Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

I'm sorry but this is beyond stupid. How is this method supposed to help those trying to make it in the indie scene? Yeah 20¢ per install sounds fine in hindsight for those selling games for like $15-60 or whatever, but what about those who plan on distributing a beta demo of their game for free? Or the free mobile games? And you're telling me that if someone discovers a loophole to pirate our game, those installs count too because y'all can't figure out a way to create a data analyzer that can prevent charging those and for those or delete and reinstall?

Do you guys just not care about your game developers anymore? This is upsetting. Clearly you guys can find a better workaround for this if you really want to charge us (for example charging 1%). Either that or better yet, just don't charge us at all. I used to admire this service for being such a well designed engine and for potentially allowing the users to create and distribute free of charge. It's one thing to charge us a fee, but to design it as flawed as this, realize it and not care, is truly disappointing as a user.

 

Everyone talking down about Rev of 200k ist Not much but as small team with halfway decent salary ist already at that limit. 6 ppl each with 35k per year..... 210 wow we are already beyond the mark.... nothing about 90% Not affected.

 

Right I’ve been doing the same. You can look at my previous posts. But it just occurred to me this is a potential manipulation tactic:

Convince users there is a problem that is different than the real issue (how installs are tracked), give them a win, crowd goes away feeling like they won.

we can’t lose site of the real issue:

Charging per install is straight up wrong. I will not allow myself to be sidetracked from this certainty.

 

Indie developer here.

Really not happy with this.

Would've preferred a revenue share like Epic does.

If this isn't reversed, will have to be porting our games to Unreal.

 

This Editor/Runtime division and accenting on it is clowning.
Any decent engine has an editor of some kind and a prebuilt runtime part for each platform.
What about Hub? Any plans to charge for the launcher? Or maybe just return to the initial model of per-platform payments? I smell presidents already.

 

The post has now reappeared. For a while my post count on the forum didn't match that on my profile either.

Either a weird bug, or a mod changing their mind

 

It isn't. Every developer hour they spend supporting your needs is money lost.

The ones making billions of dollars from gacha mechanics. They care about those developers a lot.

 

There's a reason the company CEO sold $4 mil worth of shares before they announced this move.

 

Unity reps still can't clarify anything to studios, all questions are redirected with "we obviously don't want these fees to financially ruin a studio" (paraphrasing) "so just reach out and we can figure out a plan for your needs" https://twitter.com/SmashyNick/status/1702098896024203424

 

It would be interesting to see your lawyer contort in front of the CJEU in an effort to explain how California law takes precedence over European law on EU soil.

 

Tweets seems to removed
I hope you guys came to senses to remove this install fees as will

 

How is Sisco Robynne related to Unity? The link shows she sold like 1 million worth of Unity share this month and 17 million in february. But How does she knows what's going on at Unity ? She's at Workday.

 

@Ryiah oh damn you are right xD not mobile support yet, just pc, i'm asking anyways

 

The problem with niche game engines...

• Lack of 3rd party support, i.e SaaS support, SDK support, Ad Networks etc.
• Lack of community support and knowledge base, if you run into an issue, chances are nobody has posted about it before.
• Not battle tested across a huge number of devices and operating systems. Less developers means less users, less testing. You'll probably run into issues across lots of Android devices or PC setups.
• If you develop your skills on a niche game engine, who will hire you? How many Unigine jobs are out there at the moment?

 

I don’t know what you mean

 

The fact this is the response this far into the thread just shows how out of touch you are. We don't believe you. You can't track installs. We do not want to sit through a customer support pipeline month after month to dispute your black box installation numbers. "Working directly with you on cases where fraud or botnets are suspected" means we have to work with you, this was not something we budget time for! Sending emails back and forth month after month to negotiate a black box fee we can't account for is stupid. Continuing to speak about monitoring and measuring installs when you have stated you can't track them is beyond asinine.

"Charity-related installs - the pricing change and install count will not be applied to your charity bundles/initiatives."

Oh you mean we now need to get Unity's permission to give our game away. We need to email you, work with you, ensure your numbers are accurate post charity bundle, etc. This is insane, you are invading our ability to do what we see fit with things WE HAVE MADE. Unity didn't make our projects, our games, we poured our time, our money into these projects. For you to retroactively come up with this stuff when your TOS forbade it is so despicable. Think about what you are doing to people's livelihoods.

