is it for ever? or is does it last 1 year like some software licenses?
The licenses are for versions (2.x or 3.x for example), and they are indefinite for regular versions (I believe Wii and other consoles are different).
well… I would think they last for ever since I haven’t read otherwise yet. But, y’know, just wanted to make sure, because if its 1 year or something I should buy it when I’m ready to start a big game project, rather than buy’n’forget
The license itself will remain valid forever if you buy the normal Unity Pro or iOS / Android addon.
Free updates for it are granted within the same major version (so all 3.x are free if you buy unity pro 3 or an addon for unity 3)
As Unity 3 was just released 2 months ago, you can easily buy it now, as Unity 4 won’t happen the next 18+ months likely
Console titles would be a different topic but there are a plentitude of financial and technical requirements to even license it and you would need to contact sales for anything further on this matter
Unity4, will come earlier than 18 months, they have more and more ninjas in their team, working he*l rapidly fast. ^^
Might be but new technologies don’t fall from sky and having new versions out too regularly sheds a light on their customers that they are incapable to drive technology reasonable and with proper planning ahead if they need to rewrite the core all 12 months (core rewrite = new major version)
though at the time, it seems like they are lacking more ninjas than having too many as the support turnaround is rising, bugs don’t get fixed within comparable timeframes as earlier anymore and there are 2 new additional major platforms where the customers require 1 on 1 professional support and inhouse support which completely removes these ninjas from the pipeline basically (Wii and Windows already where there for the big players, but X360 and PS3 definitely will be such platforms too)
They have more people because they have more platforms and more stuff to deal with (asset store, Union, etc.). It won’t be earlier than 18 months.
–Eric