Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

lol

 

I think best would be to get a consulation with a lawyer on relevant commercial law. I'm just waiting for any information to pop up for free, but if it doesn't I'm going to consult a lawyer.

 

Let me start off by being clear. Unity makes an amazing product, and I would have no problem paying for your product if and when my organization made enough money on my work to be able to afford to. Your prior pricing system was more than fair, and I understand you have to turn a profit to run as a business.

My problem is simple and two-fold:

1. You've placed a liability on something I CAN'T CONTROL. I can't control how many users download my product. Once you cross the thresholds listed here, you are opening the door for developers to LIMITLESS LIABILITY. That is the overarching issue. I am also a teacher, and I teach my students one thing about their programs. Write programs like an architect. Test them like a hacker. If I look at the system you built, hacking it is easy. This system might work for AA and AAA studios that CAN charge per copy for a game and have success with it. (That being said, the piracy issues would still apply though.)

Particularly for mobile developers, this system is a nightmare. It literally has the potential to turn a successful game into the source of a developer's financial ruin. Once any game reaches 200,000 users and makes $200,000 for a developer then drops in popularity or profitability, the developer lives in a constant state of fear. A spike in installs with no or minimal engagement would open the door to a windfall of profits for Unity at the expense of the developer. This model doesn't work for mobile developers at all because the mobile game market thrives on advertisement based revenue, and has a viral success structure. That means in this case, that people get games, play them for a while, then ditch them. Note that the environment lends itself to the very nightmare scenario I just described. First: if the developer doesn't make more than their cost per install, every install is a liability. Second: Your system, in no way, indicates that you are tracking how much the developer makes on the game once they cross the threshold, thus you have no way to prevent this financial drain. The only somewhat guaranteed way to guard against this as a developer is to sell the game at a cost greater than your cost per install, which lends itself to your game dropping in popularity (again playing right into the nightmare scenario). The problem with that action is there is no escape valve described for a developer to block installations if the game fails from this point or has been discontinued, and pirated copies of games are available long after markets like the iOS App Store and Google Play Store have taken the games out of production. I can still find pirated copies of my old game and I took it off the stores years ago. Piracy can result from a game being unavailable for free, ESPECIALLY if the game was originally provided for free, because that was the originally set expectation. Users expect the game to be free and now it isn't. They will seek out a free copy. The developer set an expectation that the game could be freely played. The alternative of keeping the game free is a gamble, because often with mobile, even if you do make more than Unity's cost per install: that profit could take weeks, months, or years. Bottom line, the moment your system kicks in, the developer is liable for the failure of their game and these liabilities can not be controlled. They can drive the costs of the game beyond it's cost to maintain, and even beyond the cost to create the game in the first place and all gained profits. The liability is limitless. You have outlined no controls to remedy Unity making a windfall on a previously profitable game at the expense of the game's creator.

2. My second issue is how this scales. You have created a product that allows creatives to make things. The game environments, stories, worlds, and experiences we create with the product you have made is a byproduct of our creativity. It is augmented by a series of tools you created, and as stated previously, I am more than happy to compensate you for creating those tools. The problem is that in this case, you have created a scenario where it is possible for:

At Launch - I am getting compensated for our work (Admittedly unfair hence the willingness to pay)
Post Launch - We are getting compensated for our work and finding success (Fair and Desirable)
Further Post Launch - You are taking all the compensation I made from the success (Unfair)
Even Further Post Launch - I've lost all profits and development costs and am now trying unsuccessfully to get this project off the market as the more copies of this project get out, the more indebted I become and I am paying money, I haven't even made...to you. (Absurdly unfair and comma intended)

At what point is Unity getting more from this than they put in? I outlined above how easy it is for this system to take a profitable game and turn it into a source of fiscal ruin, but beyond that, despite what you have stated, you have made no indication of when payment for you ends. In the mobile example above, it doesn't cost the user anything to download and install the game. You charge me for that. I am going to say that again. I think you are missing this. You charge me for the player's action. You are charging me for the actions of another person, when they haven't paid you or me a dime or even entered into an agreement with you or me. I have read your clarifications, they do not answer this issue. This is like Amazon charging me because somebody downloaded a copy of my book on Kindle.

I have an entire series of games I was planning on writing in Unity, and this makes me second guess that. I WANT TO write them in Unity. I have to translate my entire engine and learn two new languages to write them in a different game environment. That being said, I can't release games with your engine if I see potential success as just a stopping point on the road to limitless liability.

