I’ve heard somewhere, while you’re in the 30 day trial, you can make a commercial game. I’ve searched the Unity site and everything I’m seeing is how great Unity is. UDK, for example has a clear page related to legal stuff.
In my situation, I want to make a game for a contest(with a $$$ prize) and I want to use the pro version of Unity, while in trial. Am I allowed to do it?
As far as I know the 30 day trial is for evaluation only. There’s a “trial version” watermark on content published during the trial.
–Eric
I am pretty sure that is not possible. If it would be possible everyone would be releasing games with trial versions instead paying 1.5k for full version. If you think about it it just doesnt make sense.
Also what do you mean with legal stuff about UDK?
UDK is free with all fancy features, even if you intend to make money of contest as long as it is under 50k of revenue you dont have to pay anything (except 100 dollars for licence). If you plan to enter indiecade or something similar i am sure you wont suffer on money income since there arent awards over 50k.
Forgetting the contractual obligations, EULAs, etc, I think there is an ethical matter to be dissected.
The commercial version is to make games more attractive, which should help sales, thusly making it an investment. You are in effect trying to make money off of it, in a sense selling it not for cash directly, rather to a committee of judges as the best game in whichever contest you are entering. Putting a game on the market and entering it into a contest share one obvious trait: even though the money is not guaranteed, it is a key motivator in the creation of the product. Since you are entering it into a contest in a for reason which is not different than one has by putting it on the market, it is inconsequentially different from attempting to sell the game.
From the FAQs @ Unity Technologies FAQs
The technical controls in place are unable to stop you from submitting it, but an ability to do something does not in any way determine if one should do it.
My personal opinion on this matter is that you should develop with Indie and if you believe the game is worth selling, then it is worth submitting, and you should consider upgrading to the Pro license if the features justify the cost.
Step 1)
Make game in indy.
Step 2) If there s absolutely nothing more you can do in indy, at it really needs that extra feature from pro send a begging letter to unity,
Step 3) I’d imagine you’d get shot down, so cry, otherwise, rejoice!
This was asked not to long ago, and the result was, trial versions are not allowed to release commercial products.
If your game is actually good, find a publisher. With a good game it’s not too hard to find a sponsor or investor.
… 
it would be cool if unity pro was free… i hope game stop has some extra room O.O (but seriously, it would be AWESOME)
No, it wouldn’t be cool at all. They’d go out of business and then there wouldn’t be any more updates.
–Eric
I think what Unity provides as a free tool is awesome. Thousands of man hours have been put into the free version itself.
The PRO is the FAT cherry on top and Unity deserves their cash for that most definately
Really, for the engine you’re getting full access to, $1500 is very reasonable. It’s the $1500 for Android Pro that kind of seemed over the top for me.
Android Pro is 3000$ ( you can’t buy pro android without the pro licence )
cant you see a fantasizing post when you see one?
How could he see it and not see it?
I wouldn’t even call it fantasising, Unity Tech ship a great free product and I’d never fantasise about them going out of business by making no money on their commercial offerings. 
How about fantasizing that you have an extra $1500 instead? 
–Eric
Although asking for free anything is a bit silly professionally (especially considering we already get Unity Free) I do wish there were an alternative to those of us who are more serious about game development, but have run out of our budget.
Things such as SM2, Unity Android/iOS, and other middleware (related or unrelated to Unity) which would allow us to use the product and release a game legally, and pay them 50% to 100% of profits until it’s entirely paid off. Things such as SM2 or Unity iOS (Android has a free trial, so at least there’s that.) would be required BEFORE starting game creation.
MMO Middleware such as Photon, SmartFox, Electrotank, etc. allow this. It is free to build a game, even upwards of releasing a commercial game of good success (far above what I am wishing for) and only requiring payment upon great success or expansion. A much more friendly model for developers. Not that I think this should be allowed, as I believe most middleware make a good portion of their money from hobbyist who may never release anything (or release commercially) but for there to be exceptions, I really wish
Really, I’d love to purchase SM2 to make my life easier before creating games. However, I’ve spent a few thousand already on the game assets (primarily art related) so I’m out of money, but I’d be more than willing to use the first profits to pay for SM2 or Unity Android/iOS. Instead, it’ll just be PC releases and a lot of extra work on my end to get those sprites managed. Even if the Android/iOS market is the hotspot commercially.
Especially for the fact SM2 used to have an indie license, single seat, which was MUCH more affordable 
The problem is share payoff is pretty costly for the devs as it moves the risk of lose over to UT from you, which is pretty unrealistic as it just doesn’t workout with “indie developers”.
UDK can afford to do it cause UDK doesn’t pay epics ongoing costs anyway, its GoW UE3 licensing, UDK is just a way to spread it much further and strengthen its position in the future.
And the networking backends you mention don’t give you what you are talking about. They give you 100CCU, if UT would offer that, Unity would be worthless as limiting your builds to 100 machines would be as useless as it could just be.
The 100CCU out of my view isn’t any invitations for indies to scale either, its the bare minimum you need to do even basic load testings of your game to estimate the real costs. Any game that can stay in “live” with just them is never going to get out of the reds, as F2P and similar models with 100CCU don’t even pay the server rent
And I think its unfair that you rate your art higher than tech. Its not that good programmers are much less common than good artists (as artists just have more fields to grow and life in than good programmers in the media field), so you should have spread your budget a bit more evenly than hoping to get your tech at no risk for you basically just cause you misscalculated the budget and wasted it all on the art already (thats at least what I get from your posting, that you expect programmers to give you a free headstart while paying arts all upfront is fine)
Wow, you are a really bitter and negative person. I’m sure you convince yourself you’re just “realistic” but you’re not. I’ve actually discussed my wishes with software developers before, who are more often than not willing to do what I just wished. You would be surprised what a bit of charm and positive energy can do in business. I’ve even had developers allow me to use their product entirely for free, discount it to me greatly, or work out a deal.
When someone isn’t a child and instead is a charming, intelligent human being-- their very positive and happy emails can result in amazing (beneficial) business encounters. You should really try the positive thing more often.
You’re also entirely wrong to think that a game <100 players will always be in the red. Why you assume it must be a F2P model is really beyond me. Even so… there are entirely free servers which hold thousands of players a month, supported entirely by donations. If you don’t believe me, try googling the more popular Ultima Online free shards. And yes, they actually can get donations enough above “red” to justify hiring artists to implement unique things into their server. I actually worked as an artist for one server, giving them unique graphics for their free shard.
100CCU gives everything I am talking about, and is ABSOLUTELY an invitation for indies to scale. The bare minimum for any form of multiplayer is 2.
Photon isn’t limited to MMORPG’s only either, which is why I believe you are a bit confused…and really your post was just out of the fact you’re a very bitter and negative person, as that shows through nearly all of your 20,355 posts. You always seem to have something to say, and it’s rarely ever product or positive, and you’re certainly not doing anyone a favor as you’re not very pragmatic either. Just a nay-sayer who posts on nearly every thread he can…to nay-say more?