Unity 5 has finally hit the game development scene, and it is definitely worth the wait with over a thousand improvements. There isn’t enough room in our blog to fill you in on every detail, but we’re going to walk you through some of what our friends at Unity had to say during the official launch at GDC in San Francisco.

The Big Ideas Defining Unity 5

• It is a graphics powerhouse capable of rendering beautiful, complex and detailed scenes.
• The highly extensible and feature rich editor is now 64-bit and is even more robust than ever with additions like the huge suite of integrated audio design tools (full multi-track audio mixer, very cool.)
• Unity’s industry leading multi-platform support is evolved with WebGL and improved with better console platform support and the introduction of IL2CPP. Unity now supports 21(!) platforms.
• The launch of Unity 5 also introduces the Unity Cloud Build, which is provides developers with an option to boost their productivity and efficiency through the cloud. Learn more about Unity 5 here.

The Thought behind Unity 5 Pricing

Along with all the new features, a new pricing model was addressed at the launch. Unity is evolving its licensing model to provide easier access to users and include more features. The philosophy behind the new pricing was broken down into two major goals by John Riccitiello, CEO of Unity:

“Goal #1 — One of the founding principles of Unity is the idea that we work hard to solve very hard technical problems so our developers / users won’t have to.  For this to be at all relevant, our best tools need to be a great value.

Goal #2 — Deep in Unity’s culture is the principle of Democracy. The goal is to price in such a way as to reflect our principles.  Democracy is the principle we were founded on, and it means we do our best to put Unity in the hands of developers, Indies or Pros, that may not have the resources to pay for it.  It’s about enabling most everyone to create with the best tools we can make.  I won’t get too soppy in this post — but is an honor for me to work in a company so mission driven and principled.”

Unity 5 Licensing

Keeping those principals in mind, Unity revealed its new licensing model. Similar to Unity 4, Unity 5 offers a Personal Edition and a Professional Edition. The Unity 5 Personal Edition is now a free download, which includes the same engine and editor found in Unity 5 Pro. This means that Unity 5 Professional offers more than basic features and includes special services.

• Unity 5 Professional Edition is adding incredible value for teams of all sizes.
  • Price: $749 (Stand-alone Student/Faculty Commercial License)
    (Commercial Value $1,500 USD)
  • Services included:
    • Team License
    • Unity Cloud Build Pro (12-month subscription)
    • Unity Analytics Pro (currently in beta)
    • Game Performance Reporting (currently in preview)
    • Asset Store Level 11 (a new collection of free assets available each month)
    • Access to previews and betas
    • No revenue limit, no revenue share

Unity 5 is a huge upgrade from Unity 4, and it comes with a bunch of extra services and a team license.  Which means, better value than ever before.

• Unity 5 Personal Edition provides all the power of Unity 5 engine and editor. It comes with all the features including: Profiler, Occlusion Culling, Render-to-Texture, and Post-Processing Special Effects as well as all the big Unity 5 features like Physically-based Shading, Enlighten, reflection probes and more. Learn more here.

Unity 5 for Education

Unity 5 is even more accessible to a broad range of users and provides a wealth of tutorials and training for teachers to use. Schools, students, faculty and staff can take advantage of academic savings of nearly 50% off of the commercial Professional edition. Get the latest game development software for your students, and prepare them for a successful future. Now is the time to make Unity work for you.