Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

one time? is for each new download not one time!

this is retroactively, some already meet the thresholds

each new install is a new fee. not once! so it is like perpetual license royalty like a revenue share model

How you will detect this?

if fraudulent installs will spread over a longer period of time you will detect nothing. what if all downloads show up in the first week after launch? how you will detect pirated games or malicious downloads from genuine users?

It is clear to me you can't detect fraudulent installs if spread over long time or if it happens all at once. you can't detect these installs if a potential attackers has at least one brain cell.

free to play mobile games that ask for money after download (one time fee or ingame purchase) are those trials? you try the game if you like you pay. but who knows. the early access games? free games are included in this definition? meaning the patreon type of games that never get finished always in development but that are free to download? can you be more clear?

they did not like this one bit what did they said to unity? I bet some angry calls from those services today.

how do you track humble bundle types of installs as they give normal steam keys to users to redeem at their discretion? you are making things up, come on we know. "we will not apply to bundles" lol

 

Yes it is. I think they laugh from these memes themselves.

 

much love neo.

sorry to see such a great community get deleted over night.

thanks for all the help you’ve given over the years.

 

Once again only if we're counting the people who never release or monetize a game, the people who are strictly solo, and extremely small studios that never grow. Aside from them everyone is affected.

 

People, again! Unity won't track jack S***. They will guess how many installation money you owe to them. Nothing technical about it. It's a classic maffia-move. Now you owe me $40k, because. Pay up, or else. You can submit your concerns to my right hand enforcer...

 

2 hours later :

OK, they don't know what they are doing...
Now they magically (and legally) receive "end-player information"?
The spirit has "always" been this way, but 2 hours ago it was not this way?

what's next?

 

Unity makes a billion in revenue.

And apparently makes no money.

Revenue is not profit.

 

I have paid Unity Plus for a lot of years just to support the company and to offer more professional products to my customers removing the Unity Splash screen logo mainly, but now I am forced to move to PRO license in order to do exactly the same and without needing anything of the additional tools they include in the plan... so it doesn't make sense for me to pay more for a lot of things I don't need or haven't needed before... so basically, instead of jumping to Pro license, I will consider to go back to free version.

 

True, but the same hard limit paradox exists if we change to a F2P game with close to $1M revenue that is about to exceed that number.

Also, it would be nice with some "automatic upgrade to pro" if it is the cheaper option. At least I could sleep well knowing there will not land a $200k invoice suddenly.

How would they even track the revenue? I don't have verified IAPs so according to Analytics one of my games made $2M last year (in reality it was only $80k)

 

How do you feel better?? They are still saying “trust me bro”. I don’t trust them to calculate my installs correctly!

 

It's damage control. They don't have any of the actual tools in place yet beyond mobile where that data is available.

 

When you can't keep up with unreal engine? and have to resort to this

 

It's hilarious that according to the white knights, I should put my blind faith in Unity to not overcharge against their own interest when what you just described is already a common occurrence lmao.

 

Ya but I will gladly take a million but at what cost to Unity

 

UNITY WHY YOU DELETE MEMES UNITY

 

Please tell the higher ups who approved this clarification that they are incompetent. I don't know how our of touch they'd have to be to think that was going to go well. Looks like the tweet is already deleted.

 

Exactly. This system is essentially a black hole linked to a action that has ZERO to do with revenue. Installs can be 1 or 1,000 per sale. Stupidest S*** I've ever seen rolled out and they are doubling down on it.

It's all based on us trusting their invoice with no real way to know if its accurate or not. Never seen such a thing.

If this stays I am gone. If they reverse it and come up with a fair plan I will stay. Otherwise that's all she wrote.

 

ThEIr pROprIeTarY daTA MoDeL Aka "Trust me bro"
https://unity.com/pricing-updates

 

why or how, can you explain?

 

"" In fact, more than 90% of our customers will not be affected by this change."" in fact all will be affected if all big studios will leave unity/ no jobs/ no perspectives for middle core studios etc/ it will return unity to hobbyist tool in few years

 

Because they insist on coding features related to billing us instead of finishing the myriad of infinitely in-development features across half a dozen different active versions of Unity, each broken in its own way.

 

I

I read the post. It does not clarify any of the concerns people have. I for one just want this per install fee axed all together. There is no upper bound on it and developers have the risk of going way on the red.

Besides. Charging per install is just wrong.

 

It doesn't, therefore it's all smoke and mirrors. Unity wants you to pay what it feels you should pay.

 

you will never be able to track pirated copies of games and determine the amount of installs.. If that system is as buggy as your game engine who will actually believe the amount of installs you install is correct? There is no way

 

Hope there engine there coming out with is better than there web page

 

More like this...

 

How can anybody in their right mind actually want to help this go through? Like, I get it, you're being paid, but how much is that actually worth? Your reputation as individuals is at risk if you are in any capacity, compliant with this pricing model.

Think about this for a minute:
"You just sat there and did what you were told as somebody with a higher wage than your ordered you to kill the company's reputation, your own livelihood, your own reputation, cause harm to thousands of developers, start an international backlash in the industry that has never been seen before?"

Some people have backbone, most only show it when it affects them directly. The latter just needs a little encouragement, but usually it's a little too late.

 

Don't forget:

 

Everything that I'm thinking has already been said but:

>In fact, more than 90% of our customers will not be affected by this change.