 

FYI they're already starting the backpedal.

They changed this:

To this:

"The spirit of this program is and has always been to charge for the first install and we have no desire to charge for the same person doing ongoing installs."

I guess the spirit wasn't around yesterday.

You can verify it on wayback machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/2023091...y-plan-pricing-and-packaging-updates.1482750/

 

I think that this is really what we are witnessing here.

 

Watch as I spin up a dozen VMs over and over and spoof all their MAC addresses.

 

"you can work with your acct manager to iron things out!"

There it is. They don't want us to know anything about the real price of Unity. They want us to work with an account manager to get a "custom price" based on external factors.

Starting a new project in Unity is not a wise business decision anymore.

 

Not so bad, only 1 million sold this year compared to 100 million sold last year.

 

some comments like this, are just needed, at least for me xD

 

Unity seems to be rethink everything:

https://www.eurogamer.net/unity-backtracks-slightly-on-plans-to-charge-developers-for-game-installs

And I'm reading something about: "Unity executives performing actual insider trading by selling shares mere days before the obvious S***show that is now the pricing structure changes."

 

Hey @RalphH,

Been a long time since FITC, but I've had a pretty good career with Flash and then since 2012 I've had a pretty good career with Unity as well.

If you could let me know where you're going next that would be awesome as I imagine I'll have a pretty good career with whatever that tech is too.

Thanks!

 

For all unity users, considering how many people download Unity and never start a serious project, 10% affection rate is absurdly high.

 

Write in the pro license that I'm guaranteed 1 personal incident a month with support to resolve any licensing disparities, or you're completely full of hot air.

"We will work directly with you on cases where fraud or botnets are suspected of malicious intent."; lol you won't fix a single sev 1 confirmed bug I report in the input, and you want me to think you're going to personally work with me to pay you less money? will never happen.

 

Petition appears to be picking up steam

 

What Unity say and what Unity do are two very different things.

This is clearly evident by the very situation we find ourselves in today, where old games made under different TOS are still liable for fees once they cross the thresholds, and the very fact they amended the TOS to do this, after removing a previous amendment that the TOS would be fixed to the LTS version that we're using!

This say/do impacts nearly every argument you have been making, from install tracking, to not bankrupting some developer, to not changing the rules again and not changing the rates/tiers/fees of the current system!

In 12 months they could quite easily remove Personal being used to make builds for sale, that you have to move to Pro regardless and at the same time Pro rates/tiers/fees could drop to what the Personal levels were, now all your 'just upgrade to Pro to get 1 million installs/revenue' is meaningless! Please don't argue they would never do that, as again this exact situation we find ourselves in now, is precisely because they already did!

At this point Unity is the corporate living embodiment of the Darth Vader Meme 'I am altering the deal. Pray I do alter it any further'

P.S.
To anyone who would like to switch avatars to my burning Unity pink icon you can grab the png from here. It seemed to work well as a visual protest across the forums when we had the #SRPLife avatar that I think JBooth created at the time to spread awareness.

 

dude stop please, do not make it worse

 

All my games will be ported to unreal if this goes through

 

Wait... Unigine is free now??

 

WTF. That can't be real. I cannot believe he's been able to get that rich off of the demise of this company. Where has the media been?

 

That stock drop, tho.

 

I wasn't addressing you directly. Was talking about Unity's justification for Runtime Fee, which is that each time a game is installed, Unity Runtime is also installed.

 

I'm sorry. You aren't alone, this is the worst part of all of this. Real people's livelihoods are getting ruined here because Unity can't competently run their own company. What a disgrace.

 

This should be retracted in its entirety. Utter greed & anti-gaming.

 

It's the same clown that was banned yesterday. I've been reporting their posts.

 

the most brutal part is their way they handle their own TOS. making any contract with such a company is just crazy.

From Septemper 2022:
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.

So what unity? does this not apply anymore because you one-sidedly changed those rules? what the heck are you even doing. so your terms of service are not a contract?

