REAL cost: Unity vs UDK: Small Team, iPhone, PC/Mac Release + Android?

News & General Discussion
1

Please correct me where I’m wrong.

Team of 5:

  1. Level Designer/Textures/Materials
  2. Artist/GUI/Materials/Usability/Marketing
  3. Programmer and knowledge base/development guru
  4. Modeler/Animator/Renderer/UVW texturing
  5. Boss, producer, nuisance and designer/dreamer/tester

Unity
((Unity Pro + iPhone Pro + Android) x 5) + Asset Server = $23,000 USD

UDK
$99 Publication License + 25% — AFTER first $5000

Assuming all of the team have their own equipment and software for individual content creation (needed with either scenario)

Let’s make a game: Boss/Producer/Dreamer think’s he’s got the idea/concept to make a modestly successful game:

Game goes out at current above average retail of $1.99 on iTunes

Sales Scenario 1.
Game sells 10k Units on iTunes @ $1.99 : take home = $1.40 == $14,000
Game sells 2k Units on Steam @ $4.99 : take home = $3.50 === $7,000
Game sells 2k Units on Android @ $0.99 : take home = $0.80 ===$1600

Total Income on Unity = $22,600
Total Income on UDK = $21,000

Under Unity Licensing this is a loss of $400
Under UDK Licensing this is a profit of $16,900

Sales Scenario 2.
Game sells 25k Units on iTunes @ $1.99 : take home = $1.40 == $35,000
Game sells 5k Units on Steam @ $4.99 : take home = $3.50 === $17,500
Game sells 5k Units on Android @ $0.99 : take home = $0.80 ===$4000

Total Income on Unity = $56,500
Total Income on UDK = $52,500

Under Unity Licensing this is a profit of $33,500
Under UDK Licensing this is a profit of $40,525

Sales Scenario 3.
Game sells 50k Units on iTunes @ $1.99 : take home = $1.40 == $70,000
Game sells 10k Units on Steam @ $4.99 : take home = $3.50 === $35,000
Game sells 10k Units on Android @ $0.99 : take home = $0.80 ===$8000

Total Income on Unity = $113,000
Total Income on UDK = $105,000

Under Unity Licensing this is a profit of $90,000
Under UDK Licensing this is a profit of $80,000

Sales Scenario 4.
Game sells 100k Units on iTunes @ $1.99 : take home = $1.40 == $140,000
Game sells 20k Units on Steam @ $4.99 : take home = $3.50 === $70,000
Game sells 20k Units on Android @ $0.99 : take home = $0.80 ===$16,000

Total Income on Unity = $226,000
Total Income on UDK = $210,000

Under Unity Licensing this is a profit of $203,000
Under UDK Licensing this is a profit of $163,650

At what point do you think using UDK and Unreal technology becomes a marketing tool in it’s own right?

At what point do you think using Unity becomes detrimental to sales on something like Steam and iPhone?

And how many sales do you think your games going to make?

2

Well I think the projections would make me ask questions about what I was spending up front.
For example, you are spending $7500 on five(!) Unity Android licenses when only the most optimistic projection would show any significant profit on that. Not sure that makes commercial sense.

Furthermore, the calculations are based on this being the one and only game that you publish with Unity… for the second and all subsequent releases in the same major release bracket, those licensing costs would be 0. And they would be half that even for the first game if you had licensed the last major Unity release.

3

Commercial sense is not always direct. If we were to use Unity and NOT take advantage of the Android facility that would be a misstep based on the potential there. These are VERY loose projections/predictions with really no idea what reality will come. However the fact that something might work on Android, get pirated a LOT (as it will on that platform) may lead to increased sales of a “full screen” version on Steam… so it’s both a real cost and commercial decision and a marketing decision to pay for Android.

I’ve left out future games and productions. Simply because that’s way too complex for this calculation. Then you’ve gotta figure in the intangibles. Starting with basic stuff… like what benefit does use and familiarity with UDK/Unreal for the individuals of the team provide to their career options over getting good at Unity? And that’s a factor NOBODY wants to talk about if they’re on the Unity side of the fence.

AND I’ve left out the increase in license costings that occur with Unity once you go over $100,000 revenue, since I don’t know what they are… but they’re there… earn more than $100k and you’re in for a whole different class of licensing with Unity (read: more expensive!!!) So that kind of mutes your point about future productions, as they’ll come under this teams income…

4

That only counts for Unity Free, afaik.

