Official Important updates to the Unity Runtime Fee policy

I'm in a pretty similar place with Dominus Galaxia. Can't run the game in a console, but the M is all C#. The V and the C are all Unity.

Like you, UI would be the main pain point in migrating to another engine (or rolling my own), but at the same time, I have some desire to do a UI overhaul anyway. The heaviness of complex UGUI is... not great.

I'm not sure yet what I'll end up doing, but one thing I'm looking at is NoesisGUI, which is an engine-agnostic UI solution with various integrations, most recently used for Baldur's Gate 3. The idea of killing two birds with one stone (eliminating the main obstacle for ditching Unity while overhauling the UI) is incredibly appealing right now.

 

Migrate a project from a engine to other is not easy, really is a Nightmare and a costly process, in my case i am ending a project with Unity and my next project will be made in UE.

 

I recently came across an open source UI framework that has no external depedencies. I recognized it immediately having tried out ReShade but it was used in quite a few games too.

https://github.com/ocornut/imgui
https://github.com/ocornut/imgui/wiki/Software-using-dear-imgui

Once again it just depends.

 

Change TOS retroactively is insane, inmoral and in most countries illegal, Unity directives must be desperate for money to do that.

 

No part of this rollback says Unity won't just announce new higher fees next year.

The same people are still in charge, and they still have the same priorities. Either they're so bad at their jobs that they didn't see this furor coming, or they fundamentally do not care what devs think or what we want from a game engine.

Either way, they're going to keep driving decades of trust straight into the ground like they have since the IPO. All evidence points to it. If they keep losing paying customers at an exponential rate (which also looks true), they'll need to keep increasing fees, laying people off, and spending their resources on new paid services nobody asked for instead of fixing the bugs in their engine.

So long as revenue goes up, it's all the same to the people in charge.

The only way out of this death spiral is to sell the engine to a third party, open source it, or fire the board to regain trust. Otherwise we're all in for a steady decline in engine quality and increase in price until the company collapses, or pivots to become an ad-delivery platform.

Get out while you can! Help steer Godot to give our community an open source solution that can never surprise devs with new fees, and where we can fix bugs and finish features ourselves if the people in charge ever decide they'd rather sell ads than make a game engine.

 

If you are an experienced game developer you will have no problem migrating to another engine. Or rolling your own engine. Google might not be friendly about it but if you know what to look for you'll find it. Unity has crashed and burned for a long time. It was sad. But since it had a tonne of bugs anyway you have to control your draw calls and all kinds of wacky stuff to get around the performance that the editor itself turns out not all that useful. Not to mention the start up time. Comparison. The confusing save files packing. Meta data everywhere. Spamming all folders. Yeah.

It's a real mess. Can't really be decomplicated. But the wheat and the chaff if you are already using unity for only it's core features. Drawing. Rendering. Script association.

You'll have no trouble getting yourself out of this one.

 

Assuming the 2.5% continues, does this mean after second year 2024, the gross revenue is below USD200k, there will be no 2.5% charged and legitimate to use Unity Personal back in 2025 ?

Hopes, Unity can clarify this as I don't want to assume things to run business.

Thank you.

 

I think if you are targeting learners and amateurs and saying here is a great place to learn, buy assets, combine assets, learn to script; make a scene without performing any math, then you'll want a low price for the pro version. Because pricing up like the unity dev experience is a triple A experience and worth that cost is difficult to justify. Unity is a frustrating experience, from the variable pipelines and their choices, all the way to the object instantiate quaternion and beyond.

 

Learners and amateurs don't need Unity Pro.

 

Yes but they would go on to complete projects. If everything remained stable. Or they did not give in to temptation. { I will change my pipeline } or any of the thousands of rakes that lay scattered beneath leaf waiting to be stepped on

It's much better to have a rep for being good and learner friendly. And fairly priced.
There are probably a few huge customers they have such as netherealm who makes its mobile games on unity. And they ( unity) are likely looking for some targeted gains from a few already existent pro's.

