Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

Exactly... this is what that's being aimed at. Have seen folks already proposing it in the thread

 

I don't think it is ethical to pay for past users when they installed my game at a time we did not agree to this pricing structure.

 

okay some big whale is definitely shorting unity, thats why they had the grand plan to do this LMFAO

 

So much this.

One possibility is they are planning to phase out WebGL (not like it's been getting a ton of support anyway..) and work exclusively with platforms like Steam/Mobile that can support install tracking.

 

The lack of internal communication and clarification from Unity itself on this is pretty telling.

No, one guy flailing around answering every 7th question while he's boarding a plane doesn't count.

 

"I don't care who pays, I JUST WANT MAH MONEY"

 

Lawyers are going to have a field day. Now let's watch Unity trying to define the word "install" with anything but a dictionary.

 

Yes.

https://github.com/barcoderdev/unitypackage_godot

 

Just adding another voice. I'm a Pro subscriber for years, huge Unity technology advocate, and shareholder. If this change stands, I'm also parting ways with Unity, professionally and financially.

Engine costs aside, let's not forget a 6x monthly increase in costs to go from Plus to Pro- after already pulling features from pro over the past years.

How dire is your financial outlook when the best answer to increase revenue you can muster is to eliminate a plan to encourage indie and hobbyist developers? While something like this may look good in the board room, you don't build value by killing off your developer pipeline.

I'm not sure even a full retraction could undo this trainwreck- trust is a hard thing to regain, and when your entire business is built on the trust and enthusiasm of developers using your product, it doesn't take an MBA to see where this is heading long term.

 

So you're incentivized to make games that don't break the 200k/200k barrier so you don't get slammed by this fee. More low quality games on all platforms.

 

Just did some numbers for my own game and even if I have a hit game the cost wouldn't even be 2% of revenue, Apple and Google already take 30% each (well, 15% atm because of the small business program) and taxes take a lot more as well. It's not an insignificant cost but it's also not a bankrupt worthy one unless you're already on the edge (this could very easily be a tipping point though for certain studios)

 

$200k is not high enough of you're not targeting "the little guy".

 

The way you have communicated these changes makes it sound like Unity is going to bill you monthly for each active user (basically)

Which 1 good luck tracking that and data protection is a thing so please don't tell me you planning on forcing tracking I assume its all just the typical Unity Hamfisting of communication we have grown to be terrified of

but a few things about the rough idea assuming its not he hellscape you actually wrote about

1) use a % of net booking e.g. revenue after tax ANYTHING else has the potential to destroy a small studio or even a mid-sized one that should be obvious

2) I think I understand you do not intend for this to effect small solo indies hardly getting by ... but the way you have it worded and documented makes it look like basically any mobile dev should lub up before using Unity because if they make 1 cent over 200k they got to pay big

Now again I am sure this isn't what you actually intended ... or I hope its not you cant be that stupid
but the way you have communicated it is really quite horrible

 

For me the insidious part of this is that it's no longer clear when a developer should upgrade to Unity Pro

I can see that this works better for small developers who aren't going to hit $200k revenue in a year (And that "Oh no I've made too much money" value is up from $100k before which is good)

But the fact that Pro and Enterprise users pay less is just kinda gross. It requires a spreadsheet to figure out when it's worth upgrading to Unity Pro to reduce per-install costs. It feels like trying to trick your users out of money. The last thing you want to introduce to your ecosystem is financial uncertainty, and this move has clearly done that

If this has to happen, a better option would be to simply have monthly install costs reduce above a certain number, or have them be a smaller but crucially flat rate that doesn't require a graph to understand

 

It isn't and they aren't Mike Geig and other communication from Unity clearly said that it won't be charged retroactively. It's still unethical that currently existing games will suddenly face a new cost they never agreed to though (and might even be illegal, let's see if any lawsuits pop up)

 

Does changing your plan apply the revenue threshold immediately?

So if you develop a game using personal, and then after you have shipped the game switch to pro, does that cause the revenue threshold for that already developed game to jump to $1.000.000? Or is it based on the license active when you shipped? Or the license active for the majority of development?

