Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

In june 2013 I specialized in Unity development (was it 4.2 at that time? Can't recall...) and have since worked at several companies developing games and apps. A few years ago we all saw the beginning of the decline with all the unfinished features and different directions that the company was trying to pull the engine towards. This nonsense is the last nail in the coffin for me. Professionaly I'll still have to use Unity at work until the company I currently work for makes the move to another engine but I have dropped Unity for my personal projects once and for all (actually 2 days ago).
After 10 years here, enjoying the community and the learning proccess, this will be my last post. So long, guys. Good luck.

 

Reddit at its best:

 

No, no, I'm referring to someone else -- someone who can't make value judgements on multiple axes. They cannot process vectors, only bools.

 

To be honest, I really don't want to see this happened. I sincerely hope Unity can take effective measures to heal the damage and restore trust, and let the community thrive again.

 

Interested in how the new pricing per-install affects 3rd party assets in the Asset Store. For example, could developers now start charging per-user-install for use of assets rather than just charging once?

If Unity can do it...

 

Yeah, guys, I said what I said
I’d rather be public instead

 

Their recent tweet doesn't portend good things.

 

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

 

Dude, face it, there is no going back: their reputation is completely destroyed, publishers are cancelling games using Unity and even gamers talk about Unity installers being malware now.

It's like finding your partner in bed with your brother: everybody wish it didn't happen but there is no possible way things will get back to normal after that lol

 

Top 5 engines, number of games on Steam:

Unity : 38000
Unreal : 10000
GameMaker : 4000
RPGMaker : 2500
RenPy : 2000

Gosh, Unity at 60% of Steam games. We can assume a far higher average revenue per install there.

Got me thinking about itchIO. : https://itch.io/game-development/engines/most-projects

Top 5 engines, number of games on itchIO:

Unity : 115,000
Construct : 34,000
Godot : 17,500
GameMaker : 17,000
Twine : 15,000
...
Unreal Engine : 7,500 (7th)

Unity at about half of itchIO games. A lot more variety there, and more opportunity to check out what other engines are doing as we can select games by engine. Cursory glance, Unreal is for lofi 3D, horror titles.

 

Nice try but it wont work as the fee is based from thresholds that apply to the game, not your business and so Unity will just argue that the game relies on the DLC and the DLC becomes its revenue. In fact It will likely be covered by this, in the runtime fee FAQ

Revenue definition
A game or app’s “total revenue” includes all revenue generated (without limitation) from retail sales, in-app purchases, subscription fees, web payments, offline payments, ads-based revenue, etc. Total revenue is calculated without deduction, including any relevant digital store fees.​

Note the 'without limitation' wording, that will allow Unity to claim your dlc is tied to the game and thus its revenue is eligible.

This is of course based of a FAQ/Blog that has been shown to be poorly written, inconsistent and ambiguous. So ultimately you'd need to read through the fine print of any license, T&C or TOS the Unity release.

 

Hello people! Finally! I've got the video where the CEO of Unity asks for our money, out clothes, our boots, our motorcycle.

 

Confusion and angst?

Oh, there's no confusion on my part. You are able to retroactively charge whatever you feel like. You want to force your ad services into usage through underhanded and illegal means (in civilized parts of the world).

There is no confusion and angst here. There is an absolute lack of trust.

 

Yeah, it doesn't have any real utility or value, it's a big game rich F***s invented to gamble with their excess money, and then WE have to pay for it when it crashes. Someone said a couple pages back that they aren't creating new wealth, just taking it from us, and I wholeheartedly agree.

Pretty much what Unity is doing with this runtime fee!

 

As a matter of fact, yes.

 

For those interested on an engine with realistic graphics, this is 2021's Unigine

 

Unigine is a great engine with no doubts but with what I've experienced with them (enterprise licensing) I wouldn't touch them anymore. But if you're indie, go for it, technically it's really nice.

 

Unity,

It is now day 7 of our outrage. This moved past "angst" days ago.

There is no confusion here amongst us, there is just clarity regarding an abusive business partner. Clearly you are the ones that are confused. By your continued silence punctuated by PR auto-posts, you demonstrate that you clearly have no idea why we would so thoroughly reject your distorted, twisted vision of the future of game development, nor any inkling how to win us back.

