Official Important updates to the Unity Runtime Fee policy

I was talking about the management. The engine technology is another business.
I also hope that they will be more investment in the engine itself because is kida falling behind. But unity will not match unreal in AAA at least in short and medium term. But most of us i don;t think the need nanate and lumen. Unity was never really an AAA engine, but even so the pace of the engine is not really good and I hope this will change in the future.
With the new pricing and the fact that they need for people to upgrade I hope they will be faster with new features

 

epic tries to do anything to make fight unity and steamon all fronts and not exactly nice. That what I was speaking of...

 

I didn't say anything that would suggest that though. And I said it might be a very small minority that do. But it's still a valid point, no matter how few.

 

I think Unity's user base has plateaued for a while now. Their attempts to break into other industries have been... funny.

With this kerfuffle giving a pretty decent boost to the competition, we will soon have more viable options for people to go to.

I don't know how many people left, but I know there are many actively making exit plans. If the userbase starts shrinking, Unity will do more price hikes (I mean, they pretty much told us Pro sub is getting an increase soon), more price hikes will increase the rate people leave.

I'm making a lot of assumptions and conclusion jumping, but I honestly think this may be the beginning of the end.

 

You're not a fool for paying for what was the only option at the time to remove it. I do wish they would have offered a partial refund for anyone who bought it as one of the options.

We also don't know who all will be leaving in the coming months. I imagine the fee will also slowly increase with the subscription slowly eliminating any cost savings it might have over the competition. It's likely why the subscription is being kept at this point as removing it would mean a less competitive revenue share out of the gate.

 

I'm burned out on Unity drama, it's been nothing but bad news for the past few years and technical issues on the engine side are common. Reporting bugs is pretty much useless, if it's getting addressed at all, it'll happen 6-9 months later. And even if the technical side wouldn't suck so bad, emotionally I don't want to deal with Unity's leadership being inept for the N-th time in a row.

I think a lot of people are fed up with the state of Unity and are actively exploring other options. I had a great time today in another engine, I can't remember the last time I felt like this about Unity. So if clients are not requesting Unity specifically, I will avoid it as much as possible until I can leave it for good. My Twitter algo shows me similar sentiment, but I assume twitter has put me in a bubble for engagement so it's hard to gauge the general situation.

 

One thing is for sure: Unity staff has demonstrated an inability to manage a change in Unity's rules and conditions of such a level that it seems incredible that they could be responsible for the company. Not even a first-year law or economics student would be capable of making that many mistakes.

That tells us one thing: as long as that board of directors remains at the helm of Unity, we will not be safe. Therefore, a change in that board of directors is essential. Because one more attempt at something like that and the company will definitely go to hell. If he hasn't already left.

 

Someone on reddit pointed out that it was very telling that they had the engine team lead (Marc Whitten) making the announcement rather than anyone from the C-suite.

 

I agree about bug reporting. I've spent hours in reporting bugs and detailing steps to reproduce, etc. They get confirmed and later never fixed. What a waist of time.

 

I can see people walking away from Unity.

I can see people currently on 2022.x not moving up to 2023.x.

And for those two reasons I can't see how this will do any good for Unity as a business plan.

But then again, I read that they are paying the CEO $16M/yr while they are losing money, which was something I couldn't see coming either, so there's that...

Besides Godot and Unreal, are there any other options that I can look into for a serious shooter game?

 

I think the mobile market is not Tim Sweeneys main concern. If he wanted he can priorize C# tools, or better mobile templates etc. ... Dont think he activ fight Unity.

 

If you want to stick with C# take a look at Unigine.

 

An article or docs entry showing how to decrease the footprint of a build would be great all on its own.

 

This is a very important point!

Unity once again used misleading language by saying the new install fees only apply to the LTS version released in 2024, which is in fact current year Unity 2023 version. Intentionally trying to mask the fact it's a violation of the original TOS.

The more carefully you look into anything Unity says, the more it all reeks of subterfuge.

 

And that they selected an interviewer who would be nearly the friendliest interviewer this side of CodeMonkey.

And that Marc Whitten's appology was one of the least convincing enunciations of the word "sorry" I've ever heard.

 

Unigine is great!
Especially their Landscape tech and rendering!
It was my top 2 choice after Unreal when I decided I'd switch.
The only dealbreaker for me was the UI system and lack thereof.

 

A about two years ago i got an interview with a nice gaming company. At the time all their projects where Unity only but I wasn't too decided to jump in (personal projects, mid contracts with clients, etc). So i told them maybe in the future. Few months ago, I chatted again with the boss and he told me half of their projects now are Unreal and they where doing internal Unreal training to anyone desiring to learn Unreal (basically, you get paid to learn unreal). I decided to join this time and boy oh boy, all their PC/consoles projects are unreal, Unity's being left only for mobile games.
Long story short, I asked them why the move. He just told me, "Unreal is really made for games".
While I can't speak about the projects, I can tell you, they are not big A-AA projects. They are really small games that could be done with Unity and a very small team of devs, but they are completely feed about Unity direction.
And with all recent fiasco, I believe it will accelerate the adoption a lot more.

