Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

This is 100% wrong. You cannot enforce law of another country to a user that is not from california, that's just not true.
Also it is just not possible to enforce a developer that already released a game with another TOS to accept another contract. It is even possible the developer do not use Unity anymore, do not have an account anymore, and you still want to charge them... that's so stupid your lawer must be drunk to think it is legal (even in california).
When I'm installing a new version of Unity I have to accept your TOS every single time for a reason, it is a contract, I cannot sign a new TOS without accepting it, I sign/accept it if I don't use the new version.
3 months of advance notice are ok if you are changing it for new customers, it is just not possible to think people that used Unity 10 years ago and never used it again are still your customers.

Finally your TOS will still be invalid since your installation fees is based on fake numbers that you invent with your secret magic tool...

seriously, I thought after a day of madness at your company someone had enough brains to say, let's get back on track... since this is not the case I have to say it:
Nobody will pay you a dime, good luck trying to sue every possible company that will not recognize your installation data as real.
Most of the people here will be gone soon anyway (Unreal, Godot or any other sane engine does not matter, even if you get away with something like retroactive TOS force your not customers anymore to sign an illegal contract in most countries of the world, nobody can trust you to not do the same again and again... hell you said yourself that you can do whatever you want with a 90 days afvance notice).

In the beginning I just looked here to see when you were going back and trying to force everyone to "enjoy" a new fee like 5% like the one of Unreal... but now I think you will understand it too late.
Those who will stay will not pay, most people will be gone by tomorrow.
Those who released a game years ago or will release it with the old version in the next few months will not pay.

In a few months Unity will be gone for good (not even sure if you will reach 2024, but I'm sure some people will continue to use the 2022-2023 version installation fee free for a while, Unity will be gone, but we will still get some games with unity3d for a while).

Can you change it? No, it's already too late, good bye unity

 

Hello - in this blog post Unity made a commitment and TOS revision stating that only by upgrading Unity would a developer be bound to a new TOS. Can anyone at Unity please explain why this very pro-developer commitment was reversed?

This new policy change implies that Unity, with a simple TOS change I have no ability to contest, can bill me whatever they like and make my business nonviable tomorrow. What can you do to assure developers that won't happen?

Without a legally enforceable limit on your ability to levy new fees I just can't keep using Unity, no matter how much I like it. I don't know how I'm supposed to negotiate with publishers and platforms or plan multi-year projects while this Unity exclusive risk exists.

 

It sounds like that, but I think all of us saw right through it. We know they are specifically targeting us indie devs. Microsoft, Steam, Google, Apple, etc. would NEVER agree to that. They would go to court, start rejecting Unity games, or both before agreeing to that.

 

I am hoping companies like Valve (who, by being a storefront of all the affected tittles was forced into this S***storm) will create a set of wrappers for all our unity projects, so as to allow us to bypass unity runtime altogether or port our hard work to Godot.

Can we petition something like this? Good gosh, someone save us all from this shipwreck...

 

Currently spent all of today (and likely the next few months...) starting to port over all past and current Unity projects for both my company and all my clients. This company has some balls pulling a stunt like this while you haven't released a single useful update to the engine in years as the rest of us have just waited for a simple F***ing lighting system to be implemented.
I used to recommend Unity to every last one of my hundreds of students over my career, even in the past few years when the only selling point of Unity was the HOPE it might someday get its act together. Today, I've talked with many of them about transitioning to Unreal, and our lesson plans are changing accordingly.
How dumb do you think we are?
You guys have an "idea" of where to start in regards to correctly and accurately tracking installs? This is ridiculous. This company honestly deserves to implode in on itself like a dying star, because this obvious last ditch cash grab before your Csuite makes a clean exit is disgusting.

 

20 - 15 cents not 1 cent
And learning your second tool is no where near as hard as learning your first ... a lot of what has been learned in Unity you can transfer to (enter engine here) ... there will be a learning curve but only Unity has the moronic view to change commercials retroactively like this and to do so to such a horrible asbackwards approach as installs.