I will not apologize for your confusion or angst, because it is entirely self-inflicted. However, to help guide you back to sanity and alleviate YOUR confusion, I will again repeat my key demands:

Unity, leave your hands off of my already released games. Let them remain on the old TOS, as you previously PROMISED could happen, in PLAIN LANGUAGE in your blog as well as in contract. Anything that you did to alter this promise that YOU MADE TO US as a conciliatory gesture after that last TOS fiasco was a shady and unethical shell game and clearly done in bad faith so that you could launch this flaming wreckage of a plan.

At this point, no one is going to trust your install number guesses. There is zero reason at this point to trust Unity to do anything other than serve its own purposes. So trying to base a fee off of this guessed number that you will have control over generating is a non-starter for pretty much everyone. Eliminate the install fee.

Until these things happen I will continue to standby with pitchfork and torch in hand and explore options to enforce my rights under contract. If your announcement does not fully resolve at least these two points to my satisfaction then don't even bother.

No one can deny that Unity needs to do something to improve their income statement. However, core basis of the proposed plan is unworkable and unacceptable to pretty much all of us.

 

A bit of humor, someone knows how to edit the video to convert it into English?

 

Unity, you have betrayed my trust.
I have been using Unity for my applications since it was FREE.
Then Unity switched to a one-time purchase license.
After that, it switched to a monthly/annual subscription.
Now it is both a monthly/annual subscription and a fee for each installation.
Let's take a look at the competition because even if I wanted to, I don't have the revenue to support your fees.

 

So we are now at a point where Unity is "working" on a new scheme...

I am moving after my current project regardless, and this "roll back" will hopefully protect me long enough.

On the bright side, I really hated UE4, but UE5 works very much like Unity.
I am actually glad that this whole Unity bs made me take a look at UE5 more seriously.
I actually like it.

I am not going to say much about its powerful rendering part,
but even from a programmer's perspective, I actually think it is superior...never imagined myself saying this.

Thanks Unity! It was a good 10 year run. I hope you survive another 10 years when Epic goes bat crazy (post Tim Sweeney retirement) and then I will take a look at Unity again.
Cheers!

ps. I am actually glad to have a memory like this. I will able to tell a rookie in 10 years time, "Even Unity fell...you young fellas don't know what that was like."

then he gonna say "What is Unity?"

 

It's totally a big circus. It's also reactionary, like a herd of wildebeest. They (the investors) were grazing. There's been some movement in the grass (announcement). They flinched a few times but settled, because they don't want to stampede. But the 2 million share drop on Friday, right at the end of the week when investors can't do anything about it, is suddenly one wildebeest legging it. The dumb animal instincts of the other investors surely can't help but follow. Even if they can't see the lion in the grass themselves, they can't be the ones to hold off running and be the last one, caught out and devoured. So they'll start running.

Investors offering positive takes are like farmers trying to calm the nerves of their cattle because they don't want a stampede. They might reach some one side of the herd but not those the other. If they run, there's nothing the farmers can do.

I can't say what's going to happen to the stock price - I don't do the markets for ethical reasons. But I can't see there being no reaction at all to what happened Friday.

 

their community lic is a gift...

 

Doesn't really need it.

 

'We apologize for the confusion...'

That's a bit late when your feet are already hemmorrhaghing.

Here's the mistake you didnt learn from, btw.

https://www.polygon.com/23587624/non-dnd-dungeons-dragons-ogl-controversy-indie-sales-numbers

 

Tim will retire, but float Epic on the markets first. Then the diseased-minded shareholders will ravage it.

 

i'm really happy too because i can finally go for real to Unigine, but tbh i'm considering trying unreal again, problem is i'm not c++ and spaggetti code is not better imo but if i find someone to team up with, i can take it more seriously for sure

 

Yes, I agree.

 

That's precisely what I fear and why I'm resisting the Unreal Engine appeal, but while Godot or Stride are the future, they're not the present... so, what to do?

 

About a year or so ago, I was choosing a 3D mobile game engine to start my gamedev business. I had a choice between Unity, Godot and Unreal. I chose Unity and I don't regret it at all.

Great performance of URP 14 on mobile phones! Beautiful graphics, the engine is easy to learn, thanks for the C#! Huge community, tutorials for my every request. Unity should develop further and take a firm position between game developers.

I like Unity and have no intention of moving anywhere else. I hope Unity and the rest of the game developers can come to a unified agreement.

Thanks Unity for a great engine!

 

I'm anticipating lots and lots of developers trying out Godot right now, but coming back to Unity once they notice how many features are missing from it and how much they would have to rebuild from scratch - including assets from the store that just worked out of the box.

