Official Important updates to the Unity Runtime Fee policy

Yes, we already have a 'promise' from a 2019 blog post about preventing retroactive ToS changes that Unity simply ignored when they chose.

https://blog.unity.com/community/updated-terms-of-service-and-commitment-to-being-an-open-platform

'Why should it be any different this time' is a perfectly valid question.

 

For me is too little, too late.
Not good enough.

 

so games released from the 2023 tech stream are not subject to the LTS terms?

 

If a company can change its ToS at any time, then that's exactly why the user accepting the ToS at a current time trusts that the future ToS changes will be fair.

Unity changes weren't fair, and thus it was indeed a breach of trust.

 

I am not sure what you expect them to do or say. Saying "You broke your promise before, how can I trust you again?". What response would be satisfactory? Seriously?

 

Me before reading this post:


Me after:

 

This is a big improvement from the original plan. Thank you for listening, and thank you to everyone who pushed back!

Nevertheless, I feel there was a fundamental breach of trust in the way this was handled, and I'll be giving other engines greater consideration in the future.

 

Instead we should be happy they are raising the prices on the already ridiculously expensive Pro subscriptions. Price hikes are the base of trust after all.

 

Being fair or not fair is not the issue for me. The issue is being able to feel secure that I will not be backstabbed in the future. That's not possible with the current leadership.

 

I like it. But, as someone who isn't actively doing anything, I'll still be cautious because as many are saying, the trust is still broken.

However, regarding the revenue share; what kind of share is it? If you earn $1,100,000, will you pay 2.5% of $1,100,000 or $100,000? Epic is very clear on this regarding Unreal where it's 5% of $100,000 in this example.
And also, is the revenue per game or in total? If I have two games each making $600,000, do I reach the $1,000,000 threshold?

The FAQ could really use some plain English examples, just like Epic does regarding Unreal Engine.

 

Very easy.

"The people who tried to stab you in the back have been sacked"

 

Outside the fact that nothing in my comment stated what you are implying, you haven't addressed the question.

 

Although I don't like Unity Runtime Fees, I do think it's very beneficial to have it as an OPTION. Pushing to get rid of it without an alternative to the 2.5% revenue share is asking devs to give up even more money in the middle of this circus.

The Unity Runtime Fee will cost less for some excellent devs... far, far less than the 2.5% fee. Therefore, we should not be pushing Unity to eliminate that option right now.

 

Sounds like an improvement, but I'm honestly having big trust issues with Unity right now. I feel like I have to move to some other engine for 3-4 years to see, if they actually are committed to not being one of the least trustworthy companies in the industry.

 

Question: I use 2021.1.5f, I use Unity Plus. If I downgrade to Personal, the new numbers ($200k rev max) only applies to the latest Unity versions? Or otherwise am I forced to Pro when using an old version of Unity but revenue exceeds $100k as per the old terms?

 

Then you have unrealistic expectations.

 

This is a very good point. Its perfectly acceptable and understandable that fees may have to increase over time, but as pointed out above, unless the fees themselves are locked to a Unity version, they can be changed on a whim and leave us in an even worse position than we were before.

I'd like to see Unity address this point.

 

Bad way to ask for revenue share

 

Honestly? This set of changes would fix the disaster that was set to come.

There is a lot of trust to rebuild though. A. Lot.

 

As per your TOS here, Unity can still change and/or add any fees it wants in the future and make us the same trick again:

then in the additional terms, you still specify:

Moreover, there is no provision on either of those TOS that we will only be liable to the TOS corresponding to our specific Unity version, but even if there was such provision, as per your general TOS up there, you'll still be able to do us the same trick as you tried one week and a half ago, since the general TOS still provides means to change or add fees where it wants.

For Unity to regain the community trust, Unity should change their GENERAL TOS to reflect those promises made in the current blog post in order to make them legal, because Unity has showed already that we can't count on its good faith and that blog posts can be deleted.

 

Assuming they release the 2023 LTS the same day they released the 2022 one (May 30), we still have to wait eight months until we can remove the splash screen for free. That's eight months of paying 4.5 times what we had to before the removal of Plus to remove the splash screen.

 

Why should someone trust, it?
We lock down the ToS, that happend already once, and what did it change? It is not like this is the first time Unity tries to screw with it.

 

I agree with this, it can only be proven via actions. Words are mostly meaningless.

 

Everyone, advise to screenshot, record, and archive this github right now.

 

I feel like for now it is an "option". But call me paranoid, this won't be the last time we'll see or hear of runtime fees in unity or the game dev corporate industry.

 

I think that question is something for Unity to mull over and agonise, not me.

 

You can't "sack" the board. People just don't seem to grasp that. Getting rid of John might make you feel better, but he didn't architect this. Clearly the members of the ironSource merger on the board were masterminds behind this, as an attack on AppLovin.

Can you suggest how they fire the board of a publicly traded company?

 

They said this would be true int he next LTS version. You'll have to buy into the new terms.

That said, which way do us developers on the Plus plan go? Upgrade to Pro or downgrade to Personal? I moved to get Dark Mode and no splash screen... and the hopeful dream of earning enough to beat the personal threshold (spoiler alert: I didn't).

Anybody care to break down the full differences between Personal -> (Plus) -> Pro moving forward? Any gotchas that might catch ups up if we downgrade?

