A few weeks ago Unity revealed new products and pricing. While some of developers were quite happy with the new offers,
Some time later Unity Technologies made a move explaining its new subscription model. Make sure to read company’s post here.
As stated by Unity Technologies some of the developers raised major concerns with the new pricing:
Unity Technologies might have found a solution:
Now, we don’t want to go back to the old model of having iOS and Android be paid add-ons, while desktop is included in the base cost. This was always rather arbitrary. Developing and maintaining our desktop platforms is a real cost for us, just like for our mobile platforms, and yet mobile developers have been paying more. Now we’re committed to making the price the same regardless of which platforms you target. We hope you understand and are with us in this decision.
At the same time, a lot of customers are telling us that the new prices are a very good deal. Some have the privilege to even say it’s too cheap, though these people, being happy with the new prices, have not been as vocal in comments and social media.
The objective for us is to make everyone as happy as is possible given a rapidly growing global group of developers using Unity for many, many different things. We want paid versions of Unity to be affordable for developers big and small who want to go beyond Unity Personal, or are required to due to the revenue cap.
Here are the changes to the pricing policy:
These challenges cost something. The company had to remove the option to subscribe to Unity Plus without a one-year commitment. They also restricted Pay to Own to only apply to Unity Pro and not Unity Plus.
For those of you whose revenue is beyond the $200k cap for Unity Plus, and who are already a Unity user, Unity Technologies announced Transition offers, which you can find below.
The new splash screen will read “Made with Unity” in all editions of Unity – no more mention of “Personal Edition”. You will also be able to customize it with your own (blurred) background image and your own company logo in addition to the Unity logo. The customizable splash screen will be available in all versions of Unity, but can be completely turned off in Unity Plus and Unity Pro.
Both Plus and Pro tiers can be paid monthly or upfront (for people who find that easier for budgeting or billing purposes), and require you to commit to at least 12 months of subscription. There will also be an option to commit to Pro for 24 months, for people who want long term price certainty.
The company has also prepared a few options for existing Unity 5.x perpetual license customers, who will no longer get new updates after March 2017:
If you pay for 24 or more consecutive months of a new Unity Pro subscription, you get to keep and use the version you have when you notify us that you are stopping subscription and choosing pay to own. At such point, you will stop receiving access to Pro tier services, new features and upgrades. You will receive the next 3 patches. We reserve the right to grant access to additional patches in the event that we find severe bugs. If you later resume the subscription, you will still own the perpetual license you elected but again start receiving updates, fixes and services. Once you have subscribed for another 24 consecutive months, and should you then elect to cease this new subscription, you will then be granted a new perpetual license of the then current version of Unity.
Source: official blog post