I would love to be wrong and for Godot to become the industry standard, but let's be real. It just isn't there yet and it will probably take years until it is. Unity has us all by the balls and once they announce an okay compromise (which was probably their plan from the beginning), most devs will just stay with Unity.

 

"we apologize for the confusion and angst"!? seriously!? so you're saying the community is the problem and we are just too stupid to understand it? I am curious how you want to eliminate our confusion and angst... I'm realy are! But to be honest, if you don't replace the ceo and the management, no one will ever trust you again anyway.

 

Unigine looks amazing feature wise. Really shows how much Unity has stagnated in the last few years. Pity it has no mobile support.

 

True.
I looked at Godot a little and looks ok, but for me the real choice is unity or unreal...
so basically I have to choose between two greedy companies (let's be honest, epic is not better, it's just smarter). ATM I will probably stay with Unity and I will learn Unreal in my spare time, just in case.
But I really hope Godot or other OpenSource Engine will become the new Blender of Game Engines because what happen here is proof that we NEED that !

 

Every other engine scooping up the fleeing users in the last 6 days:

 

Hi All,

Not known for my "Short" posts or writing ( I could write a book about this) I have tried to refrain from even posting about all of this but feel I should at least give an opinion in support of the community here Even though like all the rest of the posts here one way or another, they will be completely ignored by the Engine owners.

Game Making : In the big scheme of things there is a Hierarchy here as with all things relating to "The Free Market" and the way the other systems we live under work. At the top of the pecking order when it comes to the "Share" of "Money" and how its distributed. In this case as in most The Shareholders are at the Top. At the very bottom are Game Developers and Game Asset creators and alike. i.e. you and me. In the middle are all the others. Those who distribute the Games, Tax authorities and so on... Now unfortunately we developers are seen as numbers on a spread sheet (profit or not) for the Tiers of the Hierarchy above us and none of them care whether or not you make any money to support your work, business, your costs, and alike or even your if you go out of business, you build up a Debt owed to any of them or even if you end up on the street or stave to death. They just don't care. It just does not come into the calculation on the spread sheet. Money (profit) is the only thing that matters in these Systems. If you do not make a fat healthy profit for them which will never be enough to satisfy them then you are of no use to them and are to be ignored and somehow removed as being a pain in the backside. They will always keep you in that position if they can and never allow you to keep more money than you need to keep making more for them if they can they can take off you. If you make too much then they will find a way to take it off you. That's the way unfortunately the systems we have work and are likely to get even worse for us - as we can see from this fiasco.

Its likely that no good will come out of all of this. Shoot themselves in the foot - they don't really care. They do care about not having full control and their authority questioned - it becomes personal. They can afford to live with it. We can't in most instances.

It is a system run on greed. I could describe it as worse but will leave that there.

That is a very harsh statement but that's the way I see it. I may be wrong. What do I know?

I will Eat my Hat as the saying goes if at the End of the Day any of this has any benefit for those posting here or Game Making in general.

" beg to differ about talking with the community - its been basically radio silence since the announcement, and no, talking to a handful of your fave people isnt talking with the community, its talking with people who already had favoratism. If unity were talking with the community there wouldnt be 12k posts here ranting and raving"

I have been Modding and working with game engines making games since around 1991 and things have not changed in many ways. Game Engine Developers are always short of money and always have been and need more to move forward. Fair enough.

Similarly the best way for any Engine Developer to ensure success and make the Money (Profit) they need (much like game developers themselves) has always been the same. If you want to make money from your endeavors by and large (in this case Unity), the best way to do that is make a Great product and improve ongoing. Yes. I am not sure that Unity currently meets that criteria or at least its debatable.....

Nothing about the current situation is likely to Help the Unity product as notwithstanding anything existing anywhere else regarding all of this - this thread alone is a Game Engine PR disaster and enough to potentially put off any future would be users. Of course Unity could always delete it. as it brings the Unity Engine into disrepute would be a good reason they may say. Not that they need a reason as they can do what they want cant they! Thankfully not so easy to remove all of this "debate" that now exists elsewhere on the Planet.

A lot of Damage has been done from which "Everyone" concerned will need to try and recover from.
I once heard someone of some standing say (too long ago to remember who, when or where - on TV I think) a simple statement "What is needed is a little Common Sense of which there is very little existing around". Not a lot of that been around for a long time that I can remember and where it does exist no one pays any attention

Of course in the longer term the aim of massive companies and the systems they employ are already looking to the future and they will be looking to replace "us" altogether with AI to create Games and not have to rely on Dev's or even asset makers, story tellers and so on which are a pain in the backside one could say is the way they look at it, as they "have concerns" and post negative stuff in forums and alike and they need to be paid relatively small amounts of Money which they want. Its never enough.

