Obligitory Unity licensing proposal thread

News & General Discussion
1

Hey everyone,

I am speaking for myself as a hobbyist who wants to throw money at Unity Tech for a license of pro. However I cannot afford it due to its current price point. I know that I will never be able to afford unity pro in a million years unless I whore myself out with contract work. Something I do not want to do.

That is not to say I am not broke. I want to throw money at Unity Tech however I am finding it harder and harder to justify it.

Why do you care you are an unreal engine user or

I care because I do not want Unreal engine to dominate the market. They have made a really awesome deal for indie developers. However competition is good. No competition is bad. Epic Games could in theory bring the pricing for their engine up if Unity Tech goes under or is sold off. I want Unity Tech to be around for a long time and offer awesome competition for Epic Games and vice versa.

Competition breeds innovation.

What should be done?

Unity should roll out a Hobbyist level of Pro for around 100 to 300 USD. This would include all the features of pro however at a level that hobbyists can afford. If a hobbyist wants to make money they can do that. Basically the Unity free license would act as an umbrella license for both licenses (Free and Hobby).

However you would need to upgrade Unity Hobby or what ever it will be called every time a major version is released.

Pro should remain untouched.

What I am saying -

  • Introduce a new licensing tier for hobbyists and upcoming developers that is limited to how much they can earn with said license.
  • I am saying that 1500 dollars is allot of money to spend on a hobby.
  • I am saying that hobbyists need a chance for their games to shine.
  • I am saying not everyone can afford 1500 dollars.

What I am not saying -

  • I am not saying get rid of free.
  • I am not saying get rid of Pro.

Personally I am invested into Unity3D as is everyone that uses these forums. I have 2 Projects that I want to finish but cannot due to the limitations of free. I want to throw money at Unity Tech however I do not want to go through the mixed bag that is the Unity Asset store. I also have purchased who knows how many assets on the asset store.

Also some food for thought - If Unity Tech does not act fast. Unreal Engine 4 will dominate the market similar to how Unity has done so for years with its massive install base of free users.

If anything Unity should do it as an experiment to see if such license is feasible. I personally would throw at least 150 dollars at unity tech for such a license but of course that is my sweet spot :slight_smile:

Just something to consider -

HeadClot

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I would be all for the free version including all features, but have royalties.

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Unity has already they have said they are not interested in a licensing model like that.

I think they said that in their WebGL is free Blog. Not sure though.

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Eh, fair enough. I know I’m a begger, not chooser.

5

yes.

  • I’d buy indie pro for: ?00-400usd (even per platform)
  • or, i’d buy invidual features (profiler, rendertextures, …) from asset store for less price (even though it means in the end total cost would be more than 1500, if i were to purchase every feature one by one)
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I personally think buying features would cause more problems than good.

But of course it could be entirely based situation. I look at is like this - Would you rather buy part of a Cheeseburger or a whole cheeseburger?

I would rather buy a whole cheese burger but that is just me. :slight_smile:

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I agree completely.

The biggest headache for Unity would be the admin involved in knowing who is eligible for the Hobby license. Leading to extra work.

Unity has already said though that they won’t change the price structure. (or did I dream that?). I would love a hobby license though.

8

TBH - Unity has a license system in place for Pro. But what would the difference opposed to keeping track of free users who are making more than 100k or what ever the amount is.

Also -

I found the blog post that I was thinking of.

http://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/08/14/building-and-maintaining-value-for-developers/

I really think unity could get some extra money here just from the shear amount of free users wanting to upgrade to pro.

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The current pricing model us crazy since even after that $1500 you still have to shove out $1500 again for the platform of choice if not standalone. So a mobile developer have to pay $4500 to get pro + android + iOS which is fucking crazy and feels like gouging. Than if you want working perforce integration that is a other $500 for a total of $5000 per seat.

Hobbyists can’t afford that and even small studios find it expensive if they need to do that for every seat.

10

The Mobile licenses need to be reworked that is a given.

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I am never going to give up my game dev hobby. I don’t have a lot of expendable income either as a college student. There are certain pro features that I make use of that make having pro worth it right now. In a few years, I may not be able to give the $600 or $800 to upgrade again.

