Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

How well timed, I was just writing up a continuation of what I was saying.

In reference to my previous post, what I am saying is the more obstructions you put up for anyone trying to make use of a program, system, service etc., you're immediately limiting how many will use it. It's true in everything; you limit how many people make a game, you limit how many people edit a video, make music, or just drive a car. The more limits in place, the harder it becomes to do anything.

Now, some restrictions are more justifiable than others. If everyone was allowed to drive a car without a license, for example, the roads would be an impossible mess. There are reasons for some checks and balances to ensure things work properly for all parties.

But here's the thing: the moment you start charging for a feature that you once always had available for free, you start making your product much less desirable.

As an example, Twitter has had a rough ride of it because a number of features have been mangled and put behind a paywall that makes it far less usable to, say, me. I use Twitter a fair bit, but it has become unsustainable because I'm at a disadvantage with refusing to pay for Premium. And that's fine, if the product hasn't changed at all for free users and is improved for those who pay up, but the experience has been made materially worse for a lot of reasons that I won't bore you with because you all likely already know.

Obviously, Unity has to make money. It needs these subscriptions and the revenue shares and whatnot in order to be sustainable. I want Unity to be sustainable. Pissing off a not-insignificant chunk of your install base is not the way to do it, and preventing developers from publishing a game on the Personal subscription — something that has been possible for many years now — would only further damage things than what they already have.

As far as what Unity should do? The hell are you asking me for? I don't work for Unity, and I do not speak for game developers as a whole. All I know is making your install base abscond to other engines like Unreal, Godot, FNA, what-have-you by making it economically impractical (maybe even impossible) to develop a game on for most is absolutely not the solution to the problem.

 

just make a rule that if you are earning money you are forced to pay for the plus

if you are not earning anything at all dont pay anything

nothing different than what it was all along

many ppl are doing dev and earn 0$, if you force people who dont earn to pay they just wont be able to use unity at all, it makes no sense because you could just allow them to use it until they start earning money

 

Comparing a subscription for a piece of software that is billed monthly or annually and continues for as long as the service is active and the billing agreement is intact, with a one-time transaction for a piece of hardware that I can theoretically do whatever I want with, is such a non-starter for arguments that I'm not even going to entertain it beyond this.

 

What they said is pretty much impossible to do on platforms like iOs. So expect to pay for a lot of re-installs no matter what they claim. And don't get me started with how much you gonna pay for pirated versions of your application/game. So far no copy protection ever was able to save a game from being pirated. Still unity claims that they are able to somehow detect if your unity application is from legit sources. Crazy - nobody was able to do in decades, but they are claiming to have the tools? For me that's another technically impossible claim by Unity.

 

I would fire or sell 2,000 to 3,000 employees. Sell Weta Digital and some of the other non-core activity's. Remove the splash screen. Only require Pro if your company makes more then $1 million in the last 12 months. On Personal I would charge a 2% royalty and on Pro 1%. I would rename personal as basic.

 

yes, this is something they absolutely shouldn't do. entering a new business, publishing or just being a gatekeeper who can do what with their engine is just impossible. then again, maybe that's exactly what they should do publishing is something they haven't tried yet. great idea!

 

These sound pretty good to me, but it’ll never happen.

 

Goodbye, Unity.

 

Is like any saas, want more features within plans (and they must be of value), then you going to pay for it, whether you make your ROI back or not. If main concern is not getting any ROI on F2P, then make sure to have these games making money somehow. Already been mentioned that developing games for success is risky and there no guarantees, and expensive, so what is a few hundred more spent on the engine you using to create those games in order to release them with Plus version on up, leaving Personal for strictly learning Unity? I like this idea, could make game in Personal, but if want to release it, upgrade to Plus

 

I already explained why this isn't the point I'm trying to make, and I'm getting sick of this whole thing, so this'll be the last I talk about it on the subject.

The more barriers you put up at the start for something, the people you'll have using your product to make something. A developer making a game as a hobby and putting it up on itch.io shouldn't have to be charged at any point in the process of making that game if they're not charging for it.

I don't know how my point got twisted in the way that it did in all this noise, but screw me, I guess.

 

So the company that failed to release their own game must filter others? Heh

 

It's like you have a personal mission to have the worst opinions possible.

