Torque3D and Unity's New Pricing

#21 First of all, let me just say the both Unity and Torque 3D are great engines both at reasonable prices. While it is true that some of the target audience of Torque 3D would never switch to Unity (people who 100% absolutely need source code access), I believe that there is a lot of overlap between who Torque 3D and Unity wants as customers. Let me go over a few points made in this thread (of my own opinion of course).

Now about source control integration (SVN, GIT, Perforce, etc...) being a pro only, with them making Unity (or previous Unity Indie) free, I except that are going to start adding more "Pro" only features to make that 1500 license fee more worthwhile (like this and the profiler tool).

Can Unity handle large games like FPSs/RPGs, take a look at fusion fall which is an entirely web based MMORPG for kids or the new tiger woods online from EA.

This biggest thing, which always comes up, is that you don't get source code access. I truly believe (and know some people will never agree with me on it) that with a large number of games/projects you don't need source code when working with Unity. I have seen many different types of games ranging from FPSs to RPGs to Racing made with unity and doubt any of them had source code access. Unity is designed in a way in which you don't need source code access most of the time. I have been told from the mouths of GarageGames employees that if I wanted to make a RPG along the same lines of Diablo that I would have to make moderate changes to the source code. Having to make changes to the source code in my opinion is actually worse. Lets say you buy an engine and start making your game. 6 months down the line the engine released and pretty major update but you have been making changes to the source code for your game. You are now left with 2 choices. Your first choice is to ignore the changes and stick with whatever version of the engine you started with. Your second choice is to try to merge the changes with your changes (which could end up with you having to rewrite your changes). Not to say this would never happen with Unity but generally this does not happen in point releases (anything created with 2.5 should work with 2.6 as is). Of course that are some projects that people need source code access and for them, Unity might not be the best choice.

With everything said, no matter if you get Unity (free or Pro) or Torque, either way you will have an incredible piece of technology in your hand enabling you to be able to bring your game to life.

@Andrew: Why is the use of scripting a bad way of doing many things? The only thing bad anyone could say about scripting in that it is slower than C++ but with Unity you can use C# with .NET (through Mono) which negates a bit of that downside. Is C# faster or as fast as C++? Well I don't think so even tho some disagree with that point. While it is possible to create C# code that runs faster than C++ (I believe the C# port of the Orge Engine was initially faster then the C++ version) if written correct, C++ is always going to be at least a little faster. Still C# is very fast, I mean there are many games and some game engines that are built only on C# (or built with XNA). Unity's core it still C++ and that is where the game spend most of the time anyways. If your argument is that C# is too slow to handle all of the game logic in Unity, I would say building the logic directly into the game engine is far worse from a maintainability side (I think the increase in maintainability is not worth the performance you gain from using scripting a little less, a performance gain which I believe would be barely noticeable).

#22 @Rene: While it is true the Unity did work with FF, it is still possible to build an MMO with Unity without source code access as you are able to tie into needed back-end technology like SmarFoxServer with the C++ plug-in feature (Pro only).

I am also going to mention that one of the features designed specifically for FF was put into the core of Unity for 2.6.

#23
@Ryan
I think it boils down to Torque 3D and Unity 3D basically being two completely different approaches to the same problem domain. One is a game engine and one is a game builder, so for the developer the question really is what is needed and wanted. Having source-code access is not really a matter of performance.

#24
@Ryan
Yeah, though the point still is that the FF developers needed source-code access (directly or indirectly) to make this thing happen. And the second option you point out doesn't mean this is all you need for it to work out.

#25 One thing to note, is that the EULA for Unity, both in Free and Pro, allows third party developers to make non-game applications and addons for the technology.

In order to target the Free verision or the Unity Web Player (which doesn't allow native code plugins for security reasons), your third party addon needs to reside in .NET/Mono assemblies. Which is nice for cross platform support, any addon you make, automatically works on Windows/OSX/Web via the power of .NET

If you're targeting Pro users, you can use .NET interop to plug in your C++ sources or middleware... which is actually a quite clean way of doing this...

I would imagine that a lot of people who would never look at a $200 or $1000 game engine or even heard of Unity or Torque, will be putting 3d content on their sites/Facebook pages with this... as it is now a free general purpose 3D content publishing tool as well as a game creation system.

