Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

Yeah, I mean even if I'm not affected now, this looks really shady. If i have to pay a sum, I want to know how much exactly, not wait others to throw a dice. This pricing model has to die.

 

Ah, I should have mentioned, it's not always a problem with unrealistic pricing, sometimes it's just straight up spyware or malware or other invasive practices, DRM that makes games totally unplayable, servers that don't work, etc. Or sometimes it's all of the above.

 

You kinda won't find one with this many tutorials out there and knowledge base in the community (and thus in ChatGPT/Copilot) though :/

They promise a calculator that will come out soon. (Probably in November where more info in general supposedly comes)

 

Maybe this information is public? And I also worked at Unity?

 

Yeah thanks for showing the info. But that means they are exactly guessing the number in their favour. It could be exaggerated by a lot. That is another problem. I dont think any DEV making over 200k will agree to this pricing plan.

 

I mean, I think ongoing support services should be honored and paid for in an ongoing way. If we're benefitting from the work Unity's employees are doing, we should be paying for it. I think people just don't want to be forced to pay for executive coke and hooker habits or their car collections or yachts.

 

yep that is also true and sad, at least chatGPT still can be a little help...

 

what period?

 

From 2005 until 2023 (January/1st quarter).

I suppose 2005 until IPO is reported, whereas IPO until now is public knowledge. I guess people can legally disprove up until the IPO?

 

No financial data was available before they went public. It was repeated all the time that Unity was not profitable by current leadership, but Unity OG claims otherwise. I'm inclined to believe Aras more than John. The claim is also about 7 years ago, not now when Unity has multiplied in size several times.

 

Actually from this thread i just learned Unreal charges 5%, which is exponentially more than Unity for games with cost above $0.02, so was the worst advertisement for Unreal.

 

Once again were getting to far some of us are stuck with time lines we cant switch out can we focus on getting facts from unity please we need these awnsers

Certainly, here's a revised version that includes the questions (Q) and their corresponding answers (A):

We must keep in mind that Unity representatives may not have the capacity to review lengthy threads. Let's aim for concise and pertinent questions.

Q1. Regarding the 200 run-time hours limitation in the free version of Unity: Is this limitation related to Unity build time on the cloud?

A1. Yes, the 200 run-time hours limitation in the free version of Unity typically refers to the usage of Unity Cloud Build service for cloud-based build processing. It measures the cumulative run-time hours for cloud builds performed using Unity Cloud Build.

Q2. Concerning the porting of assets from the Unity Asset Store to other engines: Given the varying licenses associated with different assets, it's essential to emphasize the importance of carefully reviewing the license terms for each asset. Can you provide guidance on the significance of this practice for our safety?

A2. Absolutely, it's crucial to review the license terms of each asset on the Unity Asset Store before considering porting them to other engines. The licenses for assets can vary, and compliance with these licenses is essential to avoid potential legal issues. Always ensure you have the right to use assets in the intended way based on their specific licenses to safeguard your project and yourself legally.

1. For platforms such as PC, Mac, video game consoles, and VR, where opting out of Unity's changes might be challenging, do any viable alternatives or solutions exist?
   
   
2. Could Unity consider implementing a maximum percentage change that doesn't exceed a certain threshold? The potential for negative changes is a concern.
   
   
3. Can we establish an agreement regarding a grace period for already published titles, especially those nearing the 90-day mark leading up to the holiday season, to alleviate potential stress in December?
   
   
4. Concerning downloadable content added to a game, is this treated as a new installation, or can it be counted as a separate title with its own usage statistics? (such as selling a expansions on its own steam page?)
   
   
5. Once these issues are addressed and resolved, can Unity commit to the stability of its licensing terms for a defined period, such as one year, two years, or more?
   

By adhering to these succinct questions and recognizing that some of us are operating under rigid production schedules, we hope to maintain a productive and on-topic discussion. Timely responses are highly valued as we seek the clarity needed to meet our deadlines and navigate these important considerations.

 

I try not to be a stickler, but it does seem like the most unhinged mathematical takes always come from those with the worst grammar.

 

I still don't understand how this is going to be tracked as it is illegal to obtain the information for unique installs without a users consent.