 

Several times, and it's almost certainly not accurate. They put postings like this all the time, and they're always for UE4 and Unity. They'll very probably still be using Unity.

 

why are people fighting here in the trenches, just for the free users to be thrown under the bus?

if it was like that who cares about retroactive fees? blizzard, nintendo and other billion dollar companies can take care of themselves but who will save the ppl who have no money?

 

Gonna have to disagree with you. We don't want to give Unity more power. Also what criteria would they use to judge your game. This mechanism would be ripe for abuse and could be twisted by bias inside Unity for whatever reason, politics, religion, whatever other agendas the "revisionist" could have.

 

XD hahahaahahah yeah kind of

 

Doesn't that suggest Godot is the best option here? It gives you a good editor; if the engine implementation doesn't work in your case, you can extend theirs or roll your own.

 

Yeah, the mistake was to make everything free. A lot of features like occlusion culling, networking, read write external files, the profiler... etc, could be removed and 99% of hobbyists wouldn't notice. But anybody who makes a living from Unity would be happy to pay for them since there is a return on investment.

 

That's why the the Personal plan is there for free. And it should be free prospective. People can download Unity playing around with it and start diving deeper. Even developing along their game or app for free. But as soon as they start to release it, they should be forced to at least PLUS. Or they say releases with PERSONAL only for WebGL aso, there are options to fine tune that idea.
That's a fair deal. I mean, as an fair alternative to what they came up with, and it would still give them a lot more revenue.

 

i mean, would not be an obligation, you could always pay for release, i think they had a system like that sometime in the past (?) where they tested your game... i do not remember how it was called

 

Testing is one thing. I think you mentioned also that if they think your game is worth something. So if they do think the game is worth something and they release, how do they make money? If this was explained already, apologies. Didn't see it above.

 

No, that was Steam. And basically every developer agrees that it was bad for games.

 

Agree. I prefer a revenue-based fee too.

 

This will give them ideas to remove the dark theme from Personal

 

Sadly the Unity crisis have not solution while John Riccitiello runs the company, wasted money buying other companies like Weta Digital or Ironsource and the big bonus for the company directives causes that Unity have not future.

 

I mean, this is a pretty decent factor for all the outrage, right?

It's not like it's a company that is laser focused on the engine and still, somehow, they can't make enough revenue.

No, it's a company that is spending insane amounts of money trying to break into other industries and for bonuses for their execs and yet somehow, they need gamedevs to fund those things?

 

Ok, what about electricity then?

 

What resource is being consumed when I open the same Unity editor version every day?

 

I agree.
However I also feel it is perfectly acceptable to ask those who are generating revenue to support/pay Unity. Alas I really don't think there is a good way of achieving that, subscriptions clearly don't and anything else just gets real complex, real quickly. For example using royalty system, it would be possible to say release games on itch.io for free, but get supported on say Patreon, thus paying Unity nothing! Sure you could start introducing more and more terms/rules to grab that money, but then we are back at to part of the current issue, where by its impossible to account for everything.

Then I realised we don't have to! Even though it might be unpopular, moving to a royalty scheme only, maybe a nice one with increasing % the more sales you get even if starting at a lower threshold, could just be interpreted as those who have hit games are supporting those dev's who are unable to pay or are generally just releasing games for free for the enjoyment of it. Ultimately the hope is that the more games a developer produces the greater the chances of them having a hit and thus eventually paying into supporting Unity.

Maybe those details need tweaking, but the point is to introduce a 'framing' that justifies a both a royalty scheme, whilst not demanding subscriptions from those who are unable to pay.

 

I would not like that a third-party which I do not have a direct relationship with would have the final decision on releasing a game I have made. It's true that there's o lot of trash in the stores but they simply don't sell two copies. The market itself puts you in your place. In addition, I have seen also a lot of garbage made with Unreal. It is something that it's hard to control and, in any case, it should never be controlled by the engine providers. It should be controlled by publisher and/or stores.

Also, providing versions of the engine without the capability of exporting games prevents those engines from being used by hobbyists and people participating in game jams. Do not forget that one of the reasons why Unity is popular is because they were able to make the engine accesible and letting the people produce builds of their games.

