Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

Hi Unity, Please help to answer this question, if our organization is a non-profit organization, such as education, we wish to publish our app to the store for free download, which will benefit our existing students, will there be additional charges base on the number of install?

 

What about this calculation? I'm not an expert in mobile game publishing... That scenario could be implausible and I wouldn't know it. If the calculation is wrong, I'd like to know so I can correct it. https://forum.unity.com/threads/uni...ckaging-updates.1482750/page-123#post-9312194 . Thanks.

 

Troll? /facepalm

 

Yeah, then they backpedaled and said only new installs (per device) would count.

They're just making this stuff up as they go.

 

You nailed it. Literally just charge a flat fee. That is it. Charge us an entry fee. Any amount. Whatever it is. At least we know what we are getting. We can think of it like buying a car or a motorbike or new mountain bike. Price of entry.

Once paid per project, we are done. We can rest assured. We can build our project however we want. No more stress.

But even if they offer that now to us, how can you trust it? What guarantee they won't pull the rug in 1-2 years again? Many people bought those flat fees already and are now getting F***ed as it no longer covers them and they are forced into this new "agreement."

Crazy people.

 

in that case, i think they are going to charge the distributor xD (very improbale xD)

 

Mr. John Greed

 

Monthly install's are not cumulative they reset every month. The threshold installs are cumulative.

 

No - a free application would not meet the requirements for the per-install fee structure so you would pay nothing. It's unfortunate that such a complicated payment scheme was introduced because a lot of people are going to have questions like that, whereas a flat fee would have made life so much simpler for everyone.

 

I REALLY need to bring this to someone's attention on here!

PROTON CREATES A DIFFERENT MACHINE FOR EVERY REINSTALL! THE DEVS CANNOT STOP THEIR GAMES FROM RUNNING IN PROTON CAUSE PROTON HAS BEEN DESIGNED TO RUN ANY STUPID ENGINE THAT WORKS ON WINDOWS! ARE WE GONNA BE CHARGED FOR THESE REINSTALLS?

 

Thanks, but my initial issues with all this are...

(1) If I was dealing with console or PC users that have the higher value this $0.20 fee is not too expensive but rather I am dealing with users that are worth $0.02 to $0.20 - Seriously, WHY IN GODS NAME ARE UNITY TRYING TO CHARGE THE SAME FIGURE FOR PLAYERS WORTH 100s OF TIMES LESS/MORE THAN EACH OTHER. They are trying to charge more than free-to-play users are worth, bankrupting the sector and thus their own revs.

(2) I don't have $2000 for a pro license. No where near. And even if I could afford it, the issue remains that once at the 1m threshold, the game becomes unprofitable for me and so needs taking offline - hence stopping Unity's revs on it too.

(3) The scaling down doesn't give me any peace of mind because it could very well STILL be more per install than rev I get per user. And I don't even know what my actual users vs Unity's "trust me bro you got X installs" is going to be. It could be double or triple wrong easily. Number of downloads/installs DOES NOT CORRELATE TO CROSS PLATFORM/SECTOR REVENUES. Why am I expected to pay Unity for users I didn't make ANY revenue from? The half baked delivery of this whole proposal is insanity. And a DEATH SENTENCE to free-to-play mobile - and so Unity's revs from it.

 

Yes

 

I think in his scenario @Rocklio was saying that every month, 500k people would install the game. At least that was my understanding. And yes, I agree that the threshold installs are cumulative.

 

That means that all a hacker has to do it not even have a packet sniffer and revere engineer things. They have to:

1. Install Linux.
2. Install the game.
3. Run the game.
4. Delete the WinePrefix
5. Rerun the game.

I can write a script like this in 1 minute, literally.

WHAT THE HELL IS UNITY GONNA DO ABOUT THIS PROBLEM?

 

All this Time, Effort, Pain, Fear....
Hassle for Unity Staff and Unity Developers doing complicated biz stuff.

Just for some insider trading that hugely profits few bad guys that are Laughing now of how f-stupid devs and employees are

 

I just started thinking, Unity must have some kill switch in the builds then in case someone does not pay up. How will that work?

 

From their QA, deleting and reinstalling the game also counts, installing the game on different hardware also counts, so what are you doubting anymore?

 

well said... i 100% agree

 

One of our games get almost 1M installs per month and are far, far away from 0.05$. There is a lot of download volume that comes from emerging markets that barely provide you any income.

