Unity 2.6 is out (and free!)

Awesome Job UT!!! I love the new features and I think you all are kind for releasing 2.6 indie for free!

Sorry for those who bought it prior to 60 days ago, I can see why you're upset, but, if they would have done it later then, those people would be upset... They can't really win in this situation.

 

Also why was the upgrade price in my email in Yen?
Why are quoting upgrade prices in users local currency (and failing),why not use Euros or US Dollars?

 

haha, that's funny. mine was in Euros, instead of American xD

 

I am happy with unity so I don't have any problem with it being free...
I can't afford the unity pro update now so I hope it doesn't have a time limit.
there's going to be a lot of competition now that unity is free :? :?
I don't care if it's strategy, that's what they have to do....
I can't get a refund, oh well, I hope to get my refund once we finish our project xD

I hope that this big change is going to be good for you (Unity team) and for us in a near future.

 

I'm just waiting for them to come out with the Mega Turbo Shiney Super Special Sparkle Edition for the low price of my immortal soul, my first born child, and $2,000,000,000,000,000,000.73!

Then they'll give pro for free and all will be forgiven. Unity is a good product, but this whole thing was done horribly and quite rudely.

 

From their email..
To show our appreciation to our Unity Indie customers (rofl) we've decided to offer you an upgrade of your Unity Indie license to Unity Pro for just €749 or to add Unity iPhone Basic to your license for just €99. This offer is valid through the end of the year.


So you have 2 months. Get some moolah from somewhere or.. tough.

 

What's that line in the Incredibles, "Once everyone is super, no one will be!"

Once everyone on the planet is a game developer, who will buy our games!? :wink:

 

Haha, nice one!
And now the car mechanic realizes that next to him another shop has opened. And this new shop's mechanic doesn't have to pay for his tools.
Oh, and it gets even better: It's your money that has helped open the new shop

And by the way, selling the $400 discount which is really only a $200 discount with this tight time limit is really ridiculous.

Cheers!

 

Snake congratulates them while they steal you?

What is wrong with you man?

 

[/quote]

Haha, nice one!
And now the car mechanic realizes that next to him another shop has opened. And this new shop's mechanic doesn't have to pay for his tools.
Oh, and it gets even better: It's your money that has helped open the new shop

And by the way, selling the $400 discount which is really only a $200 discount with this tight time limit is really ridiculous.

Cheers![/quote]

Well said!

 

HI UNITY

As some of us have no refund because we are over the 60 days and we have iphone basic already is it possible to get a partial refund compatible with the iphone basic upgrade above. We seem to have been unintentionally hit twice.

Thank you in advance

 

Yes! Thanks for putting it into words. That's exactly what I feel is "wrong" about this.

I don't want a "free, but slightly crippled" Unity. I want a full-featured version that has value beyond the free version. It can lack bells'n'whistles, that's fine, keep them for Pro.

Give us shadows and SVN support for a $200 Indie version. Please.

 

Maybe us Indie users should make up a petition, like that Modern Warfare 2 petition. That was a good publicity move.. well for Dice actually..

Seriously though, only if online petitions worked (well they do generate lot of good/bad press).

 

Some really good points being made here. I have no issue with Unity being free (it wouldn't matter if I did), the quick deadline for Pro upgrade option and its relatively weak price reduction kind of bother me. My biggest gripe is that as PAID Unity basic and iPhone basic users we have helped fund the development of all the new shiney things in 2.6 advanced, and get none of them in return. By shiney I mean absolutely necessary like version control support. These things are so mean and common to ANY software development project that I don't understand the reasoning for making them a pro only feature. That and basic not having shadows and render to texture support (but I digress).

I am really curious to see what GG does here (if anything). This could have opposite effect desired by UT and could lead people to Torque3D or at least to get people kicking tires when looking for Unity Advanced level of graphics (gasp, with T3D you get source code, shadows, automagic version control compatibility, cross platform support, web publishing) all at no extra cost.

 

Ok is this just a mistake? It says its a discount on the upgrade..not the full version.. well the original upgrade was $1300. So a $400 discount would be $900 and not $1100. I feel there needs to be an official clarification on this, cause I feel a little "taken for a ride" on this statement. To me it is completely false and misleading.

I also don't mind unity being free, though I am worried about what happens after this deadline and feel this should also be clarified by Unity. Will I have to pay $1500 for pro?

Now if it really is a $200 discount then I don't feel its a deal/discount, rather now that unity is free they are just giving us what we already paid for and giving us that off the upgrade. so I dont feel it is a discount at all. $400 to me would be a deal or discount.

