Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

Duplicate this Naive Cost Calculator,
And play around with it.
It actually will cost a lot more than 5% royalty for games with low ARPU even in best case scenario (Unity Enterprise). Assuming the game is using Free2Play model, with micro-transactions, without ads

Because with ads, apparently you can waive the runtime fee.
But if your game has no ads, and rely solely on micro-transactions, it will cost a lot lot more than 5%.

 

Ironsource to be blamed?
https://twitter.com/oleivarrudi/status/1702706966974362027?t=hAHYKzsfElHWpyDio8_G2Q&s=19

 

It's 14% of gross based on Unitys own calculations (and that's if users don't go overboard with installs)

 

Assuming that a person writes 50 times (and here i see people who write more than 50 times). We are approximately 180 people in this thread. meh.. The real thing is the reactions and shares outside, because this place is just an insulated box.

 

I am. If I run a freemium mobile game I'll need well over 10 million installs to see revenue of 1 million. My only option is to go into debt to pay for the free player installs, or be forced into Unity's advertising ecosystem to get a discount which is, so far, only hearsay.

A patreon donation based game results in millions of downloads for very little return at all. A labour of love.

Not all of us are shipping $20 steam titles, and still making decent money. This $0.20 per-install fee is a direct threat to the livelihood of successful developers.

As for the unsuccessful developers, gone is their hope for having any ambition to enter the former category through Unity.

 

And apparently you're the clown springs out of the box the moment someone opens the lid.

 

The biggest problem really isn't the pricing change as such (although I do think there are some kinds of projects that they need to tweak the thresholds to price more fairly - in both directions). It's

1) need to track installs, which requires telemetrics/spyware that may require player consent and shouldn't be forced on all engine users.

2) the fact they deleted their previous very clear and hard promise to let devs stay on old LTS licenses. One thing is if they were open about no longer be able to keep this promise. That would still be bad, but simply deleting the license text and github repos, is very bad form. Be honest and open with your customers if this is about getting enough cash to avoid bankruptcy, and you simply cannot stick to the old licenses, despite pledging to do so. (I also think this may not hold in court if someone presses the issue).

3) how clumsy this was communicated. So many things were unclear, stated in conflicting versions initially, etc. Like re-installs. We had three different official statements on that one point. They should have had everything clearly defined and ready before revealing it.

4) too many technical details are not yet finished. The piracy detection is not done yet. Many things are openly not finished yet. And it's supposed to take effect Jan 1st? What if they don't get it working in time? How will they bill customers in the interim?

5) they have revealed that they can and will introduce quite large changes in pricing policy with a very short notice (3 months is not long for game development). It is hard to have faith that they will not do so again.

6) they are closing in on bankruptcy. Their creditors may eventually force them to raise prices from the current plan in order to stay afloat. Banks can do that once a company starts having trouble making payments without borrowing new money (which is what they're closing in on fast).

As an indie developer I don't have confidence that they will not raise prices suddenly and harshly to avoid bankruptcy. I do not trust them to not start bundling spyware/adware as a potential final hail mary. Finally, I am somewhat upset they have invest so much in mobile and ad sales when what I want from them is a desktop game engine. Not a games as service platform. Not an ad network. Not dev ops or distribution.

So I am not seeking alternative because I am upset about the price change (even though I am potentially affected by this as a moderately successful indie) - but because of the way it was done, and the details of how it was implemented. I cannot accept this move towards an install-based fee. Especially when I still have to pay a subscription. I cannot accept the telemetry they will require. I cannot accept dealing with a company that thinks it is ok to make such extreme modifications to the tos. I cannot risk a dependency on a company that is heading towards bankruptcy.

 

They can easily regain developers trust by just paying developers 20 cent for every time a unity game is installed, retroactively

 

How much does it have to take for some of you here to realise it's not strictly an issue of numbers, but instead an issue of trust? Like, how are you not getting this?

 

just vented some steam, im sorry i didn't consider your situation but that comment rubbed me the wrong way

 

How can they expect small developers to rake up €1900 euro's, just to be able to get rid of the loading screen, and dare to say nothing changes for small developers??

I regret spending a lot of money on last summer sale. I'll be switching to Unreal while my development has only been going for a month.

 

Just LoL Nice one

 

I guess i made some jokes that might offend some people. lol

 

Nah you're good.

