Official Important updates to the Unity Runtime Fee policy

Yeah, and I've echoed that many times in this thread. But that wasn't the point the person I was responding to made. Their argument was that 2.5% was greedy and too much.

 

There's nothing in Weta that's worth 1.6 billion. It has 0 synergy with the core game developer audience and is clearly an attempt to buy their way into Hollywood. But after two years they've launched two Nuke plugins and a single Maya plugin. Or rather, you can register an interest. There's no product page even. The rest of what they've rebranded to Weta Tools is mostly Ziva and other tools like SpeedTree. There's very little of Weta in their Weta tools.

A couple years before Weta got acquired they got a new CEO, someone not from the VFX industry but he had a VC investment background. Goldman Sachs or one of those. He made a big noise about the ultimate cloud platform, the holy grail of the VFX industry. See Weta M:

And Weta H:

Presumably, these are why Weta was overvalued so much.

We're now at the end of 2023 - where are these cloud services? Unity's Weta Tools marketing material has now ditched all mentions of the cloud. The all in one cloud solution is nowhere to be found and most of the newly branded Weta Tools are not of Weta origin.

 

So "you feel like it". You provided zero data, all "feels like it".

 

Just look at the product page?

https://unity.com/solutions/unity-weta-tools

First item is all Ziva, second is SpeedTree, none of which are from Weta.

The only Weta thing on there is the "Remove compositing constraints" for which a product page link leads to a nice 404. Are two nuke plugins and one maya plugin that are not even available worth 1.6billion? I'd like to see how this is generating them any revenue, when nothing of Weta is actually available to the general public.

 

yes, i like the new offer, i want unity (company) to be profitable.

but the way they presented the original new pricing was unacceptable,
and based on those internal messages, management was warned about it (which they ignored)
and the original post was forced through.

that's why those people who were part of it, should get fired,
even though the damage is already done and irreversible.

*I'd suggest people start poking Microsoft and lets hope they would buy unity (engine), fire the management,
and give Unity Engine a better home - as the best c# engine. (my tweet to ms : )

 

So any software only can be profitable if it is available for the general public and tied to a game engine. This is what you're saying without any additional data.

And don't get me wrong, you may be right. Or you maybe wrong. We don't know, because you didn't provide any actual data supporting your claims. Unity has enough problems we don't have to invent problems for them based on your personal gut feelings.

 

It wasn't me who marketed Weta acquisition as a way to enable artists and give them access to world class tools from anywhere. I judge them based on their words and I judge them as an engine user. I don't give a S*** if it's connected to the engine or not as long as it doesn't impact engine users negatively.

But what is more than likely is that they're subsidizing their poor decision making with increased taxing of engine users who didn't ask for unrelated acquisitions because what they've acquired is a very expensive software development studio with so far 0 tools available from them.

And if they're renting out some internal Unity teams out to hollywood, like they do with the digital twins thing, it's still unlikely 1.6bil worth. They also acquired only the tools developer, not the art department that's now branded as Weta FX. So where are the tools?

 

Since they're mentioned the acquisition cost ($1.6B) I'll fill in the rest of the details. Sources below say that Weta FX has about 1,500 employees and makes $160 million in revenue per year which comes out to $106,000 per employee which is basically just enough to stay in business and not pay off that $1.6B.

That said this acquisition took place prior to the recent layoffs so if I have to guess a significant percentage of them were with this company. It's still a massive investment to have to pay off with how little they make even if they were reduced to <1,000 employees (<$100M/yr cost).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wētā_FX
https://rocketreach.co/weta-digital-profile_b5c60ffef42e0c50

 

From the Wikipedia "On November 9, 2021, Jackson sold the company's VFX tools development division to video games software company Unity Technologies for US$1.625 billion.[49][50][51] Unity's acquired tech assets of Weta will be called Weta Digital, while the visual effects company remained separate and renamed as Wētā FX."

Weta FX is the part that stayed independent of Unity's acquisition, the actual art department working on movies. What Unity acquired was just the tools department. So that's why I'm wondering, where are the tools?

It's also unclear if any Weta Digital numbers are from pre-acquisition or post-acquisition since all of it was called Weta Digital, but now it's split and Weta Digital the tools department is under Unity corp so likely under their financial reports where they're still bleeding hundreds of millions every quarter.

 

It's up to 2.5% buisness revenue regardless of how much came from the game.

The 30% cut from Steam is neatly bounded by how much you make from Steam's sale of your game.