 

Where is the 0.02 coming from? Even with pro (2k in advance) you would pay 0.15.

Also do you understand what an install is? unreal charges based on money you have earned and you have in your pocket.

 

I appreciate the reasoned response! I don't necessarily disagree with anything you said. All 4 of your points describe Unity's model up until Jan 1, 2024. They currently charge per seat as annual subscriptions.

I'm going to pull some numbers off the internet though, and make a case for revenue sharing.

Unity has 7,700 employees, per Wikipedia. There are "more than 230,000 developers" according to this random article I found. I would be willing to bet many hobbyists or students, so let's say 200,000 professional users. If the average employee makes $40,000 annually (it's probably higher at Unity), that's $308,000,000 in annual salaries. Each professional user would need to pay $1,540 annually just to sustain salaries, which is just 25% lower than Unity actually charges. That doesn't include any other operating costs! Another calculation: Average US salary is $59,000, and I bet half of Unity's users haven't made any money. For 115,000 developers sustaining average salaries, that's $3,950 per month, which is almost as much as Unity charges for their most expensive, Industry license. I don't know the real numbers of course, so feel free to plug in the numbers you think are correct, and see how much everyone would pay.

The numbers don't convince me that there is a financially viable way to do upfront subscription costs, without heavily discouraging smaller studios who don't have cash on hand.

Of course you're exactly right that a revenue share disproportionately hurts successful titles. The corollary is that it disproportionately helps unsuccessful titles--which includes titles that aren't successful yet and titles from inexperienced teams that haven't made a great project yet. There's no fee structure that doesn't hurt anyone. Ultimately, the amount of money that Unity needs doesn't depend on the pricing model. (Whether Unity is spending money correctly is an entirely different discussion! But it's unrelated to whether they raise it via revenue share vs. subscription model.)

(Also, if you look at my past posts here, you'll see I'm totally against flat fees per install. I'm talking about revenue share as a concept--just to clarify!)

 

Ah, sweet irony.

 

Enterprise is 0.02 per install.

Also if your game is above 0.02 each install is above 0.02 in your pocket, i dont see any difference.

The difference is if you have a 30$ game Unreal will cheat you out for millions over few K in Unity

If your revenue is millions then you can affort few K for Unity best version, the 2k you mention is a joke in this case

 

No one does, they haven't explained anything. The ongoing theories are that Unity runtime will call back home with device hardware ID or some such and they'll process that data in aggregate for the total install count without anything personally identifying or they have some big data AI model that guestimates based on various data points. Both options suck, hence the outrage. From the communication so far, Unity themselves don't know how they'll achieve this, or they know the answer will upset the community so they intentionally stay silent.

 

Enterprise is 0.125

What? Enterprise is 0.125 x install, I can install your game 100 times from a single sale

 

Unreal also has multiple options depending on what you're doing. The 5% after the 1st million USD is the standard license if you just sit down, use Unreal Engine, all the bells and whistles like Metahuman, Quixel, etc, but you can also negotiate other licensing as well.

Spoiler: Unreal license quote

Unreal Engine is free to download. We offer a choice of licensing terms depending on your use of Unreal Engine.
Under the standard EULA, Unreal Engine is free to use for learning, and for developing internal projects; it also enables you to distribute many commercial projects without paying any fees to Epic Games, including custom projects delivered to clients, linear content (such as films and television shows) and any product that earns no revenue or whose revenue falls below the royalty threshold. A 5% royalty is due only if you are distributing an off-the-shelf product that incorporates Unreal Engine code (such as a game). Provided that you notify us on time using the Release Form, you will only owe royalties once the lifetime gross revenue from that product exceeds $1 million USD; in other words, the first $1 million will be royalty-exempt.
There are also options for custom licenses that can include premium support; private training; negotiated terms for lower royalties, no royalties, or a different basis for royalty negotiation; and more. Contact us to inquire about a custom license for either games or non-games use.

 

Interesting. I'm not trying to poke a hornet nest or anything. I've been critical about all this since page 3 of this thread. Just wanted to make sure we were being fair. Maybe I was wrong then.