 

A game with 100k downloads and $5M revenue doesn't pay anything, but
a game with 500M downloads and $5M revenue pays $5M?? All of its revenue?? Just why??

 

They changed it to unique installs. But this is am extremely real issue I just thought of. It's insane.

 

Unity is a computer game development system run by people who don't understand computers or games.

That is where we are now.

 

https://garry.net/posts/unity-can-get-F***ed

 

Another very interesting issue is how it destroys the subject of offers and marketing.

If you have a 50% off sale and sell twice as much during the sale period, you earn the same amount but get twice as many players (which is better for both you and your users who paid less).

Now, the bigger the sale and the more users you gain, the more Unity penalizes you.

With this, Unity:

• Destroys the freemium market
• Makes it a CONSTANT DANGER to have f2p games published on any platform
• In most cases (the mobile market is the largest video game market in the world), you are going to pay much more than the 5% that Unreal Engine asks for (in fact, you could pay more than 50% or 100% of your earnings!)

And to top it off, they know it and tell you to contact them to study the case if it happens to you.

But W T F are we freaking crazy? The least we can accept is that they fire the crazies who have proposed destroying the video game market and a large part of its companies and return to the previous monetization.

That is the minimum requirement, and after reaching that minimum, they still have irreparable image damage.

Every day that passes without them reversing this is going to be very, very costly for them.

 

Do you understand that the number of installs and revenue has nothing to do with profits, you will not have any profits especially when you work in the mobile game industry.

 

It is clearly defined by Unity:

"A game or app’s “total revenue” includes all revenue generated (without limitation) from retail sales, in-app purchases, subscription fees, web payments, offline payments, ads-based revenue, etc."

Of course almost every Free to Play game generates revenue with in-app purchases and advertisement thus it is totaly eligible for the fee. But the actual revenue per install can easily be smaller than 0.01$

 

Did they? https://blog.unity.com/news/plan-pricing-and-packaging-updates
I don't see any updates.

 

Even worse:

A game with 500M downloads and $2M revenue pays $5M.

Better move all your assets to offshore accounts and put them in your best friend's mother's name. We've got a Unity game to launch.

 

Do you believe that, they can't even count accurately but use estimates in their black box.

 

Unity's rationale is that "per-install fee is much better than revenue share because it allows developers to keep all the benefits from player engagement".

Reminiscent of "taking it up the ass is much better since you can't get pregnant!"

How about no fee at all? that's what we have, and that's even better.

 

What math is this?

 

No you don't. Stop spreading incorrect information.

When you reach 200k installs and 200k$ gross - you will switch to Unity Pro and immediately increase limits to 1kk installs and 1kk$ gross you owe 0$ for installs, you only owe for Pro subscription per seat which in fact works the same as it's been before - you reach the money limit you pay higher Unity subscription and you scarry numbers will look like this:


Second - calculator you use - just incorrect. 1kk+ rates are wrong! They should be 0.02 for Pro and 0.01 for Enterprise!



People start thinks and read things properly before commenting, be constructive!

 

The damage these changes will cause is far more than financial. With these changes, they destroy the dream of almost every developer (and the people who hired a developer) to achieve financial success with their games! This is a huge mistake from a sales campaign - the main rule of salespeople is to sell dreams, and in this case the person who made this decision is taking away the dreams of their customers! To top it off, they not only take away people's dreams, but also add the risk of people losing more money than they make, just like in a casino or the stock market! Another harm is that the changes incentivize the creation of low-quality, unprofitable games to avoid reaching the thresholds.

 

Just a little heads-up :

Unity's CEO is a former EA games exec.
DO NOT EXPECT A CHANGE IN FAVOUR OF DEVELOPERS WHILE HE IS IN OFFICE !
I'm a long-term unity developer and starting today I'll be learning Unreal 5.3
Time to be a newbie again.

Cheers

 

so where has Joachim Ante been? He's still a part of the board but I guess he no longer cares about his baby despite all that ambitious talk years ago.

 

Good point! XD

 

Do you have any evidence the rates don't reset each month? Ie. The rates don't reset back to $0.15 at the start of each month?

 

The damage is done. It is too far gone for "clarifications", which are in fact changes to the initial plan, but you've seen our reaction.

Kindly drop the idea, and just say it was a joke. Because it cannot stand as anything beside that. Rethink, accept lost trust, and move on.

For us, at a 10-person studio, it is clear now that we won't be touching Unity in the future. Once again - great work.

 

I literally don't understand Unity's point. Is this some kind of false anti-tautology assertion?

