Unity Pro License for multiple people

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Hi,

A friend and I are interested in using Unity to make a game. However, this is more of a project done in our spare time. To get the Pro version is a lot of money and I was curious if it is possible for one of us to buy the Pro license and to share it. According to the following FAQ question, it seems possible:

"How many machines can I install my copy of Unity on?

Every paid commercial Unity license allows a single person to use Unity on two machines that they have exclusive use of. Be it a Mac and a PC or your Home and Work machines. Educational licenses sold via Unity or any one of our resellers are only good for a single activation. The same goes for Trial licenses, unless otherwise stated."

In theory, could my friend and I make a shared account and have the license under that account? Or could one of use get the license and share it with the other? Or would we both have to get a license?

Thanks

1 Answer

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No. That’s why they explicitly put “single person” in there. That part of the license is meant to cover industry professionals who have a desktop workstation at their work, and a laptop they take home for when they work from home. It is not meant to cover multiple people.

If one license could cover two people, an entire game studio could essentially get away with purchasing Unity Pro for only half their employees.

Ah, that's unfortunate, but reasonable. Thank you for your quick response, I appreciate it.

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Yeah, sorry about the bad news. :-/ On the up-side, they really do give away a lot of functionality for free with the free version. Perhaps you could get away with developing most of your game in the free version? Then you could postpone whatever Pro features you require to the very end of your work, then upgrade to pro and finish the game? You could do those last bits of the game with pair programming, i.e. two developers on a single machine. :) There's nothing in the license preventing that.

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That was my thinking, but the money is one of the bigger issues for that. If there was a way to gain some income from the game using the free version, then we could use the money to buy the licenses that we need, but I am assuming that we couldn't make money off the free version of the game. I do agree we definitely get a lot of functionality for the free version. That's what appealed to me initially. :)

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If you're okay with your game having the Unity-logo for a splash-screen, there's no reason you can't make any money with it.

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Well, if that's the case, then I have no issues with it personally. I would have to talk with my friend, obviously, but I am sure he'd feel the same way. Thank you very much for all the help. :)

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