With Epic moving Unreal Engine 4 to a 5 percent royalty model, Unity Technologies has reacted to market forces with a bifurcation of its new Unity 5 product.
In terms of Unity 5's core, it brings strong new graphics features, an expanded editor featureset in terms of audio, animation and physics, and Unity Cloud Build, which enables you to increase productivity with a distributed build system.
It also supports 21 hardware and software platforms, including WebGL.
And there are two different versions.
Unity 5 Personal Edition will be the free solution for hobbyists, sole developers, and start-ups.
Including the engine and features such as profiler, occlusion culling, render-to-texture, and post-processing special effects, it also comes with new Unity 5 features such as physically-based shading, the Enlighten SDK, and reflection probes.
We want everyone to have access to Unity 5 which is why we've increased the value of our royalty-free licenses.John Riccitiello
Commercial developers will need the Unity 5 Professional Edition.
Priced at $75 per month on subscription, it provides Unity Cloud Build Pro, team license, game performance reporting, Asset Store Level 11, Unity Analytics Pro, and access to preview and beta features.
Unity for all
"Unity 5 is a massive step up for Unity that empowers developers to make more beautiful and intricate games that reach bigger audiences, across more platforms," said CEO John Riccitiello.
"We want everyone to have access to Unity 5 which is why we've increased the value of our royalty-free licenses.
"Unity 5 Professional starts with the power of Unity 5.0 and adds valuable tools such as Unity Cloud Build Pro and Team License.
"Unity 5 Personal Edition is for the developer just getting started and offers all the power of the engine and editor for free."
Unity 5 Personal Edition and Professional Edition are now available for download.
