Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

Lol. I'm just surprised I remembered Purebasic.

 

ho.... so no source

 

I’m surprised there’s not much news from Unity right now regarding all this. They announced this last Tuesday, and not much info since then.

 

I kind of feel like people angry at Unity are using these other engines to pull people to them, feels bad because I read about the problems other engines have. I just hope people are not pushed to another big issue....or not getting enough real information that is not biased.

 

Hi @chilton I'm using Unreal on a Macbook with M2 processor and 8 gigabytes, and it´s quite good. With my Mac Mini M2 16 Gigabytes is even better. Loading Xcode to code C++ there are less memory problems that with Unreal + VS.

 

I disagree. We are now waiting without any clue what they will do. I think that any message is better than no message. That's what communication is all about.

 

I think that refers to the people they already talked to before the Sep. 17 post (I don't remember the name of the female developer that posted in twitter and reddit). I doubt they're really into a debate with community members.

 

remember this? good stuff from 2019



https://blog.unity.com/community/updated-terms-of-service-and-commitment-to-being-an-open-platform

sounds familiar? i wish they copy pasted this today.

 

I am sure they have an intern reading this forum and making an executive summary.

 

Unity did put out a message 3 days ago:

Tech Corporations of this size take AGES to get stuff confirmed; and whatever change they make is going to likely be the last one for a loooong while whilst also determing their entire revenue strategy for the next X years. You can't rush that. They are already damaged from the first one so putting out another unplanned and unresearched announcement is going to 2x the damage. Plus also there is a quarterly earnings call this week (today?) so whatever they come up with has to align with that event.

Im not defending the runtime fees or ToS stuff; I am against these things and think they did a S*** job of the info provided. But people asked them to listen and learn from the response so they said they are doing exactly that. Lets wait and see what they come up with next in due time.

 

1. Create a cool tech demo, like Angry Bots, but modern
2. Stumble upon all engine shortcomings
3. Provide patches or workarounds to achieve the same results
4. Focus on the next big tech achievement instead of half-baked services
5. Profit!

 

We have two games in production, one made by my eldest son and daughter. They work on it together.

My game, my design is more complicated. I have to use Unity because of the tools and assets that I need. I do not trust any big company especially money is involved.

I do not think we should be telling other people that they should NOT trust, because that is personal. For me, the money is not really an issue. The issue for me is that we are able to finish our game. Everything we have done on this game as worked great for us. I have a very good reason to stay with Unity. I would have to toss my game to move to another engine.

On the otherside, if one of assets is finally ported to Unreal in the future.....been 3 years though waiting so maybe in another year, we will be making another game, one that I inherited from a UK company where I worked. Then we can learn a new engine. And we will be wiser as all experience make you better even if painful.

Not now, we are finishing the current game. We are not giving up.

My kids are adults, two in college, one finished.

 

Yes, but also Unity (the engine itself) has it's fair share of problems especially over the recent years. When it comes to development (software and game) there's a need to select the right tool for the job and in most cases that was Unity for various reasons.

 

It'll drop late friday. That's the pre-ordained time to drop news you know everybody is going to hate.

 

Brilliant! I love these guys already! They welcome us with open-arms!
C'mon guys, lets grow MonoGame! It is C#, it is 2D and 3D, it is cross-platform, it is open-source, it is has a VERY positive founder (who is now making sure MonoGame will never ever ever ever end up like Unity), it is free...... All they need now is US!

 

I remember those issues well. Every engine will have issues. We have this problem that we fell in love with Unity and do not want to change engines.

It depends on your game. We have no choice on this game. Sticking with it. I can do it all I need using the current version of Unity two assets that are required so not so bad.

 

Thank you but no thank you. Give it 6 months and see if it actually can do what you need.

 

I’m similar. I have a few apps that’s I’ve started in Unity & they’re close to being done.

I don’t think the monetary changes will really affect me. Because I’m not targeting millions of downloads, but charging a little more per download… so the pricing on Unity would actually be less than Unreal.

But I still am here ‘representing’ because I know their changes don’t stop here. I know it will mess w the community and over time it will be a very different place.

I know they’ll keep nickel and diming people, adding new fees wherever they can, paywalling more features, requiring some global ‘Unity login’ to people who download our games, applying changes retroactively to the ToS. So it’s about sticking w the community and preparing for the best and the worst.