 

I've never read a more weirdly worded post. It almost sounds like you're saying that a percentage of revenue from one source is different to a percentage of revenue from another source which is not how math works.

If a game costs $10 Steam's cut is $3 and Unity's cut is $0.25. Ignoring taxes that means you keep $6.75. If a game is completely free Steam's cut is $0 and Unity's cut is $0 but then it was free so it's not like you make anything.

Of course the above requires you be above the $1,000,000/yr threshold. If you're below that it's always $0.

 

That is what I am saying. Consider the following: I make a game and market plushies. My revinue from the game is a respectable $500/mo. I make 500 in revinue from the plushies.

Steam sees 500 in revinue.

Unity sees 1000 in revinue.

Two different numbers.

 

2.5% is a great deal specially if they let us dump the Unity splash for free and instead only allow it on good quality games like the UE logo.

My main gripe is the install/First Encounter nonsense regardless or not if it will save me money I don't want to track my users and I don't want to report more info back to Unity that they will later sell on to a data broker. Charging for subscriptions for the full editor/tools/source leaves a bit of a bad taste as well considering they want to move to a profit share, along with allowing the $1 reload guy to keep his job.

And just the p1ss poor way they have gone about all this nonsense has left zero trust, but then what do we really expect from publicly traded companies who only directive is to pay the biggest dividends possible to its shareholders.

 

That's only for the threshold for Personal. After you are on Pro and you pay 2k per year, the runtime fee is per game.

 

No...? It's 2.5% of your total gross revenue, or the number of installs calculated. Whichever is less... So if you owe Unity anything for a game, it is between 20 cents to 2.5% of your revenue. Not at all "regardless of how much money you made on the game".

It can be directly compared to Steam. Steam charges 30% of your revenue. Unity charges between 0% and 2.5% of your revenue. Simple as that.

 

There are two different numbers but it's not for that. For determining whether you qualify for Unity Personal they use the revenue for your business. For determining how much of the 2.5% you pay they use the revenue for your game.

https://unity.com/pricing-updates

 

Lack of trust and no plus are the issues now.

 

Okay so new scenario. I have a variety of things that

If you are an individual using the Unity Software, then your Total Finances are: (a) if you are providing service(s) to a third party, your customer’s or client’s gross revenues and/or funding (no matter what the source); or (b) if you are not providing service(s) to a third party, the amount generated in connection with your use of the Software.

It's the "no matter what the source" that matters here

 

Gah extra quote

 

That is for the license threshold that forces you to Pro, then for the Runtime Fee it is defined differently and is per game.

 

That is for people who are contracted to work on other people's products. A game developer making a game is 1st party. Specifiically, "if you are providing service(s) to a third party" and not "if you are not providing service(s) to a third party, the amount generated in connection with your use of the Software."

An indie game dev making a game is "B", the latter. That is how much money you make when using the Unity engine. So when you make a game using the engine, not when you sell t-shirts with your game logo, for example.

 

We don't know what the terms will look like when 2023 LTS releases, we only have the current terms and what Unity tells us (considering the willingness to retroactively change terms, value that as you will). Until we actually see those terms, we don't really know what's going to be when it releases.

 

We're working off of information that has been made publicly available, and from statements made by employees like @superpig. Once the updated TOS have been made available we can look at that but until then this is "good enough". It's not like we're making business decisions here aside from whether to migrate from lack of trust.

https://forum.unity.com/threads/imp...ntime-fee-policy.1494761/page-18#post-9359243

 

Assuming they are an individual.

If you are a legal entity (which in many countries, you do need to be, even if you are one person), it is once again the gross revenue regardless of source. But again that is only for the threshold from Personal to Pro, and it is our current "best guess" with the info and FAQ Unity has already released since we don't have updated terms to look at.

 

Yes, I specifically said that's what it's based on. No, it's not "good enough" to have a reasonable discussion, particularly with an organization that has the historical relationship with the truth that Unity Tech has. Finally, deciding if you should move engines is a pretty major business decision!

 

It's sufficient to discuss any topic that isn't directly related to that. We don't have to just talk about the trust issues when discussing anything else other than to point out like @AcidArrow did that it's based off of what's said and not what's written down.

Yes, but it's not a decision that is rooted in the pricing of the engine as unless you choose a FOSS engine the reality is it's not that much more expensive in a worst case scenario. Instead it's a trust issue which is not really reversible without drastic changes that no business or legal team of said business would approve.

