Unity Indie: Now Free

By: Paul Eres

On: October 28th, 2009

Unity is a middle-range game engine (cheaper than the million-dollar ones but more expensive than things like Game Maker) which has been used for indie games like Dock’s Tumbledrop, Derek Yu’s Diabolika for iPhone, Tale of Tales’ Fatale, and many more.

Unity Indie, previously around $200, has been renamed to just “Unity” and is now free. You can read more information on the whys on Gamasutra. Apparently Xbox 360 support is also in the works. To quote David Helgason from the Gamasutra interview:

“The thinking was that Unity Indie isn’t generating a significant portion of our revenue, and we’ve always had this vision of democratizing our tools. We have over 13,000 customers using our product, so we figured, let’s take Indie and just give it to everyone. Whether that becomes a cash flow positive or a cash flow negative – and some people will upgrade – is not really important. What’s important is to get this in the hands of as many people as possible.”

Posted in Community, Developers, Tools

Zuriki

True.
ChaoticHeart

Sort of. True flat 2D is not that easy. Doing a beautifully rendered 3D scene that only moves on two axis… thus, basically having 2D game-play is insanely simple.

In short, you can do 2D game-play very easily. You just do it by taking something 3D and limiting which axis everything can move on.

To keep this on track, this is amazing news. I am one of those who bought Unity just a month or two ago, but I am still excited. Not feeling cheated, at all. Mostly because I understand this really ADDS value to my investment of $200. A LOT of possible value.
Andrew

What about the 360 support?

Gonna be in the free version? Standalone? Premium only?
Patrick

360 (when it comes) and Wii support is never going to be in the free version. You’ll have not only buy a Pro version of Unity, but pay MS/Nintendo many thousands of dollars and get their permission to make a game for their respective systems.
http://blurst.com Matthew

Yeah, the 360 support is not some kind of inside track announcement or anything; to make a 360 game you’ll need to be to an approved Xbox developer, with a publisher or direct contract with Microsoft, etc. It’s quite far from the free version in terms of scope and requirements.

On the Unity side of thing it’s a completely separate agreement/thing from the Pro version.
Annabelle Kennedy

this is great!
Sigvatr_

Just learn C++ and use SDL.
Sigvatr_

Well, for PC games.
what

C++? Pfft, just use assembly.
nobody2

I make ideas, then I tell my programmer to engineer the tech, who in turn contracts 10 year old to make it in cracked version of Starcraft level editor. You can take my Game Design course at the Institute of Art and Tech, above the H&R Block on 9th street.
Flamebait

Just learn electronic engineering and implement your game as a special-purpose computer.

@Sandcrab, interesting to see your reaction. Apparently they gave refunds to people who purchased less than 2 months ago, so I guess it could’ve been worse.
Flamebait

Just learn electronic engineering and implement your game as a special-purpose computer.

@Sandcrab, interesting to see your reaction. Apparently they gave refunds to people who purchased less than 2 months ago, so I guess it could’ve been worse.
Small

BLOW UP THE FUCKING MOOOOONNN!!!
http://iterationgames.com jph_wacheski

Well now I have to try it! But remember, if you want your .exe file to be 64k and to build for win, os x, and lunix! You can still use ZGameEditor, it is free and opensource,. [ zgameeditory.org ]
Personaly I will probably be using both now, as ZGE still makes sense for small games, with thant small disribution size, and the real-time sound synth, as well as some other niffty procedural features,. but I will give Unity a try and see what I can create,. .
http://www.kenginegaming elmernite

Best news ever! I’ve been eyeing Unity for a long time, never could muster up the money to purchase it though.
-Elmernite
http://www.kenginegaming elmernite

I forgot to ask, if 360 support comes, could your game be distributed through the XNA community games?
-Elmernite
http://www.twitter.com/goodmorningcpt Allen

No you cannot elmernite, from the XNA faq
http://creators.xna.com/en-US/faq#anchor_1_13

The game binary must be less than 150MB compressed (as a .ccgame package) and compiled to run with the XNA 3.1 Framework or higher.
Tye The Czar

“Whether that becomes a cash flow positive or a cash flow negative â€“ and some people will upgrade â€“ is not really important. Whatâ€™s important is to get this in the hands of as many people as possible.â€

This man, I like.
http://ghook.speedrungames.com/ SpeedRunGames

Great news.
I’m evaluating technology for the possible next project and will put Unity definitely on my list.

To bad, that the indie-version does not include support for videos, shadows, and post-processing effects.
One drawback is also, that the assets don’t work well with common version control system. The per-seat-asset-server licenses are probably their biggest source of income.
axe

Bleh, splash screens, feature cuts and DRM, no thanks, I’ll just stick with Game Maker and Flash.
Blade

If they want to get Unity into the hands of “as many people as possible”, they might want to look at the download link on their site. :p Some people have no problem downloading it, but others (such as myself) just keep looping back to the download page over and over when they hit the link. At the very least, some mirrors might be nice.
Levi

anybody know if Unity iPhone still requires a Mac? Their info button is broke.
PHeMoX

Very cool and I’m definitely downloading this. Its even the Windows version (had missed they released that). 0_(.)
ctankep

AFAIK last time I checked, the pro version on PC has support for iPhone export though it also comes in nooble and advanced versions.

As far as missing dynamic shadows, and post processing effects, perhaps treat the free version as a quick prototyping environment more than a full blown production platform.

Also: agree with @Skofo re: HTML5 + Canvas3D. Guess Unity needs more killer apps ontop of the Blurst stuff to ensure their webplayer penetration. Things are happening so quickly in the world of WHATWG as well, and it’s very exciting [ in terms of game design ] ..!

— Chuan
Random

I can’t download it. Wrong version of Java perhaps?
http://www.twitter.com/goodmorningcpt Allen

Here’s a direct link to the unity 2.6 setup file: http://bit.ly/1aU1CR

shortened with bit.ly
PHeMoX

@random: No, better try a different browser. It should just throw a standard pop-up download link at you.

Perhaps you’ve got one of those pop-up killers running?
PHeMoX

@clankep: Actually the people behind Blurst are going to focus on retail games too now. Apparently their webplayer / browser game approach didn’t quite took off like they hoped for.

I can be wrong them changing their ideology, but I do know they are going to make a retail non-browser based version of their Raptor Safari game.

Probably a good move! :D