 

Right...a small hobbyist and or studio has to buy plus? We always thought we would move to plus in the future. Nope does not exist anymore. I was around when Unity 5 was upgraded and things like culling and post-processing was added. I worked with a lot of asset developers, testing and later doing support. I support Asset developers and spend a lot money on assets that we need.

The hobbyists and small studios maybe are not important to you, but there are too many of us. Too bad..this is a lovely community, and I would hate to see it so destroyed by greed, but also by others who want to step us small studios.

The money was taken out of Unity, it is not our fault. We spend plenty of money that goes to Unity and the asset developers.

If you lose the hobbyists and others, no one will be able to climb up. Unity will lose, not gain revenue. It is why Unity 5 was changed.

Maybe more people would go to Godot or Unreal if Unity treated those of us that are moving up to go elsewhere. That will not help.

I would pay a royalty as Unreal does, without blinking, based on the revenue of our game. Unreal does well because it allows people to use their engine and pay as they do well. As people making their games and make more games, Epic takes a cut. I see nothing wrong with that. I would happily pay it. If Unreal were suddenly say....you must have pay 4k a year for three plus subs, too bad, you are making a game? Oh well, too bad, go away.

Unreal did not do it that way. It is why it is succeeding.

Even though a 4% royalty or a install fee would not effect at all, I supported the developers who have larger studios, who are finishing their game now, and would hurt by the install fees.

What I should say is...hey you have money to buy Pro so you know you should be paying Unity. Because small studios like my family studio, we work hard, and do well, and use unity.

Pulling the rug out from under us and basically saying that we are the reason that Unity is losing ground. Seriously?

I just spent $500 on assets and will get more. I work with teens who are using Unity, so they should pay to learn Unity?

I believe that Unity is smart enough not to chop off the up and coming users as many of the big dudes are already saying they do not trust Unity and are moving to other engines.

I respect you guys, what you do, have some respect for the rest of us.

 

This random dude got it right... I'm sure the company would be better if he were leading it.




...

 

MegaCity was first released Mar 2019 - so over 4 years ago now. Yikes!

 

Again...

 

it was just a good idea in my mind xD but yeah you are still stick to their plans...

no, i'm pretty sure there was something with unity because i remember thinking "oh nice, but i know my game sucks" it was my very first game...

 

Are you thinking of when you couldn't build without a watermark without paying?

Because that was F***ing stupid too.

 

haha no no... damn i don't remember the name...
(maybe i'm confused)

 

this exactly. emphasis on "at any cost". they paid for the growth and now they want us to pay them back.

 

Apologies if offended, but if Unity need to make money as seem they do and have been, then allowing a feature rich Personal plan was one of many mistakes, as well as making the paid plans too expensive imo. Plus version should only be like $200 instead of $400 ect...Also, am assuming most get into game development to be making money from their time and efforts into creating a game in first place. Guess learned something new today, in that there are some that just create for pleasure and not money, if is way go then wish the best

 

Aras isn't a random guy, he worked for Unity for 15 years as one of the main programmers.

 

I subscribed to Plus, but it would have had a much greater uptake if it offered more, even little things such as an Asset Store discount. Every 2,500 Plus subscribers brings in a million. It would need 250,000 Plus subscribers to bring in the 100 million I have heard as an estimate the runtime fee would bring in. Unlikely it would get that many subscribers, but there is a chance it could bring in a good chunk.

 

Unity's announcement.

 

I guess you missed that winking emoji

 

I got ya.

 

Ex Frostbite dev/EA employee’s take on the engine pricing situation.
TLDW; Unreal engine will always be better at being Unreal Engine, Unity should focus on their own markets (mobile, indie, 2D) because they already have one and they essentially own it.

 

So, essentially, the whole economic chain had a good deal from the situation. I was happy to pay for unity, the engine progressed and the devs behind it were paid accordingly.

Since it went IPO, all that disappeared and we now have companies like Blackrock leaching on our success.

I don't know how anybody could conclude this is a good thing.

 

I didn't miss it. But I also didn't know he wasn't a random guy.

 

You've been here since 2013 and you don't know who Aras is?

 

Yes, a couple.

https://xkcd.com/1070/

 

No excuse.