Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

Hi
is anyone planning on attending the Unite?

 

I don't understand why some of the board members sold their stock at the current price. Isn't it at an all-time low? So, it would only result in a loss for them. These people can make the dumbest technical decisions ever, but I'm sure when it comes to money, they all know how to make more. Are they trying to trick retail traders into selling their stock to accumulate more before the price skyrockets? Or is there something going on at the company that they feared it will have a negative impact and cause the price to drop even further? Or did they receive their shares for free? Or are they just... dump?

 

Not yet?

 

The all time low can be only one : zero.
Lower than that there is only the delisting of the stock.

 

Unity's all-time low was $21.22.

52 Week Range $21.22 - $50.08

 

The conference pass pricing is now rumoured to be changing to a formula based on your age, height and waist circumference, payable in Bitcoin over a rolling 12 month contract. Probably. I might give it a miss this year.

 

Still much better than track installs

 

Automated selling from investment vehicle meant to avoid insider trading. You're suppose to set one up early in the game when you're not privy to material information. At minimum, it'll be set to dispose of roughly equal amounts of stock to their options and/or RSU vesting for tax purposes and just to keep their portfolio from overbalancing towards the company. I know there's a lot of misinformation out there about how they're not buying stock. They get it vesting via their compensation package, so of course they don't buy and only sell.

* edit: RSU - Restricted Stock Units. Locked from selling for a set duration. Comp packages will be XXXX over 4 years, X unlocking every year. You get taxed income on those vesting RSUs even if you don't sell (makes sense), so it's prudent to sell some to cover those costs.

 

Buy the dip at 20, make sense.

 

So they received the compensation at 20 and sold it at 50, making a 100% profit. This seems like a normal activity to me, as opposed to what the media has recently speculated.

 

It would be a good sign if no one went there. It's very hypocritical to talk to developers as "friends" and "unite" after what happened.

Btw.
I dunno how will be the news from Unity but I was thinking that I should patent this idea...

No more:
RUNTIME-FEE
but
RUN-TIME-FEE.

Every minute a player plays (RUN) your game (and EVER played retroactively, of couse) the developer must pay 0.2$ / min.

 

Please don't give them new ideas ^^

 

"we are more than happy to give you money" to save this product, yes i know we are all agree on that

https://youtu.be/uOpYnuIpjgk

 

"We’re updating the Runtime Fee, and we’ll be sharing a new FAQ outlining the details in the next few days"



Seriously tho WHAT IN THE EVER LOVING HOLY GOD DAM F*** ARE THEY THINKING? Certain, guaranteed death. And fair solutions for everyone are proposed in this thread. Well done you "f***ing idiots", as John would say.

 

That's not what I said my empty scene is around 67MB which means I already start from this MB to start developing the game.
I checked your game and it's about 231MB on final build... In my opinion just for a Runner game that's a lot. I have my own game in Unity a "runner" game that I have made years ago and it's all about 70MB on final build initially is about 34MB.

Then I have a couple of questions to you:
1. In your game I noticed some slowdowns and lag, is this due to the positioning of the objects?
2. Why did you low a lot textures it seems that your resolution is really low or is it just a prefabs itself that have a low polygons? (Because for me they're both low resolution so then why your apk is still that high in terms of size?)

 

Personally I'm waiting for it to go to $0.20, something appealing about that number.

 

Imagine being JR when coming to the stage.

 

True and I didn't know about this feature so thanks!

 

In my saddest moments, I imagined him having sandals thrown.

 

John Riccitiello when someone bought Unity stock

 

Sorry if this was mentioned before, but I hope that Unity leadership is aware that this is showing a significant impact on your Asset Store.

Sales are down by 5x or more for many publishers.
This is going to wipe out lots of small publishers who were relying on this to pay food & rent.

 

You don't seem to get it. It isn't about the money. We all want Unity to be profitable. It's about the underhanded tactics, the total loss of trust and the retroactive cash-grab. This amounts to developing under conditions in which Unity can, at any time in the future, take as much money as they like by changing the TOS.

Imagine, your game is successful and in 10 years time JR and his posse need several new sets of gold shoes so they decide that your game's install fee is now 80 cents per install. Whoops, now you're bankrupt and you have no money for your kid's university fees or even a home.

It wasn't ever about the money. It was about the total loss of trust and the completely unpredictable and hostile business conditions that followed.

 

For us, the first thing that's very important is that they don't change the TOS retroactively. The fees, no matter what kind, should only be allowed to be introduced with a new Unity major version. The price of the pro-subscription can still be adjusted for inflation. This is the only way we can do serious business with Unity. For our next game, we can then adjust and consider whether Unity is still our first choice.