 

You can already complete projects with Unity Personal.

You are aware that this whole situation arose because of their "fair pricing", right?

 

Yeah they will be looking at customers they already have and that they know are successful, and will be thinking we deserve more of that pie. But instead of say for example going one on one and approaching them with a new policy based on earnings. They roll out a 50% of product earnings. For everybody


The triple A, 200 bucks a month Dev experience and 50% revenue, would be a streamlined experience for game developers with absolute minimal frustration and technicality. Otherwise all you are offering is the rendering of a 3D void, and an interface that displays values of public variables and the object they are attached.

Why not make procedural primitives? Other engine content. ? It's strange world. Why not make improvements to terrain and other meaty base engine offerings. Things that genuinely improve the dev experience. Why not add different type of particle system? Smaller ones. Simpler ones. Why not help facilitate to justify charge?
It is strange world .

 

Godot is not ready, the code source is a mess of bottlenecks, the rendering is a mess, any fork would be a rewrite from scratch. It's a forever hobbyist engine, it's great at what it is though.

They can be turned off, as I gather during my research, they trying to dispel this by catering more to mobile dev.

BUT i haven't verified this on my potatoes yet. My only problem is that i'm stuck on linux until I got a new hardrive to reinstall windows. There is no Unreal for linux, I don't even know if it export to linux, that's a bummer (steam deck).

 

No. It means we need some specifics as to how they are going to fix things, cause so far what they have done restores zero amount of trust. "We will show through are actions" is simply not good enough. Especially when you have destroyed your trust by showing us what kind of partner you are through your actions. Not good enough.

 

O3DE supports linux. It is also under the Linux Foundation.

 

I'm starting to think people think a certain engine is "heavy" or not depending on how the default scene is set up in each one.

 

To the people who are moving to UE - How is the 5% on revenue better for your project? Is it because up to 1mln the engine is free? Is it because you have no trust issues with Epic, at this point? Is it because of hopes that their alternative income streams will curb any price hikes in the future? Is it because you lost trust in Unity and just want to stick it to the man with their direct competitor? I'm genuinely curious.

I believe that the only alternative is a solid open source alternative backed by a massive game studio or tech company that already profits from XR and/or consoles. I really hoped that Godot was managed better and had clear plans with money and dev time being its only limitations. They are not. Also, all these OSS alternatives usually take years to build and support is questionable. I have little hope that all of a sudden hordes of engineers will flock to build a new engine in the next few months; or Godot or whatever other alternative will magically get massive support and have an exponential growth in the next few months. Just looking at Godot, and the rest of the OSS engines' chaotic direction brings shivers down my spine.

 

It helps. Also I wouldn't say "no trust issues", but compared to Unity, sure.

 

200K revenue and 20 devs has way more problems than the cost of Unity. This graph has some ridiculous what if cases.
Also, it seems like most people here are either going big or going home - big as in multi million dollar, home as in doing an indie game solo or with a bunch of buddies in their basement on weekends. For the going big group Unreal is definitely worse.

 

I like how people really like fixating on the edges of the graph.

No idea how you came to that conclusion?

 

It's the combination of many factors, each one compounding on the others. At the core Unity feels dead creatively, which feeds into aggressive and destructive corporate tactics which in turn has a negative effect on the game dev ecosystem.

Unity lacks a sense of pride in their product, responsibility to provide to the medium that fuels their company culture. Think of the decline of EA, or Apple 20 years ago.

But look at Nintendo, they are built to make a profit, and are also aggressive, but they also give a damn about their product, they have pushed themselves to the brink to provide the best games and hardware for over 20 years. When you think of a Nintendo employee you think of someone who breaks their back to provide the absolute best gaming experience they can muster.

This video cannot be understated:

We see the living breathing engineers in this video proudly showing off their work. You can see on a surface level that the company is healthy, that the employees are passionate and empowered, that there are big moves being made to keep the tools relevant and to compete.

