Official Important updates to the Unity Runtime Fee policy

Why does Unity have to make things so complicated and potentially ruin their entire reputation and future?
Why not just say, "Once you earn X amount, we'll take Z% from you"? It could be so easy and straightforward.

 

I don't see how all this will improve the cash flow for Unity and I don't know why they have 7k+ employees. What for?

 

It's just so mind-blowing, as if they actively don't want new people to learn Unity, so bizarre. 7000 employees all too busy having meetings to update a tutorial project.

And the "we deleted the ToS because it didn't get enough views" person should banned from using Unity social media.

 

When do you think 2023 LTS will come out, so the Splash Screen becomes optional on Personal?

 

I'm one of them. And I can tell you I'm not happy with the new situation at all. But I must work and I have lots of assets and games out there, and jumping to Unreal is possible but tough, like starting again from scratch. I could do it, but watching the news I will adapt as a good Borg. My life is more important than my pride.

 

Yeah, that line is such BS. It literally cost them more to take it down then to leave it up. Leaving it up cost nothing. Taking it down required them to pay someone to actually take it down.

 

Views weren't enough, too much cost to keep it up, so deleting was the obvious choise.
They put it up because they know you will look at it every day as of right now.

 

Embarassing to say the least.

 

It's about to develop, and it's confusing in many ways.
Question. I am currently using personal. I heard that from October 16th to sell limited pro at plus prices. Are you only targeting existing plus buyers? Or are new subscribers to be targeted? If you are only for existing plus buyers, this is a problem. The 2023LTS is only available at the end of next year, but I don't have $ 1 million, but until then, it's not fair to subscribe to the original price of the pro. New users can also be a reason to wait for the 2023 LTS by the end of next year if they are purchased for plus prices.

 

First of all, thanks for being on the forums and answering peoples questions.

Second, I'm not the person you asked, but sometimes certain assets people are using break on updates. If you're not a programmer, which many Unity users aren't, this tends to be an issue more frequently. If you need a specific hypothetical which will be likely to come up in Unity 2023 or 2024, when Unity updates from C# 9 to 10 there's a breaking change to Linq and lambda functions. It's not unusual for language version updates to depreciate some code and introduce breaking changes. Every C# update does it.

If you were using an asset that's no longer updated, or perhaps you're not a programmer but you worked with a programmer in the past that wrote code using the old language syntax this can affect you when upgrading between versions.

There are also occasional SDK's which are very picky for whatever reason. The Hololens 2 SDK for example only works with extremely specific versions of Unity (down to the revision number), and the Vive/Oculus SDK's are known to sometimes have bugs that prevent their use on certain versions as well, so developers tend to prefer using versions where all the SDK's work without significant bugs. This gets more important if you're a developer across multiple platforms, because you would like to reuse code/assets between projects and since things sometimes break/change, once you have a version that works for everything you work with you tend to stay there for a while.

Additionally, sometimes people use older versions of Unity for long term projects, one of my favorite indie Unity games is Empyrion, which released many years ago but is still being given regular updates. Back in 2021 they finally updated their game from a Unity 5.X release from 2015 to 2021, and they still haven't updated past that. Technical debt accrues, features are built which get phased out in later versions of Unity, and so on. People sometimes need to not update to new version for a while.

I think that most use cases to get rid of a splash screen are resolved by just using the Pro license, but some sort of paid solution other than Pro which does nothing other than remove a splash screen from earlier versions is likely warranted.

What precisely that should cost, I'm not sure, but there is a use case and a small demand for it.

 

Ok so time to look through Changes to pricing and Unity plans 2023 FAQ | Unity

I was going to put everything I came across in a single post, but there is too much, so will split it up if necessary. I'm only going to be pointing out questionable issues, even though there are a few 'on the surface' good changes in here.

Overall whilst I liked much of the changes, once you dig into some of them, there are so pretty big worries and still potential to owe Unity more than you earn?

Unity Runtime Fee

How does Unity define an “initial engagement” for the Runtime Fee policy?

When we first introduced the Runtime Fee policy, we used the term “installs” which the community found to be unclear so we’re using the term "initial engagement" as the unit of measure.​

Sigh, still playing fast and loose with language. No we didn't, it was both clear and clearly an awful metric to try and use. It was flawed and had so many edge cases that couldn't be accounted for it wasn't funny. I'm not entirely sure that 'engagements' is greatly better.