 

like said before, most of people who think it's fair, are those who don't pay any plans themselves, or don't expect to hit any threshold to pay anything, or are just part of the ecosystem (asset creator?) that feeds them. or are paid to say so. that's ok. you can even be happy if you want, but don't pretend this won't really hurt the small devs that DO pay the plans and take the risk UPFRONT.

announcing how fair it is, is just a big F*** you for your fellow developers. if you pay up to tens of thousands for the plans and tell us how fair the new pricing is, you are probably lying about the first part or the second.

it's possible, if not probable, that the game won't make any profit. great. now that was an experience. but you still pay for the plans. if you somehow hit some threshold, it may be because you have a great publisher. your publisher may have paid some royalties to you upfront, so you can live and pay for the plans, and actually complete the game.

game sells well, publisher may take 100% until it makes the advance royalties and then start to pay royalties to you. that may be 10%, 20% or even 30% if you are lucky or experienced. but you may not be lucky enough to have a publisher that pays the revenue share for you.

so. say you get 20% of sales (after steam/apple/whatever fee?), but wait, you have to pay 2.5% of the gross revenue to unity! suddenly, that 2.5% unity takes can be 10-15% or more of YOUR revenue. AND you paid the plans. "but unreal takes 5%!?". yes, but using their tools with zero risk is a bit different. and your publisher may get a good deal for you.

yes, there is all kind of publishing deals, better and worse, depending on your rep, exp etc. etc. but this isn't even the worst one smaller devs often get.

great deal yea?

 

Yes, but that hasn't changed from how it was before all of this. You always paid upfront unless you were able to be below the threshold.

 

I can't fathom a majority of people who make enormous sums of money from a product they use, thinking it is unfair that the makers of that product share in the revenue with a mere 2.5% revenue (or less!).

That kind of statement is barely different that saying that everything exists to support you and the money you make.

And if a company asks you to share anything you made when they supplied the entire basis for how you made money, then it is unfair? Because they don't deserve to have the funds to keep their lights on? They exist to serve you for free?

Fortunately, I don't think "most of the people" are that unreasonable. There are plenty of reasons to be mad at Unity, and not like this change, but saying "2.5% is unfair, and if you don't agree, you must be paid by them or not pay them" is a myopic criticism of the problems Unity has right now.

 

it's not unfair to share the profit, if you share the risk. that's not the case with unity. you take the risk and share the profit.

 

I hate the double dipping but it's not completely risk free for Unity. If subscriptions were sufficient on their own they wouldn't be looking at a new pricing model. Instead they would have just slightly increased the cost again.

Hopefully for the people who remain it's just a transitional period to purely revenue sharing.

 

Can you elaborate on that some? Also why does a lack of risk taking mean they can't share profits? Risk or not doesn't have a material impact on whether or not their software is the basis of a game's production. It makes the requirement of Unity sharing risk to get paid seem arbitrary and subjective.

 

Looks like Unity won...they got people defending revenue share as if it was OK and normal, which we can speculate was their real goal. It's not comparable to Steam etc.; those are stores and every store in the world takes a percentage because that's how running a store works. You can go it alone without a store, but then your reach is drastically reduced. (Though it's still possible to make money that way if you get lucky. And leaving aside that there are some platforms where you're required to use a store.)

You don't traditionally pay tool makers a cut. If you use Photoshop for a living, do you have to pay Adobe a cut of your revenue? If you use Final Cut Pro for a living, do you have to pay Apple a cut of your revenue? But game engines are somehow magically different because...? The old Unity specifically said they shouldn't get a cut, and were profitable using the up-front fee method (+ reduced fee for upgrades).

--Eric

 

If engine devs had to share risk with you, there wouldn't be freely available proprietary engines. Or the percentage you have to pay would be around 50 to 70%.

Their risk is giving you the tech for free. Because it took time and money to develop. The risk is that they'll either earn nothing, or fail to earn enough.

I'm not seeing how this is at all related to announcement, though.

Rev share is epic's model, Unity got rev share AND subscription AND some install tracking mechanism. I don't really care anymore. I've finished my books, I'll be looking into engines this week. And into updating exodus stuff. Probably won't be using unity unless I land a job with it.

 

While I understand your reasoning the fact is you used to pay a six to seven digit figure, and anyone who couldn't either had to be competent enough to build their own engine or live with the very limited free ones of the day.

