Official Important updates to the Unity Runtime Fee policy

Will de student license also get rid of the 'for education purposes' watermark?
It just randomly appeared 1-2 months ago and is very obnoxious for student teams.
With the update unity personal would be better than the student license for that reason, which is wacky

 

Speaking for myself, I am going to upgrade to 2023 LTS so this won't effect me. But I am speaking from the shoes of people who don't want to upgrade their Unity version, but still want the benefits of removing the splash screen a year or two from now when their game is complete, without having to buy Pro. And I think that's a fair problem for them to bring up now and hope for a cheaper work around.

 

As a current Plus subscriber, this does create potential issues.

What if the final year renewal comes close to the LTS release date? It might mean paying for a years renewal (is swapping to monthly possible from this point onwards?) to cover a much shorter period, which seems unfair.

If 2023 LTS takes more than a year from now, people doing their final renewal shortly will have a gap where they cannot remove the splash screen, which also seems unfair.

My suggestion would be to allow removal of the splash screen in earlier Personal versions if agreeing to the runtime fee (option to be added in upcoming updates to existing versions).

 

I honestly would like to understand the reservations from Plus subscribers that are unwilling to upgrade to 2023 LTS next year and downgrade to Personal at that time.

 

Well, I am glad to hear that Unity has make a great change comparing with the last-ten-days stupid and horrible policy changes. Yes, Unity should acquire more to continue their development or make profit for its members, I think it is simple and visable, its price is low in the past and it proplely should be rise up. But I convince Unity need to learn from other game engine, such as Epic, and try to make game by Unity just as Fortnite. Ideas like Gigaya should not be cancelled.

 

In all honesty, they are just leaving room to ramp up in the future. Its hard to go above 5% royalty as there is Unreal. So, they are making other "terms" to take a split. I am excited to see how creative they will go. Its like watching a five year old trying to lie to you, and you see through it, so they go crazy creative.

Obviously, this current change to pricing is not enough. They need "explosive growth". So, they will attempt something again very soon. Maybe in 10~14 months time. They failed to reach for the goal they wanted this time. I think if they fail again, then JR will be fired and will be replaced with someone worse...

Its literally how executive world works. If one cannot milk us enough, then find someone who can.

 

It's great that you can disable the splash screen for Unity Personal, but this will only be possible with Unity 2023 LTS: https://unity.com/pricing-updates

So developers with ongoing projects on older versions of Unity who were on Unity Plus are in a bind (Unity Pro is too expensive, and porting games to newer versions of Unity is too time-consuming).

Please restore Unity Plus.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to say that it's not right to pay for a dark theme in software.

 

@karl_jones
and what to do in a situation where the game is half a year old and no peak sales, it sells $100 a month ? If I transfer $20, I have to pay a $50 fee to the bank, is there a limit to when the payments stop?

 

It won't be hard at all if people start relying more and more on the various services Unity provides.

 

QUESTION: Are we able to use our personal license on consoles like XBOX if we are still under 200k? Because we still haven't earned 200k yet on that time. I don't want to buy the pro before I start to earn money. @karl_jones and @DairyFan28

 

This is Unity's problem !



Fire him !

Then we can talk

 

Have you thought about that it's simply not that easy to upgrade to 2023? Not all projects are just simple one scene things. There are quite some complex projects out there which you cannot simply just "upgrade" to a new Unity version without breaking stuff. Especially when you have some 3rd party assets in which unfortunately is sometimes a must to fix stuff which should be built-in.

 

Pretty sure the answer is the same as it has been: no.

 

I'm curious, what happen if somebody publish with 2022 and later upgrade to 2023?
Does the revenue and install count start from the beginning or from the upgrade?

 

So any game made in non LTS-2023 and above will not have to deal with revshare or runtime fees? Obviously you'd have to pay for pro after 100k (based on the old terms) and to get rid of splash screen, but if that is the case, then just don't update and avoid the new fees and headache.

 

You'd want to stay on 2022 LTS to avoid the Revenue share or Initial Engagement Fee

 

This is the main reason I am gonna continue going down the route of making my own engine, or using something open source. I hope others go the same route, maybe we will see something like a open sourced 3d ray tracing engine.

Maybe im being dumb here, but my first dream game idea that I have wanted to make for almost 15 years now, is graphically, pretty simple. Im hopefully optimistic after finishing the first mini book in the ray tracing in one weekend series. But I still have alot of reading to go to get to something realtime. Also, maybe I never release a game, money doesnt interest me and health issues make it hard to have energy, to well do anything. But I would like to not see this post deleted. I will say, I apologize if I seem dramatic but emotional lability is part of what I'm experiencing. I develop games because I love living in other worlds (books, games), being the creator of your own, is something special. I also do it because well, everyone needs a hobby and I enjoy learning. True gamedevs like other professions, never stop learning.