I'm just getting a little worried myself that the narrative of this thread seems to have moved away from "they're charging per install?!"
Which, to many of us, is the crux of the issue.
It's completely a deal breaker for me if Unity is going to charge me for factors outside of my control - like end users installing the game.
I'd be totally fine if they wanted a % of every *sale* I make.
I'd even be happier with a worse deal than Unreal is offering - I find Unreal to be cripplingly unintuitive to use and the past 48 hours of learning it has been an uphill struggle against their restrictive system rather than anything positive.

I still come to this forum in the hopes of hearing that this will be reverted - but enough evidence suggests it won't that I've already begun the process of learning an alternative. As frustratingly anti-user as it might be.

 

An understated part of the install fee model is that your legacy games from 5+ year ago that barely anybody buys anymore can just randomly cost you 20 cent when existing owners upgrade their computers/phones and reinstall them.

 

Only if by "boycott" you mean "completely abandon". Otherwise it won't have an impact.

 

Well, it is not me, who choose to post 28 out of 32 total messages in this "closed box" as you told. Apparently you're just fine trolling here.

 

The joke is on us... Unity is instituting a "forum use fee" on January 1, 2024. It is retroactive, and applies to your lifetime. Expect an invoice on January 2nd.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/unity/comments/16j23ci/i_know_people_dont_want_to_hear_this_you_shouldnt/

A reddit thread for it

 

I discuss this issue on every platform(reddit, twitter etc..) except "livejasmin".

 

20 cents until your rolling 12-month financials drops below the threshold. Like the competing engines, the tail is effectively royalty-free.

 

Sigh, wrong.

 

Rune created some graphs showing the percentage of gross revenue you end up paying Unity. Full explanation at the link below.

https://blog.runevision.com/2023/09/charts-to-visualize-how-much-you-owe.html

Spoiler: Personal

Spoiler: Pro

 

Terrific idea! I have a feeling the money would go a lot further

 

https://www.vg247.com/unity-fires-manager-after-calling-company-out-of-touch-on-twitter

Just as a additional reminder, they cleared the rows of critics before.

 

She was criticizing upper management.

 

That doesnt look right at all. Im eating but Im pretty sure it aint.

 

well this gives enough reason for me at least here to at least stop abusing john

 

He provides links to desmos where you can look directly at the formulas he gave it to generate the graphs.

 

I'm quoting just so this gets seen.

 

Exactly, critizing the upper management to be out of touch. What is the new pricing plan... out of touch?

 

Cool.

Anyway, most of my money from Unity comes from freelance work. Like 85% of the money I make with Unity. Some of this is from indie devs, some of this is from mobile devs. Most of the indie devs I've worked with have looked at this news and gone "well we're not going to use Unity for our projects going forward," which is a problem when I am a graphics programmer who chiefly works in Unity. I imagine a lot of the mobile devs will be following suit because of how these changes will affect low ARPU games like the entire F***ing mobile space.

And I get it, you're not a person who actually relies on Unity from a financial standpoint. You're not a person who can actually process how changes like this being announced without consulting the developers in any real way, with incredibly poor communication, while also getting rid of the tools used to compare EULA changes, while also announcing that this change is effectively retroactive to projects currently in development might severely erode user trust. You just really can't figure out how numbers that are calculated opaquely by the people charging you for those numbers might be exacerbated by these introduced trust issues. Hell, you probably can't figure out why people are mad when this comes less than a year after the per-annum cost of Unity Pro was hiked up by $240 less than a year ago!

But maybe you should at least try.

 

I wouldn't be surprised, but I also wouldn't be surprised If the execs from EA tried to push out execs from IronSource through all possible means.

Remember they announced this carelessly even when met with negative feedback from their workers.

Also, this article places the CEO in the brightest light possible and spreads misinformation. The offer from the competition was non-binding, which means they could revert the offer after the cancellation of the merger with ironsource.

 

Major problem 1: Mobile has tiny revenue per install, so your mobile game blows up but because you didn't monetize aggressively enough you owe Unity more than your profits. Success should never be a financial risk!

Major problem 2: Trust is totally broken because they are going after games released on the old subscription model and suddenly demanding money. They want to change the revenue model they can apply it to never Unity versions, but as it stands even if you're happy with this new revenue model how can you trust that you won't release a game then find they've changed the revenue model retroactively again in a way that means you do owe them a lot of money?

 

I love that first comment: "what are they going to do? change engines? lolz". I could absolutely see management having that thought with the popularity and success of this engine.

