Free Unity for Windows/Mac OS X, iOS, and Android ($1,000 value)! [Video game development tool]

UNITY IN A NUTSHELL

From Unity’s website we learn Unity is…

Unity 3 is a game development tool that has been designed to let you focus on creating amazing games.

Simple & Powerful

With Unity 3, we’ve put tremendous effort on world building tools – so you can assemble and tweak your levels at the speed of thought.

We rewrote Unity’s rendering pipeline so your games can look the best they can – and get a 50% performance boost on top.

Edit. Test. Play. With Unity, testing your latest idea is never more than a click away. This lets you drill down to find the fun, then polish it until it’s perfect.

Unity 3 brings Beast lightmapping and Umbra occlusion culling to the table – a key part of making games look great and run fast across all devices.

Target platform can be switched instantly, so you can develop from a single source for mobiles, web, PC/Mac, and consoles.

Design the perfect aural ambiance with our new integrated audio filters and in-scene editing tools. Captivating your audience has never been easier.

Unity is the tool for the job

Unity is the development environment that gets out of your way, allowing you to focus on simply creating your game. Developing for web, mobile, or console? Unity is the tool for the job.

dotTech Advice

None of us here on the dotTech team are game developers; none that I know of anyway — I suppose Ashraf could be one of those student-by-day-writer-by-night-developer-by-later-night type people. As such, there isn’t much advice we can provide about Unity. If you are a developer and you download Unity, please share your advice regarding this software in the comments below.

That said, we would like to point out Unity comes in six editions: Unity (runs on Windows/Mac OS X and creates Windows/Mac OS X games), Unity iOS (runs on Mac OS X but creates iOS games), Unity Android (runs on Windows/Mac OS X but creates Android games), Unity Pro, Unity iOS Pro, and Unity Android Pro. Unity is always available for free; Unity iOS and Unity Android typically cost $500 each but are being given away for free for a limited amount of time, as shown in the section below; Unity Pro costs $1,500; Unity iOS Pro costs $1,500; and Unity Android Pro costs $1,500. The following chart, created by the developer, shows the differences between the editions:

Click on the chart to view in full size.

LET’S GRAB THIS FREEBIE

As mentioned above, Unity is always available for free. The freebies being given away are Unity iOS and Unity Android both which are available for free until April 9, 2012. There is no information on if you can install/reinstall after April 8, 2012 but my guess is you can.

To get Unity, Unity iOS, and Unity Android for free, doing the following:

Version being given out for free: v3.5

Free updates: Unknown

Free technical support: Yes

Supported OS

Unity: Windows: XP SP2 or later; Mac OS X: Intel CPU & “Leopard” 10.5 or later

Unity iOS: Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X “Snow Leopard” 10.6 or later.

Unity Android: Windows XP SP2 or later; Mac OS 10.5.8 or later

Download size: 503.8 MB

The Easy Part

Head over to Unity’s website store, select Unity Free and while you’re at it select the two limited-time offers, Unity Android and Unity iOS, and hit Add to Cart:

Check out the price of the Pro versions… aren’t you glad to know dotTech?

At next page hit the Check Out button:

NOW THE SEMI-TRICKY PART

After hitting the Check Out button, you need to sign up for a new costumer account or sign in if you already have one (but if you do already have an account, what on earth are you doing here?):

Assuming you created a new account, a confirmation email is sent to your email account (from accounts@unity3d.com with subject of Your Unity Account). In that e-mail there is a link you must click on:

After you click the link in the email, you will have to sign into the account you just created:

Next fill your Billing contact, Billing address, and hit Review Order:

Now fill out the Customer Survey and hit Submit (I did not see this one coming):

Take a breathe.
Accept the End User License Agreement and hit Confirm:

Look at your Receipt and fill proud of yourself for reaching this point:

Check the inbox of the e-mail you registered with. Look for an e-mail from noreply@unity3d.com with subject of Serial Number(s) and Invoice(s) generated for order OR401308086 for. In the e-mail you will find your serial number:

Download and install Unity.
Run Unity and you will be prompted to register; take note as part of this registration process a page will open in your default Internet browser where you must enter the serial number you received earlier:

Enjoy!

BONUS STAGE!

Before you go start creating the game of the year, no the game of the century, check out the Gallery on Unity’s website — you’ll find lots of exciting new games, demos, and previews made with Unity: