Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

A consistent 4% or 5% is still miles ahead of where we were with the scheme that was initially proposed here.

Is it ideal? No. But we don't live in an ideal world; there are always going to be compromises here and there. Assuming Unity abandon the idea of tracking installs (which doesn't seem likely), a simple revenue share is at least predictable and easier to work with for signficantly more people than what was initially proposed.

I maintain that if this had been the plan they initially proposed, then there would not nearly have been as much backlash. You'd get a few grumbles, sure, because it's going to inevitably eat into your revenue at a time where it matters more than ever, but I haven't encountered a single developer out in the wild who has been outwardly critical of Unreal's policies.

 

they may try to sell for $30 or above, but only very small number of games make 10m+ revenue. so, taking these extreme examples are deceitful and bad for the conversation. there is extreme examples in both sides that make the other look better.

 

It's not 0.2 per copy but per install. Which means installing on 2 laptops = 0.4. Installing on 5 phones (apparently pretty common): $1.
Aaand they say they may change the numbers whenever they want (remember - Plus being discontinued = multiplying the cost by 4).
The worst case for Unity is to ask you $12 million over one year because of the 4% cap. NOT $2million.

The only way that deal is better than Unreal's is because of the cap, but even then, it means you never know how much you have to pay until 1 year after you got paid for your game.

And then there are technicalities: How do you count installs? How do you contest Unity contesting your install count? How much would you pay your lawyer if you were too successful not to be sued by them?

 

We had an asset that allowed unity to use nested prefabs LONG BEFORE unity added it to the editor

And, I suspect unity simply bought that asset to make their solution...

Which is worse, BTW...

 

Now do for $10, $5, $1, $0.1 per copy.
$0.1 is for mobile market.

 

That worst case assumes that Unity will contest the obvious 1 install per sale that developers will report and that all users install all games multiple times, which is not that usual.

 

Developers like Relogic have a good point with going with open source engines, and on many different levels, and can avoid disastrous situations like seeing here. Considering doing same as am in between projects atm...

 

I am probably wrong but the way things are looking as of right now. This thread is going to be here and expanding for a long time yet until 2024 at least and then another year of utter Chaos to follow or perhaps complete implosion before then

A simple, fair, written in stone solution where there are no losers and only winners is what is needed. Something that causes no harm to anyone or anything. Unfortunately there are few cases of that to be seen anywhere in the Human environment. Sadly.

It's not only Unity & co that is to blame for this situation. All of the other Players external to Unity have and continue to contribute to the whole situation which the Industry finds itself in.

Indie Game Makers (individuals and smaller companies in particular) are shafted to the hilt by all the other major industry Players and others too. If you consider all of the costs they have to burden. which in almost every case is utterly disgusting and which is unlikely to change ever. I wont name any we know all know where all our money goes. e.g. Game Sale Distribution/Outlet Fees and so on, 30%, 15%, 5% even 50% the kind of figures which are simply ridiculous.

Unity are not the only bad guys/gals here. Everyone along the chain is a bad guy/gals taking an unreasonable, nonsensical share and leaving you in many cases with nothing or leaving you in debt if you are not careful.

That is not likely to change unless its to make things worse which is very likely.

I applaud everyone here for making a stand and all of those who support the attempt here to find a fair and reasonable solution that benefits everyone long term.

Doubtful that will make much difference long term but thankfully there are people who are willing to make a stand when "Enough Becomes More than Enough" in an effort to genuinely help all concerned and the wider world too some small degree in doing so.

Whatever comes to pass regarding the Unity situation here the "Others" who take much too much of your money will do nothing to help and ease or help the situation as far as I can see. They will still do so if not even Increase their "Fees" if they can get away with it too.

Roll on 2024 and some more posts here

Not very optimistic I know. Again what do I know? answer, Nothing.

Perhaps by tomorrow everything will be Hunky Dory and we will all live in harmony, happily ever after.

 

If we allow the install/runtime bull**** we open the door for all sorts of craziness from all software companies

Unity have to give us what we demand or they are done. They will yield if we keep refusing it. We dictate the price AND structure

 

- Don't forget to include the Unity subscription fees you have to pay / invest upfront.
- Epic's custom terms is negotiable.
- Revenue generated from the Epic Games Store will be excluded from the calculations of the 5% royalty due for Unreal Engine.

 

If no news in the next 8 hours - we have an answer. They had better say something today before the weekend lol

 

Excuse me, right now I'm not inclined to assume that Unity will not behave as **** for some reason.
If you don't plan for the worst case scenario, you may end up in a really bad situation.

 

Been working on a new splash screen to add to the final release of my Unity games. Here's a draft:

 

https://twitter.com/willgoldstone/status/1705115457664036996

 

What is most infuriating is that they left a trail of useful features that were presented but never completed and integrated.