My question, which I will post separate in the hopes that it gets answered: Unity has not denied that this pay scale change opens the door to a mobile developer facing limitless liability. Indicating that this only affects 10% of your customers does not remove that the possibility of limitless liability is present. I posted how this could be done in detail. My question is: What steps will Unity take to prevent a situation of limitless liability for mobile developers or developers that rely on Advertisement as a means of income? Can Unity create an option to cap fees at a percentage of new game revenue or a specific amount once this $200,000 threshold has been reached?

 

Personally I would like them to get rid of all the C Suite and board members, then we can talk monetisation schemes for the editor.

 

Unity has not denied that this pay scale change opens the door to a mobile developer facing limitless liability. Indicating that this only affects 10% of your customers does not remove that the possibility of limitless liability is present. I posted how this could be done in detail. My question is: What steps will Unity take to prevent a situation of limitless liability for mobile developers or developers that rely on Advertisement as a means of income? Can Unity create an option to cap fees at a percentage of new game revenue or a specific amount once this $200,000 threshold has been reached?

 

Unigine, o3de

 

Edy,

I was told this from the official Unity support TODAY (September 14th Berlin time zone).

"Let me clarify our Runtime fee and your questions: The Unity Runtime Fee applies to games and apps created (in Any editor version) with Unity Pro when:

They've generated $1M USD or more in the last 12 months.
AND
They have at least 1M life installs.

If you don't exceed both thresholds you won't get any charges."

Most important part here is BOLD.
I also disagree, but I'm not a legal expert. The information above is what Unity communicates.

 

I sure hope this will not be john riccitiello's reaction to today's threats

 

Stride3D and Unreal Engine are my finalists right now.

After the Unity debacle, I would rather stay away from non FOSS engines, but Godot is not up to par on 3D right now, so Stride3D looks really appealing.
The problem is the lack of consoles support. (but that could change in the future, given the Great Unity Exodus)

Otherwise I'll have to go with Unreal, because it has a transparent pricing system, a clean history of fairness, is free for development (no subscriptions) and is hands down the best featured game engine in the planet, no contest there.

And to be clear, if Unity asked for a percentage fee like Unreal, I would still go with Unreal.
Features aside, Unity is now toxic and I don't want a cent I make to go to John Riccitiello.

 

Please go back one page, see my post and you can read what Unity says here. And yes I agree with you.

 

Very similar position and maths that we came to
We have been developing tools and tech and contracting with other studios around Unity for 10+ years
We have 1 small pay-to-play game along the way and have shifted toward a model we think would be great for us, the consumer and ... none of that matters Unity just nuked it.

The idea was simple, F2P game, fair monetization via DLC and other non-whalable methods. The goal was a very wide install base expecting a small % of those would monetize maybe 1-2% similar to a mobile F2P and ya that would mean the more success we find the more it hurts and as we just start to find success the royalties we would be paying Unity would eat our lunch and eventually result in a net debt.

As a result, we have pivoted ... we had already been supporting a dev community that has been working on Godot, Unity and Unreal with a few others scattered about. We have now moved our project Unreal. It was a painful decision but this is not the first time Unity's hamfisted decisions have really shaken the boat and it seems each time the effect is more drastic so it's clear to us at this point that Unity is too much of a liability to be partnering with for the life of a game.

 

Were they aware when they released their game?

 

I want to say everything you said is not always true.
I want to say that the world we live in is not like that.
But I can't think of a way to even persuade myself...
Sigh.

 

As the announcement is written, yes, Unity is no longer viable for most high-install-low-income games.

Many believe, however, these new fees are impossible to implement and enforce, either technically or legally, much less PR-wise.

 

The only thing putting me off Unreal Engine is needing to install the EpicStore on my PC unless I want to build it myself.

 

if you already upgraded before TOS say all your unity TOS convert so downgrading doesnt do you anything

 

Mike, I would love an answer to the question I am asking. I detailed how this would work in a second post but as you work at Unity or with them or for them I included my post data here. Can you please answer my question. The question is at the bottom but I want you to see my logic here.

1. Let me start off by being clear. Unity makes an amazing product, and I would have no problem paying for your product if and when my organization made enough money on my work to be able to afford to. Your prior pricing system was more than fair, and I understand you have to turn a profit to run as a business.
   
