This week's update will focus on a comparison of features, costs, and reasons why I might stick with Unity 4/5 or Unreal Engine 4 (UE4).
Reality Check
First lets get a reality check. Last week I was sick on Friday but it turned out I had come down with a viral stomach flu and was sick all weekend. In fact I was bed ridden most of the weekend and finally got up for good around 5pm Sunday which is highly unusual -- I'm the kind of guy who has to keep super busy and can't stay in bed.
From that point on I was in a slow recovery .. but also hitting crunch mode at my work we have a software release coming up soon and I did about 60+ hours of work this past week even when I was recovering from my flu. To put it in one point of perspective I lost 11 pounds this week .. I was not feeling good.
I say this not to give an excuse for how much work I have or have not done this week - but to point something out to fellow and hopeful indie dev's out there: I had a hell week folks but despite that I got some things done!
My personal rule is: I always do what I can.
That's my standard, and it serves me pretty well. My promise is I'll always do what I can! And its what I recommend to others. Life comes up and stuff happens!. Don't feel bad if you had a busy week. But also don't drop your project if you had a slow week either! Do what you can, and feel good about it - then keep going. So moving on..
So a quick list of my prototype goals I worked on this week:
Prototype Goals
As seen in the header image I created my first Unreal Particle Effect which is a torch flame effect (super bright!)
I also imported my torch sconce, and torch and the related materials and created material definitions for them
Finally I tweaked some of the scene material definitions even further as I learned more about materials particularly tweaking metallic and roughness values for several items in the scene. The roof and floor don't look right to me yet but they look a little better than they had.
I learned a few things in those items though. The first one is in the torch sconce material the UVW's were just a teeny bit outside of bounds and Unreal did not like this. In fact it did not like this so badly it would not build lightmaps on it!!
In most engines it would tile to the otherside and or perhaps just not get lit properly .. but Unreal was picky and let me know about it. Not hard to adjust but something I'll have to pay more attention to than Unity because Unity doesn't care about those things.
Not only that but theres a technique I use in engines that don't stop this: I often overlap UV's or tile them on purpose to get certain coverage easier ... so that technique is out the window. All fine and good -- nothing a good UV and texture map can't solve but important to discover!
Secondly the Particle system in Unreal appears to be vastly more configurable than that in Unity. I've no complaints about Unity's particle system to begin with -- its quite functional and has a boat load of options (more than I ever used). But Unreal's is even greater, and lots of these options are what I would call more nuanced and more mature engine items.
These are easiest to discover and explore when editing an existing particle that one of Unreal's built in example projects has. I'm certainly not going to outline it all here as I'm still a newbie to it all but if I were to make a guess the built in particle system in Unreal has somewhere on the order of magnitude of 4x the built in default options of effecting your particle system than Unity does.
To be clear though -- I had no complaints about Unity's particle system and I was able to do everything I wanted to. I wouldn't pick one engine over the other right now based on the particle system -- but it is nice to see more options and know that I would have more control in my hands if I end up using Unreal.
Unreal VS Unity
So now lets take a look at some numbers and because theres too many ways to add this up lets just stick to base scenario that I am dealing with; and that is I'm interested in creating a desktop title and pretend we arent interested in mobile. So while I'll mention mobile costs I won't add it up in the totals!
Also I am not including Unity Free in this comparison. You might wonder why? The reason is I need as good of lighting as I can get - and the lighting in Unity free is essentially crap. It's just not an option at all.
Unity 4 Subscription $75.00 per month per platform you would like to use
Unreal 4 Subscription $19.00 per month + 5% of gross revenue past your first 3k each quarter for all platforms the engine supports
There is of course the option of outright purchasing a X.0 version of Unity 3d for $1500 dollars. I'll add that in to a comparison to be as fair as I can.
1 year of Unity 3D = $900.00
1 year of Unreal = $228.00
Unity appears to do major releases at slightly more than 1 year intervals so lets call it 18 months?
18 months of Unreal = $342.00
Full X.0 version of Unity = $1500.00
Now if you've ever taken accounting you know that an asset is something that has current and future value. The full X.0 version of Unity 3D could be argued to be valuable for more than 18 months, but lets be super honest and ask if when Unity 5 comes out if I can live without the physical lighting model? The answer is no I can't. I need physical lighting for my game to look good and I will have to purchase it. If its not Unity 5, then its going to be Unity 6 and some other feature and I'm in for another upgrade fee.
