Unity acquires Bolt

Community Showcases
,
1

*** The information in this post is out of date as new announcements regarding the price of Bolt have been made: Bolt Price Change Announcement ***

Unity is excited to announce that we have acquired the Bolt visual scripting plugin from publisher Ludiq. Bolt provides a production-ready visual scripting solution for the current Unity architecture. Unity saw this as an opportunity to acquire the highly popular plugin to help artists and their teams improve workflows.

Unity will work with Ludiq to transition development of Bolt and Bolt 2 to our internal development teams, and Unity will continue to build and maintain these technologies with no current plans to change availability, pricing or in-progress development. We will regularly share updates about Bolt and Bolt 2 development with the Bolt community.

Unity will honor the commitment made by Ludiq to offer Bolt 2 at no additional cost to current Bolt users, as well as those who purchase Bolt on the Asset Store before 11:59:59 pm PST on May 31, 2020… Unity will also continue to develop its own internal visual scripting solution, which is based on the new Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS) architecture. This means that users can continue to have a visual scripting solution for current projects with Bolt, as well as a DOTS-based visual scripting solution when they are ready to migrate to a DOTS-based project.

Our development teams are looking forward to supporting Bolt users, and we will provide updates once we have more to share.

Bug tracking:

From this point on, if you would like to report a bug please follow these steps.

Bolt 2 Beta testing:

Users interested in beta-testing Bolt 2 can get in touch with the development team on the beta forum .

*** THIS FAQ IS OUT OF DATE ***
Updated FAQ: Bolt Price Change Announcement

FAQ

  • What is Bolt and how does it work?

Bolt is a visual scripting plugin for Unity developed and sold by Ludiq on the Unity Asset Store. It enables Unity users to create logic for games or applications without writing code. While Bolt lets non-programmers create node-based graphs to define desired behaviors, programmers can interact with Bolt through its API to get and set variables, trigger custom events, and create nodes that can be used by other team members.

  • Why did Unity acquire Bolt?

Bolt provides a production-ready visual scripting solution for the current Unity architecture. Unity saw this as an opportunity to acquire the highly popular visual scripting plugin to help artists and their teams improve workflows. Bolt will continue to be available via the Asset Store.

  • Will this acquisition change Unity’s own visual scripting tool development?

Unity has been working on its own visual scripting solution for some time. Our solution is built on the new Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS) architecture, while Bolt and Bolt 2 are both designed for the classic, non-DOTS versions of Unity. This helps ensure that there will be visual scripting solutions available for users with DOTS and non-DOTS projects.

  • Did Unity acquire Bolt’s publisher, Ludiq?

No, Unity has only acquired the Bolt plugin.

  • What will happen to Bolt 2 now that Unity owns it? How will it compare to Bolt?

Unity will be working closely with Ludiq to provide support for Bolt and to transition development of Bolt 2 (currently in Alpha) to Unity development teams. We will share more information about Bolt and Bolt 2 development plans and timelines in the coming months. Users interested in beta-testing Bolt 2 can get in touch with the development team on the beta forum .

  • How will Unity support Bolt users?

Ludiq will transition Bolt’s community support forum (support.ludiq.io) to Unity. This includes bug tracking, user questions, and feedback. Additionally, larger studios that have Integrated Success Services (ISS) support will now be able to get Bolt support via the Unity Technical Support portal, just like any other Unity feature. To report a Bolt issue, please follow these steps.

  • How will Unity users get access to Bolt?

New Bolt users can purchase Bolt on the Unity Asset Store. Users who previously acquired Bolt from the Asset Store will get access to Bolt under the Unity Technology Asset Store publisher for free. Users who previously acquired Bolt from Ludiq website will receive a coupon to redeem Bolt under the Unity Technology Asset Store publisher for free. We will provide Unity Student plan users with a coupon for complimentary access to Bolt.

  • Will Bolt’s availability or pricing change?

We have no plans at this time to change Bolt’s availability or pricing.

  • Ludiq pledged to make Bolt 2 free for users of Bolt. Will Unity honor this pledge?

Yes. Bolt 2 will be free for current Bolt users as well as those who purchase Bolt on the Asset Store before 11:59:59 pm PST on May 31, 2020. Bolt users will receive an individual license for Bolt 2 when it becomes available.

8 Likes
2

Sooo… today has been released a new package with version number 1.4.12… the version 1.4.11 has been deprecated.

Currently, I don’t see that I have access to V1.4.12… will this be made accessible to “old” users?

