Given that Unity 5.x is still closed-source,
If there were ONLY subscription mode left, will you prefer to be able to use your downloaded full version even after you cancel your subscription?
I can’t imagine why anyone would ever prefer their software to stop working…?
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If one treat subscription as buying the right to use the service, you may feel fairness.
eg. If you pay rent of 6 months, you are allowed to stay in a house for 6 months. After that you must leave the house.
Paying monthly bills for electricity or water supply. If you don’t pay the bill, these service will stop.
The ability to cancel my subscription at any time and continue to enjoy using their tools set is the reason I choose UE4 over Cry and Unity. I can’t image why anyone would prefer their software to stop working upon canceling their sub.
Months earlier, I almost signed up for a Unity sub until I read over their terms. Users will never own the software and are locked in for 12 months, was a huge deal breaker for me. In addition, I personally feel Unity isn’t complete and lacks many basic tools to which UE4 and Cry does have as standard features. Yet Unity charges 3x more than their competitors.
I didn’t choose Cry because users are essentially charged $10/month for their Free SDK and lacks complete documentation. In addition, when the sub stops so does CryEngine. You need to be connected to the internet at all times just to use the software. No go.
I have a real tough time believing any court would say that just because you paid for one month of a subscription that you now own the software.
If you stopped paying your gym fees, do you still think you are entitled to be able to go there?
The bar color of the statistics went away! Why? (They are all white now and same size) 
Drawing comparisons to electricity bills and gym fees is meaningless, since those all cost the supplier to continue providing.
That said, obviously everyone would prefer their electricity bill and gym fee to be a one-off $20 fee, so the survey is a bit silly.
Now, a gym with a once-off $20 fee where the only extra cost is 5% of any future Mr Universe winnings… or is it 5% taken from the extra years your new healthier body would live? Maybe if you stop paying they surgically return you to your previous flabby and weak form? Analogies can get pretty silly.
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Analogies are how the entire legal system works, Think about that for a second.
Is there a point to this thread?
Seems rather… pointless.
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Um, so in your world bug fixing, community sites, new features, license database, migration service through support are all 100% free to provide? Interesting. Am pretty sure the people who do this work like to be paid.
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The idea is that those who want bug fixes and new features would need an active account during or after the period they were released. Otherwise they simply would not have access.
This question is silly. It depends on the cost. If the subscription fees are as current then I would leave unity, if same as unreal I would stay.
The question is poorly framed. It should be like:
With ONLY subscription, can you use Unity after cancelling subscription?
- @ $75
- Yes. I can use the downloaded full version to design games for different platform like UE4.*
- @ $25
- No. I prefer Unity stop working immediately like CRYENGINE.*
If you haven’t read the thread enough to understand it, maybe don’t kneejerk a condescending response? I will still have my copies of Unity 4.5 and UE 4.1 long after you and Tim Sweeney stop fixing them (with the latter, I can even do my own Sustained Engineering to improve it, if I’m completely insane).
But if the forum was shut down, the license server no longer ran, so you couldn’t migrate the license, the version of Unity only ran on the version of OS it was shipped on, that still makes it usable? Obviously with the right conditions you can still launch and use Unity, I’m not arguing that. I guess I am saying it’s the infrastructure around the exe/app that still needs to be paid for somehow.
As I think I have said before, it’s the money we get from paying customers that allow us to have a free version. If there are no paying customers the switches on the servers get thrown.
Currently when the subscription ends you get to continue with the free version.
Honestly I think it’ll be hard to beat UE4 in terms of “if you stop paying you keep the current license”.
But if Unity, understandably, can’t compete with UE4 like that, then they should try to compete in a similar way. For example, a contract-free sub for let’s say $15 -$20 per month that if you cancel, it goes back to Unity free.
I’d definitely pay $15 bucks a month for an ongoing Unity pro sub, and I think most people, even hobbyists would too. That’s definitely well within the realm of being affordable.
Edit: That being said, there’s expectations that go along with subscriptions. Some of them being regular patches and updates. I’m hoping Unity gets better about releasing patches with small but important changes vs trying to lump it all into one major version number. Things like Nested Prefabs should have been fixed long ago, for example. Yet it’s lingered for years now.
I think keeping the current licence after you stop playing for unreal isn’t a bad idea (cause someone can pay $20 and then $20 bucks each time to update).
However I don’t think unity would need to do that to keep people happy. I am sure if unity went 20 buck sub model get all platforms but if you stop you go back to free would have any real complaints cause it is a huge step down.
The problem is unity subscription model is 300 a month v 20 a month (assuming html5 is 75 too). The 5% royalty cost doesn’t effect small indie developers and they would be happy to have that problem. I don’t know what the right play is for unity (I am not a business person) but I am sure they aren’t happy about the situation.
If I were unity I wouldn’t want a royalty model because it is too hard to collect but I would also want to appear to be competitive for the indie developers. I don’t know the answer to this.
Which is acceptable given you also offer a one-time fee to permanently gain access to a major release of Unity. The problem most of us have is that Unity Pro’s base subscription, which only covers desktop, is almost four times the cost of UE4’s subscription which covers every platform. Obviously I’m not factoring in the console platforms.
I would be perfectly fine with losing access to Pro when a subscription ends if the cost were more reasonable. I’d be happy paying $25/mo for just Unity Pro and then an additional $25/mo for each of the other platforms.
Really the point is to offer a tier that appeals to hobbyists who would like to work with Unity Pro but cannot justify spending that much. Unity Free was perfectly fine in the past but I feel it only covers a small niche of developers at this point.
That’s not “similar” at all. The $19 a month is irrelevant. The real comparison is between $1500 per platform up front vs. 5% on the back end.
It is. But for hobby/indie people that 5% won’t be hit which makes it appealing and if they do get lucky and hit the threshold most won’t be paying.
I am not asking you to release numbers, but I am going to guess if you did the math for Master Thief to reason on unity pro v ue4 it would of been way cheaper for you to go ue4 route (I don’t know if you used pro or free with unity). My assumption is a lot of other smaller developers would be in the same boat.
I have all the full licences and unity5 preordered so it won’t really effect me in the short term but I have ue4 now too and I guess i will see which i like best!