After a lot of research on the Unity Forums and Unity Answers websites, I’ve learned a lot. First a foremost, I’ve learned that Unity doesn’t have a license to decode MP3 files for PC standalone builds, only for mobile iOS and Android. PC standalone builds can only take OGG, which is essentially a free version of MP3 (and it’s also just better, technically speaking) but not widely used. This makes things more difficult. I looked into a number of different solutions, all of which require money (not ideal). I could buy a Unity Pro license and write a Unity plug-in to convert an MP3 to OGG at runtime. I could buy an FMod Commercial license (an MP3 decoder) and use it to read and decode MP3 files for the PC platform. I could drop the PC platform entirely. I could drop the 2nd gameplay mode entirely. I could have the 2nd gameplay mode a mobile-exclusive feature. I could have the 2nd gameplay mode on mobile, and implement and OGG solution for PC and show PC users a little message saying “Hey sorry, but you’ll have to download Audacity, a free tool, and use it to convert your MP3 files to OGG to use this game mode”.
At the moment I am leaning towards implementing an OGG solution for PC and showing the apology message, or buying an FMod license. It’s $500 for a commercial license, free for non-commercial. I was given a tip by a fellow Unity developer - since Unity comes with FMod pre-packaged, and since I’m an indie developer, if I contact the nice people over at FMod I might get a license for cheap. I sent them an email, depending on the % discount I will be going with one of these 2 options. For now I’m working on an OGG solution.
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