Now watch this Unity demo:

Smoke and mirrors. Where are the proud Unity devs talking about the great improvements they have cooking up? Where is this engine going to be in 5 years? Is it going to be relevant? Will it be competitive? Is this framework a dead end? I don't want to disparage Unity too much. They really did try, they push hard to create ECS and DOTS and had these PLANS to make great tools. But they fell short, and it broke them.

We are now living in the shadow of Unity, and I don't know if they're able to get out of it. We don't know if they've gotten back up and rebuilt their fighting spirit, their drive. The recent TOS hint at a new belief system, one that is going to try to stay profitably not by being a competitive, quality engine, but one seeking to exploit their remaining users.

A lot of the damage would disappear in an instant if they put out a video showing a few different teams talking about the exciting features they are working on and that they WILL put out in the coming years, that it hasn't all been smoke and mirrors, that they have the grit and determination to make evolving and improving tools.

Unreal is a LIVING engine, doing mind blowing things that creates untapped potential and exciting possibilities. We WILL be seeing improvements to blueprints in the coming years, we WILL be getting incredible additions to their animations systems from game developers for game developers. EVERY single element of the engine is evolving and growing.

Unreal... they haven't really changed, they're still doing cutting edge stuff, you get super excited when you see a new video about the tools they're pushing out. You're excited that their next update could do any number of incredible things. I don't know how they're going to do it, but I'll bet in the next 2 years, they're going to improve their workflows to make it easier to create exceptional games for small as well as larger developers.

Unity wanted to "democratize gamedev" and we used to vote for a brighter future by using this engine to develop our game. But they're simply not the same company. They lost their spark, they don't push the envelope any more, they don't put out exciting new features. They siphon over a billion dollars a year in unnecessary spending that doesn't improve the gaming landscape.

This industry can't survive at this pace. Valve is taking a huge cut, microsoft takes a huge cut, the Appstore, now Unity's becoming more and more money hungry, while posturing in ways to manhandle the markets and decide who can compete and who can't.

It's all so tiring, it sucks the winds out of your sails. Imagine 10 years ago when it was exciting to be a gamedev, when there were unexplored frontiers and a bright evolving future where there was a big enough pie for everyone.

It's like Unity's an old friend you invited to dinner, but they've changed, they go to use your bathroom and you can tell they went through you medicine cabinet, booze is missing from your liquor cabinet, and instead of the fun conversations you used to have, all they did was talk to you about a crazy pyramid scheme they want you to buy into.

TLDR: I worry Unity will use their resources in a predatory manner, suck up all the resources of the gaming landscape and provide nothing back for it.

 

Dude, with 200K revenue you will be lucky to have a secretary or a support person on your team.

 

You're trolling... Or you can't read graphs? That's possible too. Both?

 

How many times do the guys running Godot need to make their recalcitrant and antiquated and dogmatic approaches clear before you believe them?

 

Use whatever 2D physics engine exists in whatever game engine you're moving into to constrain boxes. UI creation doesn't need to you to be a slave to the host, it's all just boxes.

 

I don't know your situation, but when I see 200K annual revenue and a 20 developer team I become nervous. Just an FYI if you are running a business with 20 people (whatever roles they have and almost whatever product you make) your revenue should be in the million+ with little difference where you are in the world. Doing otherwise is a huge risk for your employees' job security and mental health. There is a fair number of people who actively work towards abolishing such practices across the globe so I don't see how your little graph tells me something extraordinary.

 

migrating takes time and money. learning a new engine is not easy. every engine has it's pitfalls etc.

"rolling your own engine" - ahahahahahahahahahaahahaha really!? you think you can emulate what a team of 50+ people done in the course of many years?! let's be serious. really

unity is still a LOT cheaper than unreal and many serious companies will just look at the money and unity has 2.5% at most, unreal has 5%... it;s a simple business decision (assuming both engine have what you need).
Godot is ATM an engine for small indies: like people who don;t bring them money so they don't care about them. It's not ok, but that's the reality... (epic is on the same boat, don't think otherwise)

sorry to say but this comment (and other like it) and it's likes would tell me (if I was a CEO) that the people who are still against unity are just angry and/or don't know many thinks about making a game. either way there's no reason to listen to them. also still commenting on this post against unity means you are just angry or you don't really want to leave.