Charity Games & Bundles
Looks like charity games have lost their status and are now included, including bundle deals and anything else that might inflate 'engagement' but that is not expressly excluded in the FAQ. I feel that perhaps for charity games that needs to still be excluded, but unsure if there are any other criteria that need to be added?

As far as I can tell bundles can potentially be hit hard, so developers should probably not rely on using 'engagement' metric and instead accept a cost of the 2.5% royalty per month when planning these deals. I can't help but think bundle deals for Unity games are going to disappear, as maybe too much risk, especially if the price you get for volume sales that month don't outstrip the royalty or the engagements - again this could be really bad!

With regard to bundles I'd really like to see some input from developers who have done this and whether there is a real danger of a bundle in one month screwing you over for the year.

Measurement of Engagement
Still a concern as Unity could just deny your estimates, though you are at least covered by the 2.5% revenue cap. Not really sure what can be done here, Unity can't prove they will never question your numbers and its going to be an ongoing concern for some dev's. Maybe if you can't make the royalty work you shouldn't rely on engagements to lower your fees and account for that in any decision regarding Unity you make.

Subscription and streaming & webgl
So this has reverted back to being totally on the developer now. This is also an area of great concern, with the emphasis on the developer to ensure that any deal done with a subscription service provides enough revenue to cover the 2.5% royalty, relying on engagements here is likely to sting badly. Thankfully if you go with the 'automatic lower value' and always budget to royalty you should be safe.

How do I report my data?
Its all self-reported, so again you have to be happy with Unity asking for proof ( business accounts ) or denying any estimates especially for engagement.

How do I calculate the Runtime Fee?
Still not clear enough language ( at least for me ) to know if these numbers reset every month, but I'm now convinced that they do, so overall you do pay starting with the highest tier each month. If Unity don't reset these every month they need to come out and say so.

 

That is one of the weirdest and most pitiful excuses I have ever heard

 

I think some concrete examples are needed. If I need to pass two of those limits 1 milion dollars and initial engagements what in situation where I have 10$ game. When I sell 1 000 000 copies I will have 10 000 000$ in revenue. I do not have to pay anything yet. But what happens when I will sell one more. Do I pay 2.5% from 9 000 010$ or from 10$? Can I pay initial engagement from this one install over the limit? How big are those fees?

 

yea..

you might have some water to stand on only if you never upgraded to 2024. maybe

 

Hello,

Can someone from Unity clarify Please?

Unity Personal Plan : Web Site Front Page says...........

Eligibility: Unity Personal is for individuals and small organizations with less than $100K of revenue and funds raised in the last 12 months.....

My Question : What Exactly does Revenue and Funds include and or refer to? ....
....

Does that Revenue and Funds refer to Income exclusively restricted to Income received from activities generated from use of the Unity Engine Editor and Runtime.

or

Does that Revenue and Funds refer to Any and All income from Any Source that an individual receives from activities or non activities that have Not utilized said Unity Products?.....
e.g. If an individual has/receives income from say a Pension, or Selling Cars, or Writing Poetry or making YouTube Videos...or Lots of those lovely Shares of which I have none by the way.

You get the idea. Its not a trick question. Just a question of clarification request regarding The Unity Personal Plan statement above as much of the detail of whats been updated thus far regarding Use of Unity Products is somewhat vague and or open to interpretation or seems to be to me....

I don't see that Unity Product users should have to provide Unity with any details of any income they may have which has not been generated by activities outside of Unity Product use?

Not sue if any of that makes any sense.

Call me stupid if you like. Perhaps you may be correct.

Thank you.

 

Good to see lots of the crazy stuff has been taken care of.

 

Not wrong, though. I remember a time where Unity had a bit of an image problem because it was known by gamers as 'the asset flip engine'. Now it's known industry-wide as the engine that reneges on its promises. Bit hard not to feel ashamed using an engine that has about as much leadership as Ferrari on an average F1 weekend.

 

Still waiting for response. Does anyone know?

