How does Unity support more platforms for less than Game Maker?

If you want to export a Game Maker game to Windows, Mac, Android, IOS, HTML5, Ubuntu, and Windows 8 you could purchase the master collection for $800. https://www.yoyogames.com/studio/buy

With Unity you would be paying $75 a month, plus $75 a month for Android and another $75 a month for IOS. That is a total of $225 a month for a subscription. If you purchased it all at once like with Game Maker, you would pay $1500 for Unity Pro, $1500 for IOS, and $1500 for Android. That is $4500. https://store.unity3d.com/products

I tried Unity 2D, but I personally found it more difficult to use than Game Maker. It is possible that I did not give Unity 2D enough of a chance. I have used Unity 3D and I found that good for working on 3D titles, I just felt that the 2D aspect was not as simple as some other tools.

For instance with Unity 2D (correct me if I am wrong) you have to place the sprites in basically what amounts to a 3D world (IE you still have a 3D camera). This can be really good and allow for a lot of flexibility. However I find that working with pixels in Game Maker it is more straight forward to place sprites in a 2d level.

I think that they are both very good tools and that both are worth a try.

I've been using GM since I was about seven (11 years ago), and I've always loved it. For 2D games, it can't be beat. If you want to make 3D games, well...it's not so great in that department, without the use of DLLs, and you'll have a hard time finding those for GM:Studio. However, I think that Game Maker is a great way to learn about programming before moving on to a more complicated language. Lots of people will say that GM can't do anything, but it really is pretty powerful. If you wanna see a little bit of what it can do, here's some commercial games that were made with GM:

Gunpoint (http://store.steampowered.com/app/206190/) <-- Really fun, this one

Spelunky (http://store.steampowered.com/app/239350/)

Miami Hotline (http://store.steampowered.com/app/219150/)

Overall, it's fun, easy to use, fast, and pretty powerful. Once you've mastered GML, you'll be ready for pretty much any other language.

GameMaker is a good start if you plan on going more into the role of a designer.

If you want to go into the role of a programmer, then a programming language like C/C++ with SDL/OpenGL/DirectX would be a better choice.