 

I think that applies to both of those people.

 

I think having predictable fees that don't require either you or Unity to also track installation numbers via self report or a data collector is also a huge turnoff. Meeting halfway here is really not an option.

Any royalty system, if any, has to be easy, fair and predictable. And be made more than three months in advance and not retroactively. Nothing about the current one is acceptable.

 

Not to mention having royalty fees on top of already existing subscription fees. Like bro, do one or the other, not both. That's like charging full price for a game and then wanting customers to pay for ammo in-game.

 

Based on that, I'd imagine those selling books, training programs and video materials teaching Unity are down by 10x

 

you need to understand, that they CHOSE to LOSE money to get huge customer base which can be extracted later. they CHOSE growth over profit with "cheap" licenses and big headcount. they may need money now, but we owe them nothing. it's not our job to help them to survive in their greediness.

no. they are EXACTLY where they wanted to be years ago. i swear i'm gonna explode soon when someone says again "but, they need this money". it's like giving alcohol to an alcoholic. don't do it! they will only ask more.

 

You should read this thread which was also created by the book's author: https://forum.unity.com/threads/im-...e-godot-after-unitys-shady-decisions.1309665/

 

If you earn more than $200K, you are not a small studio anymore, and you should pay accordingly. Now, I don't necessarily agree with charging based on installations, simply because installations alone aren't a good indicator for revenue. They should think of a different, more accurate, and a fair way to measure "success".

 

Agree

 

I still don't understand how doing so would be legal. There's no reason to have a TOS if it can be changed retroactively in the future. Any company worth their salt would also signpost future changes way, way in advance - allowing customer to adapt.

We might just be vocal about the situation, but the larger player will simply take Unity to court.

 

Unity,

It is now day TEN of consequences for your complete unmitigated disaster of an announcement.

You STILL have not proposed or leaked terms that we find anywhere near acceptable.

You STILL do not seem to understand that for many of us, the MAIN sticking point is the Unity's bad-faith removal of the ability for the developer to remain on their current TOS.

You STILL have not properly apologized for YOUR actions. You have only apologized for feelings you perceive that we have. We are not confused, we are righteously enraged. The terms offered are the problem, not our response to it.

You STILL have not even begun to properly engage US, the community, yet you tout on twitter that you have.

This will not go away for you. This rage we have will not lessen in degree. The longer you wait to address this, the worse that it will get, because your continued reluctance to do the right thing only reinforces for us how little you value us as partners.

So, I will state my demands plainly and succinctly again, along with my plan of action if these terms are not met. Note that since Unity has not been addressiing this situation, it has become clear to me that further changes are needed beyond what I have been asking for in recent days:

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.

Basing your fee on a number that is not tied to revenue is ludicrous and unworkable. You do not have the magic means to count number of installs, and neither do we. It's an unauditable metric. Eliminate the install fee.

Your CEO, board of directors, and management needs to be purged of anyone who proposed, touted, or championed this plan, or delayed adequate response to the fallout from it. That this situation has been allowed to protract for this long is unacceptable. Failure to address the situation continues to add further injury and demonstrates clearly that the current management does not have what it takes to be good stewards of Unity technology.

Until these things happen I will continue to standby with pitchfork and torch in hand and explore options to enforce my rights under contract. I will also continue actively and passively campaigning against the use of Unity in the industry, highlighting your bad faith business dealings even further than they are currently exposed publicly.

No one can deny that Unity needs to do something to improve their income statement. However, core basis of the proposed plan, even with the Bloomberg-leaked updates, is unworkable and unacceptable to pretty much all of us. Over the last six years you frittered money away on everything else except the new technologies that we need for Unity to stay relevant. Now you come hat in hand for more money, talking about the need to balance some value equation, yet over the years, by letting your core product languish while chasing tangents, we are receiving less value from Unity than we were six years ago. Which end of the value equation really needs balanced here?

Grow some institutional courage and fortitude and come talk to us directly. You claim that you have talked to the community, but we here in the forums definitely do not feel listened to, having had zero meaningful contact with anyone from Unity in over a week. By leaving this forum thread for so long without engagement, you are displaying acute cowardice and apathy toward us. We may be angry and loud right now and VERY justifiably so, but generally we're really nice people and you used to know that.

Let's have some meaningful dialogue AS A COMMUNITY and not just these back-channel deals and attempts to mollify the enterprise customers

 

Oh, it is all about the money.