This will force me onto another engine. I hope by the time that’s a possibility, something like this happens. I’ve made less than $800 total in the last year from owning unity, so I’m clearly a hobbyist :stuck_out_tongue:

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12

I’m not trying to push anyone away or be rude. It seems several people are unhappy with Unity feeling they are charging too much. Nothing wrong with that. It is your right to have that opinion. Personally, I have no plans to buy Unity Pro or Unreal. Yes, if it was $150 to $200 and had a big benefit of doing so then okay maybe I would. But I have seen a ton of games and demos made in Unity Free at this point.

It seems like anything you want to make can be done in Unity Free. Yes maybe your lighting may not be quite as bright and shiny as it would in Unity Pro. Maybe the performance would be better if you had access to Pro. Why not find other ways around the issue? Come up with a creative solution.

If you go back through the decades this is exactly the kind of thing all great game developers have done. There are always limits either the tech just isn’t there yet or it is too expensive. So you innovate. You find another way of doing it or you cut that part and do something else that is as important or more important. If it is all about graphics, lighting and such why not just hook up with a skilled artist? I bet that would do far more for making your game look better than some shading light tech thing. Or just focus more on the other aspects of the game. Make it amazing from a game play point of view.

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As a hobbyist, I agree with HeadClot88. Unity should launch an additional option between Free and Pro. There are a lot of hobbyists that want the Pro features and would be happy to pay something. Unity is leaving money on the table by not addressing that issue. I am guessing a Hobby version with Pro features could easily sell at the $200 price point or at the $19/month price point.

The current price point of $1500 for Unity Pro is actually not that bad. The problem is that it is $1500 per platform. If Unity simply included every platform for $1500 total (instead of $1500 per platform), I would order Unity Pro immediately. But I refuse to pay $4500 (for PC, iOS, and Android). $4500 is way to expensive for a hobbyist.

Seriously, if Unity offered to include every platform for $1500 total, I would order Unity Pro today.

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Or even if platforms were cheaper like 500 if they kept pro at the current price dropped the cost if platforms and maybe merged android and iOS into a mobile pro. That would be nice.

I’m sure they can get the money back on the asset store since the larger the community the more people there is to buy assets and the more people there are to make and sell assets, I’m sure unity must take a cut from there.

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15

How about breaking Unity Pro for PC into its separate platforms? This way if you only need Windows, you could simply buy Unity Pro for Windows at a reduced price.

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Also a subscription which isn’t minimum 12 months long would incentivise me to get Unity Pro for the time I’m actually working on my games as a hobbyist, as I’m not doing it all year long usually.

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So you’re suggesting UT makes another version with all the pro features at a much cheaper cost? How does that benefit UT? I fail to see the difference from just lowering the pro price outright.

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Oh, come on, Unity is currently barely equal to UE3, not saying about UE4.

Yet, their policy on development, pricing and support is like they are damn Microsoft of game industry, or like that.

Development and pricing was discussed enough already. When there is some virtually 20-bucks-worth AAA engine with unrestricted features and source code, they offer 1500 to 4500 license for an outdated one which source code must be complete mess now, so they will not disclose it. They can’t even adopt features that are already there on the Asset Store, like visual shader editors, GUI frameworks, etc…

And don’t tell me it wasn’t expected. Most of you are programmers here, and, even if you are not experienced at all, you still able to see when your code became complete mess and must be refactored or even rebuilt from scratch.

Unity3D today has huge problems. Currently it offers no top (or at least competitive) technology or tools. No, it isn’t bad, it just years outdated today. Development pace is struggling, so not only gap is growing, the growing pace grows too. Investing your time or money or both in Unity means that soon you will be 10 years behind of any engine, even fairly simple ones which, however, aren’t limited by an outdated Mono/C# version and mess of legacy code.

And, I tell you, they clearly should have been able to see where it all comes years ago. But they just continued to milk that cow.

Meh.

Go use UE4. That will teach them.

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19

A large number of Unity’s developers target mobile platforms. While Unity may be behind on PC, it does well on mobile.

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Okay, then let they not say that it is an “multiplatform” engine to make games for modern PCs and consoles. One may think it is actually capable of making competitive games for modern top platforms.