I have some very serious concerns about their propriety methods of counting installs, as long as you self report what their methods show. Your fine.

Its very obvious why they do not want to disclose the algorithm, but the answer is already there.

https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-analytics-faqs.1186165/

"In order to provide analytics for your games, UGS Analytics generates an anonymized user ID for each user in your game. We do not use any of these IDs generated from Child Apps to track users across apps built by other developers or to map users between different services, devices, or browsers on the same computer. In addition to these IDs, UGS Analytics also collects the following personal information from Child App users: IP address, identifiers for advertisers (IDFA is only collected if Unity Ads is also enabled) and device identifiers (IDFV, Android device ID or IMEI if Android device ID is unavailable)"

Also, note when the old analytics would be retired... just a coincidence, like the stocks that the ironsource ceo has been dumping?

"When will Legacy Analytics be shut down?
To ensure that our customers have a smooth experience onboarding to Unity Gaming Services Analytics, we will be postponing the Legacy Analytics shutdown date to June 27th, 2023."

Dont they already have everything in place to do this? I am also curious, does a install count as new if its after a certain time period? Most of the questions have been answered but I may have overlooked this one. However, I havent seen many people talking about what makes it spyware.

https://www.is.com/terms-of-use/

Read this tos and tell me if this sounds like a company that has learned anything about why they got in trouble in the first place. Just sounds like a legal defense to avoid every other countrys legal defense. I question a country that allows things like pegasus to exist.

On the unitys analytic faq it says.

"Where are the servers hosted?
Our servers are in Belgium and we use Snowflake instances in the Netherlands to store data plus a replicated copy in Iowa."

If you google the countries you will find they are very lax about personal data, perfect places to host this sort of information and iowa seems to allow the collection.

https://www.osano.com/articles/iowa-consumer-data-protection-act-icdpa

"In contrast with other state privacy laws, ICDPA does not explicitly provide consumers the right to opt out of the use of their personal data for targeted advertising. However, it does require businesses to clearly and conspicuously disclose the use of personal data for targeted advertising and give consumers a means of opting out. This just isn’t framed as a consumer right, per se.

Another difference is that Iowa’s law does not provide the right to correct personal data or the right to opt out of profiling, both of which seem like unusual omissions. Incorrect data can cause consumers plenty of issues, but profiling is a much trickier subject. Any form of automated processing of consumer data to predict an individual’s behavior, interests, preferences, and the like is considered profiling. Most data privacy laws ban this practice since its easy for biased decision-making to take place."

Its clear as day how they are planning on counting installs, how they will know your self reporting is correct, and that if it doesnt match, they will know.

Yes I may not actually sell a game, all indie developers start out as hobbyist though, without fostering that, your gonna run out of indie developers pretty quick. We also generated most of the bug reports, gave the feedback, requested the tools.

The community does not need unity, it can do something bigger and better.

I also tried to google and see if anyone has actually analyzed what data is being sent home while in editor and while in game. Strangely, I could find no results.

If this post gets deleted, you will know there is likely some truth to it. I have no way of knowing either way, but that should be rather obvious, just nothing more than a gut feeling.

 

I'm so glad you guys got caught red-handed by our committed community. We boycotted you so hard that you had come to the conclusion you would lose less money by reverting some of these changes than by sticking with them.
It was also thanks to you that many open-source engines got heavy investments, so I'm really looking forward towards what they will have to offer in the future!

 

Totally unbelievable naive. Do not come crying they did it again once it happens, because it will, you gave them the justification to do it again with this.

 

Also, what the community wants are solid

For once in your life listen to the people!. Go ask the management about it. And come back with some good news

 

I think Unity are still confused. They are insisting on a open back door via so called Runtime Fee, which is not ethical. To state it again: it is the whole package we are paying for, not a portion excluding the export component; and the Unity Runtime application is the result of the export component of the software. If industry keeps this type of thinking, Microsoft Word should charge us for making PDFs out of our Word subscription. And with some sarcasm, yes, unfortunately yet, but Toyota should charge us per mile after purchasing the car. This is just illogical and unethical. Why insisting on this? This aspect deepens the thrust issues raised in the previous 2 weeks.

You say you are already ok with a 2.5% revenue. Why not just go for that. Even, go for 4%. But the idea of I am accepting some back door (Runtime Fee) issue is not comfortable, nor ethical. If this is applied by other industry actors, can you imagine what the world will turn into? This is irresponsible in that manner, also.

And if the "engagement" means downloads, well, you are showing the worst to acknowledge for 2.5% rev share. Why can't you say "just revenue share" for what ever the rate? What are you trying to hide with this? Why are you continuously giving this impression?

