What if there was a monthly subscription for everyone, but you could deploy to any platform, with a 100% royalty up to 1500? There are a LOT of indie devs who want to target android/ois, but they can’t because of the upfront risk. This way, Unity still get’s paid (plus the subscription), and smaller devs can deploy to ALL platforms without fear.
A ton of work went into making Unity as multiplatform as it is. Such a crime to discourage devs from taking advantage of it by demanding such a steep up front commitment.
*and I know the android/ois support for UE4 might not be as nice as Unity’s, but I think it’s going to tempt a lot of indies who cant justify 3000 up front.
Why hasn’t this been considered?
*note that this is just one idea. The point is - no indie is going to gamble thousands of dollars upfront just to deploy on mobile (a HUGE target for indies), when there are alternative engines with no upfront risk.
That sounds like a horrible licence agreement. That would mean you could spend 700 making a game, earn 1000, and still book a 700 loss. Although I agree they need to work out a better licence for mobile.
But I bet they would make alot more cash doing that than they are now. To get $750 out of every unity game that ever made $1500… would be an interesting experiment.
The only thing I have to wonder is how do they enforce that?
Would you get to keep the licence though. If you can then you have bought a 1500 licence for 700. If not then you have spent 700 on nothing. At least if you buy a licence you have something tangible.
This seems like an ever-going discussion here, unity pricing that is
It would be nice if there was an Pro Indy version that costs anywhere between 500$ to 1500$ for all platforms and a 50 000$(or less) profit limit. So if you’re lucky and make more than 50 000$, you should be able to pay the 4500$ or whatever the current licences cost.
Back during all the discussion when UE4’s new license was announced, I remember someone posting an old tweet from a Unity exec where they stated that they had tried (considered?) the royalties model before but the problem is that a lot of people will lie.
You could argue that people would be less likely to lie about their revenue if it was just a finite amount, but if you’re UT you’d still have to wonder how much money you would lose from people lying/not reporting at all…or mainly from people who made a failed game who otherwise would’ve payed them upfront.
Not saying it’s a terrible idea, I just don’t think UT would be willing to assume the risk of lost revenue to enable a few more people to get their hands on the Pro features.
There was a suggestion I heard that I liked. You could simply add an option to publish with Pro features for free with royalties. The royalties could be any percentage (say 10%), and would continue until you buy a full license for that platform. It would be like paying interest on the licensing cost until you buy a full license. If you have a less successful game, you can continue paying a small royalty to Unity indefinitely, and for a successful game you simply buy the license outright and no longer have to deal with the overhead of managing royalties.
People could publish with Unity Pro with less upfront risk, Unity would ultimately make more money (all royalties in addition to the full license cost), and most published Unity games would have all the shiny features (and maybe publishing with Unity Free is kept as a royalty-free option). The downside for Unity is that they would have to manage the royalty program, and it could be a lot of overhead for a huge number of games making only a few dollars a month.
This would be similar to UE4, but they don’t advertise what the cost of licensing the engine without royalties is. It’s probably one of those “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it” situations.
The 100% royalties up to $1500 doesn’t actually increase Unity’s revenues, but still has the additional cost of tracking games and the royalties owed.
I’m pretty sure when a company goes to collect royalties, they don’t just ask politely - “hey friend, how much money did you guys make? be honest ok?”.
I think the only legit reason against a model like this is the POSSIBILITY that a company would have been willing to pay thousands up front for all the licenses, and then they go on to make a failed game which earns less than 1500. But if such a company had that kind of money to toss around, do you really think they wont be able to make 1500 in sales? So that one ‘con’ just doesn’t seem very likely.
Compare that to the DROVES of indies who will now take up Unity because of the low risk.
*CaptainSciences idea of x% royalties with the option to buy for 1500 at any time is fine too. There are a MILLION better ideas than the current model, that was my only point. We just need SOME idea that doesn’t discourage deploying to multiple platforms out of the gate.
i think with royalty like that this license should have some drawbacks for reduce firsk for UT: 3000 USD$ and no promo when new realese arrive - with that drawbacks old license still be interesting and smaller risk but indie without big budget have chance make more interesting stuff and potentially increase income for UT in area where normally isnt any chance for income
So you would rather spend money on a license than get it for free and then only paying if you have to?
The biggest problem with this is they will now HAVE to go after everyone who makes a game- and not just the big ones. Plus, how would they know how many seats you need?
Subscription model… $49.95 per month, and you get all platforms.
No contract period. And you cannot use the editor if you don’t have an active subscription.
$20 per month, cancel anytime to free version, pay full price after $50,000(or lower) in annual turnover.
I think something like that meets everyone in the middle, it won’t piss off too much the current pro users, wannabe pros get affordable price, Unity makes more money of subs and earlier turnover and puts Unity at par with UE4 and CE.