(Note: I know if you buy Unity 5 right now you get 4.x until the release; I'm actually in the opposite position - I bought Unity 4.0 six months ago and I'm reluctant to spend $600-750 more to upgrade on this engine putting my costs closer to $2100.00)
The point is Unreal's subscription model is so low it demands serious attention.
But we have that little royalty problem then don't we?
Unreal wants 5% of gross revenue for any amount above $3000.00 you make in any quarter.
Gross revenue means before anyone else takes their cut. So if you sold an app on iTunes for .99 cents; Apple usually takes .30 cents before you the developer gets the leftover .70 cents. Unreal wants their cut from the .99 cents, not your .70 cents.
But its time to get brutally honest folks! I hear lots of arguments against this royalty percentage as if its abusive, or really bad in some way. I disagree.
Most indie games will make either close enough to nothing to be no difference, or a few will make a few thousand dollars and probably come in less than $12,000 in a year. How many of you reading this have made an indie / self published game that made more than $3k in a quarter?
I got close once, but I actually haven't passed it yet myself! And its incredibly unrealistic to use hyper success stories as your litmus test for "if its worth it or not". That's an idea I will call bullshit on!
In my judgment one absolutely must base the decision on how much you have made historically because odds are you are going to do somewhere in the same ballpark in the future.
Yes we all hope to do much more, but your track record is more telling.
If this is the case the 5% revenue after your first 3K per quarter means absolutely no extra cost at all for Unreal to me!
But okay , okay, lets play the 'what if' game just one time. Because we all sit around dreaming of a 'hit' don't we?
Lets imagine I made my game in 1 year and I collected $75,000 dollars. This is not hyper-sucess; but its a very nice number many indie dev's would crap their pants over.
For this example we are going to assume you are selling on Steam, and that Steam's cut is 30%. (I've heard it ranges from 30-50% but I don't have a deal with them so Im just going with the low end here to guess.)
Desktop Only Release
Unity Breakdown:
Lease $900.00
Gross Sales: $75,000.00
Steam Cut: $22,500.00
Your take home: $52,500.00
Unreal breakdown:
Lease: $228.00
Gross Sales: $75,000.00
Steam Cut: $22,500.00
Unreal Cut: $3750.00
Your Take home: $48,750.00
So you make 7.2% less money if you used Unreal in this scenario.
If you had earlier decided it "must" be smarter to buy Unity outright for $1500.00 dollars then you would be at 6.1% difference.
Lets imagine however it takes two years to make your game.. well the numbers just start improving on Unreal's side. And if you want to release on Android and iOS with Unity lets compare the full buy-out!
3 Platform Release Breakdown
Unity Breakdown:
Lease $2700.00 ($900 per year times 3 platforms)
Gross Sales: $75,000.00
Steam Cut: $22,500.00
Your take home: $49,800.00
Unreal breakdown:
Lease: $228.00
Gross Sales: $75,000.00
Steam Cut: $22,500.00
Unreal Cut: $3750.00
Your Take home: $48,750.00
Now we only a 2.1% difference in profits.
Conclusion
So in all honesty I think for me ; and probably a lot of indie's the ability to operate at a significantly lower out of pocket expense as I'm making my game is worth a lot more money than a mere 2% difference.
In fact a lot of Indie dev's can't afford the $2700.00 for the Unity thrown-down for one year lease! If making your game would not be an option at all in that scenario for a lot of people.
In the end for me both Unity and Unreal are affordable as I have a nice day-job..and I can't side-line myself with mobile concerns at this phase so those costs don't come in the equation for me. It is going to come down to features and the maturity of those features in the end.
Right now Unreal appears to be winning the feature war for my games needs - lighting being the #1 concern.
I'm going to continue moving forward in Unreal for now until I hit my first proverbial 'brick wall' as Unity 5 is not out yet (and I believe even when it does come out its lighting may not look quite as good as Unreal. Unreal has been doing this a lot longer than Unity has afterall).
I'm willing to change my mind but then again if its 6-8 months from now and I have a full third of my game built by then .. well it'll be a no brainer to finish up with Unreal.
See you next week!
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