 

People are defending it because it is reasonable. People can defend it while admitting that Unity faceplanted on this, and destroyed their trust - permanently. People can admit Unity made insane, evil demands, but their amended changes are reasonable. The two things are not mutually exclusive, or else "Unity won".

Unity peed their pants in the middle of school, and everyone saw it. No one will forget it. That doesn't preclude endless mindless rage no matter what they do.

They haven't "won" a damn thing. They barely survived.

 

I'm not really following this. Six to seven digit figure for what?

I explained why it's not reasonable. Saying that it is doesn't make it so.

--Eric

 

Game engines like Cry and Unreal. Before Unity existed that was the bulk of what we had available to license.

 

We will see that... because the amended things are big BS. They say you only need to pay if you are using Pro.
Will see if they stick to it and won't go berserk when the first indie stops its Pro subscription and stops using the editor until their income go under the thresholds... because this proposed system is playable, will see what they want to put in there to fix that awful hole. Judging their capability to come up with sane ideas, I doubt it will be any good...

 

Not sure how that's related to anything I said, sorry. Unity charged $1500 for Pro and less for Indie.

--Eric

 

And saying that it is unreasonable doesn't make it so either... You aren't more of an authority on what is reasonable than I am. This is subjective. But I guarantee that if you polled a large group of people, and they are also aware of Epic games 5%, and then you ask them if Unity's terms are unreasonable, the majority would say that the current terms are reasonable.

I can't prove that, obviously, but call it intuition.

 

i'd prefer pure revenue share. we don't know, but maybe the subscription model wasn't sufficient from the very beginning. or would of been too expensive to actually grow the customer base. idk. we will probably know more in a few months or a year.

 

I'm simply point out that back in the day (pre-Unity) indies had to either build their own engine or live with very limited frameworks and that revenue sharing would have been far preferable.

According to Aras (former lead graphics programmer) it was profitable up until they decided on growth at all costs.

https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@aras/111074504781302975

 

I explained why with examples. You're just saying "nuh-uh".

OK, but the maximum up-front cost for Unity was $1500, or less if you didn't want Pro. The Indie license didn't have feature-parity with Pro, but it did have 99% of it aside from a couple of "flashy" (for the time) features. The answer was to make tools cost less, not to do revenue share, which other engines weren't doing anyway. As you said, they were charging big bucks up-front. Unity figured it made sense to sell tools to a lot of people for little money, instead of selling to a few people for a lot of money.

--Eric

 

you choose to compare %'s, but it's way more than that. well, we kind of "polled" a large group of devs. and we know the results. they didn't like it. and if you say they don't know about epic's %, you live in a bubble.

 

so, it could be profitable, but they choose not to? well, i know the answer, but some people think they are in some kind of internal crisis about the profitability of the engine. and that is simply not true. of course, being profitable AND keeping the big customer base is difficult....

 

TIL that this engine had support for PC builds early on but only if you paid for the full license.



https://web.archive.org/web/20061205231244/http://secure.otee.dk/shop/

 

No, those people felt strongly about it and came to the forums. That is in no way a random sample of the entire community in a way that a real poll would do. That'd be just as accurate a sampling as if the pollster only polled Unity employees. It's the kind of thing that some biased pollsters do to get the results they want, so they can frame arguments in their favor.

I too find it's very easy to defeat an absurd argument that someone didn't actually make. Reframing someone's argument as something absurd, and then valiantly knocking down that straw man and claiming victory.

But I never said "people like it" as in they enjoy paying Unity. I said IT IS REASONABLE.

Also, not sure what you are saying about them "not knowing about Epic's revenue share". I said that would be a good requirement for a truly accurate, unbiased poll. Of course most people know about their revenue share...

 

And I've explained why it is reasonable with examples of why I think that way since some of the earliest pages of this thread. Explaining why you have an opinion, by providing points on what brought you to that conclusion, does not constitute facts... That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.

This is such a subjective argument, and you seem to not have a grasp of the delineation between objective and subjective... so arguing any more with you on this point will accomplish nothing. So I am dropping out of this back and forth after this comment.

 

i think people would say it's more reasonable than the first offer. but, since we can't create truly accurate poll, we have to work with what we have, and what i've seen from PAYING customers so far, isn't all positive, or even "reasonable". those who use it for free, i don't count. they don't care what the % is.

and as we see from stock, more has to be done. i predict more "reasonable" increases in the future.