   My problem is simple and two-fold:
   
   1. You've placed a liability on something I CAN'T CONTROL. I can't control how many users download my product. Once you cross the thresholds listed here, you are opening the door for developers to LIMITLESS LIABILITY. That is the overarching issue. I am also a teacher, and I teach my students one thing about their programs. Write programs like an architect. Test them like a hacker. If I look at the system you built, hacking it is easy. This system might work for AA and AAA studios that CAN charge per copy for a game and have success with it. (That being said, the piracy issues would still apply though.)
   
   Particularly for mobile developers, this system is a nightmare. It literally has the potential to turn a successful game into the source of a developer's financial ruin. Once any game reaches 200,000 users and makes $200,000 for a developer then drops in popularity or profitability, the developer lives in a constant state of fear. A spike in installs with no or minimal engagement would open the door to a windfall of profits for Unity at the expense of the developer. This model doesn't work for mobile developers at all because the mobile game market thrives on advertisement based revenue, and has a viral success structure. That means in this case, that people get games, play them for a while, then ditch them. Note that the environment lends itself to the very nightmare scenario I just described. First: if the developer doesn't make more than their cost per install, every install is a liability. Second: Your system, in no way, indicates that you are tracking how much the developer makes on the game once they cross the threshold, thus you have no way to prevent this financial drain. The only somewhat guaranteed way to guard against this as a developer is to sell the game at a cost greater than your cost per install, which lends itself to your game dropping in popularity (again playing right into the nightmare scenario). The problem with that action is there is no escape valve described for a developer to block installations if the game fails from this point or has been discontinued, and pirated copies of games are available long after markets like the iOS App Store and Google Play Store have taken the games out of production. I can still find pirated copies of my old game and I took it off the stores years ago. Piracy can result from a game being unavailable for free, ESPECIALLY if the game was originally provided for free, because that was the originally set expectation. Users expect the game to be free and now it isn't. They will seek out a free copy. The developer set an expectation that the game could be freely played. The alternative of keeping the game free is a gamble, because often with mobile, even if you do make more than Unity's cost per install: that profit could take weeks, months, or years. Bottom line, the moment your system kicks in, the developer is liable for the failure of their game and these liabilities can not be controlled. They can drive the costs of the game beyond it's cost to maintain, and even beyond the cost to create the game in the first place and all gained profits. The liability is limitless. You have outlined no controls to remedy Unity making a windfall on a previously profitable game at the expense of the game's creator.
   
   2. My second issue is how this scales. You have created a product that allows creatives to make things. The game environments, stories, worlds, and experiences we create with the product you have made is a byproduct of our creativity. It is augmented by a series of tools you created, and as stated previously, I am more than happy to compensate you for creating those tools. The problem is that in this case, you have created a scenario where it is possible for:
   
   At Launch - I am getting compensated for our work (Admittedly unfair hence the willingness to pay)
   Post Launch - We are getting compensated for our work and finding success (Fair and Desirable)
   Further Post Launch - You are taking all the compensation I made from the success (Unfair)
   Even Further Post Launch - I've lost all profits and development costs and am now trying unsuccessfully to get this project off the market as the more copies of this project get out, the more indebted I become and I am paying money, I haven't even made...to you. (Absurdly unfair and comma intended)
   
   At what point is Unity getting more from this than they put in? I outlined above how easy it is for this system to take a profitable game and turn it into a source of fiscal ruin, but beyond that, despite what you have stated, you have made no indication of when payment for you ends. In the mobile example above, it doesn't cost the user anything to download and install the game. You charge me for that. I am going to say that again. I think you are missing this. You charge me for the player's action. You are charging me for the actions of another person, when they haven't paid you or me a dime or even entered into an agreement with you or me. I have read your clarifications, they do not answer this issue. This is like Amazon charging me because somebody downloaded a copy of my book on Kindle.
   
   I have an entire series of games I was planning on writing in Unity, and this makes me second guess that. I WANT TO write them in Unity. I have to translate my entire engine and learn two new languages to write them in a different game environment. That being said, I can't release games with your engine if I see potential success as just a stopping point on the road to limitless liability.
   
   My question, which I will post separate in the hopes that it gets answered: Unity has not denied that this pay scale change opens the door to a mobile developer facing limitless liability. Indicating that this only affects 10% of your customers does not remove that the possibility of limitless liability is present. I posted how this could be done in detail. My question is: What steps will Unity take to prevent a situation of limitless liability for mobile developers or developers that rely on Advertisement as a means of income? Can Unity create an option to cap fees at a percentage of new game revenue or a specific amount once this $200,000 threshold has been reached?