On one hand, any company must be profitable at some point, and that was the goal of the proposed changes. Unfortunately, this particular execution would hurt some developers significantly harder than others and has other flaws - and definitely should be revised.

On the other hand, apparently all those 90% developers that wouldn't be affected aspire to be in that remaining 10% some day, and act as if they were there already.

Someone mentioned that "ecosystems and all this forum" is against this change (and even banned a poor guy who dared to express a different opinion). Of course they are: if you have a chance to join a protest against paying more than before, you do it.

Regarding the "trust" - remember, every (commercial) organisation's goal is to GROW, and for that they usually must be profitable. If the "trust" is in its way, it gets sacrificed (with all the consequences). Companies should be never treated as human beings when it comes to "trust". They're built to bring money.

The best outcome IMO:

• Unity revises its policy so that it's acceptable by a reasonable number of people (you'll never satisfy everyone).
• This keeps Unity afloat for a couple of years, that gives other engines a chance to mature.

All these cries about CEO stepping down, Unity going bankrupt, loosing stock value (i.e., shareholders' money who funded the engine's development you use to publish games) and similar things is childish, like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Be pragmatic.

 

Ha ha, are you me?

 

does anyone know where those talks with the community are happening?

 

Well, not quite.

The thing is, once you release a game with a modicum of success, you get drowned in admin stuff (especially in certain countries). Adding "self reporting made up numbers to Unity" every month, or "having to check if the made up number Unity assigned to our game is crazy" is something I'm really not looking forward to adding to my list of tasks I don't want to do.

 

there was already a former unity dev that came forward, and he said that the dudes like tomar zeev dumped their stock when it was 170$ so they already squeezed unity dry, they already made bank on it

 

Wow that is not an insignificant pre-market move.

 

well, 200k may sound a lot for a student, but it really isn't. 200k - store fees, taxes etc. can be 100k. then you pay your rent, tech, licenses and other stuff (for development time, like 1-2 years?). then if there is anything left you pay salaries. if it took 2 people 2 years to create 50k that's ~1k / month. then you pay your personal taxes and whatever. you end up with $700 a month. that's not a small studio?

 

$200k is nothing. That's gross revenue, before 30% store cut, taxes, salaries, rent etc. etc. According to Glass door, the average salary for a Unity developer is $89268 - a year.

>$200k is not a business, more likely a part-time job.

@gordo32 beat me to it

 

Unfortunately, and I'm happy to be proven wrong, I don't think the change (when they update their site) will be satisfactory to many of us. I believe top management at Unity still think we're confused, yet it's them that are confused. They really don't understand the situation, the seriousness of what they're proposing and how their changes are damaging to the Gaming Industry. Please prove me wrong Unity!

 

That's a different matter. It is politics. And you don't wanna go there.

 

its actually their model of the community, the one they're using for install and revenue estimates.

 

it's the retroactive part which is the most damaging - we paid our licenses & released some games years ago. what were we paying those licenses for, if they can come along and decide they want up to 4% of revenue from them. - if they really think they can do that, they might drop the $1M threshold...or they might bring it up to 10%... - if they really believe they can make retroactive changes to the terms previous games were released under.

it's gotta be from Unity 2024 releases onwards, or the whole thing is unworkable. & it could end up with them having to fight a whole bunch of legal cases over whether they can really apply this stuff retroactively (distracting their resources & focus further). - but it'll definitely lead to more developer backlash and uncertainty, more people abandoning the engine, publishers being unwilling to take on Unity titles, etc... - and who wants to develop using an engine which will have limited support or further slowed development in a year or two? who wants to develop on an engine publishers are going to be unwilling to trust? pretty much nobody. so it'll just accelerate them towards closing up.

frustrating, but there y'go. the pricing isn't really the problem (yet...! it could easily become the problem, 'coz they think they can change it whenever...) - it's the way in which they're trying to apply it. - and I'm sure a lot of people will see "installs aren't counted retroactively any more" and think that the retroactive part is removed... but that's not the case.

if the bloomberg leak is it, then it won't resolve this imo.

 

Sell because they think it will drop then buy back in more shares at a lower price, either release a great deal or sell the company then stock goes back up and they get their return. That's my guess.

 

Narrative vs. reality.

Ever since they announced it I've been calling them out for not actually engaging us and basically lying about it.

 

200k including Steam Fees means that you are so small you may even not count as a studio.

 

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Unity to come to its senses. Best thing to do is take our future into our control and actively start reducing our dependence on the engine.

 

Noticed that too. It's actually even lower now 3%.