 

Oh yeah, I'm getting blown away by everything about Unigine,
I've known about the engine for a long time before they introduced the Community edition,
but thanks to this fiasco I got to rediscover it again, it's come a long way,
and the licensing is great, no pesky per-install fees to worry about.

 

Nisam napisao ništa pametno samo sam htio da odeš na gugl prevoditelja .

 

LevelPlay is $6 to $12 per 1000 impressions depending on type, how skipable it is, and so on (most will be on that lower end).
Here's someones Reddit thread with their rates from a couple years ago (about $415 on 90k impressions if you don't want the image)
https://imgur.com/a/NGZAn

It's harder to find good data on Google for AppLovin but looks to claim $12-$15 with the reported average as closer to $10.

So based on some very brief research (I don't really do mobile dev so this isn't something I'm too familiar with) it looks like Unity pays about half. Or to put it another way, to switch to Unitys ad platform, where you no longer have any competition between providers, you're going to lose half your ad revenue, and just have to hope Unity doesn't lower it further since you won't be able to switch.

 

https://gist.github.com/runevision/1c0d6a856dda1461577cf7f84574253a

https://web.archive.org/web/20230303043022/https://unity.com/legal/editor-terms-of-service/software

 

Rants aside, The last good Unity version for me was 5.6.6.

After this my main projects suffered in frame rates.
The Asset store was on fire back then with very good work arounds for issues.

Hell, if the TOS for Unity 5.6.6 perpetual is still valid I would use it again for some projects on Desktop.

 

http://www.unity.com/pricing-updates

Actually i was wrong, Enterprise is only $0.01

So 1.000.000 sales of $30 game is 1.5 million for Unreal fee and 300K for Unity, 5x more in Unreal

 

GUYS CHECK THIS ARTICLE OUT
https://venturebeat.com/games/game-...ity-ads-until-its-price-increase-is-reversed/

SIGN HERE:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeSRvFrXeDocqPwyjsYwbQ4fObJGJ2THrUjzSqHvMcoCWaIIA/viewform

 

no the first million downloads every month start at the top tier, after one million downloads (every month) it goes to a lower price tier

 

Here's the thing though. I'm not just saying that Unreal is better at 3D than Godot.

I'm saying that Unity was better at 3D over six years ago than Godot is now. 3D and, really, visuals in general, are not even second-class citizens in Godot and the reason for that is that there's no interest in that at all. Blender was always dedicated 3D software. When Blender started, it was as an in-house tool. Comparing Godot and Blender is fundamentally erroneous here.

 

To clarify, Unreal is free until your game makes more than $1 million, which means it's free for the majority of indies. After you've found success ($1 million+ in revenue), the royalty applies to the second million and beyond. You can also negotiate custom terms at this point if you like.

Also, the terms are transparent, unlike this guessing game clusterf**k that Unity is now imposing.

 

No? Also do you seriously think you sell 100% of your games at full price of 30$? Good for you I guess

 

The threshold is 1 million

 

It's kinda insane how this (sh*tty) decision comes around as I have been working for around 4 years on an alternative solution (as a business model) to a certain issues I have/had with how the app/games stores operates behind the curtains.

I'm guessing that I'm kinda lucky because my projects and its business model of mine are within the gray area of this new fee/ToS bullsh*t and won't affects me as much as many others. It's kinda strange that all that efforts of mine pays up so well from this news and much more than I would have ever guessed nor though.

In the executives' minds, it's like a tactical demolishing of an old building filled with free loaders and illegal sellers to build a brand new casino where everything (including lots of money) is under their controls.
It would look as something like this:

In reality, this is more akin to setting the building on fire with gasoline with the wish that no innocents might get caught in the blaze. (And, by innocents, I mean people who have the means to get to the administration financially. The administration doesn't care about the bummers or innocents that just goes "poof" without much of a noise.)
This is what it will actually look like:

 