 

Now add to that list of questions : If Unity's new policies are such that only those who either release free (literally free, non-monetized, hobbyist) games, or those who release Genshin Impact are going to be hiring for Unity developers, how many Unity jobs will be out there in 3 years?

 

arstechnica is quoting that 'lawyer' post from this forum directly

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023...nst-unitys-new-per-install-pricing-structure/

 

Ouch, I totally forgot how Unreal Engine raises your air-conditioning bill. My laptop just took off, the vents went totally berserk on me. This is your fault Unity, you're making me do it.

 

And this is the reason why this won't blow over like some twitter drama or Reddit changing their API pricing. Compared to social media users, Unity actually needs the people who are affected most by these changes. Should enough of them jump ship, the engine is effectively dead, even for those who are not yet affected by this. So nobody in their right mind would consider planning their next project using unity.

 

Did he really earn 421,436,124 millions dollars in 3 years by selling Unity stocks ???
This guy destroyed Unity by thousand cuts under his leadership over the last few years and he will leave with half a billion dollars.

Imagine what you could do to improve Unity with 100M$+ per year instead of giving that disgusting amount to a greedy, dishonest, incompetent CEO.

Stupid world.

 

How Unity will know the revenue for free apps? I am hoping they will not assume that it is a paid app.

 

Like everyone else, I've focused on the functional part of these changes. But can we take a moment to appreciate the reasoning?

As many of you know, the Unity Engine is in fact two substantial software components – the Unity Editor and the Unity Runtime. ... We chose this because each time a game is downloaded, the Unity Runtime is also installed.

If they are charging for using Unity Runtime as separate software from Unity Editor, then surely a gamer who buys ANY Unity game has paid for Unity Runtime. For example, if I buy Among Us, Unity gets a cut so I use their Runtime. If I then buy Cuphead, surely Unity can't logically charge to buy their Runtime again.

Obviously I'm posting about semantics here, but it it's as if the PR people thought that if they didn't use the term "royalty" then no one would realize it's a royalty, so they connived a bizarre explanation. Maybe that's not the actual case, but that's definitely what it looks like. I'm happy to look at a product price, and decide whether it is worth the cost to me or not. No explanation needed. I am not okay doing business with a company that gives a bogus explanation of why their royalty isn't a royalty.

 

They didn't backtrack or rethink anything at all. Nothing that any official representative has said since the announcement can be read as any form of retraction in even the slightest. They are soft petaling, not backpedaling.

 

Doesn't matter. The fact that they even suggested it was enough for me.

An old trick Riccitiello learned in his EA days. Push a little too far knowing it will be bad, when the angry mob shows up pull back just slightly beyond where you started. Progress has been made and over time it creeps ever further beyond the boundaries of what was previously considered acceptable.

 

This fee structure is challenging for free-to-play games because they rely on a high number of installs to generate revenue through e.g. in-game purchases. If you can only monetize less than 10% of gamers, who then can still have multiple installs, this can cut into the already thin margin.

This does not appear to be well though through.

The trust Unity is loosing with this change is shocking.

 

Good graph, but one thing you didn't factor in is a game that has a full free model to attempt to get conversions into purchases. But with them (allegedly?) walking back that we can pro-actively go to pro so we don't have to pay the non pro rates if we go over 200/200, could help with that...

But yeah it eventually ends in the "Bad For" flat fee notation stated. But worse, to the point you could end up owing them more than you bring into revenue, in the event you get 6 mil free DLs and 200k purchases in the same month even with the ability to go to pro before being billed you would end up owing more than you made lol.

 

Technically you wouldn't have to pay anything, because you have to make $200K first. And if you even got close to $200K at any point in the next year, you could pay a few thousand and get a Unity Pro license and be covered up to a million.

Still, it doesn't feel like it's clear and simple, because there's so many little rules about how you pay $.04 per download for this many downloads on this plan and $.03 for this many on this plan.

And they're promising they've solved piracy, but also saying you need to report all piracy to them yourself, even though you have no data to determine whether it's piracy, and that could alter your profit rates without any clear way to predict how you'll factor that into your pricing for clients in the future, or how you'll explain if you're not able to determine if piracy is diluting your profits.