 

And even if we don't want to treat Unity like this, our customers (hordes of angry gamers) will force us to.

 

Unity is like: just shut up and give us all your money)

 

I'm suddenly imagining what it would take to engineer a game that can only sell enough copies to install less than 200,000 times with an End User License Agreement that stipulates that once the game is installed, and the global cap has been met, you can never uninstall and reinstall. It gets removed from all marketplaces. Then you can replace it with "another game." I can't imagine anyone would want that malware on their marketplace.

 

Mike Geig also implied you are paying per sale as opposed to per install, so I don't think he knows what he's talking about.

 

Discussion with my peers, this seems like a straight move to force everyone into the subscription model. Mainly cause at the end of the day, unless you are selling your Unity game for at least $20 and you hit that threshold, the less you charge your game, the more that charge per install hurts. In fact, it puts a minimum price point on Unity games so that you can at least break even.

At that point, it makes more sense to pay for the license then. So it feels like Unity wants a reliable revenue stream every year. As expected of public companies.

Still, $2K a year oof

 

This seems so poorly thought. I'm not even thinking of piracy, just a customer who decides to return the game on Steam for instance. If your game is over the threshold, that one will count as an install and you will need to pay the fee?

Stop digging your own grave, Unity...

 

So there is this $200K revenue threshold. You earn more then $200K, they start charging you for installs. A month passes and your 12 month revenue goes below $200K, they should stop charging you for installs.
How do they know my 12 month revenue? Do I have to make monthly revenue reports for each game I made?

 

Can they give a little in return, like removing the splash screen for free users?

The least they could do

 

I have a game with 22 millions download on Android.
But, it's not well monetized.

With Unity Pro, (if I win $1M), Unity will ask me $440k ?

With Unity Plus, I would need to pay about $4.4M !?

What?

 

Noone would buy pro then...this is what ppl will pay 2k now for, to remove it

 

Charging for installs? Are you out of your mind? What kind of rotten corporate brain could come up with a system like this?

This is such a massive disappointment and a massive slap in the face for me who's been developing with Unity for the past 2 years. I would have never touched Unity had I known something like this was to come.

Why not consider a revenue share system like Epic does, so if games made with Unity are successful, then so is Unity? This is ridiculous. Respect the wishes of your developers and the people who make a living out of this software and revert these changes immediately.

 

Hello have you guys considering going to the doctor to remove the worms in the place where your brain should be?

 

Now I'm imagining engineering a system that sits at the root of the player for all of your studios games and prevents the actual game from launching unless you enter a valid credit card number so you can be charged 20 cents for every tracked install on your account. What is this world?

 

Keep the dumpster fire burning and hope for positive change. Put the customer first and win in the long term. Pull this shareholder pleasing crap and... well... *gestures*

 

No, if it's not monetized you earn $0 with it right now and thus aren't in the threshold to have to pay Unity. And if you did earn more than 200K on the personal edition in the last 12 months then you'd only pay for the new users who install the game After this comes into effect, not retroactively.

 

If the new Unity Runtime Fee had been around when I started using Unity,
I would have stopped using Unity immediately and never used it again.
This is an outrage that holds the Unity user community hostage.

 

There's no way Unity will be able to safeguard against this. I don't care what they say. The entire history of software proves you can't win long-term against hackers trying to exploit your software.

 

This is very sad to read. It's insane.

 

There's no going back. Even if they retract it we're gonna be left questioning what crap they're gonna pull next. No way am I developing in that uncertainty. Unity just disappeared from the engine options list for a lot of people.

 

Finally, with per-install fees, people actually can say that piracy is costing them money.

 

Especially when they are incentivised to not do a good job at it.

 

They can't even FIX the DAMN BLOG POST that still says MONTHLY in how many hours now?

Embarrassing.

 

This is just absurd. A rev-share model similar to Unreal seems a lot fairer, has less loop holes you need to tackle and also does not create privacy problems. Even the rev-share model I would find very, very crazy of a change. What you're proposing to create more profit is just insane for many companies (especially in the mobile/F2P sector). It is not too late to modify your idea of generating new revenue for the company, but I think you already lost quite some faith from your users. Fix this before the damage becomes even greater.

