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The Professional version of the engine will run users $75 a month (but at a minimum of 12 months) or $1,500 for a permanent license. The differences between the free and paid versions of Unity 5 are reportedly smaller than those found in Unity 4. In Unity 5, all features of the engine and the editor will be available to everyone. This includes 3D texture support, depth of field support, and motion blur. The Professional version will include Unity Cloud Build support, a team license tool, analytics, and reports for game performance and crashes.
John Riccitiello said that the company is "not fucking around" when it comes to the free version.
"If you're a seven-figure developer, you can afford $75 a month. But if you're not, if you're just getting started or just choose for artistic reasons to give your games away for free, or if you're a hobbyist screwing around or a student, this is free. You get the full power of Unity 5 for free. There's no royalties, no fucking around. It's simple. That's really what we're announcing."
This is obviously a slam against Epic's announcement yesterday that Unreal Engine 4 is free for everyone so long as they give Epic 5% royalties on revenues above $3,000.
When asked if the trend of development platforms growing massive user bases with free versions and relying on a relatively small number of developers for revenue had parallels to the free-to-play trend, Riccitiello balked at the comparison.
"That's actually what our tiny competitor is doing, but not us," Riccitiello said. "Personally, I like free-to-play games, and I've occasionally been a whale on different things. I readily admit to having spent well north of $3,000 on Clash [of Clans] for example, which is a point of pride or embarrassment depending on who I'm talking to, but damn it's a good game."
The point, Riccitiello said, is that the underpinning nature of free-to-play games like Clash of Clans is that they rely on whales who may spend $5,000 or $10,000 a month to pay for all those who don't spend a dime.
"With Unity, it's capped," Riccitiello said. "It's $75 a month or $1,500 for a perpetual license; we're not nickel-and-diming people and we're not charging them a royalty. When we say it's free, it's free. When we say $75 a month, it's $75 a month. Yeah, you can buy other stuff from us. [Unity 5 still offers supplemental subscriptions like Android Pro and iOS Pro.] We're not a one-trick pony, but we're not charging a royalty, which I think is akin to looking for whales. For example, if Candy Crush had a 5 percent royalty, the licensing fee for that would be billions over time, maybe $50 million in a given year. You have to pay $75 a month a lot of times to get to $50 million.
"I do think you could argue that royalties are quite a bit like free-to-play," he continued. "They sort of hook you and then try to exploit that relationship. That's not what we're trying to do. If you were to walk around Unity, you'll find this point about transparency, clarity... democracy is like every other paragraph of every other conversation. It's a deeply embedded value. We thought for a while about things like royalties, [but] we just didn't think it was right. We thought about the nickel-and-dime model of free-to-play, not to implement it, just to see whether it had any implications for us, but we didn't think so."
"That's actually what our tiny competitor is doing, but not us," Riccitiello said. "Personally, I like free-to-play games, and I've occasionally been a whale on different things. I readily admit to having spent well north of $3,000 on Clash [of Clans] for example, which is a point of pride or embarrassment depending on who I'm talking to, but damn it's a good game."
The point, Riccitiello said, is that the underpinning nature of free-to-play games like Clash of Clans is that they rely on whales who may spend $5,000 or $10,000 a month to pay for all those who don't spend a dime.
"With Unity, it's capped," Riccitiello said. "It's $75 a month or $1,500 for a perpetual license; we're not nickel-and-diming people and we're not charging them a royalty. When we say it's free, it's free. When we say $75 a month, it's $75 a month. Yeah, you can buy other stuff from us. [Unity 5 still offers supplemental subscriptions like Android Pro and iOS Pro.] We're not a one-trick pony, but we're not charging a royalty, which I think is akin to looking for whales. For example, if Candy Crush had a 5 percent royalty, the licensing fee for that would be billions over time, maybe $50 million in a given year. You have to pay $75 a month a lot of times to get to $50 million.
"I do think you could argue that royalties are quite a bit like free-to-play," he continued. "They sort of hook you and then try to exploit that relationship. That's not what we're trying to do. If you were to walk around Unity, you'll find this point about transparency, clarity... democracy is like every other paragraph of every other conversation. It's a deeply embedded value. We thought for a while about things like royalties, [but] we just didn't think it was right. We thought about the nickel-and-dime model of free-to-play, not to implement it, just to see whether it had any implications for us, but we didn't think so."
Hey, let Unity and Epic go to battle. Hell, get Crytek in on this as well. Because when these companies fight for your attention, everybody ends up winning. You get more people pulled in to create games and more great games will come out as a result.
(via GI.biz)