 

My studio is currently building 4 mid casual games, ive invested in 5 months of development. Are you freakin serious ? Considering CEO is from EA is just a start..

 

This reminds me of D&D disaster where bunch of pathetic suits completely destroyed reputation of a good product. And even if they backpedal and say it was a bad idea, damage is already done, and trust lost.

John obviously has talent to mess everything he touches up, he did that with EA, now with Unity, there is no person in history of world who is responsible for contributing such a negative value to gaming.

And now that alleged insider trading, I hope if it is found to be illegal he goes to prison.

At least Unity made indirectly Unreal good, and other engines will get more market share too, so maybe this pathetic moron will indirectly do something good for gaming.

It is just sad that a lot of people did great work in Unity, and now it seems to be just pathetic company.

And all those people spending time to create assets, learning materials, people who counted on this to be future, got stabbed to back, people without whom this thing would never grow...

John please go to Apple or Facebook, destroying those two would be great service for humanity....

 

So, probably only around 10% of all Unity users actually manage to make money and we, as the remaining 90% who work hard to earn their first $200k, $500k, $1M, etc. will not be affected as long as we don't succeed.

Well, that's quite a relief.

 

Could this have been their intention the entire time?

 

What they should have announced was something like.........

Personal Pro Enterprise
$200k 5% 4% 3%
$500k 4% 3% 2%
$1m 3% 2% 1%
$1m+ 2% 1% 0.5%

 

It's getting bigger:

https://www.eurogamer.net/unity-wil...-switch-to-its-ad-monetisation-service-report

 

Ive been with unity for 18 years, i guess nothing indeed lasts forever..

 

They just keep digging their grave lmao. All it takes is one lawsuit from a decently funded party to knock Unity on its feet. They don't get to ignore laws and their own T&C.

 

Hmmmm

 

I have hated Epic since they started the PC exclusivity ... I uninstalled the store that day, stoped my project which was to port our assets to UE and never went back ... spoke out plenty against Epic and so on

Unity has now made such a mess over night
I installed Epic, downloaded Unity and am dusting off my UE knowledge porting over some of our simpler tools and learning to tolerate blueprints ... I hate node graph editors

Have a community of 1500+ devs mostly working on Steam games on various engines but largely on Unity ... well at least was largely on Unity the number looking into our Godot port was jumped and UE chatter is up ... anyway you welcome to pop over and we get cozzy with other engines together

https://discord.gg/6X3xrRc

We have a Knowledge Base as well which has general game dev bits on it ... will be adding articles on various engines including Unity to help devs make informed decisions and to assist with migration to and from.

https://kb.heathen.group/

 

$1 to update the locks to your house. When John is at the door consumers aren't necessarily all that price conscious at that time.

 

They have more money and time than most of us. I really hope that the industry will solve this problem, very very soon.

 

You can turn off the game part. It's not worse than UnityHub.

 

Other worst case scenario, you have unity personal, you sold 1 million copies of your game at 1$ in 2023,
In 2024, the 1 million players decide to re-install the game on a new device and you will have to pay 200k$ in fees in 2024 without selling any copies...
I know this kind of scenario will never happen, but can you affirm that you will never have to pay fees from something that was sold before 2024 and install after 2024 on new device? If not, this new plans and pricing are retroactive!

 

As I understand it, fees will not apply to anyone with less than 200,000 runtime installations.

Have you all sold over 200,000 copies of your games or am I missing something?

I don't understand why all the fuss.

 

https://www.gamespot.com/amp-articles/unity-shuts-down-offices-following-death-threat/1100-6517735/

If someone here is the one doing this please stop immediately. You are helping no one.

 

* Unreal

 

I've invested over 1000$ in assets and I'm learning engine for several years. Yet it is unacceptable what you did here, Unity Team.

I think most of us would not care that much if it was not install based. If it was 0.20$ per purchased copy, I think most would accept it. But paying 0.20$ for every install, its just too dangerous and unreliable for any solo dev or studio to take on it and I'm not doing this either. This also does not make any real sense, charging dev/studio for something they can't control and can't reliably profit.

There are several alternatives, like many people said - Godot for 2D or Unreal for 3D. If it does not change, I'll leave the engine behind.