1 Like
3

I don’t understand this move of still selling Bolt. Does it mean Unity is moving to selling regular assets of it’s own from now on to perhaps sell parts of the engine/editor on Asset Store?

I think it’s just I failed to read clearly enough what the intention is.

13 Likes
4

Hi @Metron , we’re working on clarifying how to get access to this version, stay tuned.

5

Hi @hippocoder , our intention in the very short term is to offer continuous support with the minimum of changes to focus on knowledge transfer and onboarding for our developers. So we kept everything as it was, including distribution and pricing, but we will be updating our plans to better explain how we intend to manage Bolt 1 and Bolt 2 moving forward, and also in relation to our existing plans with Visual Scripting for DOTS.

Thanks.

6

No you haven´t failed. And it´s not the first part of technology which they sell aside with a package or a parallel licensing system.

7

i would have preferred that Unity released Bolt free or promoted an open source Nodes solution (like xNode) so that we could use and enhance it in tons of opensource and educational projects, or even our commercial games without paying a license for each developer
like with TMpro or Cinemachine or ProBuilder that soon became the core unit of many projects

10 Likes
8

Please make Bolt free for everyone to use it.

7 Likes
9

Why are some users able to download Bolt for free and other users still have to pay full price? What’s the meaning behind this? Why are you saying the price won’t change, yet some are able to get it for free now?

10

what a strange move to acquire bolt and not release it for free … doesn’t it defeat the purpose of creating a bridge between developpers and artists ?

over ther past years, one of the biggest issue i had when communicating with coders, was the lack of an official shared VS solution … instead of showing a working project with all the logic behind it, i had to try to explain it instead … and it pretty much never ended well.
if you keep Bolt as a paid asset, then it’s back to square one … because let’s face it, 95% of the developpers are just not interested to buy a VS solution, probably out of pride :stuck_out_tongue:

Also, there is many assets i would have liked to release to the store, but since they were always VS dependant, i never did … and i know of many other artists who are in the same situation.

please, do reconsider … we really need an official monobehaviour VS solution that every Unity users can have an easy access to … i think you would be quite surprised at what would come out of it :slight_smile:

2 Likes
11

Hi @Freznosis , existing customers of Bolt can get the new versions distributed by Unity for free as they already paid for it. Additionally, Ludiq did promise in the past that owners of Bolt 1 would get Bolt 2 for free and Unity intend to keep this promise. Finally we are looking at giving students access to Bolt for free through the Student plan, more details to come on this soon.

At the moment, the only way to get access to Bolt 1 for a new user who didn’t have previously acquired Bolt 1 is to buy it on the Asset Store at the same price as it was before. We are discussing our plans for the future and will communicate to you all as soon as we have an update.

1 Like
12

Hi @sarum , no decision has been taken yet, this is why we kept pricing and distribution exactly the same as it was, to provide continuous support while give ourselves enough time to come up with a clear Visual Scripting plan for all of Unity users.

There is no doubt that visual scripting has a lot of value to all of you, so stay tuned, more information to come in the future about our intentions.

4 Likes
13

were are sample projects for bolt like 3D/2D platformer ??

1 Like
14

So basically as of right now, we will need to buy it as a regular asset and in the future, there could be potential changes to how this will be accessible to everyone alongside the Unity’s DOTS migration?

1 Like
15

Hello, I’m aware that Unity plans to continue selling Bolt, however there are at least 2 people in my Discord group that downloaded Bolt for free only an hour ago. They weren’t students, they didn’t own Bolt before, and didn’t meet any of the prerequisites you’ve listed.

This is what they see.

16

Hi, I think they are talking about these “future plans” because they want to avoid a massive refund for purchases made in this most recent promotion.
I bought Bolt on April 29 in the half price sale. and now they have been purchased by the Unity and can become free.
Great news. but sadly i just lost $ 35.
That amount in my country is equivalent to 20% of a common salary. So I had to wait for a promotion.
but anyway …
Success! Don’t kill the bolt!

2 Likes
17

This is surprising, and not expected. I am trying to figure this out with the team, people with a previous entitlement should experience what you shared, if not they should see the regular price. Maybe they had a previous entitlement to it through a Bundle and they didn’t know about it? We’ll continue to investigate. Thanks for letting me know!

18

Hi @Pszczolkowski , we’re working on more learning content for Visual Scripting, keep an eye out for news on this front.

19

You nailed it!

1 Like
20

I have a Bolt license from their website. How do I redeem it in the asset store? The key doesn’t work as a voucher.

1 Like