Even if this was a good deal which it is not
The way this is being carried out and retroactivly applied and communicated and supported ... ya no Unity as a partner is a liability wouldn't release anything built on Unity till there are some ironclad guard rails built around this crazy company

 

https://twitter.com/Jakob_Wahlberg/status/1702076545416733100

 

It wasnt, theyve just ignored it - their previous terms (from before April) specifically said those terms would apply even if the terms were updated, if the update was to our detriment.

 

the announcement, handling, and planning of this has been next level chaotic and incompetent. Between that and Unity breaking their pledge to allow you to use the TOS as it was at the time of the Unity version you ship with, I have completely lost trust and faith in Unity as an organization.

The only thing that can bring this back is a change in leadership. I am not in a position to change engines short term, but absent people being removed from the c-suite my business will be prioritizing a mid term exodus from Unity.

I've been with you for a good ten years and grit my teeth through a lot of nonsense. This goes past my threshold for humor by miles.

 

They can't get away with this, they just can't.

This either is self-sabotage for who knows what shady reason or just really stupid people in management...

 

Ridiculous. You can't define "success" by these one-size-fits-all thresholds for every developer and start demanding money for released or in-development games.

The main reason we used Unity on our games was because there was not a fee like this. From January 2024 you plan on shaking us down for money you were never owed and that we were never prepared to pay.

You people have no idea how businesses are run, how revenue is distributed and how revenue != profit. Developers did not account for these costs and in many cases you are effectively telling developers they need to fire staff to free up the cash to start paying Unity for something we never agreed to.

That's only relevant for games with in-app purchases or other ongoing revenue generated from users. Otherwise your pay-per-install is an ongoing cost as users reinstall the game on different hardware as opposed to a revenue share where it wouldn't be.

Also a % revenue share can actually be accounted for. Developers/Publishers are used to different entities taking their % cut of sales and it can be accounted for. Your mystery bill from the 100% ensured to be inaccurate "proprietary data model" can not be.

Yes you will. If someone changes their computer, console, phone, etc and re-installs the game you will charge us. I know you have your particular in-bad-faith definition so this can look correct, but it is not. Also tell me how you will know if it is a reinstall on the same PC if the user clears their registry values or changes whatever it is you'll be checking? You are not being truthful.

Yes you will. We as developers and publishers won't know how to detect "botnet" based fraud either. And that is just one example. We have a game that is above the thresholds that we released almost 8 years ago that you will be now trying to get more money from. This game is pirated at at least a 10:1 ratio. Please tell me how your fool-proof "proprietary data model" is going to never try to charge me for a pirated install? Oh wait, you can't because it's so special and secret and to disclose the source of your magic numbers, your amazing intellectual property, to the people you're charging would be so devastating to your business.

I often run tests on the dozens of branches we have on Steam and that might include clearing registry values or running on a VM. You will absolutely charge me for testing my own game.

You will never get me to pay any fraction of a cent for an install of a pirated version of my games. You and I both know your numbers can and likely often will include that. So where do we go from here, Unity?

 

You have sent this Stage IV cancer patient spiralling because I want to finish my degree with a super novel app project that would best be created in Unity, but now I have to rethink everything and I feel like I wasted a lot of my precious time trying to figure things out in Unity. This is utterly ridiculous. Please fix this. You are killing your engine.

 

There are some problems here.
1. How would you even count the installs? Where will you get the data from?
2. How would you know, if an install is an a new install, and not just a re-install.
3. how would you even distinguish between legitimate Installs and piracy.
You will work directly with us? How?
Do i need to proof to you, that an install is fraudulent.
How would i do that?
4. Earnings of mobile games with low margin per install will basically be wiped out.
It could turn a game that makes a profit, into a game that loses money.
This fee is threatening whole monetization models.

It seems to me, that this whole thing is not thought through.
It's gonna add a lot of additional work and worrys for developers.
This whole thing is still horrible.