I was initially pretty upset, villainizing the leadership at Unity like everyone else here, but after reviewing Godot engine I'm absolutely blown away. Perhaps when I first started on Unity, Godot wasn't mature enough yet, but it's better than Unity in a lot of ways now so I feel less cornered. I think people with existing games will play out in a class action against Unity and they are likely to win, but in the meantime it will be sucky if they have to pay excessive fees to Unity, which will then get lost in an inevitable bankruptcy. If anything this is a major wakeup call to all game devs. The future of game development is clearly open source, and that's a good thing. Imagine if all of us are working on the same engine and improving it every day along with our games? That sounds awesome and it isn't some pipe dream, it's already there for us to use. I can't think of any good reasons to work with Unity anymore, so I think we are at a tipping point here and it actually feels sort of exciting. Unity will do what it wants, we can remove their ad network, they could even roll back the pricing changes and apologize, but that doesn't change anything: They owe 2.7B (1.7B due in 2026 I think?) and only have 1.7B in cash. They lose 800M every year and are about to lose a lot more. They can't fire anyone else. Their own quarterly report claims their ad network will be flat. Even with these pricing changes they only expect an extra 70M per quarter starting January 2024. They made a bunch of bad investments in times of low interest rates that they won't be able to pay for when they refinance. Time to move on because Unity is more cornered than we are. They will toil only to pay their debts. That is not a sustainable business. RIP.

 

Enterprise $0.125 per install not $0.02. People still don't understand the big difference between sales and installs. Also average selling price of a game is always less then the retail price. Because you have sales, bundling, free weekends, hackers and piracy. If your game has a selling price of $9.99 you probably are doing about the same as Unreals 5%. If you have a game selling for $9.99 you are not selling more then 100,000 monthly in any world. If you are below an average selling price of $9.99 Unreal is likely going to be cheaper.

 

i thought it was per seat before.... thats why goes on about organisations and seats

 

Also in your specific example you would pay 0$ with unreal and the enterpries license in unity, which you can only get if you have 20 emplyees or more by the way if I remember correctly

 

You don't know Unity's, because that's not about sales but installs.

No download. Install.

 

There is no charge below the 1 million threshold

 

pay per install is an extremly stupid metric and disproportionately bad for free to play games. it makes no sense to have that as a fee - only if they want to illegally force their own ad network on those games. it will definitly go to court and they will get F***ed as this is abuse of their near monopoly power.

and all of it is because they cant include the community into price models and want to brute force their way in. you cant trust them anymore to not dial up their money income further the next years. YOU HAVE LOST YOUR FINANCIAL CONTROL OF YOUR OWN GAMES WHEN YOU USE UNITY.
it makes no sense work with them as a company since they can change the rules however they want. they can bankrupt people. its ludicrous from any point viewed. if they dont guarantee a set of rules, you cant depend or trust them with anything anymore. they broke that

 

GUYS CHECK THIS ARTICLE OUT
https://venturebeat.com/games/game-...ity-ads-until-its-price-increase-is-reversed/

SIGN HERE:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeSRvFrXeDocqPwyjsYwbQ4fObJGJ2THrUjzSqHvMcoCWaIIA/viewform

Yes lifetime downloads (easy to get if you're f2p) the the threshold is reset every single month. You start at the 1-100000 tier every month.

 

In unreal yes you are right there is no charge, same in Unity, but in Unity you have to buy the enterprice license, wich you can only buy if you have 20 seats or more

 

Indeed, but probably will be lower, as they have to be super conservative in their estimations to avoid getting sued

 

Ok, can get the Pro that is $0.02, it is still way less than Unreal

 

OMG that is amazing, in case they really shut the services down and not just say so.

 

Pro is 0.15 x install... I think you are trolling

 

Unity bosses want to "add more value" to the TOS by adding more services -.-... i'm 100% sure they they are totally disconnected from unity's users, they really think we need more services... They don't get it, we just need a good software that works, that's it.... this is the reason why everybody is moving to other game basic engines like godot, they totally don't get it at all... and when they announce their services in the plans, no one will care, so if anyone from unity is reading this, don't waste your time

 

Hi, had some questions.
How it came to be, that Mr. John Riccitiello becomes the CEO of Unity Technologies in 2014?
Ho at Unity decides this, at this time. And why ?
Is seems so unlogical and stupid to do this, when you see the historic of this man (EA, worst company etc...).

Somebody knows and can explain?

Thanks.