First of all, please excuse me if this question has been asked a thousand times before but since it is quite important for me I have to get sure if I am correct on this one
I am developing games since since a couple of years (exclusively on windows systems so far) but want to get into the development of iPhone / iPod games (I assume that both, iPhone and iPod touch are the exact same targets when it comes to game development).
I never touched an apple computer in my whole life and know basically nothing or very little yet about MacBooks, Mac Minis or any other apple products. It’s like an alien world for me so far.
However, since the iPhone / iPod became very popular I felt it might be the time to consider developing games for that audience, too. So I digged into the web to find out what I would have to invest to get started.
I figured out a list of minimum hardware / software requirements which would be quite expensive though (please correct me if I am wrong):
1.) iPhone (or at least an iPod touch) to test my games. Are both the same when it comes to developing or running games? Do I need to “jailbreak” my iPhone / iPod in any way in order to create and deploy games on it?
:arrow: Costs: 600 Euro / 250 Euro
2.) Copy of Unity iPhone, of course
:arrow: Costs: 1200 Euro
3.) Mac Mini, Powerbook etc. for scripting and compiling my game because Unity iPhone doesn’t run on Windows environment.
:arrow: Costs: 800 Euro
4.) Registering as an Apple Developer
:arrow: Costs: ??
5.) Purchasing the iPhone SDK
:arrow: Costs: ??
6.) Total: 2.600 Euro to get started -is developing casual games for the iPhone / iPod really as expensive??
7.) Since Apple then retains 30% from every selled game then -is it really worth these investments considering the sales numbers of an “average” iPhone / iPod casual game?
8.) What costs should be considered additionally?
9.) What (apple) software / applications / SKDs will I need in every case to get started?
10.) Did I forget something…?
And another question: since all the creative software I use is for Windows only, can I create art assets, graphics, models, sounds (everything except scripting and compiling) on my windows machine and tie it all together on the Mac then?
Sorry if these questions sound dumb, but as I said, I am an absolute alien yet when it comes to Apple products and development.
Yeah, it’s quite an investment, and chances are you won’t get it back. I personally did, but even if I wouldn’t I would still think it’s worth it because I love making games, and this is a great platform to get them released on.
You can also get Unity iPhone Basic, which is quite a bit cheaper.
No need to jailbreak anything - why would Apple require you to do that?
And an iPod Touch should suffice, but you might want to get two (an older version for performance testing, and the latest version for Retina display testing).
Off course if you want to do iPad dev, you’ll need an iPad as well.
What’s the cheapest Mac solution that would be good enough for running Unity iPhone on it? A Mac Mini? If so, what series / model would be required at least?
What iPod Touch model is comparable to the iPhone 3GS in terms of performance and game capabilities?
If I purchase a Mac Mini -what other software would I need than Unity iPhone and the iPhone SDK on it in order to get started?
Is it possible to create all the artwork (graphics, models, sounds etc.) on my Windows machine and transfer it to the Mac then?
Are there any costs I even didn’t think of…? :roll:
Let me ask another question about the Unity Software.
If you buy the PRO version is 1200$, but this is just the addon, don’t you need to buy UNITY 3D Pro as well ?! so in total is 2400$
is that right ? or we can just purchase UNITY IPHONE ?! not clear.
You can purchase a second hand Mac Mini from eBay. Shouldn’t cost you much over $400 – $300 if you are willing to wait a week or two until the right one pops up on eBay.
If you primarily develop on a PC then a Mac Mini is all you need in terms of a workstation for doing iPhone development.
2nd hand iPod touch from eBay will also work fine, about $140. I’ve got four iPod Touch devices spread across the bar in front of me, I don’t think I paid over $600 for all of them combined.
You can run Unity3D on Mac OS X under VMWare on your Windows or Linux workstation. Install XCode, debug and download to either the emulator or live device (details on how to send your game to your iPad/iPod on my website at http://www.otakunozoku.com), and only when you are about to take the plunge and submit to Apple, then go out and buy your Mac Mini to do the final build. (I personally know of someone who does not own a Mac at all, and developed a published game that is in the AppStore, and it was all done via Mac OS X running under VMWare).
Of course, all that said, I would still say invest the money and do it properly if you can. Penny pinching will just cause you to have a lot of headaches.
no need to buy unity pro from the beginning (except you need the features or you think removing the splash screen is worth the difference). and yes, you would need unity pro in addition to unity iphone pro. so that would be 2400$ atm.
i would suggest you get a mac mini or imac, a ipod (the new one, you’ll always find a friend who has a old one lying around or one with an old iphone) and unity (for 300$ atm.)
make a game, sell it and as soon as you made some money, upgrade to unity pro.
and if you can bring up the bucks for a ipad, i can only say it was worth it! (its a great piece of hardware anyway, imho.)
