Interesting. I’m wondering how does a Unity Pro + mobile basic combination work? Do all the pro features get switched off when switching the platform to mobile or would we be able to use some of the pro stuff (like profiler for example:p)?
Or is that even possible, would we have to use a separate free license install for mobile basic stuff?
Adobe have said that they’re making all of their software subscription only with the “Creative Cloud”. I own Creative Suite and usually upgrade every year, but I really, really hate the idea of subscription being the only way of buying the software. I won’t be subscribing to Creative Suite and am looking round for alternatives.
However, for Unity, the only time I’ve ever needed Unity Professional was that I once needed it for a 2 month project and haven’t used it professionally since. So in this case a subscription would have been great.
Bottom line. Having a subscription option could be really good but make it so subscription is the only way to buy the software and you’ll have a large number of customers looking for the door.
If I subscribe today ONLY to the base Pro license, or perhaps Desktop+iOS Pro licenses, can I add an Android subscription after that window?
Is there any plans or talks about doing a big bundle discount like Adobe is doing with their latest CS cloud service? I can see a Desktop + iOS + Android + Blackberry + WinPhone8 + Win8 store license eventually getting way too costly ($450/month). Most people with such budget likely can already just buy licenses, most people without the budget that subscribe may lead to a collection nightmare and lots of damaged credit histories (got to keep in mind that Unity is used heavily by young developers that can make legal choices but still don’t understand the draconian ways of the financial world.)
If I subscribe now, and in the future I decide I want to stop subscription and just give you the full cost of a Pro license (no discounts, just pay the full cost)… can I do so without penalties?
Good point, in which I would think the only people who would be interested in this are the “mathematically challenged” or those who have difficulty in borrowing money.
• If you already own a perpetual license, you are unable to subscribe to an add-on or team license.
Ergh. I would have been interested in the team license. All the other plans would be useless for me, even using it for 1 year would put me in the situation where if I renew for another year it would have cost me more(which is not good). Except if it was any less I can see it actually being cheaper than buying it outright…so eh.
Also, if you discontinue this plan can they keep renewing at that price or do you not let them renew?
Hmm I wouldn’t mind this type of style if we could almost do it like a payment plan, It’s nice for students in education who can’t really afford a big lump sum of money however if it’s just a subscription then it’s just dead money which is not the best financial choice.
Without the 12 month restriction in place, people will just pay $75 to deploy and see where that goes. I think its an interesting experiment though at that rate, I’d just buy it personally.
So you would have to be a subscriber for 20 months to go past the 1500 mark and even then the updates are included? So if unity went from 4 to 5 then subscribers automatically get version 5 with no upgrade cost? If so this is a very decent deal. I think the upgrade cost for unity is like 700 or 800 usd? I forget. So the subscribers could be getting a better deal still in that case is unity makes a major upgrade in a 20 month period.
If you plan to use pro for less than a year it may not be worth it.
Same with iOS and Android, I feel there might be a decent number of Unity Pro owners who might want to dabble with mobile Pro and this could have been an alternative and viable option. Not sure why Unity can’t enable this? Obviously they aren’t also getting the Unity Pro sub, but since the dev has already bought Unity Pro I can’t see that it would have mattered?
Though to be honest I don’t see much appeal in subscription models, overall it doesn’t look like this would provide any savings over purchasing (and why should it), so it only really helps out those who are unable to find the full funds in one go and instead spread the cost over 12 months.
Khyrid’s point is interesting though, that for an on-going relationship subscriptions look like they might be better value. Though you never actually own Unity, meaning once you stop the sub you lose all access, which obviously you don’t if you go the traditional full price + upgrades cost. This is the same problem with Adobe’s offering, if they could factor in, even at some fixed added cost the ability to drop out of subs say after 20 months that you get to keep the current version i’d probably jump into the whole subscription business model.
What would have been more interesting is if the add-ons could have been subscribed to for say 3 month blocks at a time, perhaps requiring full payment up front. That would give developers the opportunity to try their hand at developing and releasing to those markets, without the large initial outlay normally required.
Sure it might be possible for a developer to abuse’ the system, only paying Unity for 3 months usage, then releasing a game on Android/iOS and profiting, but eventually one would assume they would have to return to Unity to make updates or changes for iOS updates etc.
Regardless Its good to see Unity trying out new business ideas.
If you only need it for a year, it makes sense, would be much cheaper than buying the licenses at full up front cost only to use them for a couple projects and then abandon it.
If there is any chance they may upgrade next year to Unity 5, it also makes a LOT of sense.
If you running your development as a real business, you can deduct the expense from your taxes anyways.
Also, if you NEED all the 3 licenses, that’s $4500 tossed into a credit card (you are unlikely to get a loan for this kind of stuff) and that can do horrors to your credit score. You also need some darn good credit history to get that big of a credit card limit.
The irony here is that the only reason I would (right now) go for this is so I can remove the Unity splash screen from iOS games. Its horrible looking (they seriously need to redesign that splash screen) and I really don’t work on games that require any Pro features. its a bit bothersome still that I need to pay for desktop pro so I can then pay the same fee ONLY to remove the fugly splash screen.
Combined with spreading out the payment to a monthly basis yep. But if you have to purchase over multiple versions it will most certainly be cheaper in the long run(upgrades cost a lot less, basically the same amount you’d pay for the subscription in one year).