 

Part 2 - Ok so time to look through Changes to pricing and Unity plans 2023 FAQ | Unity

Changes to Unity Plans

Is the price increasing for Unity Pro and Enterprise?
Another concern as its unclear if this would be say a fair and expected inflationary increase, or if they are going to go above and beyond, especially when a certain percentage of Plus users will eventually have to switch a year or so in the future. Not having the update to the price in this plan is really bad as honestly its hard to gauge how good the plan is without knowing these numbers!

Subscription Services
None of these ever meant anything to me - so not sure what value they provide anyone else. In an ideal world i'd like to have seen say Plus continued but without any of these services and therefore provide a means to remove splash-screen on legacy versions of Unity going forward. Still a bad deal, but better than going Pro.

Starting in November 2023, Unity Personal customers will get a new sign-in and online customer experience.
Another concern, not least with the online requirements, but I'm also worried about what EULA and other licenses may come with this, especially as Unity will be in a position to prevent you using the editor for pretty much any reason they like.

TOS
Why is Legal Information (unity.com) so damn hard to read, feels like someone randomly assigned font sizes and underscores to different things! This needs to be cleaned up, especially as there are easily over a dozen or more different Terms Of Services for different aspects of Unity.

Since there are no updated TOS, not even a proposal, nothing in the blog or update can be taken to be legally binding. This is a big concern as nothing else really matters unless Unity are able to lock the TOS down in an iron-clad way to rebuild the lost trust.

At minimum we need;

• All TOS and supplements that relate to the editor, builds and other services, must be tied to a specific version of Unity.
• All fee structures and denominations must be tied to a specific version of Unity.
• Specific versions of Unity must apply to the start of a new Unity version - i.e. 2024.1.0 and NOT to 2024 LTS as that provides way to much risk for developers to start with a new version of Unity as by the time the LTS comes around TOS/Fees might have changed.
• New TOS must guarantee exclusion of all previous editors and products created with them.
• TOS must be included with the editor and installed into a subfolder for permanent storage and easy access.
• If TOS changes during a Unity version are required they must be approved by the community. This accounts for weird cases where Unity need some protection which ultimately does not affect users.

Without these changes and safe guards i'd be very reluctant to call this a win and very concerned to continue with Unity in the future ( outside of current obligations ).

 

This is either insidious, or in place to appease some executive. If the 2.5% is the upper bound, which no one has a problem with, then they're insisting on including this line in the TOS which is less than the 2.5% in a lot of cases... just to save us money?

That's pretty suspicious. Not because I think it's some grand conspiracy or anything, but because when people insist on some innocuous looking line in a contract that they refuse to explain, but insist is a deal breaker if it's not there, it becomes suspect.

Throw in that all the examples given for the runtime fee calculate using download numbers/sales volume, but still includes all these other methods as potential data points and it's even weirder.

I've got three theories:
1. It's to appease some execs who want to claim they created some brand new revenue stream in order to look good.
2. It's because of internal fighting/budgeting/metrics. There's possibly internal fighting over the Grow Solutions side of the business between the ad tech itself, and the delivery vehicle for that ad tech. So games are built which deliver ads, but the games don't get to claim part of that ad revenue, and instead only get the Create Solutions sales. And so, revenue needs to be found and attributed specifically to games, as the number of people building with Unity doesn't grow at a very large rate.
3. They've left the door open to changing the fee structure in the future, once people switch over they're not getting out. Make a game in 2024, release in 2028, and you'll be on the 2028 runtime fee terms, not the 2024 terms when you started.

I'm going to stick with 2022 LTS personally (which is better than my previous stance of leaving Unity). I've got no problems with a revenue share, or paying for Pro, and I appreciate that Unity seems to be trying to fix things with the runtime fee but the language around it is still throwing off a ton of alarm bells.

 

Maybe some ppl can explain me why the charing for services like Gamepass is bad?

I mean it generates revenue for the developer so I think its fair to include it in the Fee. I know ppl are confused about the Initial engagements but if I just pay 2,5% fee its easy or not? If you think 2,5% is too much for a Gamepass game, that would implied that no Unreal game can be in Gamepass, as they take 5% rev share?

Maybe I'm missing something so feel free to correct me.

 

You'll have to cross-reference with the Unity TOS and the specific plan and type of work you do. However as the TOS is expected to change its probably not worth doing at the moment.