You need at last an ipod touch 2g or iphone3G if you aim for lower devices, if you don’t care about those, then go for a new ipod touch 4g
You can start with unity basic, around 300€, but if you want the unity pro, then that will be 1800€
I don’t like second hand products, so a new minimac are at last 700€
100$ per year
sdk is free
Yes it is, at last you need 3000€ if you want to do serious development
I am one of those guys who not recover his budget, so the risk is very high, too much people trying to sell games and only a few spots to get visibility
That depends, but usually you need to pay an artist to make the graphics, a musician, some marketing/banners on websites,etc,etc = more money
[/quote]
[/quote]
[/quote]
[/quote]
[/quote]
[/quote]
[/quote]
[/quote]
If you are looking to do games, but Unity/3d is not a must per say… Take a peek at Cocos2d. It’s a terrific graphic library that dovetails into xCode,and will allow you to create wonderful 2d games, with physics if you like, for free… All your other expenses are the same as you’ll need a Mac and a Dev license from Apple.
You could also go the Shiva route if you really want 3d, but that’s another conversation for another place.
What I bought to start iPhone Dev:
MacBook Pro = $3200 (You don’t need a Pro, you can get an iMac or Macbook)
Apple Dev = $100
Cinema 4D = 1200
Unity Pro = 1800
Music Editor = $60
iPod Touch = $200
So far I’ve made $16,000 on only one game released last December
Thanks for helping at all -it’s a difficult decision, so I really appreciate your help.
I checked out Cocos2D but as far as I could find out it requires Python for scripting. I already jumped into C#, so I would have to re-orientate again. I also like the possibility to create games for Mac Windows at once, plus 3D games (or a mix between 2D and 3D), plus create web player based games, so Unity is still my preferred choice -but it has its price, of course
Okay, so I think the best way would be to:
:arrow: Get Unity Basic and upgrade to Unity Pro only if the game is about to release. Can Unity iPhone be used with Unity Basic or does it require the Pro version?
:arrow: Can I do the same when it comes to registering as a developer at Apple.com (do I have to register there to be able to start developing or can I wait to register once my first game is complete and ready to deploy)?
:arrow: I also would like to wait for my game to be finished to buy a second hand Mac Mini then, but this would require to run the Mac version of Unity on my Windows machine, right? I think this won’t be an easy task at all…
we cannot test the game from unity to iphone unless we are already registered as a Developer with Apple ?!
Or you are talking about something else.
For example we wrote a script in unity and tested it with the mouse. Now we want to bring the test on the iphone and implement the touch control… we cannot do that ?!
so let’s say we can test it with the remote ( but i heard there’s some blurrines going on and such )
but if we want to test it properly on the iphone ( like download it from the appstore ) we need to be dev. That’s fair enough. Do you know how many people you can add on the list in order to get them download the game for testing ?
In my team we are 4.
which list do you mean?
have a look at “adHoc”-rollout.
which this way of distributino you can have the game deployed on a device without making it available on appstore.
but also for this tool, you have to be dev (i.e. pay 99usd per year to apple).
I’m a Unity iPhone Basic user, and may upgrade to pro version, but I must say.
If you do not have enough money.
The ShiVa Engine is a good/cheaper tool for iPhone/Android/Web/PC/Mac 3D game development.
The basic version(called Unlimited, only €169) is already allowing you to distribute to these platforms,
And had more complete features(terrain in iPhone, path finding, native call, Bluetooth, AdMob…etc).
If you want the same distribute capability in Unity, You would pay $4500+,
And do many coding works for add lost features.
ShiVa use Lua for scripting, but will add C++ like scripting capability soon.
If you want cross platform distribute, I think ShiVa is a good choice.
Oh, It’s not advertising, Just because I’m considering the Android distribute and upgrade to Unity iPhone Pro is really really really expensive too…
And the paid upgrade in Unity side is more frequently than ShiVa.
But I need Unicode for display Japanese language.
So, I am also hesitant.
I am currently looking for a second hand Mac Mini now but since I am a total Mac newbie (never touched one in my life) I got some questions before buying one:
:arrow: Will any Mac Mini do it or are there any requirements I should care of (OS version, hardware etc.)?
:arrow: May sound silly, but can I use any regular TFT monitor with the Mac Mini then? Are there any requirements on this point, too?
:arrow: Is there anything else I should care of when buying a Mac Mini? I would still use my Windows machine to create all the art assets, graphics, models etc. (since all my valuable tools are for Windows only) and share them with the Mac using a USB drive. It’ll be quite uncomfortable, but it’s the only practicable solution for me now…
An Intel-based Mac
Mac OS X “Leopard” 10.5.4 or later
Using Occlusion Culling requires NVIDIA or ATI graphics card
The rest only depends on the complexity of your projects!
Although with the latest iPhone SDK you need to be on os x version 10.6 So check for that.
TFT Monitor its same as a PC any will do.
As for the last point, if you prefer to use Windows because of your apps you will definitely want to network your machines and have a shared folder on your windows box. Copying assets to USB and off again is just going to get tedious pretty quickly. You could even get a KVM to allow the mac and pc to share the same monitor mouse and keyboard then you can just flick a switch to move to the mac mini to do the xcode / unity stuff then back again for asset creating.
EDIT :
another option if you have the money for a second monitor is have the pc set up on one monitor and the mac on the other and use something called synergy which basically allows you to span the two computers with the mouse as if they were the same machine. It’s like some crazy voodoo but it works very well, I used it for a year or so in my old job its epic