 

Hi, I have to agree with this I bought the indy version of unity with the intension of one day upgrading to the pro version when I needed more features etc.

Can anyone say if the the upgrade from a payed for indy licence will still be avaliable with the $200 dollar discount after the new year.

I think a lot of Indy users are frustrated as they think that they have payed money for nothing.

If the discount is still available at least the money spent on the indy licence would count towards the cost of a pro licence, something that will not be available to anyone who has downloaded 2.6 for free.

Of course this doesn't help if you never intended on getting the pro version anyway.

David.

 

that would be great...
please think about it

 

I can see why people are angry. Having bought Unity Indy 62 days before the 2.6 release made me a little sad, but all in all it's a good thing for the community and I don't really mind. The fact that it's free now doesn't mean it wasn't a good deal when I got it.

That being said, Unity REALLY needs to offer some sort of discounted upgrade path for paid Indie license holders beyond the end of year deadline. I bought an Indie license with the understanding that the price would be credited towards an eventual upgrade to Pro. I disagree that making Unity free is stealing from or cheating their customers, but removing the upgrade path is a kick in the teeth.

Of course, if they really offered a $400 discount on a Pro Upgrade ($900 instead of $1100), I'd whip out my CC right now and probably be so excited playing w/ the profiler and shadows that I'd totally forget to track down and cancel the PO at work for 10 Pro licenses that's working it's way through the system. Just kidding....I would never do that...

 

Yes but there is still the part about the upgrade scheme lasting 2 months only. Even those of us who intended to upgrade our Indie versions later on when we actually were ready with some project can't just magically produce so much money for 2 month upgrade scheme (well not all of us).

There should be NO limit on the time to upgrade, it doesn't make sense for those who paid for the Lite version thinking that the upgrade option will be available to them whenever they wanted to.

 

Exactly, there needs to be a permanent (or at least long term) upgrade path for Indie licensees. The extra $200 off is a nice little way to drum up purchases and take the initial sting off the change, as long as the original $200 discounted upgrade path doesn't go away. Then I'll be totally happy as my $200 wasn't "wasted", it was just a down payment on my eventual Pro purchase.

 

What's all this talk of "wasted" money, anyway? I simply don't understand the objection. Through the use of my $200 license, I've produced dozens of game prototypes and created quite a few tutorials based on those. That has made me significantly more money than I paid, and the recent removal of the price for Unity Indie has just made my job easier.

Beforehand, getting teams together in areas I visited was difficult. Everyone wanted to work with free tools or alternatives. Now, I can just have them download and have them trained in days. :-D

 

That's why it was in quotes. Although I haven't made any money off of Unity so far (due primarily to my own laziness and busy work schedule), I did get 2 months worth of hands on training with it, which is worth the $200. But I stand by my original point, which was that when I purchased Indie it was with the expectation that the purchase price would be credited towards a Pro upgrade. As long as that doesn't change, I'm happy.

 

I feel like I've said my piece on this, but this is interesting:

Pro Upgrade Offer $200 off $1300 = 15% discount
iPhone Basic Offer $250 off $400 = 62.5% discount

At first glance I didn't realize how large the difference was here.

So a 15% off, use it or lose it coupon is the "big discount" David mentioned in his blog. Got it.

 

The offer time is the problem.

 

Well for me, I bought the Indie version and the basic version of Unity iPhone about 4 months ago. Not really had a chance to use it, but I’m working on that.
There’s no way I can afford to pay for the upgrade in the next couple of months and because I live in the UK, I also get whacked with a HUGE 25% tax on top of that (which for me is the main reason I will not upgrade).
Personally, I’m happy that the indie version is now free as more people will start to use it, which should mean that there should be more training material coming out and more people will install the Unity web player (giving Flash a run for its money maybe).
I would personally like to see the time limit for the discount removed and a UK office so the tax goes down =)
I think it’s kind of a shame that they didn’t do a mid level version of the engine so that the people that did buy the Indie version still got something out of it, but ultimately I do think as a whole, the Unity community will benefit from this move.
On a side note, does anyone know if a PDF version of the Unity manual is available? That would be really useful to me.

Cheers,
Mike.

 

Great update and great new features!

Collaborators can now install Unity for free! Great value!
For Example, i have a graphic collaborator and now he can try directly in Unity texture updating. This is another great point to have editor free.

Two months in IT world is a lot of time and i think is fair to refund people that just bought Unity indie within this two months.
And a great opportunity for people that want upgrade to iPhone Basic.
In any case a good choice could be extend the time to make the upgrades.

