Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

I concede Unity.

You have successfully made an alternative holiday to April Fool's.

Please, stop pretending now and undo these changes? The joke is over...?

 

Thank you for saying this.
I popped in here every now and then, watching how different people keep asking the same questions and mostly the same people answering to them in the most fear-inducing way possible. It was only bearable after adding the biggest agresors to the ignore list.

While I could imagine some Unity staff reading every now and then, surely not the whole 11500 posts :/

Yeah, let's hope for more official clarity next week. Surely there will be some emergency meetings to assess this.

@LeftyTwoGuns You can give up too, I suppose. People just wanna hear how terrible everything is ._.

 

Dude, EA ruined EA, along with every game that it has ever touched! lmfao. Not that I disagree where with the sentiment, but, I had to point out that EA ruins and milks everything that it touches, all for the glory of Madden Football. (Does anyone even remember who Madden was?!)

 

Hot take, but I think the CEO is doing what he was hired to do - to grow and hype up the company to maximize stock value so original founders can get extremely rich. Then the company went public per plan and rando adtech billionaires/millionaires bought their spots in the board, who are the real people behind this out of touch decision most likely.

 

They could and can compete without being a world-class asshole and buy exclusivity deals. I still do not buy games on the Epic Store AT ALL, not even the free ones. I don't care I do not support that market, period.

 

I'm with you in this: you're taking flak, even abuse, because you're seemingly defending the runtime fee. But you're basically right, it simply won't kill us Steam-oriented retail game devs, simply because making $200k in revenue from a single game is mostly a pipe dream.
John Riccitiello is clearly the biggest dirtbag in gaming up with Bobby Kotick, but even with that said, I'm not leaving Unity just yet -- simply because we're not the primary targets of his scheme. And my gut tells me that it's not going to be any worse than the current runtime fee any soon.

 

From what I (and others can tell) it's the executive team, so CEO, COO, CFO... etc., and possibly the Board members that are out of touch, but yeah. I have to agree here.

 

Agreed, that is a hot take, especially if you read up on the end of his time at EA. He was basically fired.

 

That thought kinda contradicts with the fact that the worst hit studios by this would be the ones who monetize via ads (as those needs large numbers of installs), doesn't it?

 

Math me.

 

Can I point out that the actual runtime is the only real product here? I mean, did you buy the editor to do editor things with no intention ever to make a game that uses the Unity Runtime? And, if you did, how are you using that "program" for anything productive / worth the investment?

I state this, because it is the most overlooked aspect of this debacle. None of us bought the editor for the Editor. We bought the Unity Game Engine so that we could make games. Now, we're being told that The runtime (the essential component to all of this) is a separate piece of software, and we have to pay for every instance of it, in order to use it.

And, that is a serious issue here. I'll also point out, that is the excuse that Unity is using for justifying the Runtime Fee. That the editor is different from the runtime (engine) and that you should pay for the Engine, based on our (UT's) magick numbers.

 

My guess the reply: "it's their fault and they deserve to be screwed"

The trolls know some devs will get harmed. They know Unity will start charging install fees for games released years ago. They are OK with it because it doesn't apply to them.

 

*heard. Hotel Echo Alpha Romeo Delta.

 

make sense, say NO to a 90k$ deals with epic if they propose it to you guys.
You would be losing 180m $ if you do.

 

Erroneous thinking. Those sales likely never would have happened otherwise.

 

How do you not get the joke...

 

Nah, I think the truth is much worse unfortunately, and this is a cultural cancer at Unity that has infected the org across levels, the board, the C-suite, and also lower (but mainly the managerial class), as evidenced by that douchey twitter thread by a non-technical Unity employee who worked on a "prior version of the scheme."

Thankfully, I imagine there's opposition at all levels too.

And yes, even if heads get put on spikes there will be at least a few major players in the scheme that avoid responsibility. Yes, the best thing for Unity would probably be to fire anyone with an MBA just to be safe. That's not going to happen though.

Thing is, JR's head needs to be on that (metaphorical) spike for anyone to trust Unity again if only for symbolic reasons, regardless of his actual level of involvement--and don't kid yourself, he basically has to involved at some level even if there are worse offenders in the org. Getting JR's head on a spike is also unlikely to happen, but there's an outside chance.

Trust is regained both by figuring that we're dealing with new, more trustworthy leadership (which is always going to have at least a small element a self-delusion tbh), but also by the idea that the new leadership wouldn't dare to betray us again for fear of becoming the next heads that get placed on spikes.

