Unity Technologies, the company behind, the popular Unity game engine of the same name, unveiled a brand new version of its product at a press event held in San Francisco’s Hotel Intercontinental.

If you follow the link, there are two versions, the base version Unity (free), and their top of the line Unity Pro ($1500). And several (not free) addons for iOS and Android.

Unlike the free version of Unity 4, the "Personal Edition" does not have any features behind paywalls - it's the whole thing. You can grab it direct from Unity, right now.

Will this save Unity? Unity’s initial announcement sparked widespread backlash from developers. Unity is widely used for free-to-play games, where a download fee would be particularly burdensome.

By increasing the number of users of Unity, Unity Technologies are pitching themselves as the de facto standard for mobile gaming.

In layman’s terms: The free version of Unity 5 is now a full-featured version of Unity 5. And there’s no need to pay royalties.

UPDATE: David Helgason has detailed the thinking behind the decision to remove the license fee for the basic version of Unity on Android and iOS in a video at the bottom of the story. Unity CEO David ...

Anyone can download Unity right now and publish a game on the aforementioned platforms — and for most newcomers, the free version would be more then enough to get the ball rolling.

Unity Technologies has added the ability to develop for Android and iOS games for free using its platform.