Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

Nah, I'm fairly sure it resets every month.

 

How can you tell tell the difference between a legitimate install and a pirated install, when the industry has been unsuccessful at doing so for decades?
-Trust me bro

How are you telling the difference between demo and charity installs from regular installs?
-Trust me bro

How do I know the price per install won't change after a game's release?
-Trust me bro

What safeguards do you have in place to prevent malicious install abuse by a disgruntled player?
-Trust me bro

How are you differentiating between a game developed for my own company, and a game developed and delivered to a customer under contract?
-Trust me bro

 

Hello.
Unity what have you done?

What prevents devs from situation that you change your thresholds like this 1k installs 1k revenue 1$ fee per install starting tomorrow. This are just number changes, why not choose such threshold for example? If you feel like you can change licence for that ever you want.
And starting tomorrow devs, who will not be fast enough to delete their games from all sorcec in internet, which is impossible, will owe you 1$ per install regardless of revenue per install.
How can devs ever trust you again for not doing such a thing?

Indie and hobby devs are the ones who made this engine one of the most popular one. And now you hit, specifically, them, hard in return.

How can you guarantee that your install tracking data is 100% correct? There is no way you can guarantee this.

The whole your attitude towards devs is bad. You can not undone the trust breach you have done now.

(What else can we expect from company who used to sell black ui theme for editor, harming health of people who was not paying you.
And this is your another bad memorable decision)

This situation is unhealthy, vile, betrayal and unfair.

Turn back fees per install.
Use reasonable revenue share instead for new projects\unity versions.
Permanently state in licence that you can never do such drastic unfair pricing model change.
Positivly chane your attitude towarsds your loyal customers, who loves this engine.

And maybe we all survive this situation..

 

Unity reserves the right to change the trust me bros at any time, for any reason. By using the unity editor and or unity runtime environment you agree to our trust me bros.

 

NICE:

 

Unity is has moved into business risk category (cashflow),

1. I echo the 5% revenue cap on top of the existing structure as others have suggested.
2. Switch to a quarterly calendar threshold/exclusion instead of a rolling 12-month. Also explicitly lay out your reporting guidelines.
3. Clarify your Net billing. Your billing is disjointed from revenue, there is a potential for a large cashflow gap.

 

There is nothing like that.

 

Has anyone ruined 2 different billion dollar companies before? Must be a record.

 

Doesn't really matter, next month they just generate another set of bullshit data.

 

Hey do we know that the Israeli spyware that they bought a while back isn't the plan for tracking installs? Seems like a long shot but all this stupidity makes me think this might be the plan. Is there a way to make sure there's no spyware in, say, 2022 LTS builds?

 

Oh my bad, I'M SORRY

 

My dude, not to be disrespectful, but i don't think you need to worry about this game and transferring it. You need to cross 1 million revenue in last 12 months, i dont think this will manage that.

 

Nonesense. They are in this situation because they didn't spend their IPO money to improve the main product, and instead squandered it on S***ty purchases. Now we should accept their situation and that they need more money. Did I get it right?

 

I used to evangelize Unity, and converted multiple devs to it. Now I have been forced to share, in the communities I'm a part of, the reasons to avoid Unity. And after years of loving Unity, I don't see my company starting any new Unity projects—including ground-up rewrites that some existing projects need. The risk and effort of learning a new engine is now the lesser evil. Time to branch out!

My titles don't hit the numeric thresholds—maybe never will?—but either way, these changes still cause major problems:

- Unity can change the thresholds any time. Maybe I'm "safe" for now... but what about in 6 months or 2 years? Their willingness to do this creates a new business risk, forever. And as many have shown, some business models cannot exist anymore with the new system.

- User privacy is vital. I prefer my App Store report cards to always say "No data collected." My primary Unity app is a game-like, fun productivity tool, not a traditional game, and people store very personal data on it on-device (it saves any text they wish). Changing my pristine privacy policy out from under my existing users will make my company the target of understandable rage! It may kill the app's future. It will definitely harm it.

- If, instead, Unity is using some mysterious algorithm and pure guesses about my business, then they can essentially just ask us for any money at any time—and have shown willingness to do so. If they are betting their lawyers are pricier than ours, I imagine that's true.