 

I like MonoGame, it has an impressive resume (Axiom Verge, Bastion, Streets of Rage 4, Stardew Valley to name just a few) but it is INCREDIBLY low level. It took me 2 days of solid digging to find a tutorial for how to put a texture on a quad. You have to write your own cameras and transforms using matrix manipulation (or find someone else's solution and use that).

You are diving into the deepest of deep ends if you go this route.

 

Here is a good discussion about switching to MonoGame; for who it is and isn't.
https://community.monogame.net/t/how-good-of-a-replacement-is-monogame-for-unity/19448/8

 

You are probably right. It seems that I didn't take their message as anything meaningful cause it didn't contain the "We are ditching the Runtime Fee" phrase. So for me it doesn't have any value but lies

 

Cool!! Another family for Unity. When my son was 12 we encouraged to code and he said no. Our plan was to turn the company over to him. As an adult he was diagnosed with Autism and that was devastating to him. Unity and making games really helped him. He did something really well. He is one of those creative coders who just blows my mind. My guess he will move to Unreal someday.

I actually have four kids but one does not do art or coding. And she lives in another state.

 

But I thought 'any message is better than no message'?

 

I don’t think we should be pushing unity to take a flat percentage cut of our games, either. I think that would probably be much more expensive than their current plan changes.

We need something that brings unity more in alignment with what works for the community.

What they said the other day, about capping the fees at 4% would fix the most glaring issues. Would be nice if it was lower, but at least that creates a middle ground for everyone. That may be the best option.

 

Good to know.

I’ve heard good things about mono develop, but didn’t know much beyond that,

 

Seems like a good option, what is the quickest and easiest ‘hello world’ tutorial out there?

 

Indeed the flat fee is not that bad actually, it can be millions worth over Unreal 5%

Just need be capped

 

ChatGPT is actually quite good at MonoGame from what I can determine. I used XNA back in the day, and just did a few chatgpt prompts to generate MonoGame c# code for specific things and it worked quite nicely. I remember back in the day it was so hard to get context-specific answer with XNA as well. but with chatgpt and (hopefully) a growing community, more resource will be made available.

I truly think it just needs some sort of central dedicated MonoGame AssetStore ecosystem to kickstart the process. On there sample project can be provided to help newcomers start, and also provide an opportunity for developers to make money redesigning the wheel (aka libraries & modules available on Unity Asset Store) and selling it there. It is an open market for the taking IMO.

 

This whole per installation fee has so many problems I just don't understand how it was ever green lit to go out as a statement. I get that execs are probably not gamers but you don't have to be to understand that an installation does not equate to revenue. Especially on mobile where people d/l a game and never purchase anything. Not to mention tracking installs, there is no 100% reliable solution to that at this time, and even if it was, again it does not equate to revenue.

Assuming that execs are not incompetent, this looks like it was deliberate and its effect was well known before it was released. That makes me sad, since it reveals an agenda and shines a light at Unity roadmap going forward. And it does not paint a rosy picture.

 

A video on common sense reasoning that I recommend you watch, also because this guy has a slightly more positive point of view than 90% (JR's magic number) of us.

 

At this moment Unity stocks $32.09 and down, impressive.

 

Spamming the forum is not okay. It is annoying as well, at the very least do keep posting the same thing over and over. Who is the moderator here. Time to report.

 

Most of it is an identity (crisis). The focus of trust beyond B2B is indicative of it. They've found a new identity, whether it be Godot or any of the other engines and to shore up that new feeling, pulling in others is the next step. After all, if others join you, then you can't have been wrong, right? If you don't join, then your father smells of elderberry!

There's a bit of correlation to identity formation and forum posting (especially in heated threads like this). If you pull back and look at all new posts on forum.unity.com, the overwhelming majority are still in the technical subforums. And they're from people who don't post in this thread. That whole this microcosm of 'the majority' is an illusionary figure that self-feeds itself by picking narratives that feed it, and purposely attacking any that don't. Doesn't mean a percentage of those posting in regular forums are not going to switch, but if they do, it's more likely for business, technical, or just grass-is-greener reasons.

You should not feel the need to kowtow to people who demand it, especially if they resort to emotional blackmail. Best of luck.

 

Ya, as much as I don’t like the way Unity did the ToS changes and the retroactive pricing, those are separate issues from the pricing.

