Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

In the context of high revenue/user games though, that really is nothing for devs and for Unity. Those games have lower install rates, and are generally much higher margins per sale. On Steam for example you're talking about games that sell for between 10 and 50 dollars each in most cases. Which means around 4 million to 20 million going to the company after all the platform fees. An unexpected 150k is an annoyance in that case, and certainly a red flag to look at options other than Unity, but it won't put you out of business (this is ignoring the potential install bomb issue).

Then there's Unitys side where this isn't enough to make up the level of revenue Unity is missing. In all of 2022, only 150 or so games on Steam broke 1 million in revenue that year (using that metric because of the pro 1 million revenue criteria). If Unity got half of those, and they all performed as well as the best games at about 16 million in $60 sales each, and you assume 3 installs per user, that would only be 120 million installs, and if those were all 20 cents per install when in reality they would be lower that would only be 24 million in revenue for a company that is trying to correct for nearly 1 billion in annual losses according to their 10K, even if you figure all the other games out there double this, it's still under 5% of what they need to make up just to break even.

Mobile with a low ARPU is a fundamentally different model though where this instead ruins companies. Of course, this is bad for Unity too, because if the companies go out of business then Unity gets nothing. But, that's also why Unity isn't even trying to apply this to mobile. Instead, they just want those developers to switch to their ad platform under threat of making that the only viable way for a low ARPU game to be released. This isn't something I agree with, but that's their target, games with a relatively low install volume are never going to make them the amount of money they need with this pricing structure and games with high volume can't afford it. They're instead using it to incentivize ad's as an additional revenue stream.

 

I'm sorry, It was not my intention to offend you.

But yeah, we're doing quite a big PC title right now and yes, we will finish it using Unity and as it's a niche we're probably not affected by that stupid move but nevertheless we will create our next (PC) title using Unreal not because of the new fees but because of that retroactive change of the TOS and the simple fact that Unity doesn't care and became an ad company now.

 

I bet GPT could write a script to install/uninstall in two prompts

 

Haha yeah.. unless either 1) they change the terms again or 2) clarify something that makes it less of an attractive option, at least for people who find it meets their needs. For some projects it won't do (like ones that require native platform access/features for whatever reason, or native performance, or multithreading, or whatever other potential showstopping limitation). Also your game could run 250fps as a native build vs. ~100fps in a browser, depending on user hardware ofc and what you're doing/how far you're pushing things. But I mean anything above 60fps is generally an amazing experience anyway. I think for a lot of projects WebGL could be enough, but not everyone's.

 

I did.
What I didn't expect was for him to take so long.

 

I hope some big businesses start taking unity to court. I'm sure law will see the bs they are trying to pull here.

 

hey guys look at me, in one prompt I got this installer/uninstaller in c++

Code (CSharp):

1. #include <windows.h>
2. #include <iostream>
3.  
4. void installApp(const char* path) {
5.     SHELLEXECUTEINFO ShExecInfo = {0};
6.     ShExecInfo.cbSize = sizeof(SHELLEXECUTEINFO);
7.     ShExecInfo.fMask = SEE_MASK_NOCLOSEPROCESS;
8.     ShExecInfo.hwnd = NULL;
9.     ShExecInfo.lpVerb = NULL;
10.     ShExecInfo.lpFile = path;      
11.     ShExecInfo.lpParameters = "";  
12.     ShExecInfo.lpDirectory = NULL;
13.     ShExecInfo.nShow = SW_SHOW;
14.     ShExecInfo.hInstApp = NULL;
15.  
16.     if (ShellExecuteEx(&ShExecInfo)) {
17.         WaitForSingleObject(ShExecInfo.hProcess,INFINITE);
18.         CloseHandle(ShExecInfo.hProcess);
19.     } else {
20.         std::cout << "Installation failed." << std::endl;
21.     }
22. }
23.  
24. void uninstallApp(const char* appName) {
25.     std::string command = "wmic product where name='" + std::string(appName) + "' call uninstall";
26.     system(command.c_str());
27. }
28.  
29. int main() {
30.     const char* path = "C:\\path\\to\\your\\installer.exe";
31.     installApp(path);
32.  
33.     const char* appName = "Your App Name";
34.     uninstallApp(appName);
35.  
36.     return 0;
37. }
38.  

 

People can install your game on Wine on Linux. And after delete .wine folder several times after run that will be count as install more than once.

 

There would be grounds for an Insider Trading investigation for both him and the board of directors as they sold a large part of their shares before the announcement came out.

 

You can go to CGPersia and get 10000+ assets for free and unity has done nothing to protect devs, why couldnt we band together and ignore their bills. He is trying to be an alpha, why should we let this guy cu*k us?