 

Interesting point. I wonder if those Asset Store Creators in this thread, who are saying this new plan doesn't affect anyone, why don't they take a leaf out of Unity's playbook and start charging their asset store customers an install fee for every time they install it into a project from Jan 2024 onwards, even if they bought the asset years ago? I mean its easy money and they can target it exactly the same so it only affects 10% of their customers.

Could it be that its

1. A scummy move that will destroy their standing with Unity developers who will stop using their assets?
2. The Unity Asset Store Creators EULA probably explicitly forbids this.

 

I plan to. I'd need to make sure the other tools I migrate to has a node based shader editor

 

They can't, Unity reserve that right to itself, Asset Store publishers are unity users too, they deserve the same F***over like anybody else.

 

Enjoy this moment guys. Everyone here in this topic now, but 5 years later, this forum will be like desert, with some mods online and crypto ads in every topic

 

Interesting tweet from developer of Dotween - maybe the Asset Store Creators on this thread aren't as safe as they think.



Daniele Giardini on X: "there you go https://t.co/SrFZC1PVvV" / X (twitter.com)

Edit: There is a claim that this email has been sent to multiple asset store creators. Could be a developer who just wants to claw back some of the money they spent, or it could be someone trolling. Regardless I don't think it will be unexpected for asset store customers to try and claim back recent purchases if they are moving away from Unity

 

I'm not sure what I'm looking at here?

Is this chart saying that Subnautica was paid $1.4 million to be a free Epic game, and that they specifically created over 800k new Epic accounts presumably us to download the game? Which could've been upwards of $24 million in revenue if they were sales?

And what exactly does this have to do with Unity?

 

Subnautica is a Unity game.

 

It is saying that they were paid $1.4 million and it was downloaded 4.6million times. Subnautica is a Unity game.

 

It has resource streaming by default but, to be honest, I have not tested it enough to have a proper opinion. It seems to work but I have to profile it better.

 

Guys don't take store deals, you will lose hundreds of mil of money, just sell your game at triple AAA level price, every copy = more money.

Also never do steam sales or humble bundles, you are loosing bilions

 

Unholy hell.

 

Subnautica was a four year old game when they made that deal. I imagine most of the people who picked it up had no intention of buying it on Steam.

 

So 1.4/4.6 = $0.3 revenue per sale/download and best case install numbers. I would hope that Epic doesn't charge them store fee on that deal ( i don't think they would), but even at lower fee prices, once you factor in multiple installs, tax, outgoings, not sure the profit is all that good.

 

The problem is that this is nothing new.

Even if we say "F*** it, let's make our own engine", we're still using plenty of proprietary softwares and services that could do the same.

That's why we need legal protections against these changes. Consumers should have the possibility to say no without repercussions and companies should lose money if they don't make a reasonable proposition.

This is the difference between a sale and extortion.

 

There is nothing wrong with disagreeing and I throw no shade at those who do shop EGS or ship on EGS

But for me, exclusivity deals especially don't as they do them makes them a turd.
It is not necessary and its not actually helped them much at all ... its pushed a some away attracted some and not made a sustainable reason to go to EGS.

Had they offered a better service to gamers (price is not a service I mean features) you know like Steam labs, discovery features, remote play, etc. then they could earn some market share. THey are trying to purchase a market share and that isn't going to work.

I agree Steam needs a competitor EGS could be it but not under its current tact.
Discord for a hot min was going to do a store I was all looking forward to that one ... then noped out
GoG I support every way I can and I do thnk Galaxy has some end user features that are unique and interesting but its not quite up to snuff either

The point is Epics a prick
I refuse to shop their store at all or games that go timed exclusive to them, but that's just me and has nothing to do with rather or not I use there game engine. I think there store practice is crap

Similarly, we ship Unity Asset Store assets on UAS ... I think lightening deals are crap and as we have established here I think Unity Tech the corp is crap and I refuse to participate in UAS lightening deals them but I don't hold it against publishers that do use them and we will continue to build tools and support Unity devs

 

Have you SEEN the stuff people have posted sincerely in this thread?

 

oh well, you do have a point

 

I'd love to be a fly on the wall be because although it's obvious they don't care about indie Devs, there's no way they anticipated this level of backlash or the mobile publisher boycott.