And as far as just pricing goes, a per install fee that’s capped is better than what unreal is doing.

I think it’s important to keep that message in the mix. While we are frustrated at Unity for how they are treating the community w scummy business practices and error prone install counting fees, the fees on a per install basis that are capped could be the better alternative of the 2.

But I think the best option is just a ‘per seat’ cost, where we just pay for what we use, and our success is our own business.

 

Looks good for 2D/2.5D stylized games. Not much in the way of good 3D. The old time hockey game looks like it is early 2000's.

 

They actually said "We will share an update in a couple of days." and also implied we were confused and that was the problem , which it was not. The problem was, we perfectly understood what they said. So they should have at least said apologies a couple of days later when expected that they are still working on it with a revised time frame so people will know where they stand. Whatever they come up with doesn't have to align with any event. What they need to do is let us know what they are going to do so we can all move on one way or another ASAP.

 

Everyone needs to make a decision for themselves about staying or leaving.. Im not going to buy assets just to support other Devs, and im not stopping my purchases to Punish Unity or devs, its more of an issue of why spend money on a Asset that i either cant use soon or will have to spend alot of time port over..

Personally i have a very hard time wanting to deal with a company that has no issue changing TOS on existing customers. it would be one thing to announce these changes for 2023 LTS but retroactive is well EA levels of bad. deleting the EuLa off Git really showed their plans. whats to say the next update isnt much worse. ill still be here to some extent as i may use the editor features ive bought to edit make new assets.. but my current project is on hold while i evaluate what to do..

 

Does monogame not have an asset store?

Because that would be amazing if someone started that pronto. Seems like one of the best options right now. Fast, capable, solid 3d & 2d. Just needs a community to grow around it, fast.

 

No, it is not, because there is NO WAY to track installs correctly. Not sure why people start arguing again and again about this.

 

Unity devs: "But we've amassed assets through the years..."

Former Flash devs...

 

Freya

 

Most are free so just a lose of time if it dont work out.

 

Repeat after me:

Any fee based on a made up number is bad because it is not real and it doesn't represent income to you and it is a source of Unity F***ing you in the ass whenever they choose because you are supposed to provide real statistics about a thing cannot be reliably tracked with our current technology.

Wow, for some reason the forum UI is bugged when I made a paragraph italic. Anyway, fixed.

 

Yesterday.....they are considering or already have said that they would allow developers to self report. I do not understand, if you are on Steam don't you have access to the number of times your game has been installed for the first time per user? It would be interesting if they do allow for that. Yeah, it is work, lot of paper to file, but we all do that anyway.

 

The other big issue here is that they're getting rid of Plus memberships.

Keep in mind that all the Plus membership really does is let you turn off the splash screen. So for that privilege, you will pay around $40 a month.

But not now. No, if we want to turn off the splash screen ad for Unity, we now pay $185 a month. They try to cram a bunch of random stuff that we didn't ask for onto that plan to act like we're getting more for our money, but there's no other plan that lets us turn off the splash screen.

Basically we have to pay $185 a month to turn off the ad for Unity.

 

Does that include reinstalls? I don't know either. Not sure how much GPT can be trusted here.

Edit: From ChatGPT...
As of my last knowledge update in September 2021, Steam (a popular digital distribution platform for games) did not provide developers with the exact number of installations or first-time installs for their games. Steam has traditionally been tight-lipped about providing specific user data to developers to protect user privacy. Developers do not have direct access to personal user information or specific installation counts.

As of my last knowledge update in September 2021, Apple does not provide developers with specific user data regarding the number of times their app has been installed for the first time. Apple is also very strict about user privacy and does not share individual user data with developers.

 

I am following these tutorials at present : https://cynthiamcmahon.ca/blog/monogame-tutorials/

 

And supports Unity's efforts to make a great engine. I know, joke's on me, I had Plus without the legal need to have one. Just because I like to support the software I'm using. I'm the stupid.

No, you have sales. And there is a world beyond Steam anyway.

 

I am not sure why this would help in any way, as there is no way anybody can report correct numbers. It does not make sense and convolutes the policy without needing it. The only reliable numbers are units sold or revenue.

 

Stardew Valley's developer is using MonoGame for his next title: https://www.hauntedchocolatier.net/faq/. It's definitely a very good pick to 2D game.

MonoGame also supports .net hot reload, which is a very big deal to me.