Unity Technologies has announced that 6,500 new users have signed on since the release of the free edition of 2.6 just 48 hours ago.
So if none of these new users upgrade to iphone or pro, that makes a total of 0$ profit. Yeah, you can’t argue with success…
This is success. That is great for the unity community and out of 6500 people, there probably will be money made. 
I guess that also answers the question that came up a while back about how many Unity users there were. My question (and concern) is, with all these new users, whose going to answer the tidal wave of noob questions that will inevitably flood these forums? In fact, whose even going to have time to read them? Take today for example, every couple of hours there are 2 or 3 pages of new posts. If you thought it was difficult to keep up with new posts and get questions answered, I don’t think it’s going to get any better. Don’t get me wrong, I think that as a business decision UT may have made the right move. I’m just concerned that little guys like me are going to get lost in the dust.
:shock: I didn’t think of that!
But after a while there will be less noob questions and more answers because people will get used to the engine. So in the end it is a major win.
More noob questions though have one benefit: higher chance to hit the right topic / helpfull topic when using search without knowing the exact terms to search for
I’d love to see these forums reorganized a bit. For example, why are third party products like 3d assets usually advertised under Collaboration?
A greater number of sub-categories might help you decide which areas to avoid.
Have you also noticed whose been fielding all the questions? Not UT staff, but us non-paid users. I’ve already answered a half dozen or so questions today. I don’t mind contributing, but I’m not in favor of doing UT’s job.
Searching the boards will cover most of the easy questions. The new people will gradually become the less-new people, and help the newer ones too.
Yes, true in theory. But how many times have you seen noobs ask the same questions over and over. Even hours or minutes after someone else has already answered it in another thread.
Heck, Dreamora, I noticed you must have answered a couple hundred questions today alone? Get much work done? :lol:
but you don’t know that. Infact, it’s just as likely that no one of these new users will ever consider upgrading.
If just a few upgrade, is it really worth it when you consider Unity has allienated a lot of indie users in the process?
Only time will tell i guess
I am with bigkahuna on this one. The forums will likely get cluttered with noob and repetitive topics which actually makes searching harder. When I search for something I would like to see only a few meaningful topics and not 100s of posts with subjects: “help me please, I am total noob”, “simple question”, etc… Not that I am not guilty of it too 
but still it’s one thing when there are a few people doing it and another when a few thousand are doing it. I think there should be a mechanism to delete useless topics after some time of posting… Maybe some more forum moderators, who would flag topics for deletion and if the originator doesn’t oppose remove them these topic in a couple of days…
I think that since our only means of gaining technical support is through the forums, UT has an obligation to staff up with enough people to answer questions on the forums. Right now it’s pretty much Tom doing most of it and sometimes Aras or someone else. In the old days that was fine, but now that they’re looking at having 20K plus users they really shouldn’t expect the balance of work to be handled by users.
I think what Dreamora, Eric5h and others have done is fantastic, but I know that with this deluge of new posts I, for one, won’t be able to keep up with it and still earn a living.
That’s probably why they started answers.unity3d.com.
That’s highly unlikely. Given a fairly typical 1% conversion ratio, and the mix of different licenses, that would probably result in somewhere around $50K, and that’s just the first 48 hours. Also, it’s ignoring what I suspect is the true motivation here, which is: more Unity users = more Unity content = more installations of the Unity web player, plus greater recognition and value of Unity skills, which results in more people buying Pro + iPhone, in addition to the direct conversions.
Fixed that for you.
–Eric
Have them introduce a Pro-Forum. Every Pro licensee gets access to special sections that receive special attention by UT. Let’s demand some special treatment for our money! 
Have you considered that maybe the financial aspect is not the only one relevant? You should maybe have a look at the keynote of Unite 2007 (yeah, two years ago). It’s on the Website.
Even if not a single one of those 6500 new users pays UT even a single cent because they’re all happy with Unity as it is (and in that case, they would have severely outnumbered those few Indie users that feel they need to feel treated inappropriately) - as long as some of them do create Web games (which is extremely likely), it has an impact on Web player penetration; and Web player penetration matters to every single one of the now 19500 Unity users that create Web games.
IMHO, this is a much more relevant understanding of success than the single-dimensional one that only takes money into view. Of course, money does matter - but it’s by far not the only thing that matters
I like that idea and it hits my point squarely on the head. Right now most (almost all?) questions are being fielded by the people who -paid- for Unity. Sorta seems kind off base doesn’t it? Kinda like asking the guy who cuts your lawn to pay your mortgage too. :lol:
I have no problems asking my gardener to pay my mortgage!
Yes, I think a Pro forum area is definitely required now with the crazy influx of new forum members, and though this has been asked before a few times, and UT have stated that they didn’t want to segregate the info, but I think it’s time now to extend the forum with a Pro area.
Also, to be honest, I have been spending less time helping out on the forums these days because (A) I cant keep writing the same responses again and again, and (B) I am now put off by the attitudes of many here.
So my solution is to back off, as it looks like many of the well knowledgeable here have done over the last few months and focus on making my games.
Those that are causing the noise and complaining are going to lose out most when other forum members stop helping them out.
I don’t know… I meant it more like a joke. The problem is that it only LOOKS like a good idea, but it isn’t really. The guys over at Act3D with Quest3D (yes, I’m a convert ) did just that: Opened up most of the forum for paying costumers only. The upside was that it really got rid of all this noob shit spawning all over the place. The downside was that a lot of hobbyists with great expertise were locked out and they were no longer able to help out.
Maybe it would work well when taking the road in the middle: Introduce a Pro-Forum for (paying) Pro costumers and manually pick well known Indy users who are “worth” it (I’m sorry, I do not want to insult anybody, I’m just not able to find a better word!) and give them Pro privileges. Plus make this Pro-Forum also readable for indy users so that the offered knowledge is also available for them as well but keeps them from littering the forums. They can still ask their questions in dedicated indy-forums.
I’d be scared if they introduced a Pro only forum, simply because even though I am a pro owner, I know there are tons of Indy’s out there smarter than me and ok… well they are all smarter than me, so I think they would reject my entry in the Pro area because typically the elitist attitude generally stinks and they wouldn’t accept a reject like me in
Frankly speaking, these forums will be revamped, I am positive of that, Higgy has mentioned this time and again that the forums will get an overhaul. I am just hoping they still allow this reject in once they do
I just hope they fix the search feature with something real, that will help all the noob questions out. Look at me, I have memory lapses and forget things and can’t use the search worth a crap, so I ask dumb noob questions from time to time, I"ll stick around in the Indy forums