 

Even if they want they can't now.

When they launched the runtime fee many companies make a plan: unity pro/enterprise whatever 1-5 cents / install. ok.
now if they make only royalties that companies will be angry because the revised new price model will be worst for them that the install fee (2.5% of 50 euros is 1.25 vs 0.1 (let's say more installs etc) price per install);
It's a little confusing, but it's at most 2.5% royalties. so hope for the best and prepare for the worst

The new pricing is fair in my opinion, but the trust issue remains. Let's see what they do to regain that.
Also maybe they should focus more on the engine than on the services... just a thought!

 

I will not change engines now, but I do agree with what you are saying, unfortunately.
Unity needs to get it's s**t together and let the price model as it is for at least 5 years. Too many pricing changes to ofter. And they need to focus on the engine. Stuff is developer much to slow.
As for the trust... well... we'll talk in at least 6 months to 5 years because trust is not so easy to regain!

 

Literally this. You can't yell and scream about retroactive changes and then complain that you're not getting retroactive benefits. I dont really understand caring about the splash screen at all to be honest. Its a minute detail that almost no one who plays your game will ever think about, let alone care about. Complete non-issue in my opinion. Its a welcome sweetener, but being up in arms about your old games not being able to get rid of a 2 second Unity splash? Bizarre to me.

There's a lot of pearl clutching going on in this thread, which I do understand, but this new proposal is absolutely fair and reasonable. I expect that the vast majority of the community will find these terms to be absolutely workable. The swathes of developers abandoning unity for godot et al will probably be in the order of a rounding error, when all is said and done.

Very glad unity took this back to the drawing board and reconfigured it into something that businesses can work with.

Everyone who is saying "the runtime fee is still bad and confusing. It should only be revenue share", the runtime fee as it has now been clarified is quite simple, and will, for the most part, result in a less than 2.5% cut of your revenue. With the added clarification of self-reported install numbers (thank christ), this makes it an objectively good deal for all parties. Unity will still be essentially the cheapest major engine, but will hopefully gain a more healthy income stream so that it can continue to exist.

I'm not just heaping praise on Unity here, I still think there's some major soul searching for them to do internally.

My biggest concern would have to be the decision making around ironsource and installcore.

If the merge with IronSource was simply to try and leverage installcore for the purposes of the runtime-fee, and that part of the proposal has been instantly and comprehensively dropped: it raises serious questions over how such a weak and baseless decision was made. Presumably an insane amount of money, time and effort has been pissed against the wall for a half-baked, brain fart of an idea that was dropped as soon as there was public push-back. Huge decisions around what businesses Unity acquires, merges with, or is acquired by, are obviously being made by people with very little idea of what they are doing, or what consequences there might be from these decisions.

I don't believe Unity is plotting some grand scheme to suddenly up the rev share cap from 2.5% to 50%, but prices will obviously rise over time. I am not worried about Unity deliberately and maliciously trying to destroy everyone's businesses. I am worried that the board and general C-suite have played fast-and-loose with the company's money, and wasted huge amounts of it. I am worried that will happen again.

For now though, the reconfigured deal is very welcome and a massive relief. Well done to all Unity employees that have had to deal with this fiasco, and getting a reasonable outcome for yourselves and the Unity community.

 

Interesting List of Group A countries

Would've thought the Entire EU would've been group A along with Singapore

Strange List

 

I like the changes. Good job on Unity for coming up with something nicer.
I hope some of the money that they will get from 2023 LTS and future versions will go into the development of new features for the engine.

 

As we all know, people like to read Terms of Service agreements like they're a paperback novel on their commute to work, so naturally they care about views.

God, this whole thing is so incredibly stupid...had a mostly good thing going, only to somehow slip at the last hurdle and blame the shoelaces.

 

It's not that confusing
If you're in the Mobile Space - Installs will always be huge compared to revenue - so 2.5% will most likely be the way you'd count those apps

In the Desktop space - Most Studio's aren't likely to see 100k unit sales in a month, so will be in the 15c bracket for most - so just comes down to: if your sale price is $6+ then 15c per Sale works best - if less than $6 then 2.5% works best and it''ll always be your choice based on your own numbers.