Bye

 

It's AWESOME that Unity is free. Congratulations to the Unity team and well done for empowering game developers across the world.

To those people who bought Unity over 60 days ago:

Well done for supporting the independent game development community! Be proud of making your contribution and feel good that you didn't go and spend a lot more for a lot less anywhere else.

Now, go make a game. This is awesome!!

 

Yeah I'll be sure to cover my face in public in case people point and laugh there's one of those Donuts who bought Unity Indie and now its FREE.
Thats how proud I am.
I take it that you are a Pro user?

 

Yes, the time limit is the biggest problem.

But the interesting part is how big of a difference the discount is between the Pro Upgrade and iPhone Basic. Why would they offer 60% off the lower cost product, and only 15% off the higher cost product? It doesn't make sense.

The more I look at this the more I think they actually meant to offer $400 off (which would be a "big discount"), but they mistakenly took the price off the full version of Pro ($1500), instead of the Upgrade price of $1300.

Since this offer is ONLY for paid-Indie users, the FULL PRICE of Pro is irrelevant, and the discount should have been applied to the UPGRADE PRICE. That's the only way it even halfway makes sense.

If it is intentional, the only alternative is that they REALLY want to push more people to iPhone Basic.

The problem with this is that iPhone development requires more than just a (limited time offer) deal on iPhone Basic. You need a Mac, iPhone and Apple Dev agreement.

So again, I'm thinking, and hoping that the $1100 price is a mistake, and that the intended price is $900. That at least would be a 30% discount. Still not half of the % discount for iPhone Basic, but way closer than 15%.

 

Haha, well prepare to be treated in even more special manner in these forums from now on.

Considering Pro users used to whine about such things before around here, now that Indie is free, they will just have to add "it's free, you get what you pay for" to end any conversation.

 

Let me state, right from the start, that I am NOT a Pro user or one of those who got Unity for free. I paid my $200 for it, just like all the other Indie users pre-a day ago. Also, I am definitely not one of the people in a financial position to consider that $200 "throw-away" money. So, no dismissing my opinion as either "elitist pro", "free-loader", or "financially irrelivant".

With that said, I am extremely pleased with this turn of events. The benefits of having Unity go free have been covered over and over again by countless people. By this point, if you don't have the benefits memorized, then you are selectively reading. Having me write them again would do absolutely no good.

Do I feel cheated that I paid for Unity about two months ago, and now it is free? Not at all. Not even a little bit. Do I want my money back? No. I willingly paid a fair price for software I valued at over the $200. I considered the $200 an amazing deal when I was paying it. For what Unity Indie offered, that price tag was cheap.

What everyone who is up in arms over this keeps forgetting is the value of Unity is unchanged. No matter what the current price-tag, the value of the software stays the same. If you thought it worth $200 before, there is no reason it suddenly is not now.

Anyone demanding a refund now is not doing it because they feel ripped off (You didn't feel that way when you bought it and willingly paid the $200. You were happy with it, and did not consider it a rip-off then. Nothing has changed now). They are doing it because they see other people getting something easier than they got it, and the human condition of jealousy creeps in. Deny it if you wish, but I still ask... what has changed from when you first paid the $200 to now? Other than now there are people getting it easier than you?

Could you have gotten a better deal had your timing been better? Of course. That is always the case. Had your timing been great, you could have gotten Microsoft shares for less than a dollar each. You going to go demand that Microsoft now give you a discount on their current share price just because someone else got it better than you did?

Stop trying to find ways to make it seem as if you have been ripped off. Stop internalizing it as a personal attack (I promise, when the people at UT seen your order process, they did not start thinking to themselves they have yet another sucker buying Indie). It was worth it to you when you bought it... it is still the same product, so it is still worth the same. You were not ripped off. Ripped off would be if you paid more for something that it is actually worth. If you paid $200 for software that you could not build anything with, that crashed all the time, corrupted your files, and had absolutely no support... then you could claim to be ripped off.

In reality, you paid your money for software that works beautifully, does what it says it will, and has excellent support. You paid less for it than it it is really worth. Others getting something easier than you does not change the fact that you got more than your own money's worth.

I am done ranting. Time to go get the rest of my team to download the free Unity, and make something worth showing off.

 

Well said.

 

1. At first I was a bit annoyed, but after thinking for a few moments I must agree that it is an amazingly great decision to make Unity free.

2. I bought Unity Indie 6 months ago. Me and those that came before me are what made it possible for this company to thrive.

