Before a possible shitstorm occurs, this is just a humble opinion of a game developer who switched around several Engines and used Unity for years. Maybe the Unity Team might learn something from this opinion, maybe not. There are already a bunch of threads related to Bugs and their love to Unity, so i will skip this Topic.
I want to talk about how i think Unity could be improved in different ways, after taking a look at your competition.
1. Free vs Pro Edition program
Sorry but this way ain’t working anymore, Unity is the only engine left that does this, by now every other engine on the market distributes their complete engine for free, only demanding payment if you reach a certain profit point or buy a certain additional service. Everyone knows exactly you are trying to coerce people into buying the pro edition engine by adding an unprofessional “personal edition” splash screen and an eyecancer editor color etc. That kind of rip off behaviour is really cheap, and sows distrust with possible and even current costumers, especially now with so many other competitors on the market who aren’t doing this.
Just distribute the whole engine for free without this obvious bullshit, and demand royalty or a one time payment once the engine owner has hit a profit point of 100k or even 10k through selling a game made with Unity. I mean think about it, complete free engine = more indies, and if you decrease the profit point to pay you to 10k or royalties, those indies who wouldn’t reach 100k, or who normally don’t use the engine because of your current obvious rip off, would then pay that way. Behaving and screwing with your costumers like now all the time is the main reason why people drop out of Unity, not solely because of the recent undserved price doubling or only because other engines appeared. Ironically, forcing the splash screen on non-pros, has made your public image even worse, since a lot of beginners with bad games are forced to use your Logo, while professionals with good games turn it off after buying.
2. Standart Features
I understand that you want to make make money through the asset store, it’s an effortless way to get profit through the work of others, but you need way more standart features past 2008. For example polish your standart shaders, you might have added PBR but i mean how is it possible you don’t even have some standart SSS or Color ID Blending? What about better skin/eye/hair shaders like in Unreal? You could even look into the Unreal source code and reproduce those. Adding only useless features and bugfixes and waiting for Users to create new stuff only so you get part of that money through the asset store is very annoying, especially because we don’t have access to the Source Code, so even the asset store People can’t add the real juicy shit. And that’s the next point.
3. Source Code
Yes, yes, it is hard for any company to distribute this. But in the end, if you had done this, you and your engine would have been supported much earlier used by c++ people. Every time i ask why people are not using Unity, a LOT of them say it is because they don’t have access to the source code and can’t code with c++. And considering most professionals and big companies use c++, you have eliminated those possible costumers. Only Few will get the unity enterprise edition plus source code, if other engines make cheap/free c++ and or source access available, especially in these times
Honestly, the major reason people still use Unity is because of the easy to use lightweight editor, the huge asset store and c#/Javascript(huge plus for those who hate visuals scripting). And well, the surprisingly good tutorials for beginners+community.
Now imagine Cryengine, Lumberyard or Unreal someday adding exactly these to their flagships, where do you think your costumers would be all going to?
At the same time, imagine yourself listening to the 3 points above plus copying some ideas from your competitors. Than make some juicy demo video like Unreal and get in some companies to represent the unity name instead of beginners who are forced to use the logo, and make them represent some bling bling graphics and cool gameplay in Unity, and viola.
But well, this is just my opinion.