Unity sure has ruffled some feathers over the last couple of years. However, its latest move involving its engine’s pricing model was a step too far. Many developers abandoned the engine for others. Now one more engine is trying to get in the mix. Enter GameMaker.
Yesterday, GameMaker announced it was making a pricing change to its engine. It decided to make the engine free for all non-commercial use. They also switched the PC commercial license to a $99.99 one time fee. Unfortunately, the love was not spread to the console. Those devs will still need to acquire the “enterprise” license. Those are $79.99 a month or $799.99 a year. On top of the pricing changes, GameMaker has also made all of its asset bundles free. This should definitely help aspiring developers get a head start.
We have seen other platforms making awkward moves with their pricing and terms, so we thought, what if we did the opposite, something that could actually be good for developers? Our success is measured by the number of people making games!”
GameMaker lead Russel Kay
Clearly this is a snipe at Unity for the way its handled the pricing model changes a couple of months ago. These changes led to its CEO resigning.
If you’re curious what games use GameMaker, Chicory, Undertale, and Hotline Miami are a few that use it.
GameMaker is owned by YoYo Games. YoYo was acquired in 2021 by Opera Software. As you may know, Opera Software are the ones behind the Opera web browser.
Source: Polygon
