Oculus founder Palmer Luckey revealed today at Vision Summit 2016 that the company would be giving away 4 months of Unity Professional Edition for free with the purchase of an Oculus Rift.

The move comes as a bid to entice consumers into making the leap into VR development. Luckey asserts that the VR marketplace is ripe for new ideas, and not just ‘some old concept with a new twist.’

palmer luckey unity vision summit 2016
Unity CEO John Riccitiello (left) and Oculus Founder Palmer Luckey (right)

“I think that people should start making things right now, and not just making things that are some old concept with a new twist, but making things that are entirely new. The cool thing about VR right now is that even though you have all these big companies getting into it and putting lots of resources into making sure that the public believes in it, you don’t have a huge number of people that are dominating the content marketplace. You don’t have an overcrowded marketplace like you can have on mobile and see on PC right now…” said Luckey.

Luckey maintains that if people do for VR what mobile developers did for mobile games “they’re going to be successful and they’re going to be able to pay their bills.”

Unity Pro, which carries with it a $75 per month subscription fee, provides developers with things like customizable splash screens, and a host of customer support options. Unity Personal edition is full-feature engine that is entirely free of charge, and is said to be receiving an update that will allow you to build VR games while inside virtual reality itself.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Rick

    For what you get for $600 its definitely becoming more worthwhile.

    • FloridaOJ

      For Unity Developers… the cost just dropped to $375. That should shut up a few whiners.

  • AuxPlumes

    I have so much cool ideas for games, but Oculus have to bundle with the Rift a free motivator.
    Great news anyway, but hoping that Unreal isn’t going to be touchy with this announcement. I already see a lot of Vive fanboys praising Unreal, and Oculus fanboys Unity. I guess this is how marketing works : [

  • Foreign Devil

    Isn’t Unity like UE4 free to use already? Just need to pay if your game makes above a certain amount of profit?

    • CazCore

      it’s quite different from that. if you make above __ you have to pay a flat fee of like $1500 for the pro version. and that’s per platform, with some of them. like to do PC, iOS, Android you’ll pay $4500.

    • CazCore

      or subscribe, which i don’t think anybody would do when Unity has allowed them to make so much money.