I don't want to attack anyone, and of course there are valid comments from people who will/are changing engines, but most of them real aren't more that just angry complains...

I am pro changing the unity board and I think it will be almost a requirement for the CEO (and others) to be fired/resign, BUT angry comments and comments that don't really make sense business wise, will not prove them this point!

 

I hope people don't put the # of posts on the Unity forum on their resumes.

 

Impact on community matters. Someone who has been around longer is better known, that includes their expertise levels. While this is not fit for a resume, that absolutely affects the weight of an argument within scope of unity.

 

I didn't say it doesn't matter. However, it also does not mean that new members' opinions bring less value to this particular conversation. I joined the conversation after watching Marc Whitten on Jason Weimann's VLOG and because Marc mentioned that they are still actively collecting feedback from the community. As a matter of fact I was so excited about the changes (compared to the initial offer) that I completely overlooked the fact that these new changes will affect projects from 2023LTS onwards. Anything from now until EOY 2024 is bound to suffer a huge rise in cost with no grace period so that people in my situation can sort their plans. I still think that the right thing to do is allow people to sign up for the Plus plan, which will cover the cost of the engine until the new plan is available with the new LTS version of Unity. I still think that the controversial Splash screen should be optional on all plans due to questionable value and impact on UX for apps (maybe for games, too). My feedback isn't less valuable than someone with 10K comments in the forum and my profile will likely remain with less than 50 posts since I'm not that big on hanging out in forums.

 

You walk in a bar, that has been around for a long time. There are patrons, that kept visited it for years or decades. And there's a guy in a corner with graying hair, that everybody knows, because he's been around forever, and tells interesting things. People love him.

So. You walk to the dude, sit in front of him, look into his confused eyes, and with a smirk, say. "Hey. I'm as important as you are. Get that".

So how do you think this one is going to go. Surely, you'd be immediately accepted by the whole bar as the new king. Or something.

----

This is the way humans operate everywhere.

Words of someone who made their name and has been around longer have more weight, whether someone else likes it or not. Getting hung up on that and trying to fight it may decrease number of people supporting the newcomer.

And the only way around this is fully anonymous discussion when there are no names, no titles, only raw arguments. And this is not a fully anonymous forums.

So while the picture was a joking one, it is also correct.

Such is life.

 

I understand your concerns. I, too, think about the possibility of Unity not surviving this mess. However, I also find a lot of value and opportunity for the company to steer the ship in the right direction. There are huge opportunities to come back stronger and win back a lot of new business, create better tools, better learning materials, etc. I try to keep a cool head and be patient knowing that steering a ship with 7000+ employees, many external stakeholders and massive risk is not something that can easily happen in a matter of weeks.

 

A company that does not make any games for themselves but tax our games does not make sense at all. That's why we are moving to another engine. That alone is a very good reason.

 

Awesome, remember to publish the games on your website then, otherwise Apple, Google, Valve will tax you and it doesn't make sense.

 

Just writing the above acknowledges the fact that people with less engagement in the forum have equally valid points (only if they were anonymous).

I'm not gonna argue about this as it adds no value in the grand scheme of things. I'm the last person to question your experience or compare it to mine on the basis of forum engagements. I'm here to learn if Unity will reconsider some parts of their latest offer, otherwise this thread will naturally become irrelevant.

What is concerning is that there is no engagement from Unity in the thread and the feedback just feels unidirectional. I hope they are evaluating these comments and come up with some statement in the next few days/week(s)...

 

Every project is different, and every person is different. It runs the gamut from very doable to completely impractical.

 

This is important information :

 

Unity is not a bar. Your analogy would of been better if it compared Unity to a tools rental place. In which case I'm the guy who enters and tells the store owner that I see the new terms less favourable for me and the old guy who hangs out in front of the store. Regardless of the response of the store owner I leave with the tools after paying the asking price, and leave the grey haired guy to his entitlement at the door.