 

Odd choice of words, but okay, whatever you're doing on livejasmin is between you and your provider(s) there.

 

*Introduction threshold
*only affects giant companies and huge hits, for now
*isn't even that much money, in some models but not others/for now
*two percent, for now

You are not agreeing to the current values stated for the cost/thresholds... But agreeing to Unity being able to dictate how much developers earn. They will adjust these values OBVIOUSLY

 

Yes, because clearly removing anyone that might have had a chance at stopping it is the smart thing to do...

 

This company is F***ed. Assfucked with a S***-covered spiky, rusted mace. There's no hope.

 

That sale was planned months in advance, and it's literally 0.05% of his shares. No one actually cares.

 

This is even scarier than Join, it seems no one will be able to save Unity anymore.

 

Go hunt that lawyer down again, and ask them if they're familiar with the clause in prior versions of the TOS which permitted us to stay on the current version of the TOS so long as we didn't upgrade the engine.

Then ask them, and we demand a plain English answer to this, whether they understand that those prior versions of the TOS, containing that clause, were as binding on Unity as they were on us.

Finally, ask them, and we demand a plain English answer to this as well, if they are asserting that they can unilaterally change the terms of an existing, binding contract, without the consent of or consideration for the other party. Also, on a personal note, let us know what color they turn when you put it just that way.

 

Oh, I know the damage has been done, but I also know there are a lot of bad faith arguments in this thread and a high number of people who think they understand how the business world works when they couldn't make money off of a lemonade stand.

 

You don't have to uninstall the .NET 7.0 in a terminal like gitbash you can just do:
dotnet new globaljson --sdk-version 6.0.414
or whatever your 6.0 version is

 

I saw this platform in your resume. I haven't heard of it before. Also, it seems like you're trying to take all your anger out on me. Spend this energy on other things. I am not the target.

 

Until Unity tell you that you can't which could be day 3 or 76 or any other time

 

If you think Ryiah is a shill that really shows how you're an account that only showed up yesterday.

 

I'm pretty much sure Unity won't back down. You can read back my posts here.

But, it's not that simple. Not for a lot of people and not even us. We invested a lot into Unity and the ecosystem, we have code base (which almost evaporates the moment we exit Unity's ecosystem). If Unity for some magical reason chooses to back down and think through what they are doing to indies, many of us will and would weigh the decision to stay or not.
In some ways the damage is done, in some ways it's not. It's business, there should be risk-assessment and decision based on that at the end.

 

# SEC history for Unity Software ( free on SEC website )https://www.sec.gov/edgar/search/#/...form-cat2&startdt=2023-07-01&enddt=2023-09-15

Name Sold_Date Sec_Filed_Date Stock_Amount Sold_Price
Helgason David 2023-07-03 2023-07-06 12,500 $543,143.75
Bar-Zeev Tomer 2023-07-14 2023-07-17 75,000 $3,436,347.32
Helgason David 2023-07-19 2023-07-21 10,564 $528,212.68
Bar-Zeev Tomer 2023-08-01 2023-08-02 75,000 $3,381,291.45
Carpenter Carol W. 2023-08-01 2023-08-02 2000 $90,100
Dovrat Shlomo 2023-08-10 2023-08-14 400 $15,400
Dovrat Shlomo 2023-08-14 2023-08-16 75,000 $2,721,000
Barrysmith Mark 2023-08-28 2023-08-30 4,037 $143,821.68
Visoso Luis Felipe 2023-08-28 2023-08-30 9,370 $322,796.50
Carpenter Carol W. 2023-08-28 2023-08-30 9,095 $313,231.80
Whitten Marc 2023-08-28 2023-08-30 6,200 $213,528.00
Lee Michelle K. 2023-08-28 2023-08-30 3,538 $125,422.10
Dovrat Shlomo 2023-08-30 2023-08-31 68,454 $2,576,608.56
Bar-Zeev Tomer 2023-09-01 2023-09-06 37,500 $1,404,652.20
Visoso Luis Felipe 2023-09-01 2023-09-06 2,698 $101,175.00
Carpenter Carol W. 2023-09-01 2023-09-06 2,000 $75,000
Sisco Robynne 2023-09-06 2023-09-08 25768 $1,030,720.00
Helgason David 2023-09-06 2023-09-08 12,500 $500,003.75
RICCITIELLO JOHN S. 2023-09-06 2023-09-08 2,000 $80,000

 

You literally have no idea what you're talking about or any of the people here.