4 ms·

Interesting point of comparison to, say, iOS development, which costs $99/yr, full stop, not per-seat.

chrisBob 5y ago
That is obviously not a fair comparison. Apple's developer fee is there to create a little bit of a filter and to help reinforce the legal agreement for getting access to pre-release stuff, and running code on your own hardware. The fee probably doesn't even cover the overhead on the program. Apple makes their money through the App Store and selling hardware. Unity is getting all of their money from licensing their software.
- xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
  It doesn't really do any of those things, though. It's an arbitrary fee. Look at Google's Play Store fee by comparison. While I agree it's not a fair comparison, the Unity fee at least provides substantially more value than Apple's, like covering the publishing process for multiple console platforms, which is almost always relatively expensive.
  - qwytw 5y ago
    Google doesn't really do a manual review of every submitted app (I don't know how many minutes/hours they spend on a single submission but I guess the cost of this alone might add up to more than $100 if the account is used to submit a lot of apps/new versions per year)
Macha 5y ago
$99/yr + 15% of first $1,000,000 + 30% of any revenue above that
- munk-a 5y ago
  Which, just to do the math out - means that Apple is guaranteed to be cheaper as long as you make less than 12k. That math, of course, ignores platform hosting fees (i.e. Steam/EGS/GoG will take a chunk of profits as well on PC - and I have no idea what console fees are like). Assuming you're not doing it as a hobby the flat cost is far more economical unless you release a lemon in which case the scaling cost does minimize the losses at least.
  - kipchak 5y ago
    >and I have no idea what console fees are like According to Apple's Powerpoint in Epic v Fortnite [1] 30% is more or less standard, for consoles as well as on PC. Microsoft was supposedly also going to 88/12 though that seems like it might have been dropped. 1. https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/3/22417725/apple-vs-epic-full-trial-slideshows-opening-arguments https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/3/22417725/apple-vs-epic-ful... (slide 15)
josephcsible 5y ago
Which platform is Unity Pro the only way to ship apps for?

That is obviously not a fair comparison. Apple's developer fee is there to create a little bit of a filter and to help reinforce the legal agreement for getting access to pre-release stuff, and running code on your own hardware. The fee probably doesn't even cover the overhead on the program. Apple makes their money through the App Store and selling hardware. Unity is getting all of their money from licensing their software.

xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
It doesn't really do any of those things, though. It's an arbitrary fee. Look at Google's Play Store fee by comparison. While I agree it's not a fair comparison, the Unity fee at least provides substantially more value than Apple's, like covering the publishing process for multiple console platforms, which is almost always relatively expensive.
- qwytw 5y ago
  Google doesn't really do a manual review of every submitted app (I don't know how many minutes/hours they spend on a single submission but I guess the cost of this alone might add up to more than $100 if the account is used to submit a lot of apps/new versions per year)

Macha 5y ago

$99/yr + 15% of first $1,000,000 + 30% of any revenue above that

munk-a 5y ago
Which, just to do the math out - means that Apple is guaranteed to be cheaper as long as you make less than 12k. That math, of course, ignores platform hosting fees (i.e. Steam/EGS/GoG will take a chunk of profits as well on PC - and I have no idea what console fees are like). Assuming you're not doing it as a hobby the flat cost is far more economical unless you release a lemon in which case the scaling cost does minimize the losses at least.
- kipchak 5y ago
  >and I have no idea what console fees are like According to Apple's Powerpoint in Epic v Fortnite [1] 30% is more or less standard, for consoles as well as on PC. Microsoft was supposedly also going to 88/12 though that seems like it might have been dropped. 1. https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/3/22417725/apple-vs-epic-full-trial-slideshows-opening-arguments https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/3/22417725/apple-vs-epic-ful... (slide 15)

josephcsible 5y ago

Which platform is Unity Pro the only way to ship apps for?