But I will be long dead by then

And what do I care. Well I do. I feel for everyone who will be adversely affected by this including the Unity Engine itself.

Don't get me wrong here I am grateful to Unity for giving me a tool that I can make Games with despite it's failings and shortcomings which we are all aware of. Without Unity I would not have been able to Create a fully working Game at all which I have now done to all intense and purpose...so I am grateful that it has allowed me to achieve a long term ambition which is of importance to me Personally. As with most Dev's we care intensely about what we create.

I have 3 Large, complex Projects I have been working on developing with Unity.

Currently 1 of those I have recently started creating my Steam Shop Page for and am currently awaiting approval of that from Steam. The game development has taken around 6 years and around 9,000 hours of intensive work. Working most of that time constantly. 24/7/365, bank holidays, weekends and so on with little break, excepting essential endeavors like sleeping, eating and alike.

Not sure what to do with this now under the present circumstances as to be honest, the information thus far given by Unity regarding all of this is "AS CLEAR AS MUD" and I doubt that it will become any clearer.

What is needed is a little of that COMMON SENSE as referred to above and a very simple offering/explanation of what UNITY understands their information means for developers so that I and others which you will remember Unity (or at least a spokesperson for them) believe us to be "Idiots". So can I have an "Idiots Guide" Please which I do not need to be a Rocket Scientist to understand the implications of now and ongoing long term into the future.

The other two projects which are in various stages of development are effectively on standstill as you might imagine.

Sorry about the long post. I do apologize but trust it may help someone.

That's all Folks.

I wish you all Happy Game Making and a "Profitable" 2023.

Kindest Regards

Peter

 

You know how there is a funny name for groups of creatures like "a memory of elephants" or a "crash of rhinos". What we have above is known as a "bloat of hippos". Thanks, Google.

 

godot is overhyped, there are many other engines better, the problem is, most of the new devs don't know anything else than godot and unreal -.- so they came back saying "sadly there is not better option" when in reality Unity has been stagnant for more than 5 years (of course we all know now where is all the money)

 

"Guys we've decided that the pricing for Free tier will be $0.50 per runtime install. That's the least we can do".

 

Yeah I think Godot is a red herring here unfortunately. People post it for the memes but in reality it's not going to be good for anyone that needs feature rich 3D (they dont even have deferred lighting from what I can tell?)

People should be shopping around the market to see what's available rather than picking up one product and running with it forever.
I've been learning Unreal as a result of this. I hate absolutely everything about its workflow and design and the editor being a resource hog, but it is undoubtedly powerful, and its equivalent to the asset store will pick up steam once the unity refugees move in.

That's another aspect people aren't considering. Assets.
A lot of developers experienced and new rely quite heavily on assets - things like FiinalIK and Mesh Baker that make life 100x easier at the back end that you stop thinking about after a while.

 

I wrote a pure C++ plugin for UE, wasn't too bad, and the results were really good! I think C++ is faster and more secure (less likely to be decompiled) than C#. I prefer Unity C# but now am thinking of loading the UE plugin projects back up and starting to develop them out into fully functional games. Not fun, but I'm not going to allow my company's plans to be pigeon holed by some 3D engine company.

 

I mean, it definitely got a user boost and funding from the Unity kerfuffle already, it was up and coming before, now I think it is a matter of (probably not too much) time until it becomes viable for most Unity users. I agree that it's not quite there now.

 

No and no.

If you're running into things where you need C++ for that extra speed (it has but not in general), you did something wrong in your game design.
And more secure? I doubt that. You can do things in C++ which are simply not allowed in C# for good reasons.

 

Founder & Board Member at Unity Technologies

 

Oh yeah I'm definitely very happy for them to get the boost! An open source engine definitely aligns with my ideological side and I wish them nothing but the best.
It's just that for a commercial project, it's really only viable if you're making a 2D game or one with very rudimentary 3D elements.
It's something I definitely intend to explore in the future but I'm going to wait until I have a viable project that it can definitely handle first.

 

With the last tweet from the Unity account its clear that they will not rollback the changes and only will make up the worst parts, installations fee need will be removed, the Plus plan need will be return and the most important John Riccitiello must resign.

 

To restore trust in Unity I think some (greedy) bigbigboss at that company should be sent home.

 

The apologizing for confusion response reminds me of a generic ChatGPT response:

 

Can you post a link? I can’t find this tweet