 

What are the chances (legally or realistically) they will pull something bad with people who will stay on the current TOS with 2022LTS? Most likely it's going to be my final game on Unity and I don't want something ominous looming over my head while finishing it.
Them adressing the TOS thing is what made me somewhat optimistic about the whole deal, but I'm not really good with legal stuff.

 

We're presently at 100%. That probability goes down from there the more board members lose power over the direction of the company either by leaving or by having it taken from them by a union.

They've told us who they are and what they intend to do. They've clarified this is 'the new direction the company will absolutely be taking'. Nobody was forced out because it was 'the wrong call'. Nobody will be, because the only thing that 'went wrong' is that developers refused to be a doormat. So now they're switching tactics, putting everybody into a pot, and obviously intend on slowly turning up the heat until we reach 'boiling' (read: back exactly where all this began because that's precisely and exactly what they want and they will not back down from it)

As things stand, it is a matter of when and not if.

ed: As you say you're not very versed in legal stuffs, I'll put it in plain english. Unity was asked point blank 'what hard guarantees will you give that this won't happen for the third time; not unconfirmable promises of future you being "better" but things that cost you a lot of money (for instance severing clients from any financial obligations to you should you do this again) or et cetera' and answered 'none. take it or leave it'.

 

This is already happening with Godot which will become a serious rival in a few years ironically all thanks to Unity.

This has also been a major eyeopener for many developers and publishers, so I wouldn't be surprised if more free and open source alternatives to both Unity and Unreal don't start picking up steam in the next few years too.

 

Just curious. Did he say why they didn't move mobile to Unreal as well?

 

That's the thing. They didn't address TOS at all. It's like it was without any new protections. So legally there is nothing new to what it used to be, and you saw how that turned out to be. If they are serious they'll have to put some legal protections in place, not another promise.

 

How many people were able to stay on the old version the last time they did this and still release games on the majority of platforms?

Doubt they have to do anything because all the platforms like ios, switch etc will do it for them.

 

If they were serious, they already would have with their announcement. Dragging their feet on it is the same as not doing it as goes intent.

It's not in there because they want it open to abuse. That's literally it and anything they could conjur as an excuse to that 'well our legal dept is presently working on it but it's not ready to present' and etc would've launched at the same time as their first announcement.

That hole hasn't been patched because they intend to still use it. You can bet if they 'hastily patch it' now that the public's eye on it, that it's just a magic show to hide them updating some other document somewhere to open it right back up again.

The abusable execution was not a bug for this board. It is a feature.

 

Realistically they probably won't try anymore TOS shenanigans on 2022 and earlier. Seems like that would be too brazen, even for them. But at some point I expect they substantially increase the cost of pro, hitting everyone except those making less than $200/100K.

Post-2022, I'm not as sure. I expect at the least they will increase royalties and tie that to future LTS releases.

 

Checking the 'commitment' part of https://store.unity.com/configure-plan/unity-pro-trial, it seems price of Pro will rise from $2040 to $2220 + VAT/sales tax. So basically the last few months the cost of Pro increased by the price of Plus...

Commitment

The total commitment price is $2,220 excl. VAT / Sales Tax.

Your purchase may require payment of the Unity Runtime Fee. Please see unity.com/runtime-fee for more information.

 

How much would you be willing to wager on that?

 

The games industry is a very strange form of gambling as you never quite firmly know what you're going to wind up with or how well it will sell until often years into production and expenses. But, yeah, the crux of this is 'but are you willing to sit down at the 30-hand minimum $1000 buy-in table against a house that just decided to change the rules of blackjack mid-game in its favor and gives you nothing more than a spoken promise that it won't do so again for a third time while reminding you all bets are final'.

 

If we use an LTS version 2022 that is released in 2024, does it affect us? The update is unfortunately confusing again, at least for me. Probably this would be just an update and not an upgrade, but still very openly written.

 

I have another possible solution to this double-dipping situation, which you are free to harshly swat down with napalm-coated tree trunk-clubs wielded by angry ogres:

 

That works out the same in the end, right?

I think your way of describing it is better than mine.

 

If you're on Plus then yes you will be effected. If not then you're safe, for now. Legally there are no protections going forward that guarantee that TOS can not be modified to rescind upcoming changes.

 

I think the C-suite maintains the perception (sometimes justifiably) that:

• we never want to hear from them (as we perceive them to be the cause of this debacle)
• we'll just take any statement coming from them and imagine that it's more BS

In truth, we're not a monolithic group.

Instead, I would like the C-suite to understand that we're gathered here despite our many differences because we're unified on several points of contention caused by Unity's recent actions. Their vague and extremely suspicious intentions undermined our desire and drive to invest our blood and treasure (passion, effort, faith, skill, time and money) into projects "Made With Unity".

I respect your (the Unity C-Suite's) placement of importance on securing funding for your corporation to survive and thrive into the future. But I also wish to expose you to the broader perspective that money is but one of many vital nutrients that your corporation needs.