(Only thing that complicates the formula is splitting numbers between group A and B countries)

Also, as this is per game (without the grouping they planned on doing before) - it's highly unlikely many studios will hit the $1M for a single title and combine that with it only applying to 2023LTS and above - the majority of us really aren't going to have to worry about it until we're in a financial position where it really won't matter.

 

I am teaching high school students how to use Unity.
Due to high school internet security, I cannot freely use the internet on student computers.
I do not want Unity Personal to be unavailable offline with this update.

 

It will be available for up to 30 days offline. I hope the schools can manage 1 connection every month.

 

Two questions:

If I'm using Unity2019LTS and cross the $200K and need to get Pro. Am I now using the Pro under the 2019LTS TOS or do I have to switch to the current TOS (and therefore revenue share)?

Are the Pro fees deducted from the 2.5%/revenue fee or are they in addition?

 

It's a lot of time and a lot of effort (which means a lot of money), and I totally support people who choose not to migrate away! I still have tools on the asset store that I'll continue to support, but until Unity changes leadership I won't be continuing to make games with the engine.

 

As anybody thought that the GitHub repository change could have been done by somebody else in the company (such as a DevOps engineer)? I pretty much doubt that the CEO in person is controlling their GitHub and clicking buttons there.

Those of you who have worked in corporates should know that repositories are periodically cleaned and reviewed. When they are not, usually there's a mess.

Many of you are focusing on this thing, when the repo is already back! It was either simply archived or made private. Chill and focus on the license instead.
Especially considering that there less than 40 watchers for that repo and even lesser Stars

 

A flat 5% is still way higher than a worse case scenario in Unity that is 2.5%, that could be much less also.

 

The revenue share won't apply for anything before 2023 LTS
Runtime Fee Estimator (unity.com)

 

But with seats and all the bullshit you start paying way earlier.
Increased Pro costs doesn't make this anyhow better. Company vs Product rev.

Unity monetizes developers. Unreal monetizes success. That's the difference.
Unless something changes, we're screwed.

 

My question was not on the revenue share but specifically on the TOS.
IF the TOS can't get changed, then I want to be able to get these TOS. The fee is ancilliary here.

 

Maybe it really is just nothing and that it was just sorting things out.

But it doesn't help when the way Unity has handled much of this whole deal has been so opaque, that it basically means the worst is going to be assumed by most parties. The seeds of doubt have well and truly been planted here; have fun trying to dig them out.

I guess at the end of the day, Unity as a whole is going to have to start being far far FAR better at this whole "communication" thing than it presently is, because this is just causing way too many problems. Sure, I haven't exactly helped myself here, but the loss of trust across the board has put the spotlight on the littlest thing to make ammunition out of.

 

Unfortunately, high school policy would make it impossible for me to expect that.
The high school students I teach can only use software that can be activated offline...

 

If you starting a game just use Personal, if you are making crazy money can afford to pay something more per month.

Now that removed the splash screen can even use Personal and not pay any seats, from what i gather by the announcement.

Also there is thresholds like in Unreal, is not a fee until your are already crazy successful.

 

200k doesn't look like crazy money to me.

Except the only threshold in Unreal is 1kkk and that's about it. First mil per product is rev free.
World has changed, a lot recently.

You can pretty much say that Unreal is free for indie devs.

 

But if make that money can probably afford $160 per month.

 

And what you get in return? What's the point of paying that extra tax?
Pay for air. Literally. This is snake oil production.

 

Feels like that one psychological trick where you give someone a really bad option then a less bad option, and people gladly take the less bad one.

 

A workable engine for start, i would certainly not use Unreal even if you paid me, no point in it, it is extremely slower and more restrictive, and much harder to develop for.

 

OMG!

 

Still, who would ever take the 5% of Unreal over a possible max of 2.5% or much lower in Unity.

 

I've fought with the engine so many times over these years its uncountable.
So, nice F***ing joke.

Last bug report I've sent (6 month earlier) would be resolved half a year later, in a 2023 LTS. (maybe)

We're paying here for Unity to buy more trash and burn more money.

 

I fought the engine too, still when i tried to use Unreal was not even close to usability.

I rather fight a winnable fight, than one that is exact 0% chances to win

There is a reason Steam games on Unity are exponentially more than Unreal ones