- Is this putting massive labor and burden of proof on developers? Do we all have time/staff to contest any false assumptions Unity makes, and are we sure Unity will respond promptly and reasonably if so? What if we're right about the number of past installs, say, but have no mechanism to prove it? I for one don't have spare time in my week to spend on free labor to allow Unity's new business model.

- "Life to date" installs means Unity is willing to retroactively charge based on past installs—even free ones that lost money! That makes no business sense. My main Unity app was given away free (no ads, no IAP) for several years to build momentum. I think it has some potential to get big! But now I have to hope it doesn't: I could end up paying for all those free installs, turning profits to losses. Some scenarios work out OK... some don't. Can I predict with confidence? Impossible. Using Unity is a massive risk.

- The price went way up (no more Plus) to not have a Unity ad on the splash screen. This mainly affects the smallest and newest of developers. Or situations like mine where Unity is just one part of what my company does. I have had projects that make money and others that don't—yet—but with hopes for the future (such is life as a dev). Unity is telling me: "Take your risk and loss on these projects, increase them to load our pockets, or we're putting our ad on your existing title(s)." I sweat user experience to the smallest detail, and my users LOVE the clean experience I've created. They will hate seeing an ad. It will hurt my app's brand which is still struggling to not be a niche and still operates at a loss. The Unity ad may be acceptable to gamers, but my users aren't gamers.

- They've lost our trust. Bad decisions, bad communications, bad priorities coming from the top—even if they reversed all these changes fully, that trust would take years to restore. We can't all immediately drop Unity 100%—but it's a problem for Unity that we want to. A happy Unity developer is worth more than a begrudging hostage. I may continue using Unity, but I will now use it less. The time/cost to investigate and switch to other tools just became much more worthwhile. I have projects that will need a ground-up reworking at some point: a perfect time to drop Unity—something I never even would have considered before now. The exit of Unity developers may be slow or fast—but it's now part of our planning. That didn't need to be.

- Angry gamers, pranksters, and online mobs can mass-install a game by automating it or simply spreading a campaign (with resulting analytics looking "normal") to their followers. The Internet is a terrible, toxic place. Now people can anonymously shift money from a company to Unity if they simply don't like your politics or got the company owner's name confused with someone else.

- Every small developer wants to see big success—and some do! These changes essentially tell users: "You're safe with Unity as long as your titles fail to make it big!" Does Unity really want to be the engine that only hobbyists who give away their work and have no dreams of success are comfortable taking a chance on?

- I have to worry now about Unity's relationship with major partners like Apple. I'm starting a Vision Pro title, and it's great that Apple and Unity have worked closely on this. But now I have to worry whether Apple loses confidence in Unity as a parter. (They should!)

A week ago I hoped my widely varied, years-old business would evolve to focus mainly on Unity. Now, I'll go to great lengths to avoid that.

 

No m8; it's .NET 6, C# 10

 

Yes. It is quite common in the ceo circuit, and corporate world in general, to fail upwards.

I remember decades ago reading a report about the ceo of failed appliance company Suncoast, moving to another company a couple years later and ruining that one too.

Of course, he came out incredibly rich after leaving both times.

John R almost immediately sold $400m worth of stock as soon as he arrived to unity, and it nearly doubled his net worth.

And some people here crying, were actually justifying it in early 2022, condescendingly explaining that selling stock is how ceos make money.

 

This seems like the minimum they could do at this point

 

Is it generally legal for a company to change their Terms of Service for future transactions if they notify their customers in advance? I believe the answer to that question is yes.

Is it legal for a company to retroactively impose a new per-install fee on games developed under previous Terms of Service that didn't allow such a fee, and without obtaining consent from the developers?

Based on general principles of contract law, it would likely be considered illegal or at least legally questionable to retroactively impose a new per-install fee on games developed under previous Terms of Service that didn't allow for such a fee, especially without obtaining explicit consent from the developers.

It is most definitely unethical, and, as a Unity shareholder, I would like to express my strong disagreement with this policy decision.

 

This is beautiful. Unity really knows how to pull a community together for a common cause.

 

It's worse than just the No more Plus if your app is a productivity tool. Unity is now requiring non-game / entertainment apps to pay a $5k / seat license for Unity Industry.