A lot of bugs that we've been living with for years.

Instead they spend a lot of money and investment to have the algorithm created to control the installations.

This makes it clear what the line of thought is, that is, not having a better and competitive product, but something mediocre and poorly functioning that squeezes money.

 

Unity has opted for the install metric for a reason.

 

Nope. Unreal's EULA is perpetual for a given version. They can change it for subsequent versions only.

 

Sad but true

 

I don't know if they bought it but I know it was a significant amount of work to make.

Prefabs within prefabs was in very high demand. There is a reason people waited for it instead of making their own or buying the solution from the assets store.

Anyways, the point is that it's not our job to make these tools because they're an entire business on their own.

 

You guys break my heart

 

When you don't have money to pay AT ALL for a creation software, you can't expect the full feature set - simple as that.
For students there is a student version around.

A lot of developers earning money with the free version - and they are easyly to move to the PLUS version. 400€/year is a fair deal for individuals.
With the PERSONAL version you should be able to learn the Software as a non student, but not be able to release anything to an audience.
With that mechanism unity would earn a lot more money in a fair way and could stop the stupid installation fee idea.

 

well said. from indie perspective, i could say on average making games is just an expensive hobby. forget those 10m+ revenues. here is some facts:



about 50% of games make revenue just 1k (one thousand dollars) in LIFETIME on steam. great stuff. an average indie developer may very well pay more for unity seats that it will ever make revenue.

 

In addition, the install metric, technically, includes refunded games. The proportion is certainly not going to be 10 installs per buy on PC, but you don't have the metrics to know it.
If Unity says it's "per purchase", the problem vanishes except for F2P games.
And the whole point is that they are targetting F2P games here. That's why they make this "per install" fee (which would require DRM to be able to track).

 

I don't know about you, but forbidding releasing a game on anything at all unless you fork out money for something other than the Personal edition is very much not something I would consider "fair". A significant number of games release for free on platforms like itch.io and the like; do you really think it's a sensible idea to force developers to pay for something they're not going to make money from?

 

even if you're releasing to that audience for zero cost?

 

Exactly. This is the reality. But everybody dreams about being the next Among Us. You never know.

 

You bought your computer, didn't you? Is that fair?

 

Um no its very common to install a game multiple times
I would say literally all the games I have played more than a flash in the pan on I have installed multiple times on multiple bits of hardware

Its very common for F2P to have that cycle based on patches, events and updates as well and even more common for mobile where storage space is limited but yes even on PC where drives fail or "actively played" games the user will run on a fast but small drive and they get moved to a slow drive when downgraded or simply uninstalled never mind PC gamers upgrade hardware every few years Mobile damn near every year for some of them but at least every 2-3 years

So no 1 user != 1 install
And Unity knew that or they would have said "per user" ... they didn't though did they ... they said "per install" and originally they were saying yes reinstalls count so clearly they wanted a way for some to pay more than X% that was a clear attempt at subversion there is no way around that reality.

Yes for a portion it would be less than X% but for some, it would be more that's the only reason Unity went with a model that is harder to manage, puts more risk of disagreement in transactions, and makes just more work for them to do ... there is no world where that was better ... unless you account for the fact that you might make more money on those that have a wide install base and high rev e.g. mobile games with high turn over which is where I am sure they thought they where aiming

But that doesn't excuse it ... that is a scummy thing to have done
Just like retro-application is a scummy thing to have done

And its the willingness and drive to do a scummy thing that is the issue here

Untiy needs a royalty model ... said that some time ago
Unity needs to be profitable so they need to do more than just a game engine services, games, publishing, financing, something but game engine alone will not cut it

I said these things because I want them to not just scrape by but turn a profit and grow. I want the tools I use to "win" as a company less they make as we have seen here stupid shortsighted decisions based on fear and desperation

So I am not opposed at all to royalties
I am opposed to a partner that is able and willing to gut me like a fish and Unity showed they are that with this move. The only fix to that is corrective action + time

 

yep. developers are not starting projects thinking about that 1k. no, their game is something special. years go by and they realize, they have paid 10k for subscriptions of various softwares and they have made nothing. that's why the revenue-model is much better for smaller devs. they probably won't make any moneys, ever.

 

Here are the magic words that would have prevented most of this drama:

> These new terms will apply to any game shipping Unity Runtime 2024.1.0 or later.

 

Yes, that bothers me a lot.
I remember a few years ago when they presented Megacity and announced ECS/DOTS with the goal of "Performance by default".
And now, a couple of YEARS later?
In the meantime Epic: here, guys, try Nanite, try Lumen, just get Quixel Assets for free.

