I also am self funded. I’ve probably spent about $25,000 on all of my development costs. Ranging anywhere from outsourcing some art, hiring some local talent, dev kits, 3dsmax, Adobe suite, computers, engine licenses. My first engine was for a PSP title, so not Unity. I’ll probably be licensing that again for one more PSP game, but then it will likely be Unity moving forward on iOS, unless I switch into PS Vita development.
For me, I’ve almost broken even on the re-occurring costs. THe other money, like many I treat as my education. I have a full time job doing other work, but hope to be able to self fund my projects at least, then if I get lucky, work for myself again full time. There are more risks involved with this as I start my family.
My biggest appeal to Unity is this community though and the game industry people I’ve met. Everyone is willing to help anyone. I belong here.
I’m totally broke, and doing everything myself. Yeah, I don’t have a great deal of experience or artistic talent, but it’s working well enough. I develop all my systems and assets with simplicity and flexibility in mind, so as long as I get all my basics finished, everything else should fall into place.
I do pay from my own wallet, however i did only small projects so far (few hundred $/project maximum). I also purchase software that i really need for myself, but not for others.
Question: if, in theory, i would look for a programmer to do an iPad game, but he says that he needs unity pro, ipad license, and an actual ipad devuce, who pays for that? I think he should, since he is the one who gets these and he can use these afterwards. Are there standard solutions there?