3. Because of that, I would like to see the UnityIndie>UnityPro price dropped to $649. You would not have jobs right now if not for us, guys...

<---smiley means happy

 

Same boat here, I used my debit card. As for past experience with online purchases/refunds in the UK, money should go straight back to the source (that is: debit card --> third party operator --> Unity Tech --> third party operator --> debit card) and we usually receive confirmation of the made credit. If for some reason you want to do different manner, ask the support.


One gentle thought to Indies caught in the middle of the storm, with neither refund chance nor near Pro upgrade intention: I really hope you find the way to ease this steep transition in the most satisfactory manner for all the parties. I'm here since August, studied a lot and just bought my Indie license 4 days ago, also because of the community spirit. If this spirit deteriorates, we all sustain a real and not recoverable loss. Thank you to all.

 

For Pro users. what would be your feelings if pro version comes free and UT just sell Xbox, wii and Iphone modules?

perhaps was a good decision to make unity indie free( i still think wasn't a indie version) but i keep thinkg was a waste of money and i havne't enough money to drop it when we bought 5 licences $1000 Us.


so sad,

 

What bothers me is how UT is treating some of its most loyal customers.

The people who recently bought it get their $200 back, but the "reward" for those who have been supporting Unity, promoting Unity, singing its praises, posting like crazy on the forums for months or years is the privilege of sending UT more money for Pro or iPhone?

Their success had a lot to do with the rabid support of a great user base, and this is how they are thanked? If they can afford to give Unity away for free, they could have offered the indie owners something better.

 

I've scrapped two replies now because I was nearly blinded by rage when writing them because of the select few who are bitching and moaning in this thread.

Instead I will say that this is great news for everyone and especially for me.

I was concerned the Unity community would end up developing entirely for the iphone, but now we'll surely see some hobbyists making games for the pc, mac and interweb.

 

Unity, you have now disappointed me, how can you possible think it's just to make unity for free when we all paid for our indie versions, complete and utter bull S***. I did receive an email for a pro offer but that doesn't make up for it.


I am angry.

 

If Pro went free I'd be ecstatic.

I'm not the type to be angry or sad because something GOOD happens to other people. Are you?

Don't any of you have friends or acquaintances that you'd love to work with on a project, but haven't been able to get them on board because of cost? That barrier has just been removed.

 

When I first time saw this news, i wanted to shoot my self in the head. I can't believe that the engine become more powerfull besides now he is free. That's amazing. Guys you are Santa!

 

Just some initial observations about this so far. Here goes...

Regarding Unity 2.6 being free? Well, I just saved a bundle.

I bought an Indy license and if I understand correctly I can qualify for a pro upgrade, so all is cool.

But it gets better. I have 4 other developers I am working with atm. Collectively, I just saved a few hundred dollars.

For what Unity can do, $199 was a bargain. Unity 2.6 being free is just crazy cool.

Back-in-day, I paid $35 for the Netscape browser. The "then" browser of choice. When you paid for it, it came in a nice box (like how software use to be sold) and it had a diskette and a printed manual. Browsers are free now.

I paid about $4k for 90mhz laptop one time. Yes, 90mhz. I think my watch goes faster. Anyway, imagine how I felt when I now see laptops that would dwarf that speed being sold for $500 nowadays. It's great.

I paid about 3k for a Quadra 950. Now, I use it to tinker with. I had a couple of IIci's, a Powerbook 180c and a Newton. I paid $$$ for it.

What did I get for the money? I bought and I invested in my future. It gave me a somewhat of competitive lead into what I believed at the time was where I wanted to be.

All those people who paid $199 for Indie. If you are doing this professionally, what did you do with your competitive lead? Did you succeed or squander that lead? Did you finish your game? Did you put it out to market?

If you're not doing it professionally, have you completed anything in the months or years you've had Indie? What have you got to show for? Would that perhaps be part of the angst?

Today, I know some of you guys bought Indie and have done a lot with it and may have gotten a return on your investment, not just monetarily but also the good vibe one gets when a project is finished. It is a huge rush knowing you finished something. I hear one guy also wrote a book about Unity. A good one I too

I think some introspection is required. I don't fully understand why anyone would get upset now that one of the leading game dev engines is now free. It seems to me when people bought at $199 they obviously felt it was worth it. Why else would they buy? Now that it's free, it's no longer worth it?

Nature's law dictates ubiquity can ensure survival, success and dominance. I think that's what UT has in mind.

p.s. Thanks for reading this far.

 

This is exactly right.