#26 That's an interesting concept Josh, I might have to take a look and play to see just how easy that would be.

This is an interesting move for my team because although I am licensed for Torque 3D none of my other team members are currently so we're having to stick with TGEA - even with $500 artist only version it's still not likely to happen. So we're a little stuck with TGEA right now, it's a pain for me as I'd love to use Torque 3D but can't.

I don't know enough about Unity it's licensing and feature deltas, etc but I do wonder whether now whether Unity is our logical next step so that the artists, designers, etc can use for free and we just find the cost for Unity Pro for the coders.

As for comments regarding $1500 for version control software - I think the new 2.6 version allows use of subversion or whatever version control you want to use.

#27 No version control in the free version:
unity3d.com/unity/licenses

The free version lacks full-screen post-processing, movie playback, shadows and a profiler.

#28

Quote:@Ronny: There will be no competing with Torque 2D. Just wait and see.

Over the past year I have learned not to underestimate the competition, but with great confidence I can agree with Brett on this. With every new Torque 2D blog you will agree with us...starting with tomorrow's update.

#29 I'm going to look for a bottle of patience.

#30 A T2D update tomorrow? I needs it!

#31 I think this is a great move as Unity seems to be a few orders of magnitude better for hobbyists like myself as the engine is set up in a general way that makes sense, and has far less issues(you can see my post history to see the kinds of issues I was having with Torque, they eventually got too numerous and I ended up dropping it).

I don't know why there's so much unity bashing in this thread, as it's awesome, I've almost gotten to the same level of skill I spent 5 months on with Torque in 3 weeks using unity, it's a breath of fresh air GG/TP should take note of.

#32

Quote:why there's so much unity bashing in this thread

Where?

#33 There's more Unity bashing going on in the announcement thread on their forums than anywhere here. And really, there's not any reason for bashing.

Like with any cut-off date, there are going to be unhappy customers and they're being vocal there just like we had when we announced the upgrade pricing cut-off for Torque 3D or the upgrade pricing and cut-off for automatic updates from TGE 1.4 to 1.5. It's one of those business realities and there will aways be push-back to such decisions, no matter how beneficial the decision is overall.

I think it's a great move for UT, or in Josh E's words, a very bold move on their part. I can't wait to see how it pans out for them and their investors.

If their community was worried about the influx of Windows users cluttering up their forums before, I can only imagine what they're thinking now!

#34 Actually, I was wrong...

.NET Interop works with the Unity (free) as well.

Here is an example MIT licensed FMOD library with full source code and Visual Studio solution (loads in MonoDevelop) showing exactly how to interact with C++ code.

http://www.squaretangle.com/FMODUnity.html

#35 wow.. quite afew Unity user's here I see, sweet.


@ Markus

Tell your teacher thats like handing someone a manual for a 1987 Mustang while pointing at a 2010 Mustang saying read this.. that car sucks. Either way, your teacher is poorly informed.

@ Ryan

Nice to see you on this side of the fence. Kinda hard walking a line between liking two engines and posting one's views/personal opinions without coming across as bashing one or the other. But you are right, using the word "poor" was inappropriate. I should have said not the best way. After re-reading it, it comes across as I'm slamming Unity which was not my intent. Anyone doing that doesn't know Unity very well.

#36 I follow Unity's life for a few years, and I don't think you can deploy your custom unity extensions in web plug-in mode.

With Torque, we can compile our own plug-in. There are some advantages (tailored for our own needs) and some inconvenients (less standardized plugin).

Nicolas Buquet
www.buquet-net.com/cv/

#37 Wow what a ballsy move by Unity. Looks like Unity is only worried about serving the community with a good product and not some ego buffing quest to not be called "the cheap engine".

In the end, you can have a $1500 price tag or a $500,000 price tag and still be called "the cheap engine".

#38 @ Jeremy

Glad to see you found another place to vent your displeasure at the price changes!

#39 @Andrew

No problem!
Thanks for being the best "self proclaimed uncheap game engine" in the industry.

#40 me?? lol, unfortunately.. I hold no affiliation to any game engine company. My avatar is just another way I tease GG people is all.