 

"If you lack ambition, that's your problem, but he has it and it's commendable. We shouldn't accept something just because 'we aren't affected'. If tomorrow I create a mobile game that gets millions of downloads but only around 200k in revenue, should I pay millions to Unity? Is that fair? Also, as developers, should we accept Unity embedding spyware in our games to gather our customers' data and see who's downloading the game? I don't think so.

 

Definitely won't hold in court.
But you have to watch out for what button you click when you install a newer version in Unity Hub. Perhaps we already agreed to the new TOS at some point after April 3rd 2023?

 

Really, where, what official Unity channel said that, because as of 17:02 on the 14th, the FAQ still states that

Will this fee apply to games using Unity Runtime that are already on the market on January 1, 2024?

Yes, the fee applies to eligible games currently in market that continue to distribute the runtime. We look at a game's lifetime installs to determine eligibility for the runtime fee. Then we bill the runtime fee based on all new installs that occur after January 1, 2024. For more details on when the fee may apply to your game, see When does the Unity Runtime Fee take effect?​

P.S. I'm posting this reply now in hopes of an answer by the time I've caught up 10 pages worth of replies, just in case it was not answered in those 10 pages i've yet to read.

 

I think you meant .NET 7 and C# 11 ?

 

It still doesn't change the fact that pricing per installation - a metric they themselves admit they don't even have the tech to quantify yet but somehow are going to come up with in just a few weeks - is absolutely unheard of. If that is allowed to go through it will change the game for every piece of software out there. No on will be safe ever again. It will go well beyond the '10%' of the Unity user base being affected. Well beyond 100%. It will hit 100% of the world.

 

Meanwhile on reddit...


Unity wants 108% of our gross revenue

 

This is sad day for all of us. Many of us are been with Unity for over 10+ years and seeing how Unity evolved into this really saddens me.

I get why Unity wants to change their business model, and perhaps they do have a very good reason to do so, but basing per install charge is out of this world idea. Even if this do work and work well, it needs to be applied only to the future games that is set to be released in about 2 years of time, most definitely NOT retroactively.

When we choose to develop something based on some technology, we need to be able to estimate the reliable cost based on the the date you choose the tech, not some random dates in the future that the cost will suddenly change.

I don't care and even mind if Unity decides to charge $100 per install. It's their software to sell. But applying it to the past is just....INSANE.

It's like if I am in a delivery business and bought a truck for x amount of money, then all of sudden after some time, truck manufacturer comes and tells me you have to pay X more amount per miles you drive after making some money and miles. And further more tells me that this kind of change will/can be applied any time of the future from now on.

Perhaps it was like that all the time, but even if that is so, I am sure most of us weren't aware and that kind of trust is broken forever by this kind of act and PR display.

Unity, I just don't care/mind how much you would like us to pay, just don't apply that to the past. It does not matter if it currently affects me or not, it just creates fear of doubt that one day this kind of change will eventually affect me. Do what you want, but leave the past to be, and let us make informative decision if we still like to keep using Unity for the future. Give us buffer time like 1 or 2 years to finish off what we have started and then if we still like what you are offering some of us will stick to Unity, and some may not. And that is ok with me.

Uncertainty of what you are getting into is the one foremost and most dreadful thing that devs wants to avoid.

 

looking at twitter and youtube unity accounts no one cares about for weta tools.

they paid billions and they will not get those billions back

 

Yeah, that's the part that matters, I was just attempting to settle the secondary stuff in an effort to stop talking about them.

 

Yep, did correct it. Thanks

 

I got some question for the Unity support and they answered quickly (and very friendly!)

Please always remember to stay friendly and calm, again just having a job somewhere doesn't make you less human. We agreed that I won't share names, but these come from Unity support:

Question to Unity support: As these changes the agreement between my company and Unity retroactivly, is it possible to get a refund for my past subscription payments?

Answer from Unity support: "Unfortunately, retroactive changes to subscription agreements do not typically result in refunds for past payments. Unity's policies and terms are subject to change, but past subscription fees are generally non-refundable."

Question to Unity support: Is it right that Unity changes a product I (or my company) paid for IN THE PAST and potentially wants money from me in the future..for whatever player/install numbers Unity comes up with (The company already revealed that they won't share how installs are counted. Another source said that Unity doesn't even know how this should work)
Yes or no?