People don't understand that some people bought Unity for the sake of being an educational tool. You know, it would be handy for me back then just to have it FREE just to see it. I really bought Unity on April 2009 without intending to sell games to get back what I paid for unlike most of you claim! And the PRO discount is what like cheezorg said. I personally don't need anything on the PRO at the moment. In fact, I like the idea of a virtual credit stored up on my user account so I can decide in the far future when I do have the money again, buy an awesome unity addon or something with the virtual credit as a discount.

 

It's because they offer us nothing but a reduced price Pro, the reason most Indie users bought indie was because they couldn't afford pro and didn't have the funds, now indie is free and pro is still the same stiff price that is was before, it's feels like a betrayal to the lads that bought indie.

Of course I'm happy that it's free, but I would expect more in return for my cash since (being a student) it took me quite a bit to get the cash barely for indie!

 

Can we please stop with the depreciation analogies. They really are quite terrible and.. well.. not analogous.

 

I would be happy if we just got a bigger discount on Pro. I say this because anyone switching from Indie to Pro will get a bit ripped off. I say this because when I complained to Unity Sales (a few hours ago) I got the answer I did not want.

I asked why should we pay $1100 now when 3.0 is likely not far away, at which time we will have to pay AGAIN for something we have just had for a short time.

They replied that 3.0 will likely be out mid-2010. So I am right we will have to buy something which only lasts 8 months. Unity this is not right...knowing there will be a major version change in 8 months I can't believe you can keep a straight face and offer us a $200 discount.

For those who will say "don't upgrade" - this is not acceptable. I was looking forward to and waiting for the profiler. Plus I am pretty sure in the future now that Unity is free, most major new features will be in Pro - with enhancements and fixes in both.

 

I really feel sorry for everyone who is unhappy right now about Unity being free. But you do have choice - it's your free will and that is also your true power:

One possibility is seeing yourself as a victim and using this opportunity to prove to yourself that you are a victim. With that choice, you'll very likely focus all of your attention to how unfair UT is, how you got ripped off, how it all sucks and is really evil and against you ("You, The Customer" (tm) vs. UT and the evil Pro users). That choice leads to suffering - frustration, anger, envy and the like. It's as simple as it is unpleasant when that's the choice you have made.

Another possibility is remembering why you bought Unity. Very likely it was because you wanted to play with it, express your creativity. Maybe you had a game idea that you wanted to implement. Maybe it turned out that it's not as easy as it seems (even with Unity) - but hey, challenges are there for you to grow! Maybe now that Unity is free, it'll get a little easier to find someone willing to help you on your project. Now, if your choice is to remember the creativity within you, you'll very likely focus on what's possible. And guess where that will take you? The joy of playing with a lovely piece of technology. The pure joy of creative expression. That's as simple and natural as it is pleasant if this is your choice.

And while in the end, your "free will" is not much more than making this kind of choice - whatever you choose will lead to a different kind of actions: One will let you complain on the forums - the other will let you work on your game, and maybe use the forums to ask or answer questions regarding what's possible and how to do it.

 

UT should not have to defend it self in this matter.

1. UT didn't have to give any upgrade options to existing member. That is just nice of them come to think of it.

2. The Indie price was actually Extremely low for the quality and ease the engine provides, lets not even talk about the programming language choices people are taking for granted.

3. They support their users and are willing to rebate their purchases with in the last 60 days. Perhaps people are pissed because you could have used it towards pro if you knew Indie was going free, however wouldn't the cost be pretty much the same?

4. UT hasn't said they were going to drop support for the free version and if you were willing to pay for it, that decision speaks of the worth of the product anyways.

5. Consider the amount of newbies will come asking questions and becoming awesome at some point.. some of them and bringing their owe additions and support back to the community which typically ends up with more resources for everyone body to take advantage of.

I'm happy that Indie became free and that Unity is adding some really good Awesome Sauce to the bucket. This move makes me believe that UT is very secure to offer a free product.

 

I bought Unity Indie about 6 months ago. I just can't manage to get broken up over it being free. Maybe its because we were planning to get Pro anyway, eventually, and now we get a discount.

But I think the real reason is that now we can put Unity on everyone's machine. It would have been expensive to do this, especially if we put a pro license on every seat. So this meant deciding who got a copy and who didn't. Now everyone gets one!

This is a huge boost to anyone who has more than one person working on their team. Now everyone can have a copy of Unity-- and everyone can work on the project around their particular area.

This makes the overall product that much more valuable.

 

I agree. I sent out some emails to entice some more people into this tonight.