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Unity Technologies has announced to make its tools free for the iOS and android game developers. The company produces cross platform development tools for creating cross platform games for smartphones, PCs, tablets and game tablets.
Unity has always been a popular engine for cross-platform game development. Unity 4 on mobile offers a wide range of amazing features, including real-time shadows and multi-screen AirPlay support for providing a unique game experience.
Unity’s New Pricing Model: A Game Changer for Developers
Unity had been a free licensing structure on the web and on PCs. Since a long time, developers had been hoping to get the same model for the mobile platform products as well. In the coming months, BlackBerry 10 and Windows Phone 8 developers will also be able to use the tool for free.
Earlier, the developers had to pay about $800 to publish Unity-created apps on the iOS or Android stores. But now, these charges have been removed, so a developer can now easily download the Unity tool, and use it to publish an app for iOS or Android for free. To get the new tools, developers just need to update their existing Unity tool and locate the new Android and iOS build options on it.
Unity CEO David Helgason made this announcement, during the Unite Nordic trade conference. As per Helgason, this change in pricing structure is an extension of Unity Free, which the company launched in 2009. Doing that was a good decision as it helped Unity’s community to grow from 13,000 to around 2 million The company now expects that making the tool free for android and iOS will help grow the community more.
This step of Unity, will also provide the individual developers with the access to the tools used by some of the biggest and most successful gaming giants on Android and iOS. For example, Rovio uses Unity for Bad Piggies, and other indie mobile app developers who made games like Year Walk and The Room. Obviously, this is a good news for the independent games development community. So, we may see even more exciting and innovative games coming from new developers.
Unity still has the pro versions available the iOS and Android platforms. The core software package, Unity Pro, is available for $1,500, while the iOS Pro and Android Pro cost an additional $1,500 each. Anyone with a turnover of $100,000 per year with their releases will have to purchase a pro license. The company will also reach out to the users who purchased these tools in the last 30 days and offering discounts on future purchases.