So, conclusion: with this Runtime Fee idea, you are either trying to construct a back door to use it in future, a dark back door, or you are very confused. If the latter, someone who knows the industry has to immediately get into charge. Otherwise, Unity will be the victim of corporate political approaches (you executives may be trying to be political to each other when we look at the progress of this matter, but it is not a way of doing business in this industry; there are a lot of companies prepared their graves themselves with such kind of approach in management).

I love Unity, but these dark spots indicating dark intentions, and the theater executives play (corporal politics) tell me to move on other engines for further projects. If there is something to be fixed, it should be started here.

NOTE: I am not affected by the fee, but, what happens has to be right and equal, right and equal for everyone.

 

Is it possible to renew Plus (to Pro) on December for, let's say, May?

I mean, how can one renew on December if their current subscription will actually be renewed months later?

 

I'm currently on the Personal plan. However, with 2023 LTS planned to be released near the end of the 2024, there is huge gap to which my upcoming game might fall into and without Plus there is only Pro subscription, which is rather expensive to just remove splash screen. Do you think it might be possible to negotiate a custom deal (as a replacement for Plus) for this transitional period?

 

I think once you upgrade the game, you are since that moment affected by the new TOS that you will need to accept to do so. Then you will be subject to the fees based on the last 12 months...

 

Is there a reason why unity can't grandfather our Unity Plus so we can choose not to upgrade to 2023 LTS without financial penalties?

 

I'm not asking you. I'm trying to get the answer from a Unity member.

 

The current change in pricing isn't even enough to repair the financial damage they inflicted upon themselves over the last week, much less put their current dysfunctional operation above water.

Unity still needs to cut expenses or grow revenue to survive. If you think you can trust the people who are still running the operation to right the ship and to not make further plays for your wallet, well...

 

I think Unity is scared of the following

• There is always the possibility of Unreal going below 5% or even matching 2.5%. Tim Sweeney can do crazy S*** if he smells blood. Remember Unreal used to be crazy expensive, now free until $1M rev.
• New students entering the industry probably will not go with Unity if the pricing is equal.
• If pricing is same as Unreal, Unity will be hard pressed to match engine features, which they want to avoid. (Hence the 2.5% + the uproar)

Unfortunately, as much as I loved Unity, the two engines are not of similar caliber. At least that is how the world sees it. Now on top of that there was this new bs scheme, and the public knows about it. Add pissed off devs (Remember we are paying 400% more + royalties now)

Sad thing is, this is not enough for Unity. So, the price will go up again. They wanted a big jump, but had to settle for a small step. Its not even a secret anymore. Their financials will not improve drastically this quarter or the next, so "the next pricing change" has to be worked on soon.

Its just sad how things are lined up.

 

You have the option though. If you want, you can switch to Pro. If you don't, you can update to 2023 and stop paying at all. Also, you have plenty of time to update to 2023 before Plus license disappears.

 

Wanted to +1 this. It's more than what I was expecting tbh.

As damaging as the initial announcement was, I think they got this response right.

 

Upgrading means agreeing to new TOS. Considering Unity's predatory behavior, you can't expect everyone to do that blindly.

 

This is simply not rational or logical

It's math, plain and simple. Calculate $0.20 on every sale or first time unique download (easily trackable data) of your software. Or calculate 2.5% of your gross revenue. Then pick the lowest number (the vast majority of the time it will be the engagement fee). THAT'S IT. Everything else you're talking about is irrelevant

 

Personally I'm on pro anyway and still on 2021 LTS, so it doesn't bother me. I just wanted to make clear that it's not always an option to just upgrade.

 

The issue with Unreal is that is near to unusable comparing to Unity, this is the feature that matters to indie smaller developers and not the little better visuals.

 

These changes seem mostly fine, I guess? Suspiciously mild compared to what they initially tried, anyway. It's possible dropping the editor rental and increasing the percentage would have been better for them, but the calculations seem to make it a lot cheaper than the major competitor. Unless you have hundreds of employees in need of an editor seat. Then you're quite screwed.

Well, your fee would be capped at 2.5% of the ad revenue. If you sell in a store or publish on the web, you probably have some sort of record of number of unique buyers or users, respectively. If you're below the user threshold, you could probably prove that and not pay anything.

 

I've gotta say after listening to Marc Whitten in the fireside chat, the one takeaway I am getting above all others is...

 

The actual reason they never put out a calculator for the original plan was because games like this would quickly show how things could break:


This game would be over both lifetime install thresholds and yearly revenue ($1.2 mil a year) and even on the lowest Enteprise rates, they would have to pay between 70% to 140% of their monthly revenue depending on the ratio between "A" and "B" countries downloading the game ($0.01 for "A" regions and $0.005 for "B" regions). The same pattern is seen in most of the top popular mobile games, which work on "low-value high-volume".