 

It wasnt just a pledge, it was part of the TOS if youve had unity since before April 2023

 

Let's assume I Ve 3 different pc all using same steam account. I install once the same unity game in all 3 is that 60 cents of fees or 20 . Because if it's 60. Imagine an internet cafe install to all their PC your game once... GG some companies would be able destroy other companies now.

If it's 20 cents isn't easier do it per sale so stay away from whatever thing you had in mind of tracking installs? Just see sales?
If you wish that to apply for free games to install with a lot in game purchase bonuses but you still want the install thing why instead of flat you don't choose something like this:

Keep Same thresholds as it is but change that on the fees

For personal and plus
Revenue of 200k during last 12 months and 200k Lifetime sales

5% of revenue that exceeds the 200k revenue over the last 12 months.

For pro make
For first 1-100.000 revenue that exceeds the threshold 4%
For
100.001- 500.000 2%
For 500.001- 1.000.000 1%
For 1.000.001+ 0.5%

For enterprise
1-100.000 3%
100.001-500.000 1.5%
For 500.001-1.000.000 0.75%
For 1.000.001+ 0.3%


So if an plus personal made 1.000.000 revenue during last 12 months and Also has break the threshold of 200.000 installs.
It's to get 5% of the 800.000 revenue.
Meaning 40.000

If an pro did 10.000.000 revenue during last 12 months it's to get and 1.000.000 installs.

Then it's 9.000.000 above threshold so you get
4k for the first 100.000
8k for the 100.001-500.000 ( 2% of the 400.000)
Another 5k for the next 500.000 ( 500.001-1.000.000)
And at last for the remaining 8 millions you get another 80k the 1% for for the 1.000.001+ .

And so on.

Also return plus to the store as an suggest make it changes nothing to revenues install things but Keep the extra stuff. Right now believe that you would force more Devs go into pro Will backfire into loosing the money of the plus as well because they would prefer remain personal.

That's an middle ground idea i believe the percentage of revenue is much better and still better in comparison of your antagonist as matter of percentage while Also you gain some flat income through someone gain's plus pro or above despite if game fails or not.

 

it's absolutely essential that you create an LLC to release your game under, because when Unity inevitably charges for fraudulent installs and reinstalls, you want to be legally insulated when you go to court against them.

 

Dear Unity Customer,

Our installation integrity team is the high water mark of graphical input and interaction system installation fraud and or piracy suppression and detection networked systems.

We are pleased to announce, after careful review of your appeal, our robust installation integrity team has determined all of the recorded application and/or graphical user experience software installations related to your studio and/or limited liability corporation, were and are legitimate as defined by the agreed to terms of service.

Congratulations, Unity user! Your application and/or graphical user experience is a success! An invoice of charges is attached, amounting to $48,098.20.


As we have completed our rigorous investigation into the matter, we will no longer be able to consider further appeals. Please be sure your ETF or other payment methods are kept up to date to ensure your continued compliance with our policies.

Best Wishes from the Unity analytic and customer gauging team!




Please do not reply to this email, as it is from an automated system.

 

i've tried unigine for many many years now, it has been alwys better than unity in terms of performance and graphics, in fact it was better than unreal some time ago, now, it is like a mix between unity (for the c# thing and workflow) and unreal... you can try some of the "art" demos and you will see how impresive it is in terms of performance and technology, is another level, way better than unity and of course years away from flax xD i always wanted to work with it but it was not free back then

 

I think this article sums up the disaster:

Just an incredible communications disaster? Unity Runtime Fee and the end of Unity Plus and what it can mean for you.

 

Most people here need mobile and/or console support. Last I was aware Unigine had neither of these. Graphics and performance mean nothing if you can't release to your target audience.

 

LAYMAN OPINION, NOT LEGAL ADVICE

Get your own legal advice; my take is that the devil in the detail lies in the rather prosaic sounding “Use Rights”.

October 2022: I believe the right to distribute Runtime is included in subscription

2.1 Unity Editor and Unity Runtime

“Unity Editor” means the executable form of the authoring environment provided by the Software.

“Unity Runtime” means the runtime portion of the Software intended for distribution.