 

If rev share is capped at 2.5% then why not just go down that route?
Why does this install fee need to remain at all?

It's a trojan horse. By opening the door to users accepting installation fees (and capped at 2.5% of revenue is a good deal) this leaves the door open for further changes down the road.

We already know that we can't trust Unity now. What happens when next year the cap goes up to 5% and install fees double? What happens when self reported install fees are rejected so you're just put on the cap?
What happens when the cap is abolished in the next TOS change with the excuse of "it was a temporary measure to alleviate worry".

 

Anyway, while continue to use unity, get those alternative skills up over the next few weeks.

Trust nothing on current TOS.

 

One idea would be to fix the percentage to the TOS for that version, permanently. After the last week, we’re all worried that 2.5% suddenly changes to 4.5% with 3 months notice. Or 25% with 1 months notice. Or whatever Unity feel like charging.

 

tbh i while i know theres a lot of angry people about, and i dont feel they are necessarily unjustified it does seem the community has a big win on this

if your game is not using 2023, you dont pay fees..
if you go with 2023 lts onwards, then if you make > 200k you upgrade to pro which gives you to a million for the price, after one million you either pay 2.5% (half of unreal) or per new user.. if you pick the 2.5 you will have a fixed target, so considerably better.. and its less than most of the others who want in on your money
for those of us who are <200k and get to use free, we now dont need to pay the 400 for plus to remove the unity logo

it is hard to forgive the bombshell drop originally posted, but for a company who need more money, this seems a far kinder and fairer solution

 

Speaking for myself I just want current leadership gone. They're responsible for this debacle and they'll be responsible for the next one, and the next one, and the next one. Until they're gone I'm treating Unity like a spent fuel rod.

 

You might want to bring an external auditor in to fix this component. That black box install counter caused a lot of questions that could only be answered with shady and secretive data collection, and you're gonna need someone more trusted to say that it's not phoning home inappropriately

 

Don't be ridiculous, it will be exactly 3 months notice, as required by California law.

 

This is also a "be careful what you wish for" scenario. The next guy up could very well be much worse. The IronSource guy I believe would be up next.

 

Better than expected.

But trust is seriously damaged...

1. Because of the shadow retroactive nature of the original
   
2. Because of how that even got proposed and pushed forward in the first place

I may not forever say "no", but I won't be all too eager to reengage without also seeing the rapid feature releases and progress more clearly apparent elsewhere now...

 

I am certain that the new terms are profitable for Unity.
Less profitable than the previous terms but still profitable.

Making the initial announcement with the current terms would be at least a mild PR triumph.
Instead it became a PR disaster.
Interesting times.

 

Why are most people not seeing these things? These need addressing.

 

This is acceptable and since I already do this, it will have no real effect on my development... I also need to make sure I can go back to previous Unity versions (minimum Unity 2021) to allow me to back port my custom shaders.

I also want to ask about using our own splash screens in Unity Personal (I can whip one up in Davinci Resolve) and if that's allowed.

Lastly, I would change that made in Unity splash to something more kickass like "Powered by Unity", because everyone in this community makes this engine AWESOME

 

...

It's a GitHub. Storing a valid copy is easier than all that.

 

They said it is self reported. You can easily confirm by listening to the calls the app makes. They can't hide the executables making calls. So if they were lying, it is impossible to hide from us.

 

There is a section already to customize the splash screen if you're on plus or pro, so you'll get that on personal too:
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/class-PlayerSettingsSplashScreen.html

 

• Bring back perpetual licences with strong TOS.
• Remove any royalties or similar leaches fees. My mechanic, plumber or carpenter don't get royalties on my success. I don't see how you're different.
• Break up the company into smaller entities. What I pay for the engine should be invested into the engine.

I'd rather pay 5K€ once a year for a perpetual licence upgrade full of groundbreaking features than paying a 40€ subscription to keep using the same unmaintained features.

I'm running a business. There is only one metric that matters, Return On Investment. That's it. You guys can charge me anything you want as long as it's valuable enough for me to profit from it.

But as long as your business model will be collecting rent and reinvesting it against my interest, I won't trust you.

 

If all else fails, we can take a trip to the Arctic Code Vault.

 

If you earn less than $200K (so you can use Plus), what's stopping you from updating to 2023 LTS and switching to Personal?

 

What they did with the ToS in the initial Install Fee plan was dumb and certainly seems evil. That said, it was likely illegal in many places Unity needs to be able to operate, and I think it stemmed from some monumental misunderstanding of a lot of things by whoever made that decision. I don't think it was actually a malicious move, but rather one borne out of ignorance of history (why the GitHub repo was established, for example) and the law.

That said, I think it is pretty clear they've been smacked pretty hard for doing it. I'd be surprised if the exec who actually did act on the ToS didn't get shuffled to a broom closet, or fired outright. Same goes for Unity's legal department, who apparently approved it. I'd like to see that it did happen. I'm still of a mind that the CEO and some board members need to step down over this. It was terribly handled.

I'm not too worried moving forward that they'll try this again. The first time they got a stern letter, took some symbolic action, and apparently didn't consider it the covenant that their customers did... this time, it sparked a massive revolt that will take them YEARS to recover from. I suspect they'll not try that again.

https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/TermsOfService

Seems to be back. Interesting comment in the ReadMe