 

Oh okay, so they took a payout of $1.6 million and relinquished possibly upwards of $138 million in revenue. So you've done a good job demonstrating that giving up sales rights to Epic and allowing them to immediately devalue your product is a pretty stupid idea.

Yet you've failed to explain what this has to do with Unity. I guess I have to do it for you?
You're suggesting that letting nearly 5 million people download your $30 game without paying for it is not a good idea? Well, we finally agree on something. So the answer to your question can either be "don't do that", or "deals" like this probably fall under the same criteria that deals with GamePass and AppleArcade do, as Unreal entered a specific agreement to distribute the game on their platform for a specific price. So Unreal would be paying those fees.

Put some more effort in the rest of your examples, this is getting tiresome.

 

Great job calling it not that it was a difficult call mind you.

 

I mean it's 1.4million they might have not gotten for a while, if at all, otherwise.

These things happen, you have a premium "normally" priced game and you do deals where the price per unit is really low.

For example, when we had a game on Windows Phone, Microsoft did a special promotion for 80% off (or something like that I don't quite remember the specifics but it was very cheap) that featured our game and the money we made during that period was like 50x what it was doing normally, and it had a healthy boost afterwards (presumably positive word of mouth?). If we had to pay anything per installation, the deal would absolutely suck.

People here talk about "math" but they have no idea what happens when you release a game.

 

Subnautica devs = dumb
me = smart

 

You heard it now, gents. Random poster that will never hit any thresholds for any payments on any engine revealed the truth: price your games as high as possible and never do any sales or paid giveaway promotional deals. If it works for Nintendo, it will work for everyone else.

Also, don't worry about competing against games made in other engines that can do both of those without incurring in bankruptcy-grade fees.

 

Just curious, can someone confirm average costs for enterprise level licenses for unity?

 

You asked for real numbers to do the math on (and yet, there is a distinct lack of math in this thread) and I gave you a bunch, I didn't know you wanted an explanation?

It's a list with a lot of Unity games and payouts and download numbers, you wanted real examples you can do the math on, because that is what you cared about. Do the math and tell me how the new Unity terms affect deals like these, that are really not that uncommon.

 

Thanks; As I saw the post in the main area saying "we will answer your questions here", I thought it was worth the shot.

In the end just going by the book... My LLC is set for 10 dollars total; so if they change things after the fact for older version; they can come after me any time they like and waste more money in legal expenses than anything. As far as myself I worked as consultant all the time so I never had to be involved in anything like this... But now we are going to release soon a product under our label so this is probably the worst time this could ever happen.

 

It's a little rough, but very Unity-like. A basic 2D game is made almost the same way as in Unity. There are more advanced tilemap editors, but Godot's gets the job done. Just no dynamic selection of tiles based on neighbouring tiles (automatic corners and such).

The 3D side of things seems alright, with all the basics you know from Unity. I dunno if it supports Substances though.

The Godot-specific APIs are pretty close to Unity's, and scripting works on similar principles. It shouldn't take someone who knows Unity well long to learn, but some things may take a little more effort. Mobile support is also in a worse state.

 

As far as I'm aware, IOS builds are not possible on Godot 4 - but is possible on 3. Yet C# is only available on 4. This is only things I've heard. I'd love to be wrong.

 

I suspect some of the statistics are harder to get because you have to opt in and convince Unreal to put their logo on your game, while it's the opposite for Unity. So bad Unreal games don't show as verifiably being made with Unreal.

 

Isn't the joke to not tell them beforehand?

 

People are completely missing the role Tomer Bar Zeev played in all of this. Iron Source is quite shady and what's more shady is that he started with Payoneer and Payoneer is ....... Mossad The rabit goes very deep.

 

Note to self: must take more time to be clear in replies.

yeah, sorry, I was trying ( and failed ) to imply that actually making $1.4m revenue is great for an old game, but once you calculate the revenue/sales ( which will be worse for revenue/installs that Unity wants ) with these new Unity terms its no longer such a good deal.

Even worse when you get down to actual profit from doing this after everything else and the Unity tax, it might just have not been worth it at all! Which is of course ridiculous that a big game such as Subnautica cannot necessarily make money in the long tail due to these new rules from Unity, which according to some posters on this thread is just something we should suck up, or that Subnautica devs were stupid to have done this - completely missing that the Subnautica devs would have been more than happy with the original deal, its only the Unity change that is going to screw them.