That's not true, you're still making the change that we can't opt out of you bundling your own tracking in builds, even if we're still in the "free" portion of your model. I don't feel comfortable distributing this to players regardless.

 

Publishing mobile a game made with Unity has just become too dangerous.

Just imagine what happens if an interesting-looking game that draws engagement for a few minutes becomes viral.

It can easily generate a huge debt instead of a profit

 

I recently had to update an Android game to support newer Android APIs, and found that Google now requires devs to fill out a data privacy form declaring all the different kinds of data that are collected by the app, including data that is sent to third parties even if the developer doesn't receive it.

If Unity refuses to say whether the apps are calling home or what data they are sending, then it seems it won't be possible for a Unity dev to honestly fill out that form? (There is no "I don't know what data they're collecting" option.) Which I guess means that either you lie or you can't ever release/update Unity games on the Google Play Store.

 

Absolutely terrible idea, Unity

 

Hello, I am a very real person, my name is antoine and I am the sole provider for a family of 4. I have found a way to make money with the engine by partnering up with hypercasual/midcore publishers. The margins are extremely low with those type of games, they can absolutely not support the model you are offering.

This means that come january, if things do not change, my publisher is likely to stop all attempts at scaling our stuff. I have not confirmed with them as they're busy figuring this out on their side as well, but it is an educated guess.

I had no reason to believe we were going to run into money issues 2 days ago, now I have 4 months to figure out a plan.

I started learning game development through the learn section in 2014 . I knew nothing about game development. Now I consider myself a unity generalist but that is the extent of my skillset. I am afraid of learning something new, especially in such a short time frame. I do not want to find a job, I worked very hard and for a long time to be able to do my own thing.

I just wanted you to know about yet another person that will get ****ed by this.

 

We need exact definitions of what IS an install and how those will be counted. We do not need every instance that is NOT an install.

Show us how this will be calculated, exactly, and what mechanisms you will use to count these installs.

Until then, we cannot trust your words. The announcement was horribly communicated and is still not clarified.

 

So you get posts deleted because they are not helping people "understand what is happening".

I wonder if they will ban the user "Unity Technologies" then.

 

they will not paying anything because their revenue is less than 200K, this is what i understand if you have a better or clear idea than the official one, please, explain i really need to know

 

how do you feel good about this now? they still haven't given us the answer to HOW they plan on tracking installs other than "trust us bro" like why not do it per unique download instead if it's only going to be unique installs, a download is so much easier to track, and we can put that kind of thing into a system and actually get numbers that mean something.

 

odd I swear it was a unity employee who said it specifically did include webgl and streaming games..

 

This account will be deleted on December 31, 2023. Your choice.

HOW TO DELETE YOUR UNITY ACCOUNT

1. Navigate to id.unity.com, and sign in using your Unity credentials.
2. Click My Account > Settings on the left-hand side of the page.
3. Scroll down the page. Under Account Management, click Request to Delete Your Account.
   
4. A window appears detailing how to delete your account, alongside important information about the process.
5. Click Delete account.
   
6. A window appears to confirm the deletion of your account. Fill out the requested information > Next. On the Confirmation step click Delete.

 

Yeah, that's not what is going on.

 

May as well skip everything and go straight to being homeless if you even think about using this product again. Six years I have invested learning this and haven't even shipped my game.

There are already "fans" of my game upset with me that it is taking so long. So what will be the first thing they do when I release? Before maybe they will buy it, leave a negative review, and refund. That sucks. But now what are they going to do? F*** me right up the ass with install fees and bankrupt me.

Love it.

 

Now that every notable game dev who worked with Unity is fleeing, now you're feeling better?

 

Regardless of what they do with this 'Runtime Fee', the above post from page 45 is the reason I'm 100% leaving Unity now.

Think very hard about what their own lawyer is saying here.

 

The 10% of customers it does affect are the ones who are complaining, they're the ones who are making a LIVING with the engine, that is why there is outrage, because you're playing around with people's ability to work and survive because upper management is sniffing their own farts thinking their ideas are pure gold, unable and unwilling to understand the issues, and their egos unwilling to accept their idea was bad.

 

I'm going to mention this again and hopefully management will reconsider

30-60day free trial for Personal License (the other tiers are ok I guess although the change from Plus to Pro is really steep)

$10 per month after that ....

1% Revenue share over 1 million USD

This should make you more money over time without all the bad press

 

But before you do, do not forget to download any assets you may purchased during the years. They are usable outside of Unity. (Mostly)

 

I've been in the industry for 10 years. I've shipped three titles with Unity on top of the eight titles I've shipped. I've worked with contractors and vendors alike, and worked with management to cut relationships with those that have shown unprofessional behavior. I am now a part owner of a studio, making our first game on several major platforms. I know what is unacceptable for our business and what isn't.

Spare me your condescension.

 

This is one of my concerns too. Right now I'm more worried about how installs are determined, because that's the root cause of any charge. But, lets say I continue to use Unity and a game I'm developing in 2023 launches in 2024. When 2025 comes around there's an update to the TOS and the price per install goes up by 10% or 20%. These are revenue changes that weren't planned for and can seriously disrupt a games entire business model killing something that is already released, based on a new licensing structure.

It's not a question of if prices will go up either but when. Inflation, increasing profit margins, paying for lawsuits as a result of these changes. All of this is ultimately going to eventually increase those rates, and we don't know when it will happen or by how much even though that's important information when trying to determine the business case for a game.