Question to Unity support: "To answer your specific question: Yes, Unity has made changes to its pricing model, which may affect how you are billed in the future based on player/install numbers. However, it's important to note that Unity is actively working to provide clarity on how installs are counted, and they are committed to transparency in this regard."

I'm not really satisfied but I think we just need to wait.

 

My app is a niche visual list builder for ADHD people to track anything they want. Never made a dime (I'm considering things like a Tip Jar) but I have thank you notes that it has changed lives. Maybe it can't exist anymore. I'll have to investigate. I MAY be OK—it's pretty far outside of Unity's intentions for Industry, I think. And it's within the Personal thresholds.

My app doesn't even use any 3D. (In fact it's 100% UI! An outgrowth of game UI work I was doing. It feels fun and gamelike—I could call it a game, but it's not a traditional one.)

 

Yeah that bald guy from Dragon's Den. Legit can't remember his name.

EDIT: Found it. Kevin O'Leary

 

https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1702351142741541192

 

Hear that? It's the sound of a double bird, pointed at all of us.

 

There's nothing to wait for lmao. Install fee is dead on arrival. Doesn't matter how much they clarify it.

 

Well hot damn! Thanks for point that out! Pretty awesome!

 

lol

 

So ppl just demanded his head on a plate or what?

 

All of this drama over a tiny fee imposed per new install. This new pricing wont even effect most of us, and those that are effected, wont pay very much at all. So what's all this drama really about?

Unity is still the best game in town. It's still far cheaper than Unreal, and way more advanced than Godot, or any of those other engines. If you are all such drama queens then by all means go to those other programs and see how horrible they are.

I think this pricing change is just fine. I've run a spreadsheet and found that the fee is still less than one percent of my revenue, if I cross the threshold. Unreal charges five percent revenue, WAY MORE. And unreal sucks as an engine, and as a company. I'd rather eat broken glass and have my eyeballs squeezed out then deal with them (...very dramatic).

The only company that I can fathom that would hate this new model are those cheap lazy developers making horrible Mobile games that spam our app stores. To them I say good riddance. We can do less with those terrible mobile games that provide nothing and only exist to spam us with ads then they get uninstalled. Who would ever lament those game company's demise?

When I first woke up yesterday to hear the news of Unity price changes I thought it was good news because all those horrible games will finally disappear. I feel that the Unity team behind this price change is more clever than most people on this forum thread seems to think. This pricing change ultimately seems to be a plan to get rid of free loaders and bad games. The only people complaining seem to be from this group.

My only question is about the game install threshold. Does that include all games from a studio or just per game? Let's say I have two games released. Does the million install count for both games or per game? Does each game need to cross the million install mark?

It sounds like its a per game count. So each game will have to make a million dollars in the last twelve months and have over a million lifetime installs. So what exactly counts as a game?

 

The only way Unity survives

Is fire John Riccitiello

And any board member who supports him.

Anything short of this and Unity is finished

 

Jeeze so literally overnight I've been given the option of not one but TWO engines that have more modern versions of my preferred language than Unity has been stuck with for years AND one of them is open source AND multithreaded.... I take back every bad thing I ever said about ol', Johnny. He did me a real solid here!

 

Seems as if the story has gone global with every major news org. BBC even running it on there kid news section. Got people asking me about it who don't usually have a clue about what's happening in the industry.

 

John Riccitiello we know its you man

 

Not even close. A lot of very popular developers are right on board with us as well. You will be too eventually. Whether you like it or not.

 

Looks to me you are breaking the unity license. for under $1m you need the Pro subscription

https://unity.com/legal/editor-terms-of-service/software/faq

 

It's like Adobe saying you now have to pay us 20 cents for every photo youve ever created with photoshop or every video view from videos made from adobe premiere. Sounds pretty crazy right?

 

Your logic is flawed. Keep coping.

 

playing the "I'm the victim!" card now?

I see trough bs John Riccitiello. I see it clear as day.

 

Unity engine holds huge part of mobile market those is mostly freemium model. Revenue per install way lower than commission they asking especially if traffic consist from wide geo. This will literally bankrupt developers.