What comes to mind when you hear the word "investor"? An individual with deep pockets, willing to commit their vast treasures to your cause. But everyone involving themselves with your organization, both employees, developers and artists are all investing in projects "Made With Unity". We're all investors in Unity, committing various resources of different types beyond just money, some of which money can't even buy. And sometimes when you lose these resources, money can't even buy them back.

Remember that at the end of the day, that money is still just scraps of paper and digits in a bank account until someone exchanges their blood and treasure for it. You still have to convince us that this exchange is worthwhile into the far future. You've shaken my convictions and commitments once already. They'll probably not survive another similar stunt like this one.

 

Unity, just take one dip and end it!

 

Im still never going to track and spy on people who install any game, simpler to just pay 2.5% regardless of if it is more or less. Idc, I simply won't track installs and idfc what any TOS says.

 

But nothing says to track installs anymore, you can just mention sales. The initial engement corresponds to a sale.

 

If that's the case, then sorry - just been stressed lately (real life stuff).. Figured it was still required to self-report after the threshold of X Dollars was made. Which if it is, I still wont do it lol

 

You're still supposed to self report "initial engagements" yeah.

 

The splash screen removal for everyone is applicable only to Unity 2023 and forward. The same versions the runtime fee applies to.

 

They should add another option, 5% of sales if they dont do the self reporting crap with installs, cause i'd rather just not even deal with it, and wont do it anyways and would rather pay more than have to deal with all that extra crap. I mean yeah chanes are i'll never fall into that category anyways, but still, ya never know.

 

You can ignore it and just pay 2.5% of gross revenue.

 

It's really that simple then? Interesting

 

For now. Until they change it. And this time you've agreed to any change.

This posting will tell you why: https://forum.unity.com/threads/imp....1494761/page-14#:~:text=Report-,#700,-Unlike

 

Thanks for the clearing. Thought I still was required to do all this other stuff, forget what initial engagement was, but not doing that either, idc. If I clear X Million dollars, here take your 2.5% lol

 

Unity used to make a profit with MUCH lower rates. Once JR took over they started running a deficit almost instantly, and around 2017 to push for an IPO they started taking in a lot of investor money, and using that to fund large losses. The runtime fee amounts to practically nothing in terms of revenue. I did the math on it in the previous thread at one point. If you took every Unity game on Steam in 2022, and gave all 6000 of them the same sales volume as Elden Ring, it would have only covered about 4.8% of the companies losses in 2022 based on the fee table. Double that to add in Epic and you're covering less than 10% of what the company would lose (that's under $100 million).

It wouldn't make the company profitable, or even close to it. Once you add in the top few mobile games you're adding real money but even that only gets them halfway there (and that was with the old plan where devs would be paying over 100% of revenue, with the new 2.5% cap it's much less). Now, ask yourself why Unity cares so much about this runtime fee when the math still suggests it isn't the revenue they need for a healthy company.

All of this, the initial plan, the refusal to get rid of the runtime fee, this new plan where they triple down on the runtime fee, all of it is to get a runtime fee established. As is, the revenue is virtually nothing, it's not about money because if it was they could have just said 2.5% revenue share and everyone would happily take it. Instead they are being absolutely insistent on this other charge too, which is less than the 2.5%. Oh and remember that by agreeing to a version with the runtime fee in the terms, you're also agreeing to them changing it as needed.

Until Unity promises and writes into their TOS that runtime fees will be tied to specific editor versions so that even years later 2023's terms are the same as the day they were announced, do not trust it.

 

From this announcement, I'm not convinced you're really understanding what's going on.

Most people aren't really worried about the practical stuff, as far as I can see. What they're worried about is more the direction of travel.

Your recent announcements give the impression that Unity, as an organisation, have some pretty fundamental differences of opinion with your userbase about how your company should operate.

Although estimations of how this runtime-fee thing should work is a factor, it's not the biggie. It's more about outlook. How you tried to implement the fees is a symptom of your outlook, it's not the cause. So, in order to address the difference between your outlook and that of your users needs more understanding of your users (if not, they'll migrate to another engine. We both know that, there's no need to elaborate unless you're REALLY out of touch).

So the problem is, your organisation has shown itself to be out of touch with the views of it's userbase. How are you now going to overcome that?

(Personal opinion - approaching it from a purely financial angle does very little except show that you only think the financial angle is important to your users.)

 

There are many examples in the real world where you pay a basic charge plus usage. For example my electricity bill consists of a fixed payment per month plus the usage amount multiplied by a small value.

The subscription is the basic charge, the runtime fee is the usage payment.

 

The top execs are either the former CEOs of companies acquired by Unity or major investors who have already contributed a lot of money to Unity. As much as I have a bone to pick with the C-Suite and how out-of-touch they are and how little they expose themselves to the ugly details of game development, I don't think anyone got there by sweet-talking their way to their position.

You have every right to be angry. But be angry and right.

 

Are you paying $2000 per inhabitant in the house plus 2.5% of all of your gross income?

 

...and all to the same organization?