 

Charging the user per re-install would be the only fool-proof way to do it. Most mobile games don't actually install fully from the store anyway due to size limits on app stores. They have to phone home and download further files. That would be the ideal time to check a database against an account and see if this game has been installed and then request they pay a fee for it.

Would this be a good idea? Would it work? Would the users be willing to pay? Who knows? I personally would actually hope they would immediately delete the file and never try again. But this seems to be the only way such devs could possibly protect themselves and I'm sure it was factored in when Unity's marketing came up with this cockamamie idea in the first place. By forcing our hands we force the customers hands.

 

Another problem with WebGL (for releasing titles commercially) is that unless you have a vast following or other ability to draw significant traffic, it could never compete where ROI is concerned vs. having your game in App Stores and/or Steam etc.

 

I think so too, there's no reference I recall of 200 of anything else. However its not 200 hours of build time, its 200 minutes.

https://unity.com/pricing-updates#unity-personal

 

Using your dominant position in one market to gain an advantage in another is at the very least suspect in the eyes of EU law.

 

Guess what John Riccitiello will call us now, mob?

 

Even if he reverses the decision, there remains the nightmare of a board of directors making bad decisions and sending the company into disarray.
My question is... how long will unity last?
...because it is clear that there have been major company problems for some time.

 

I got another idea, get a free trial on any cloud provider (they are so generous its silly) and create 100+ windows/linux instances for one install redo it. Automate it, how on earth would unity the creators of half baked engine know?

This isn't a terrible way to take a competitor down. Like if someone made a Rust competitor they could do this if they really wanted to.

 

While dupont and exxon pour another round of drinks for them.

 

If they port their game, sure. But from Unitys perspective they're making almost nothing already. For low ARPU devs this is entirely about capturing market share as an ad platform by forcing them to switch. This will still hurt those devs significantly, because Unity isn't going to be a competitive platform (if it were, more devs would already be using it), and it gives those devs no leverage to swap to a different ad provider because to use anything other than what Unity offers would kill the game.

It doesn't seem like a good strategy in my opinion, and honestly this just reinforces my opinion that Unity is not the platform to develop on going forward, but it puts more context on what Unity is after and how people might be squeezed in the name of competition in the future.

 

Something O3DE is trying to do, but seems like they are still a far way off to production level.

 

The corporate world usually mistakenly treat persons with aggressive-assertive (i.e. mean and nasty) personality with good standard "management CV" as "competent" business managers. Riccitiello seems to tick both boxes so he will get a job no matter how commerically incompetent he is in reality.

 

I give it about 5 years than it has faded into a niche product that is just used by some hard invested ppl that just do not want to rewrite stuff for proting into other engines.

 

I'm bummed that I wasted so much time learning Unity.
Can I get a refund for asset store purchases, please?

 

Poor John must be fanning himself with a stack of bills in his yacht, recovering from all that poor people bothering him.

 

I don't know, isn't it possible to have a local web player without internet?

 

Riccitiello has sold more than 50,000 shares in the past year... it is a case?

 

127.0.0.1

 

And another thing with WebGL releases, people won't "get a copy." A lot of gamers want to grab titles they can throw into their archives and play whenever for years to come. Otherwise it better be cheap.. or monetized some other way since they will have to go to a website to play it. And there might always be a worry their favorite game will eventually go offline (devs stop supporting, web hosting issues, legal issues or takedown, whatever). So depending on demographic it can be far less ideal.

Then there are people like me who don't want to install anything unless it's necessary or development-related.. web browser is nice security fence [typically], compared to if I was installing games from various sources all the time. I have a PS5 and mostly only do my gaming there. I have only installed like 1 game ever on my previous laptop (which was by someone in the community here) and so far have only played WebGL games with this one. So.. really depends on target market, whether WebGL is good. Commercially it's generally going to be far less profitable vs. "real" distribution of platform-specific builds.

 

I give it six to twelve months. This whole TOS release smacks of a hastily put together plan to make some emergency funds. I have serious doubts about their financial stability. We've seen bigger and more successful companies go under in less time than it has been since this announcement was made. Some of them have been just from this past year alone.

 

It keeps growing...
https://twitter.com/devurose/status/1702548014374822131

 

That won't fly, because the one accepting the TOS is the developer, but the data belongs to the player. It is a flagrant violation of GDPR. Even if all games start with a screen explicitly asking the players to provide consent, under GDPR they have to be able to deny it and still play the game.

Unity doesn't have the technology to properly count installs, all they've said is that they'll use their existing data models and antifraud tech as a starting point to develop something that magically counts installs without violating user privacy regulations. This sounds exactly like the Brexit issue, where the UK government was saying that they'll develop a technology capable of solving all problems of commerce through the Irish borders. Guess what, they haven't.

 

I'm always devoloped webgl games and the limitations, quality and perfomance are very top.
Webgl is good for very little games.

