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Comment by dathinab | Hacker News Reader

> *Very few devs are likely to release on console while on the free tier of unity pro but this has a daunting effect [..] this silly habit of thinking about the monetary opportunity of [..]

I fully agree, the idea that my small irrelevant hobby game might end up somewhat successful and I might be able to sell it on console and be maybe able to live from and for it for ~1 year or so are quite tempting.

On the other hand the idea that even if my hobby game gets successful I will most likely never be able to put it on console is quite off putting.

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If your hobby becomes successful can’t you then upgrade to pro and port to consoles?

A lot of people will want to push to consoles to begin with, not to PCs. It's still a good deal if you're successful. But it's $1,800 lost if you're not. That's a big number to some hopeful newbie.

For a hobby game earning 1800 yearly in profited is a lot.

Not even speaking about you having to put it up upfront and every year (I'm not sure if it's every year you still maintain or sell the game).

I mean typical prices for mini hobby games are 5-10 at most 20, if we go with 10 it means you would need to have already had 180 customers before publishing on a game console which is you only target e.g. the PlayStation is a problem.

And sure that might not sound like much, but we are speaking about small hobby projects of often young people, potentially worried about how to pay their student loans or teen not yet earning money.

And sure they probably will target Steam first.

And sure in the sells aspects this doesn't matter for EA, but it will make more young people use different things for their first games.

It's not about weather it is expensive, it's about it feeling expensive for the next generation.

Furthermore when it doesn't matter from a sells perspective why increase the burden? Why not just reducing the "less expensive" limit from 200k revenue to 80k or so?

You pay for all the other tools that enable you earn an income.

How is Unity any different than any other tool?

If your business is profitable only if other people support you for free, you simply do not have a viable business.

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