 

Installs do not equall sales I dont know why this is such a hard concept in this fourm

 

They can change their TOS, but if you are using an older version of the engine, it's in my opinion not in accordance with the law in many countries (not sure if in Unity's jurisdiction) to force you to accept newer TOS. Lets see if some more professional legal info will pop up.

 

actually the UE stopped them multiple times. Last time I checked Threads is not in UE because it is illegal in UE.
Italy stopped ChatGPT for some times because they were not following the rules and their TOS was illegal (they allower under 13 to use it, and they forced user to give ChatGPT the phone number without telling what they did with it). Apple will need to use usb type c because UE forced them to etc...
They can change their TOS, but TOS are not law, and they can apply it only to user that accept the new rules and only if the rules in the TOS make sense and are legal.

 

Unreal Engine for the win! Unreal > Unity. Bet Unreal doesn't crash as much as Unity yet they want us to pay some bogus install fee. Rather invest my money into the Unreal Engine and feel like I'm getting my money's worth instead of feeling ripped off. Goodbye F2P games. Sad day for the gaming industry.

I wonder how many times the Unreal Engine has been downloaded since the announcement. Would be great to have details. I'm sure Epic is loving this.

 

Big studios are talking to their lawyers. Not fighting against made up ghosts with imagined scenarios that will not affect them.

Bet they went to their lawyer, he said wait till things are finalized to see if this will make it worse than unreal profit wise and then to math out costs of changing engines and all that big brain stuff.

Id hate to be working for 99% of people here that just read the announcement and now somehow is enforcing a Unreal Godot change in their employees.

It is good for memes, it feels good to get those validation points. But at the end of the day if you really are working on 1M plus margin, you need to be more cool headed. And need to have read the freaking terms very carefully first.

It is why you have people like me arguing semantics. Because right now it is like 1% of users who would really be heavily impacted. Not even all huge companies, but only the companies making a lot of money out of games with really atrocious perplayer revenue.

And I wont even go into the fact we can all agree 90% of those are scummy games.

 

To add to this:

Unity claim to have a 70% share of the mobile games market. It is probably even higher for hypercasual (so much so that most hypercasual publishers only have Unity SDKs and say they only work with Unity developers), which provides a lot of the advertising revenue. That is a monopoly position.

Using a monopoly position to push anyone to themselves at the expense of other companies is very frowned upon in many countries. Having developers unhappy with you is a problem. Having countries unhappy with you is a very big problem indeed. Install fees may have to go up to cover the fines.

 

Maybe you sold 500, and it was downloaded off TPB 50,000 times, and each of those pirate downloads was installed an average of 4 times. Can you trust that Unity will accurately determine legitimate from pirate installs when it is to their benefit not to?

 

Just imagine one of your games is a success and sells over 200,000 copies (I think you'd like it). Or maybe you are sure that will never happen, in that case you don't have to worry.

 

Yes, but while the giants figure their S*** out...we bleed. By the time this is reverted we will be janitors!

 

Yes. They know low ARPU mobile games can't operate with their runtime fees, so you have no choice but to use their ad services if you wanna use Unity to make/operate that type of game. No one is going to cap their earning potential by subjecting themselves to Unity's thresholds. They could have made their own ad mediation service better, but you know, that would actually require improving their product. Something that Unity hasn't done for a long time.

 

For a while I thought you mean Unreal Engine, then I realized its UE as in European Union

 

Unity is guessing the numbers! They will GUESS how much you have to pay to them with no chance to verify these.

 

The Unreal Engine stopped them hmmm unless you meant EU but you wrote it several times so it can't be a typo... I am confused.

 

the problem isn't how many sales we're getting and if we do or don't qualify to pay the fees. the problem is that they created this plan out of nowhere, and games that were made before this new plan even existed may be forced to pay despite never agreeing to these terms.
there's no telling whether unity will do something like this in the future. it's not so much about the fees/money as it is about the lack of trust that unity is creating. It doesn't help that they have been virtually silent on the issue other than putting out a statement saying "dude, trust us, we might find a way to estimate your install counts"

 

I agree but the bottom line is none of us are truly locked into Unity and they are likely about to find that out.

I think we have at least figured out in this thread what they are doing this for.

 

You have absolutely destroyed all of us with this draconian pricing update. You've got influencers literally gobbling up this like candy and shredding every letter of this change. Making a game with unity is going to be a hard sell in the future. Please for the love of all god stop your madness before this becomes worse!