Conditioned upon your compliance with these Software Terms and the Terms, and payment of all applicable subscription fees, Unity grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free right to (a) install and execute the Unity Editor solely for internal use by the number of Authorized Users as set forth in your Offering Identification to develop your Projects during the applicable term (the “Unity Editor Rights”), and (b) if you are using a version of Software other than an Educational Version, distribute the Unity Runtime as an integrated part of your Projects, solely as embedded or incorporated into your Projects, and solely to third parties to whom you license or sell your Projects or who provide you with services, in each case pursuant to an agreement that is no less protective of Unity and its licensors and its service providers than this Agreement.

April 2023 - I believe the TOS revision introduces the concept of “applicable fees (if any)” to the distribution of Runtime

2.2 Unity Runtime
Subject to payment of applicable fees, if any, you may distribute the Unity Runtime as an integrated part of your Projects, solely as embedded or incorporated into your Projects, and solely to third parties to whom you license or sell your Projects or who provide you with services

However, October 2022 TOS previously provides for you to keep October 2022 terms if you maintain version

6. Modifications to these Software Terms and Long-Term Supported versions.

Without limiting the Terms, Unity may update these Software Terms at any time for any reason and without notice (the “Updated Terms”) and those Updated Terms will apply to the most recent current-year version of the Software, provided that, if the Updated Terms adversely impact your rights, you may elect to continue to use any current-year versions of the Unity Software (e.g., 2020.x and 2020.y and any Long Term Supported (LTS) versions for the Long Term Supported term as specified in the Offering Identification) according to the terms that applied just prior to the Updated Terms (the “Prior Terms”). The Updated Terms will then not apply to your use of those current-year versions unless and until you update to a subsequent year version of the Software (e.g. from 2020.3 to 2021.1). If material modifications are made to these Terms, Unity will endeavor to notify you of the modification. If a modification is required to comply with applicable law, the modification will apply notwithstanding this section. Except as explicitly set forth in this paragraph, your use of any new version or release of the Software will be subject to the Updated Terms applicable to that release or version. You understand that it is your responsibility to maintain complete records establishing your entitlement to Prior Terms.

Everybody will have their own circumstances and my knowledge of Californian law is limited, but to elaborate on my post of last night for which you should seek your own advice:

* if you have a long term project for which you can secure the rights through version use to maintain the October 2022 right to distribute runtime without fees, you should secure / ensure you can evidence it.

* you should keep a copy of the October 2022 TOS to hand, as section 6 has the potential to mitigate the runtime cost if you version properly. It’s my opinion that any work you’ve previously released, or for which it can be reasonable to summise that you would have used 2022 LTS and maintained the October 2022 right to distribute runtime with no fees had you been aware that the April 2023 revision withdrew that benefit, may not be able to have this fee applied. I think it can be argued that the lack of transparency that moving to a newer version attracts cost in the meantime provides relief from the need to maintain the older version in the meantime in order to mitigate exposure to this cost, but needs local review.

* a California law lawyer can give good counsel as to how the unilateral change of rights to use in April (which I think can now be understood to be a material change to customer disadvantage) has been used to create a right to levy fees and the extent to which those fees are enforceable. I have a (fairly bullish) opinion but there’s a more informed opinion available. It is not unreasonable to speculate that this change was orchestrated to create a right to charge, and somebody wiser than me can opine as to the implications of the change and the communication of its commercial impact being six months apart and its impact on customer rights when the customer was blind to the cost consequences of their actions.

 

In my case, I'm simply leery of any game engine now that includes clauses that allow a modification of existing license terms that could affect end products in perpetuity (which is is almost all of them, including Unigine).

Of course this is just casual spitballing for now, I'm not laying out my future business plans here.

But when it comes down to it, we're in this situation now because we sunk as much as a decade of working experience and tech into Unity. All of that is now seemingly built on sand. If we want out, it makes little sense to just go to the next convenient engine that's great now (like Unity was 10 years ago), and go through this whole cycle again, potentially.