5

Did you really need to start a new thread? Jeesh… :roll_eyes:

As I said in the other thread, for a team, such as you describe, where there’s only one coder / developer you would really only need to buy one Unity license. That’s like buying everyone copies of Photoshop and Max when only the respective artists need it. Now in a 1 or 2 man team where everyone does everything, that’s another story. But for larger teams where there is clear job segregation, then buying the extra licenses is a needless expense.

6

The licensing requirement is that if you earn more than $100,000 a year you need to get a Pro license ($1,500). So if you have a Pro license you make a kajillion bucks and not pay Unity Tech a penny more.

7

I don’t think there’s complete job segregation in a small team like this. eg Level designer is going to need to test his levels for performance, visual quality, requirements etc across the platforms… there’s not going to be somebody to do that for him. This is the same for the animator/modeler and the GUI/look/feel guy. The segregation comes when you’ve got a project manager with a guy sitting next to him ensuring that everything works, that’s another license and two folks who don’t actually contribute to production other than comment/critique and process.

8

I disagree, but then again some of how you’ve separated job assignments makes no sense to me either.

9

I think that making projections, even loose ones is a great idea. Using different scenarios like this you can see what’s the minimum you need to do to break even, to make it worth your while, and to make it a real success.

I think using unknowns and intangibles without estimated value to offset large dollar sums in your projections is the top of a very slippery slope.

10

I actually disagree with a great many points here. The assertion that iPhone is a no-brainer to develop for and that most developers will need to develop for it to make money… That one I highly disagree with. Most indie developers simply don’t go multiplatform, and if they’re just starting out and want to make the most money, they choose PC as their platform, not a cell phone most people don’t have.

And FIVE Unity licenses? That’s unnecessary, even if you have a five-man team. At most, you might need 2 licenses, if the programmer wants one and the level designer wants one. Nobody else needs to be poking around in Unity, as all of their work can be done outside of Unity.

Your sales figures I disagree with too (even keeping in mind they’re just guesses). I can’t imagine a single instance where iPhone sales would outnumber Steam sales 5 to 1, unless you’ve got a game that was specifically designed for the iPhone and its PC counterpart was buggy, broken, and not fun.

And you might have been confused on this point, but unless you’re making more than $100,000 per year, developing with Unity is free. Sure, you’re “limited” to the PC and Mac while working with the free version, but the PC gamer base is massive and I hardly consider that a limitation. When I think of playing games, I think of my computer long before I think of the iPhone (not to mention I don’t personally know anyone who owns one as it’s hardly the most impressive option if you want a smart phone these days). There are something in the neighborhood of 20 million Steam users. If you make a well thought out, decently polished PC game in one of a half-dozen of the more popular genres and publish on Steam, I can’t imagine making only 2,000 sales, especially at a $5 or even $10 figure, unless there is something seriously wrong with the game.

Even Psychonauts sold five times more than that after launch and at a much higher price point, and that was keeping in mind that nobody even knew the game existed and could only be bought as physical copies at first. It’s a totally different story if you can publish with Steam and get that front-page access to millions of users on the day your game releases, even if it’s just for one day.

I know two people personally who have published indie titles on Steam, both of them in agreement that the first 5,000-10,000 sales pretty much make themselves regardless of anything, even the quality of your game (not that I would ever recommend that people make large batches of bad games, as that’s a terrible practice :smile:).

Your proposed spending model is unrealistic for anyone but a hefty-sized development company, or for an indie developer who is not very good at managing their money and priorities and is trying to do everything at once. My one-man development costs have so far been $0 on Unity, $0 on C# 2010 to do all my programming, $0 on all the various open-source and freeware (but still very good quality) modeling, painting, and animating softwares, I record my own sound effects, and I have two friends I can go to when I need good music as a personal favor. All I had to do was make some smart choices and not overindulge on thousand-dollar software I really didn’t need to do the job, and have a few personal connections for the music. Shrug

I’m looking at a total development cost of $0 for anything I ever make with Unity, at least until I decide to upgrade to Pro features or if I start making more than $100,000 a year (but if I do that, paying a measly $1,500 for Unity Pro will no longer be a problem… in fact, the first $1,500 I make with my Unity game, personally, will be going towards a Pro license).

None of this is meant as a personal thing against you, I’m just stating my point of view and what I know to be true and maybe even trying to uplift your spirits, since you seem to have a pretty dismal outlook of what it costs to develop a game using Unity!