 

in open source projects you still get politics and often waring factions. i think in that case use of the word scam is hars

yeah seems like the strategy... low ARPU devs can avoid these fees if they use ironsource exclusively for ads, and their reps allow that (and management don't change their mind again on a whim). what a cluster f***

 

Or a way for a cartel of game companies to take out the small independent competition by sending one of their own to infiltrate a popular game engine and tank it, while doing a little insider trading along the way.

BTW, I'm starting a game software charity bundle seller. All proceeds go to poor game devs who are being ripped off by a nameless game engine's scumbag CEO and shareholders' predatory tactics.

 

I agree -- I wasn't clear but I actually meant sending a message to the industry at large, that extortionary tactics won't work and you can't just treat your customer base with such blatant disrespect.

I don't think it's worth trying to explain anything to Unity management. The damage has been done and I think the sooner people can transition away the better. This sort of business practice is just wholly unacceptable.

 

Argh, what a pity. After 14 years working with Unity this seems to be the end then.

My plan: once I've reached ~800.000 USD yearly gross revenue with my Pro licence I will cancel my Pro abonnement, use the next 100.000 USD to port my games to Unreal, pull all Unity-made-versions from the stores and replace them with new Unreal builds. Needless to say I will HATE it doing so. But there is no way I will ever pay any unpredictable runtime licence fee. This is so damn unprofessional.

 

So technically its possible to build a mobile game as WebGL app and run on a local web player (webview2 for example) and avoid any unity fees...

 

Doesn't even have to be that. Ransomeware is all over the place. I was working at a company that got hit by it just last year. Except in this case it's not something that can be corrected by making diligent backups and clearing out all of your in-house computers. The ransomer now has full control of when, how, and from where they hit you and you have absolutely no tools at your disposal to stop it.

 

Oh, also, oops:

Code (JavaScript):

1. let oldXHROpen = window.XMLHttpRequest.prototype.open;
2. window.XMLHttpRequest.prototype.open = function(method, url, async, user, password) {
3.   if(url !== 'https://cdp.cloud.unity3d.com/v1/events'){
4.     return oldXHROpen.apply(this, arguments);
5.   } else {
6.     return oldXHROpen.apply(this, [method, 'https://localhost:5000/unity', async, user, password]);
7.   }
8. }

 

And you will still be charged for pirated copies from old version )

 

But does your app monetize anything in-game? If so you are still on the hook.

 

Well, it's time to abandon the sinking ship. Engine development hasn't happened properly for a long time, when marketers run the creative team and not the other way around, it always ends badly. Thanks Unity for the past, but there's no room for it in the future for our team.

Maybe if they fire the people making these weird decisions and add a clause in the license agreement to protect customers from similar attacks in the future, it will save the situation. But it will be hard to trust Unity after what happened.

 

Yes, in the end we should start evaluating other engines.

Unity's future has unfortunately been tarnished since it went public in 2020.
When speculators enter a company, sooner or later they send it into bankruptcy.

 

note that other unity services have the same small print for adding extra fees anytime they want..
plasticSCM
"Unity may increase, modify or add new fees and charges for any of the Services from time to time by posting such changes to the Site or within the Services Panel"
https://www.plasticscm.com/releases/eula/licenseagreement.pdf

 

Unity says "no, you won't". And I...ehm...believe them.

 

There's a petition going on, if someone wants to sign it

https://chng.it/WLFRSSVxwT

 

Also technically you can provide users with your code compiled to .dll, asset bundle and unity.package they have to build in FREE editor for themselves. Thus they're gonna get runtime on their own, while you're not distributing it.
As I've said before that's not feasible business strategy, but it shows game of nickel-and-diming can be played both ways.

 

Wow, good catch. This is not good news. They have just shifted the headings around, putting "monthly" in the left column header now to try to add clarity to what were already the existing terms.

In case anyone is wondering, they haven't actually changed anything. The fact that they're still modifying it at this stage to just make clear the same terms as before doesn't bode well for a potential reversal.

If they don't reverse these decisions, or improve them significantly, I can only assume the exec team are hellbent on pushing this through for a short term revenue bump by attempting to bill existing profitable games from January next year so they can drive up share price for a while before they bail.

Then the engine will be dead within a few years because no profitable games will be developed on it anymore, but they won't care because they'll be gone.

 

How about a GPL, pure C# game-engine that can target latest .NET version day 1 (or target older runtimes), write shaders in a C# subset, .NET => C89 runtime subset, ECS at its core backing objects, multi-GPU in AFR or mixed-GPU mode, with D3D9,10,11,12, Vulkan, OpenGL, GLES, Metal, etc, rendering paths (Forward/Unlit, Forward+, Deferred+ (aka Order-Independent rendering), RayTracing) ??

 

Done. Nice work.