For now, our options really do seem to be Unreal, or to do our next project in Unity while we wind down Unity and ramp up on Unreal. Because to my knowledge, only Unreal offers ironclad license terms on a per version basis. 5% would cost us more in the long run on our scale of games, but at least we can sleep at night. I'd pay more for that, always. I should never have to worry about what my tool vendors do next to F*** me over.

 

If this was the case, they would not remove ToS repo beforehand (https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/TermsOfService) or sell company stock.
It was planned thoroughly in anticipation that loyal customers would eat this and say thank you.

 

I didn't even consider that vector of attack. My god anyone still considering a commercial release through Unity is asking for financial suicide at this point XD

 

https://www.221b-asset-street.com/j...unity-plus-and-what-it-can-mean-for-you..html

 

Has anybody talked about what this might mean for debug builds? Do debug builds suddenly count as installs now?If a QA team makes a new build regardless if its marked as developer build or not, does that count as an install?

 

@Ryiah this is pretty old, like 3-4 yo you can try that demo, btw i tried that ddemo on a 1050gtx laptop

 

Ah, doubling down I see. The more you explain the more questions we have. "We hear you" is your equivalent of "thoughts and prayers."

 

How do you know which installs are reinstalls? What about installs on virtual machines?

How do you know which game installs are demos/trial/charity?

Are you providing us with some anti-piracy solutions to combat fraudulent installs?

Will we be diving into adding DRMs to our games just to combat fraudulent installs just to avoid overcharge?
Are you shifting the whole responsibilities to detecting fraudulent installs and reporting it by ourselves?

Will we be wrestling with Unity when we’ve reported fraudulent installs with the legitimacy of our reports?

If you need more bucks, a lot of us are ready for revenue split.
Its a more transparent, and predictable cost with no blackbox involved.
We succeed, you succeed. This should’ve been the model for any tool makers.

We understand UT needs to earn more for more development,
A lot of us owed a lot to UT, and is ready to give more.
But just this way isn’t the right way.

 

I'll try the demo when you point to me a statement that they will be gaining mobile and console support.

 

Oddly, eurasian_69 just had their post about ToS deleted, too. What a strange bug...

"Wow, I've just had a post about the ToS changes deleted too.

Looks like this issue is making Unity very sensitive. Good "

 

I've said it previously, but this

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

unity goes the *unt way here. if you dont take legal action they will do whatever they want. lawsuits are usually at place of residence, so california. basically what this proves is that TOS are invalid overall and its lawless. they state we can change the terms anytime we want. if you do not like it sue us.

so basically nothing they write in those are binding for them. only for us. because they have lawyers and the american legal system is corrupt when it comes to those things. you buy the rules.

so they poker on that most studios wont sue those rules, since its insansley expensive. i believe that what most are feeling right now will turn into hate. i definitly would financially support a lawsuit just to *uck with unity at this point and i worked for 7 years on a game that was about to release. ill still release it, but thats it, dont want to do buisness with such a company.
seriously **** those **** and especially their ceo

 

Also, as a side note: I'm still pissed, that i now need to pay 1,877 Euro just to get rid of the splash sceen.
Unity as a brand became so toxic over the years, you usually don't want people to see, you used unity.
And i think unity knows this. Otherwise they wouldn't put the spash screen behind a paywall.

 

All the posts asking how the installs will be tracked and calculated when the real issue is the fact that they are trying to monetize installs in the first place. They don't host the data, this doesn't affect their bandwidth. It costs them absolutely nothing when a player decides to install the game, reinstall the game, install on a new device or whatever.

Imagine everyone who ships a physical disc for console games having to pay a fee every time someone inserts it into their console to play. It's ridiculous and scummy.

 

I agree that this probably won't affect a large number of unity devs. A large portion of them are hobbyist or small-time indies that will never see a dime. However, it still has long-term implications for them. Why bother learning a platform and tying yourself to a technology that likely won't take you anywhere in the future? What AA or reasonably successful studio (in indie terms) would ever consider using Unity now? As a budding developer you'll find it harder than ever to find employment if you go this path so why not take all of that time and energy to learn some other technology?