11

@JasonB Let me ask you this… how much have you personally spent on Steam games? How much do you know of others spending on Steam? Now, purely anecdotally, how much do you think the “mugs” that you know with iPhones have spent in the app store?

12

Well said Jason.

I’ve worked with a hefty sized development company or two and can tell you that they pinch their pennies as much as anyone, and the bigger they are the more they pinch. If I managed a team and told my boss that everyone on my team needed copies of the development engine (and assuming we paid for each license) I’d be unemployed muy rapido.

13

@bigkahuna the job segregation is based on the team I have available and what they’re good at. I’m not running a human resources department where I can pick and choose talent, then organize them in ideal categories, I’ve found a wonderful group of guys that want to work towards game production independence. The fact that they’re all well acquainted and fully aware of each others skill sets removes the need for a lot of oversight and control issues.

Cost of creating a team equally qualified and experienced, with rudimentary segregation based on “ideals” and subsequent management of that team might lead to team creation and management costs equal to the total cost of production… thereby doubling production costs instantly.

14

@bigkahuna

I guess it depends who you work for. lol

I won’t name names, but some big developers think nothing of spending thousands of dollars on something that accomplishes absolutely nothing (new DRM that gets cracked a month later!).

So big guys definitely still throw their money away, at least from what I can see looking in. I bet you anything that most of the penny pinching you see comes in the way of things that would make your job as a developer easier. We can’t have that. :slight_smile:

15

@JasonB - Yeah, I know companies like that too. But there’s no way I’d run my business like that! :wink:

16

OK, I’m new here, so I’m a bit confused.

Couldn’t the above hypothetical team get 5 licenses of Unity Pro, and then just one license of iOS Pro and one of Android Pro? I guess I thought that the iOS Pro and Android Pro licenses were just for publishing to those platforms and that everything else, up to the publishing part, could be done with Unity Pro.

As I said, I’m new here, so please someone set me straight if I’m delusional.

17

As an artist, for me to NOT be able to test on target platform would be a waste of everyone’s time. I can’t tell you how many times something “ran or looked fine” on the PC, then when it got to the PS3/360/PSP it was different or had issues. It’s annoying to build, run and test other people stuff when you’re working. I don’t want to be that bottleneck, and I don’t want people waiting to hear the results. If not the $1200 unity then the $300 version is fine. Just get them to test on the target platform, otherwise you can’t verify that it’s done.

If you’re developing on PC, as long as each artist has the same shader sets approved for the game, then the free version is fine, just make sure they have the latest scripts if needed. That’s free, and that’s a $$ saver. But if you’re using heavy pro features and the artwork uses these features, then it starts to get into that “You need the same version” territory.

Other than that, interesting thread.

18

dissidently, to make it more fair, you need to subtract the cost of :

  • 5 x Android license (because UDK can’t support it yet)
  • Asset Server (not sure if UDK has this, but if UDK doesn’t support Asset server to be fair we need to subtract the cost in Unity side too)
  • And also probably remove the Android sales for now to be a fair comparison.
19

@Lamont et al - My point is that whether you buy 5 licenses for a 5 member team or 1 license is a matter of choice. If you decide you want every member of the team to have it on his/her computer you certainly can, but it’s not required nor mandated by the Unity license. Teams have released titles with only one person doing the coding. The UDK license and the 25% royalty is mandatory and there isn’t any way of lowering that cost.

20

@ bigkahuna: Ok. so the programmer’s going to do all the testing of materials, scenes, textures, objects, physics, shaders, lighting, shadows, rendering etc? and report back to those creating this content about what’s going on with each platform due for publication, and he’s supposed to finish the game sometime?

I think the man hours lost in this cycle will be more than the cost of the 4 extra licenses. If it ever gets to completion this way… I can’t imagine one person willing to manage, administrate, test, control and produce everything at a 5 team standard through that one bottleneck of himself. It’s too much for one person unless you reduce expectations to a one man production.

Not to mention, you, the programmer and license holder getting sick means a bottle neck challenge. You deciding there’s something better to do as your main priority, EVERYTHING slows down. Making one guy the point, like that, in a small team, it’s not right. not done. not going to happen. Everyone must be replaceable in order to assure completion. It’s not cut throat, it’s just common sense. The OBJECTIVE is the purpose. It’s work in production, not a spiritual journey to Bells Beach or Point Magoo.