 

Dont use godot, you will just lose your time. Most of godot features don't work properly, for instance, you need to use a third party asset from a random guy on github to have proper working physics.
I would use unreal over godot even for 2d games.

 

this guy

 

Also why are you removing Plus
I pay that to remove the splash screen and since dark mode and profiler are now standard that is all

I do not use nor have ANY interest in any of the rest of Unity's services
We work on Git, PlayFab, Steam, Azure DevOps ... we don't want to deal with your services because frankly you are likely to drop them in 12-24 months or wildly change the way they are priced

So where are we?
We stop paying you anything at all and end up with a splash screen ... and we pray like hell we don't ship 200k units because then we will be in massive debt

Or we drink the coolaid ... your making it feel more than a little forced here. Happy to pay a small amount to strip the splash, not happy to be forced into your services ... don't trust them as noted. Not happy to pay the higher rate for Pro especially since we don't use any of the features that come with it. And while we would be more than happy to pay 5% or whatever in rev share should we find success we ABSOLUTLY will not be risking bankruptcy due to some poorly constructed royalties agreement

Now I am sure as I have noted before that its not as bad as it seems ... you cant possibly be that stupid of a company right? ... right?

So please clarify why we should keep on with Unity
Remember we are only here for the engine its self which we think is great, but have no interest in the other services... so enlighten us. ... not sarcasm ... really want to know is Unity still a place for devs like us ... we understand Unity hasn't been profitable or as so as it needs to be and needs to make money

Again happy to do a ref share, happy to pay a sub fee (sorta not really but tolerable) not happy to be forced into services, not happy to pay Pro fees for splash screen removal only and not willing to tolerate 0.20 per unit when we may make far less than that per unit

 

How do we now remove the Unity logo? Do we have to pay 2k to do it?

 

Just remove the game from all stores before it hits 200k revenue. Suddenly your games turn into limited collectables?

I wonder how re-releases similar to the dozen versions of Skyrim would count.

 

Is this some kind of new legal business practice?

So, if you are already selling/distributing a Unity game on any platform,
Unity now has the right to charge you any amount?

They just need to "Announce" it in their blog, right?

 

Has anyone reached out to the asset store yet? Unity has made a decision that has made mine and many other projects non viable as we have $2M annual support operating costs and require a F2P package delivery to grow our community. So if we do our job well and get 10M "installs" Unity makes more money than we do?

Lagally Unity is the ones changing the ToS and conditions to use and deploy their product. Thus, all of the asset store purchases my company has made from Unity and are no longer usable base don Unity's decision should be eligable for a full refund. I could use the $30-40K but its nothing compared ot the 32K person hours of dev work they are rendering null and void

 

Devs: "AI will be the death of us" -> John Riccitiello: "Hold my beer"

Seriously, I've been a fulltime Unity dev science 2007, co-founded the 1st and longest running Unity User Group, have made many friends at Unity (including the original founders), have stood by as Unity has fired scores of excellent (and in many cases essential) people at Unity while the stability of the engine has been diminishing, and now this?

Come on, get real. Jim Lahey and Randy Bo-Bandy wouldn't even be this incompetent. Do better.

 

HEY UNITY... HOW ABOUT YOU START ANSWERING SOME OF THESE QUESTIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

As a developer with 8 years of professional experience in Unity, sad to see them go down this route. Even if this blows over somehow, it shows the direction this company is going.

I did not expect a seemingly small unity news update to change my career today, but here we are. Time to start abandoning this sinking ship and start learning Unreal and/or Godot.

 

There's a lot of posts here so it's possible someone already said it:

This change allows Unity to turn up the dial on install prices at any point in the future so they can profit *even more* off developers; especially ones with successful titles. Not even Unreal does this (5% after $1mil afaik, etc).

Developers aren't dumb. Stop trying to exploit your audience even more in this late stage capitalistic society.