 

Probably some of it. However, a runtime fee is still invalid as it is impossible to track and also does not make any sense.

 

That is true. However I think the most egregious part of the announcement, at least for me, was the retroactive nature of it.

 

With that attitude Among Us would never been made.

 

Fairly true for all entrepreneur-related things
So yes Unity wasn't wrong when they said wouldn't affect 90% that isn't the argument though

Those of us here to make a stable and sustainable business absolutely are working toward breaking 1m rev on a project that actually isn't much considering the investment in time and resources to do that. And we aren't complaining about needing to pay ... want to pay ... again want Unity to "win" at being a profitable business less they will do what they have done and make stupid short-sighted decisions.

The issue with all of this has been the retroactive BS and scumminess of it
No I don't expect my business partners to be paragons of virtue, I do however expect them to operate in good faith and with a level of competency and stability that I can count on.

As you pointed out making the game industry work as a day job as a company owner ... is DAMN hard, so I need stable, reliable partners I can count on ... not looking for the cheapest, or even the technical best or fastest, etc. ... I am looking for stable, reliable partners and solutions that meet my needs and with this move Unity unticked a lot of those boxes

 

For me the worst part was it made my future with Unity iffy. I always expected them to change the terms retroactively I did not expect this dog’s breakfast.

 

Seeing how we, the heart of their community, have been stonewalled since last Monday night, I hold little hope or expectation that any announcement today will be satisfactory.

 

i'm not talking about attitude. i'm talking about reality.

 

Note that it more or less used to be their business model.

Back in the day, Unity free was missing key features like shadows or the profiler. There was an incentive to upgrade to paid versions.

They threw it all away by making everything available for free at the expense of paid users who lost their advantage.

Now, they're surprised they don't make money from the editor...

 

You expect a game engine to be free, that is developed by devs fulltime, who need to get paid regularly?
Who do you think is paying for them? Ohh, you does not care, as long as you don't have to pay.

The fact is not that unity has to be paid for developing their Software. The question is, what mechanisms and how much price increase in a certain timeframe is fair. For me, the shady download fee and a price increase to nearly 500% (by moving from PLUS to PRO) is not.

So, when they need more money to develope this engine along, another mechanism than what they offered is needed. I gave you an example how that could look like.

And no game dev is required to release his work for free.

 

At no point did I say a game engine had to be free. At no point whatsoever. Stop putting words in my mouth.

At no point did I say I do not care so long as I don't have to pay. At no point whatsoever. Stop putting words in my mouth.

At no point did I say Unity shouldn't be able to make money in order to develop their engine. At no point whatsoever. Stop putting words in my mouth.

At no point did I say a game developer is required to release a game for free. At no point whatsoever.

Stop putting words in my mouth.

 

For my sake I hope you're wrong. While I'm under no delusion that it is hard to break out, it is possible. Just like making nothing is possible. Developers work on games because they believe in them, and have hope of breaking out. If Unity terms state that if you break out you'll fail then they're taking that hope away, and any motivation to use their s/w in the first place. Reality is harsh, yes, but your point of view is very defeatist. If you're not going to make any money then why bother in the first place.

 

I know. But they had to move to kind of that mechanism, because Unreal started to give their engine for "free". But now, instead of their stupid ideas they came up with, i think it's better to come back to kind of a pricing model they had before: Bring back the PLUS plan and establish more limitations in the personal version to bring more devs to move to PLUS. Then you have a good ramp of features between personal, plus and pro.

 

This is not true.

 

i never said it's not possible. i never said you shouldn't go for it. i'm going for it. i believe in it. i just stated some facts. i just pointed out that those subscriptions may be more expensive than you think. those who pay revenue-share usually can afford it. those who pay subscription (plus/pro?) may have to think if they pay the plan or eat healthier or something.

 

Furthermore, every time they hold conferences to explain all these technologies (which in the best case scenario die forgotten on GitHub) they spend just as much money.

In fact, Unreal is having a lot of success, it study , presents an innovation and integrates it.

Unity Technologies spends on research and then? Nothing.

 

No, of course not. That's what i said.

and now come on and tell me your plans on how Unity should earn their money. What's your idea on pricing plans and fees?

 

I see. I guess I misinterpreted your point. I agree that revenue-share makes a lot more sense. In any case, upwards and onwards. Good luck on your project.

 

i know this is going to sound bad, but, i've been thinking for some years now that unity should have some kind of filter to release commercial games, like, for example, if you want to release a commercial game but you do not have money, you send them your game for revisions and if they think your game worth something, they let you release your game... if you don't want to wait for revision, then you pay a fee (for commercial games)
There will be lots of "asset flips" but not commercial = less scammers