though. If small development teams only had to pay the $125 a month Pro subscription for 2 - 4 seats instead of per seat (and then immediately $125 per seat if you're using more), it would be both a massive encouragement for smaller teams that are currently using the free version to go Pro and make the price jump a bit more sane for the desktop only teams.

 

I wish dark theme wasn't locked behind paywalls. The light theme strains my eyes.