 

Interesting, that looks a little different than the post I saw. I only notice because I clicked reply and it was gone, had to reload the page to find it and then it was gone from it's original spot.

 

This right here. Very first sentence.

EVERYONE THIS GUY IS STATING THE REAL ISSUE!!!!

 

https://web.archive.org/web/2020111...lob/master/Unity Software Additional Terms.md

8. Modifications.
Unity may update these Unity Software Additional Terms at any time for any reason and without notice (the “Updated Terms”) and those Updated Terms will apply to the most recent current-year version of the Unity Software, provided that, if the Updated Terms adversely impact your rights, you may elect to continue to use any current-year versions of the Unity Software (e.g., 2018.x and 2018.y and any Long Term Supported (LTS) versions for that current-year release) according to the terms that applied just prior to the Updated Terms (the “Prior Terms”). The Updated Terms will then not apply to your use of those current-year versions unless and until you update to a subsequent year version of the Unity Software (e.g. from 2019.4 to 2020.1). If material modifications are made to these Terms, Unity will endeavor to notify you of the modification. If a modification is required to comply with applicable law, the modification will apply notwithstanding this section. Except as explicitly set forth in this paragraph, your use of any new version or release of the Unity Software will be subject to the Updated Terms applicable to that release or version. You understand that it is your responsibility to maintain complete records establishing your entitlement to Prior Terms.

 

i'm totally agree with you, you can go with godot, but then, you don't have the tech

 

We know what the real issue is but we're not just attacking from the direction they're least likely to listen to.

 

Yeah, I used to joke that the real money in gamedev was from selling to the developers, especially the wide-eyed bushy-tailed ones. The asset store was a large push towards that. They've been pushing harder and harder ever since. But this really is starting to take the piss. It seriously feels like some crap you'd see in a Jimquistion video at this point.

 

Why are you linking to 2020 terms, heres the same ones from March 2023 https://web.archive.org/web/20230305111341/https://unity.com/legal/terms-of-service

 

Don't worry, the white knights in the thread with YOE have actually seen the never before implemented tech before and even developed it for Unity. It's bullet proof and can never be exploited.

 

Their point about "90% of developers wont be affected" is insulting and out of touch. Do you guys know what Unity and why people use it?? Most of that 90% are putting their heart and soul into trying to BECOME successful in making games but now, instead of viewing those years of work and hopeful success as 'light at the end of a tunnel', we're viewing it as the barrel of a shotgun with Unity CORP at the trigger. There's got to be a better way..

 

this has been brought up a few times now.

one of the big things I'm confused over is that if you download 2 unity games from 2 totally different developers they both contain the EXACT SAME runtime, no differentiation between them but both devs could be on the hook to pay that 20 cent tax.

 

The biggest problem I see, more than the crazy pricing scheme, is their willingness to screw over games that have already been shipped. Changing the terms and conditions after everything is said and done is criminal.
imagine you enter a consensual courtship with a woman but she retracts her consent AFTER the fact and now you're stuck with r@pe charges. This is the biggest problem.
Developers have to accepted them. It's not like they can retract their sold games or put a limit on how many times the games can be installed.
Even if we some how get through it this time, who's to say unity won't up the prices in another way at another time?
Or some other way to fk over the developers.
If they're willing to do it once, they will do it again. The most valuable thing here is the trust that were lost.

 

An idea would be to associate an install with the corresponding MAC-address (you could have several still).

 

This is a bad move. I may not be making huge waves but in the event I do, I'll immediately be worried about how many times a game is "Installed" or "Initialized".

I'm now immediately worried about my pricing, whether I put my games on sale and for how much, and a host of other considerations to balance out just for the privilege of using Unity as my engine.

I was also experimenting with the concept of a free game with DLC but that's now out the window, or at least using Unity for it.

At the end of the day, the juice may not be worth the squeeze this time, and I don't think I'm the only dev that's thinking this way.

 

Avid unity user here just showing his disappointment for the company I have worked with and supported for over 10 years.

This is disgusting and you will never recover from a trust standpoint.