Under the revised plan the 2.5% cap makes it $2500 per month, or $30K a year.

Of course, paid-for indie games pay a much smaller share of their revenue since their games usually sell for $5 or more outside of sales. They were already "safe" even in the old terms (gamepass and free promotions notwithstanding).

It's the free-to-play mobile games that are going to be hitting the cap regularly. These are also the games made with Unity that make the most money, and Unity management knows it. Genshin Impact alone pulls in over $100 million a month. That's $2.5 mi in Unity's pocket, per month.

The question is whether these companies will choose to stick around with the squeeze.

 

@karl_jones if I have a couple of Unity games out, stop updating them and stop using Unity (let's say one is 2021 LTS and the other 2023 LTS), then I release a game with a different engine that makes my revenue > $200k, do I need to have a Unity Pro license active if I want to keep selling my old games, even though I don't use Unity any more?

 

Lefty, I think at this point, many of us are done fighting. I think the minimum we expected was a complete roll back and a beginning of a discussion. But, hey they do what they want. Either way, it is decided, and is irrelevant. I am just sad that this could have been avoided. Also the fact that Unity will be remembered "probably the only company to charge for every install" in the history of software industry.

Regardless, I am downgrading projects to 2022LTS and will finish the projects in the pipeline. I am jumping ship, but for those who stay, good luck and best wishes.

I guess time will tell. Maybe I will come back when Tim Sweeney retires in 10 years time
Cheers!

ps. Thanks to those who helped me on the forum (including the Unity devs) I could not have started this profession without this forum.

 

I see a lot of people confused about pricing. Heres how I read it:

Under 200k? Free.

Over 200k but under 1mil? Pro license (2k* per year per seat which is between 1%* and 0.2%*).

Over 1mil? Pro license + 2.5% rev share OR runtime fee.

So if 17,000* users a month pay $60* for your game, you'll make a million* a month and unity will charge $1,800 month* (+ pro license). Which is honestly very fair IMHO.

I think the only weird area is mid sized teams that have poor selling games. You make 500k, so you only pay for Pro license, but with a 10 person team, that's 20k (or 4%) a year. The same team making the above million a month would pay 40k* per year. They would make 20x more while only paying 2x more.

The "succeed more pay less" (which wont really affect solo devs) is odd, but not unusual, and we see the same problem everywhere (Steam). Also its an old problem that raising the free cap to 200k helps greatly.

As it stands, Unreal is significantly more expensive over 1mil (by 2x - 50x depending on how the math works out), but cheaper for teams making under 1mil. All in all, its a very fair pricing model that's between free and quite affordable IMHO.

*approximately

 

Trust me, I had the same feeling, but this recent bs from Unity really made me look into Unreal with depth. And in all honesty, I think it is the better choice (for the time being). It does make my workflow much simpler and faster. I can't say for you though.

 

I suppose if you are deeply rooted with numerous Unity assets and some of them are not upgradable I could see this as a huge problem. I would certainly prefer this problem over having to migrate my project to another engine though, or having to consider scrapping the project altogether.

 

it would be a nice gesture to update all LTS versions to allow the splash screen to be removed. overall, I'm happy they rolled back most of the crazy changes. I hope unity pushes through this and continues to improve.

 

maybe it was their plan all along. 6d chess
"damage reputation even further. roll back changes, so they are more fair, but make it way more expensive to hide our logo. ... profit?"

i mean it be nice to have such a option. unity really made the mistake to have their logo banging up on 90% of bad games.

imaging they would have went:
if you make over 500.000$, you have to show the unity logo on startup (or at least included in the design via "made with unity"). Anything positive. Their setup basically made their company connected to bad games.

Unity consider an option where people have to include the unity logo or certain references to unity in a none intrusive way in their first load screen. Or give people certain designs they have to position in their designs. Right now you have quite a negative connection with your default animation.

For bigger games give an option to include the logo and get idk what. Some benefits.
You should really overhaul the way your logo is presented and you need to work on your brand recognition.

Basically give a low level tier, that gives us options on how to include your logo in combination with other designs.

 

This has always been the case, even with the previous TOS.

 

I do wonder how other big studios will react to this...
I mean, they will stay with 2022LTS for sure, but future projects,,,,hmmmm

I can almost see games made with 2022LTS in 2030. hehehe

 

Using their own calculator, I get that to be $0. You also need a million users before the fee kicks in, and the first million are free. 17000 users a month for a year is 204000, so even with $12,240,000 in revenue you're not paying anything.

 

why they can't they just do the same thing but charge per purchase? I don't like per install or per "engagement."
Ambiguous writing leads to ambiguous results.