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Unity 5 released with upgrades, full-featured free version

gamasutra.com

21–30 of 152 posts

Re: Unity 5 released with upgrades, full-featured free version

#21
post #13

It seems this news is a direct reply to yesterday's move from one of their competitors, Epic's Unreal Engine 4 announced to be free* to use. link: https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/ue4-is-free

Ya, as far as pricing it now seems there is no debate. No rev share and only having to buy the pro edition if you exceed 100k in revenue makes Unity superior on the price imo. Of course there are other factors to consider depending on the project.

What about version control? I remember you had to have Unity Pro in order to be able to use version control with other people in a sane manner.

Re: Unity 5 released with upgrades, full-featured free version

#23
post #14
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya, as far as pricing it now seems there is no debate. No rev share and only having to buy the pro edition if you exceed 100k in revenue makes Unity superior on the price imo. Of course there are other factors to consider depending on the project.

An aspiring indie with zero track record should choose based on the strengths of the tools themselves. Making $3000 in a quarter is a pipe dream, let alone 100k over any time scale.

Making $3000 in a quarter is a pipe dream?

Why do you say that? The indie game market is not all that crowded, if we're thinking about games like Dear Esther, Gone Home, The Stanley Parable, Sword and Sworcery (all of which did way better than $3000 a quarter). Gamasutra, the other day, was lamenting the fact that there aren't enough games in this space.

Assuming we're not talking about the very difficult mobile market (but just about high quality indies on the PC), why is it absurd to think that a small indie studio could be quite successful (even with a first game)?

Re: Unity 5 released with upgrades, full-featured free version

#24
post #17

> This graphic, provided by Unity, will help make things clear: What a joke. Both include "Unity 5 engine with all features." Except that they don't. If you click "Get Unity 5" you see a list of differences[1] between the two. That list used to be a little longer though. [1]: http://unity3d.com/get-unity

It looks like the list of differences is differences in tooling around the engine and/or licensing, not differences in engine features, though.

There is also the source code. Being able to take a look under the hood is critically important. (trying to modify is insane, but just knowing that you can see what is going on inside makes integration and bug hunting much faster)

Re: Unity 5 released with upgrades, full-featured free version

#26
post #23
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An aspiring indie with zero track record should choose based on the strengths of the tools themselves. Making $3000 in a quarter is a pipe dream, let alone 100k over any time scale.

Making $3000 in a quarter is a pipe dream? Why do you say that? The indie game market is not all that crowded, if we're thinking about games like Dear Esther, Gone Home, The Stanley Parable, Sword and Sworcery (all of which did way better than $3000 a quarter). Gamasutra, the other day, was lamenting the fact that there aren't enough games in this space. Assuming we're not talking about the very difficult mobile mark…

Because most of them aren't? You're naming the hits, but it's a lot harder to remember the games that failed (or the ones that didn't even make it out of development).

Re: Unity 5 released with upgrades, full-featured free version

#27
I really love that these game engines are doing this. As a hobbyist game dev with a day job and a night-shift (tfwgf), one of the biggest hurtles that keep me building on html5 instead of on desktop was the demand that I had to pay $$ upfront before I have any idea if I can even finish what I'm building (much less how the market will receive it). I mean, I don't mind paying the engine company their demands if I can make money selling my game, but I'm already risking my free time on a project that may very well go nowhere, so I don't want to also risk my money. I'm sure plenty of other folk with great ideas and skills are in this boat, so by finally offering a free version, I'm sure we'll be seeing more and more esoteric indie games that tell great stories, introduce fun new mechanics, educate the player, or make us lose faith in American democracy on Steam instead of the nonstop rehash of mainstream FPS games.

As for me, it's finally time to start building that Sierra-esque ancient civilization city-builder game (i.e. Caesar, Pharaoh, Emperor, etc.).

Re: Unity 5 released with upgrades, full-featured free version

#28
post #21
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya, as far as pricing it now seems there is no debate. No rev share and only having to buy the pro edition if you exceed 100k in revenue makes Unity superior on the price imo. Of course there are other factors to consider depending on the project.

What about version control? I remember you had to have Unity Pro in order to be able to use version control with other people in a sane manner.

You can set up your own version control via command line. There are tutorials on how to do this and what files types to ignore, etc. You just can't have it integrate into the actual editor... which as programmer is fine by me.

Re: Unity 5 released with upgrades, full-featured free version

#29
post #21
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya, as far as pricing it now seems there is no debate. No rev share and only having to buy the pro edition if you exceed 100k in revenue makes Unity superior on the price imo. Of course there are other factors to consider depending on the project.

What about version control? I remember you had to have Unity Pro in order to be able to use version control with other people in a sane manner.

Looks like that's still a premium feature, but you can get it standalone for $20/m instead of paying the full $75/m for Pro Edition.

"Team Licence" http://unity3d.com/get-unity

Re: Unity 5 released with upgrades, full-featured free version

#30

Sadly, you still have to fork out the full $1500 for the dark UI skin ;) Having full access to render textures and framebuffer stuff is a godsend though. Looking forward to experimenting with the audio as well. They also seem to be setting up a discount program for the Asset Store, as well as a cloud build system (for mobile/web only so far, though).

It's pretty amazing how much weight that dark UI skin has for me. For being purely aesthetic I value it more than many of the pro-only features.
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