 

Unity forums are. Unity forums are not unity. Right now you're on unity forums.

This is how unity usually operates. People argue, unity does not respond.

Here's another thing. Several pages ago people were arguing about "20 employees". You do not pay per employee. You pay per seat. Those are not the same. And in some areas of the world $200k per 20 people is still a good salary.

 

This company will have half this number of employees within 12 months. One of the (perhaps deliberate) side effects of the fallout will be a huge drop off in users, a fear for the profitability of the company and a downward projection for revenue leading to several rounds of retrenchments to restore the investors' faith in the stock/potential of the business.

Unity will not be coming back stronger, but Ironsource will go from strength to strength. And then some.

 

@neginfinity I'm not here for your bar talk, so I'll skip that part.

Regarding the 200K revenue - after setting up shop (government fees, etc.), purchasing any type of equipment, running costs, paying taxes on revenue, you will be comfortable to hire 20 people? That's outright slavery. If these 20 hires are devs even more so. I'm sorry but over the last few decades a lot has been done to rise wages and make working environments better. That same graph, which we discussed can be extended indefinitely to show that someone could pay for 1000 "seats" for engineers who bring 200K in revenue. Are you gonna blame the cost of the tool or the absolute lack of business perspective with such venture?

 

No gas station will assure you they won't raise prices by 80% next year. You should stop using your car (if you have any).

Also, consider stopping eating, as your grocery store is most likely not going to assure you they won't raise prices by 30% next year.

This kind of expectation is on the verge of being "very unreasonable", to put it mildly. If anyone's business model is so inflexible that can't adapt to practically any change, then I'd suggest they change their profession.

The proposed changes IMHO are very reasonable, to the extent they give people at least a year or two to adapt and - if needed - jump the engine. The original announcement and the outrage seem to initiated changes that'll, eventually, lead to more diversity in the game dev engine market.

 

The comparisons are poor because the price increase is immediate. Buying from the grocery now doesn't prevent you from from buying somewhere else, or gardening, next year. Choosing a game engine ties you down for 3 or 5 years. It's completely different.

But the point is not changing prices.
The point is changing the business model drastically (again).
Nothing prevents them from lowering the threshold from 1 million installs to 100K or 10K just because.
At that point, you may well become bankrupt.
The prices could also be set for a version or a set number of years (3 or 5). It wouldn't be unreasonable to pay 3 years upfront instead fo a monthly installment for example, which protects you from unexpected price changes while giving cash to Unity right now. I don't think it's very unreasonable, as many firms do that and even give you a 10% discount if you pay yearly instead of monthly.

 

Does it?
Years ago android store charged a 30% commission fee, then, if I remember in 2021, lowered it to 15% for developers under $1 million gross revenue. Similar change for apple store.
So yes stores have a cost but not a fixed one. Does it make sense? Maybe if you know the reason.

 

Someone got calls from platform holders.

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/busin...ut-one-major-runtime-fee-claim-doesn-t-add-up

 

15% is not zero, unless it's 15% of zero ...

 

Obviously "So yes stores have a cost"

 

Except that you can't compare it to Unity code, since you can't see it. Could you mention any bottleneck of godot in comparison with Unity that is verifiable?

I don't want to sound rude, but I've been reading unity fanboy's talking about godot's "bad optimization" for days now, and I have yet to see a single example of it that doesn't pass for the reviewer's poor knowledge of the engine. In fact, the only benchmarks that have been seen (although they are unreliable because they don't provide the source code) give Godot as the winner.

I've also seen a lot of people throwing the Godot creator's neck out because of the engine's allocations and not providing a free-gc API when all the fears of unity users come from the obsolete and inefficient garbage collector it comes with.

Godot is not perfect, but man, opening the engine + game in less than 4 seconds is something hard to give up.
https://x.com/passivestar_/status/1703417679300690012