 

And he has been CEO since 2014, you've joined 2018?

 

(deleted, bases on wrong data)

 

I believe that this movement by Unity is focused on the current whales of the mobile sector. For example, if I'm not mistaken, CSR2 is developed in Unity and already has more than 500 million downloads, what bill would Natural Motion have to pay Unity each month? It's crazy.

For standalone games like PC and console games the drama is less, 20 cents on a $5 sale is not going to make you bankrupt either. Things get complicated when promotions come in with a big discount on the initial price, the benefit is practically zero.

This business model is not sustainable, or new rules are applied for specific cases such as offers and F2P games (complicating everything even more) or they go back and introduce a rate similar to the one Unreal has.

The movement made by Unity is certainly very clumsy. I don't think there is a company or developer that is not displeased with all this, migrations to another engine will be counted in the thousands.

 

I understand you are trying to make money but forcing other people to pay for other people installs or abuse i think it is the wrong way.

I should say that if you put this pricing model you will open yourself up to a multiple type of lawsuite unde the new EU https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/...what-is-it-and-what-does-it-mean-for-big-tech

Also i am pretty sure you can not stop people from installing a game.
In EU you can not force someone to pay for a service they don't use.
You currently do not offer a studio the option to stop installs.
So since you do not have an option for studios, stop installs of a game you would effectively force a studio to pay for installs that the can not control and that can be a case for suing, also you will have to expose your algorithms for checking the installs and i am sure you do not cover the issue you have with nintendo switch card insertions and all the other bugs you have on tracking installs, all of these being ground for suing.

I think you should change the model and reflect or get a share based on revenue or change the way games can pe published or ask for money once a cloud component is used, otherwise all you do is just ground for suing.


Kind regards

 

The muppetshow goes on. They provided the actual reason why they have to count reinstall (no actual way to distinguish between initial install and reinstall, aggregated data), and yet they backtracked few hours ago and updated their QA to state that reinstalls will not be counted.

I thought they had reached rock bottom but they keep digging, it starts to look as if the entire communication is run by ChatGPT

Unity: We will count reinstalls because we only have aggregate data
Devs: Are you sure? That really sucks to count reinstalls
Unity: You are right. I apologize for my previous answer. We will not count reinstalls.

 

What is even dumber is those whales have the resources to build their own entire game dev systems or fork open source ones like Stride.

If you are a massive mobile company with millions of dollars running something free to play or based on microtransactions, why would you want to hand over all that money every month rather than just forking an open source project and paying your own developers to adapt it as needed?

This is not going to work out for anyone. No one is going to bend over for this except maybe the big console developers for whom this cost is negligible per copy sold.

 

Calcullator IS WORNG read the sources! It will NOT be 400k$!
Calculator you use - just incorrect. 1kk+ rates are wrong! They should be 0.02 for Pro and 0.01 for Enterprise!

 

Oh wow, I think that answers my question about the scenario being plausible. Do you know if that game makes more than $1 million in a 12 month period? If it doesn't, then my understanding is that if you have Unity Enterprise or Pro you won't need to pay an installation fees at all.

 

in my opinion what helps more is if someone took the time to elaborate and answer valid concerns regarding methods of counting installs and how should someone that earns less per install pay your install fee

 

I guess they mean that with a revenue share model you pay a % of your revenue, regardless of where it came from. So if you make 10$ out of selling a copy of your game but then make 50$ on ads/dlc/in-app purchases, you pay a % of 60$. Whereas with their model, you pay a fixed rate per install so you keep your 50$ to yourself.

Which makes sense until you realize it doesn't because it forces you to be greedy on their behalf, or risk bankruptcy since cost per install can easily outreach revenue per install. Plus, it's technically unfeasible to accurately track installs. Plus, it's bad taste to publicly announce half-baked billing plans that you're not even sure how to actually implement.

The more I think about it, the more I realize just how colossal of a f*** up this is.

 

Bury that calculator in the yard with your dogs toys, it’s not working right. Just wait until Unity uploads their own. At least then you can pretend to have some kind of official formula.

As to the argument on piracy and fraud:
Just compare install estimates with sales units. Will be very easy to see extreme discrepancies.
On the mobile side, don’t both Apple and Google keep very precise download and installation metrics? I’m sure Unity would have access to that so it would be easy to compare your figures against theirs

Unity also mentions “credits” for using various Unity utilities, like Unity ads. So many mobile devs may wind up not paying anything if they’re deep into the Unity ecosystem