Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

Wait what?
Where on earth in the blog post does it mention this doesn't apply to free games?
Does this mean it doesn't apply to f2p games too?
How is Unity going to enforce this?

 

But doesn't it apply to free games that have IAP > 200k? And if our IAP can't keep up with the install rate, Unity will sink us with install charges?

 

This is trying to actually re-negotiate contracts we already signed. How can they do this? We agreed to the original license, the original fee and they are now going forward changing out entire agreement/contract going forward?

That's disgusting and as far as I can see, here in Canada, over in France, etc... this changei n the pricing/license is actually illegal. How did their legal team pass this? How could they even think this was legal? Look at an older game like Battletech, it was done way before this and under that agreement. But going forward now every new install of BattleTech they will be charging Hare Brained Schemes or Paradox these fees. How can they even imagine this is remotely legal to do?

 

But it applies to me.



Am i supposed to pay 192K$ a month to Unity? if so, I'll obviously go to bankrupcy
My apps do not makes thak kind of money per user.

 

They will take it all back saying "we didn't say that..." because they've seen they are over if they go this way

 

We're going to need clarification on that. Are you referring to a game that has zero monetization? A game that has no upfront cost?

 

At that level of funding, I think you might be ready for the Pro or Enterprise license.

 

Better make that baby free now, or free well before you're about to reach the threshold.

 

no, you are wrong, this is bad, but not at that level, do not maki it wrose please, we all are very confused right now, we don't need this

 

This is a mess. Nobody was happy with the ironSource purchase. Nobody. That announcement thread was 4 pages long. We're on 34 and its only getting more uncivilized. I've gotta dip. I feel like I've been reasonable but we're quickly devolving memes and all caps messages here. I leave with the hope that Unity reverses course post haste.

 

What?

Define Free
F2P with many millions of downloads almost certainly multiple installs per user and an average value per active player near the rate you charging but wait for it ... you charging based not on the user, not on lifetime users ... but on per install

That is the part of this that makes it 100% unacceptable

 

so if I buy a unity game on Steam, write a script to install it, open it, close it, uninstall, repeat then I could theoretically cost the developer a significant amount of money, right?

 

escape from tarkov made an update with a new version of the engine xD

 

The elephant in the room is radical new fees being added on each year. What's to stop Unity from saying "Ok, anyone making $100K has to pay per install" and then the year after "Anyone making $10K has to pay $0.50 per install." It's probably the long term strategy, right?

 

or app has passed a minimum lifetime install count. How can u say it doesn’t apply to free games

 

If I sell NFTs of colorful carrots for 50€ each, and every buyer gets a voucher to the free version of my game, that doesn't count as game income, Right?

 

It's worse than that.
I have five mobile devices. I like your game so much that I installed it on all 5 of them. That's $1. Then I don't play it for a while. IOS auto uninstall it.
Then I remembered your game and reinstalled it to play. Etc

 

Please make sure this is included in the patch notes when such version is released, otherwise it might involve legal issues with games unknowingly tracking their users without their explicit consent, especially on AppStore. It will be included in the patch notes, will it?

 

I find this really upsetting.

 

Okay. So we're just staying on our current version and dispute all installs because we have now been assured that you have no accurate way of determining install count.

Thanks. This will be helpful for our lawyers.

 

....you don't even have established tech to manage the new monetization plan???

.....?????

 

And what the hell is gonna happen if your assets on the store make a ton of money?

 

Uh oh

 

Thank you

So from my understanding "We leverage our own proprietary data model" means that this is will be huge black box for everyone. IMO this won't work, not for small indie teams and not for big tech companies

 

I apricate you're trying to help and I feel terrible having to say this, but this is only going to muddy the waters as you are using terms that can have different meanings based on context.

For example a 'free game' can mean its free to download to many people, but if it has ads in it then in that case it is NOT exempt from the fees if it exceeds the thresholds for your current Unity subscription.

You cannot simply generalise it does not apply to 'free games' as that is not a specified term and open to misunderstandings.

Unity employees need to stop replying to posts, beyond acknowledging issues and pointing out the thresholds/subscription plans. These answers need to be accurate and specific, written by either legal or accounting departments or both, who understand the exact licence and T&C ( neither of which have yet been published to my knowledge )

Edit:
The bunch of replies to your post illustrate my point perfectly. lol
Again I'm sure you are trying to help and love that from Unity employees, but this whole fiasco is built not only on a bad plan from Unity, but the appalling mismanaged way it has been communicated.

 

Only with Unity Personal if they're making more than $200,000/yr and have more than 200,000 installs.

 

Honestly, look how ambiguous and weird this system is. I know free games that have absolutely no mentization (no ads, no in game cosmetics) do not need to worry. But this system in general is so bad, its almost comical. If you guys want more money, a simple rev share system would ve been much better and simpler. This per install thing is one of the worst ideas because its so hard to control and check. The fact that it seems unity themselves dont quite have answers for alot of edge cases just shows how poorly designed this system is. Seriously, from everyone, tell the person who came up with it to resign

 

You might need a lawyer.

 

wait if you're not tracking anything how does this apply to games that are already released? Surely if you're not tracking this, you have no way to tell whatsoever, so I'm fine to release (in a couple of days yikes) with my old version of Unity and can just ignore this entirely? Lmao

 

Gaslighting and ambiguity. S*** that doesn't work on people with half a brain.

 

In a civil law dispute, the case rests on balance of evidence.

If Unity spyware is saying they have evidence that you have x number of installs, you will have to counter with proof that no, you have y number of installs.

How the fvk are we supposed to do this? Write our own damned spyware to track installs!?

 

Beyond that, we have a game that's been popular and updated on Steam since 2015 and during Early Access we would update it often more than once a week with many active users that would update each time. Most of those updates were not using a new Unity version that would have a new executable for the update, but with the opaque install tracking I don't know if that matters.

It's very, very possible to have a game like that one (our next game we're working on will also be similar) where it is popular and regularly updated for even several years. Depending on the price of the game and the update cadence, you could end up giving Unity more money than you made from the sale of the game for installs by users that play over years and get every update.

Honestly it's insane how much money we would have had to have paid Unity over the past several years for just 1 game if this had been in place throughout that time. This pay per "install" is a disgusting, malicious attack. I don't think there's anyone that's been using Unity for a long period that has any faith the install counts will be accurate or fair.

Imagine something like Vampire Survivors that sells for cheap and just completed their engine port to Unity. They now have to pay a high percent of their per sale profit every time someone installs, reinstalls or possibly even updates their game? It ridiculous, it just can't happen.

I can't imagine companies making any high level of profit would happily start handing over possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars because of a bait-and-switch rather than just spend that on lawyers and fight this insanity.

 

I'm going to restate my previous comment as a question to Unity:

Why isn't there a cap on how much % of revenue this can end up being monthly?

 

I should be so lucky as to ever gross $1,000,000 in a year and have to worry about this, and if you look like you're going to gross $200,000 and don't have a Pro license you should really get one.

However, I am concerned about how this affects the appeal of Unity developers to publishers. I moved to Unity from other engines 10 years ago because of how much better it is on my resume. It lands me a lot more work and it's much easier to get publishers to pick up my games. But if angry gamers can "install bomb" a publisher out of a bunch of profit it's going to make publishers less likely to want to pick up games made with this engine or devs who work in it. Not to mention the uncertainty of their profit forecasts, you can't predict how many times somebody is going to install something they already purchased. Devolver Digital have already subtly commented on that. You got businesses like that thinking it's a better bet to pick up Game Maker Studio games. Oof.

 

Ya at this point a change to TOS that prevents Unity from trying to pull some retroactive BS again will be a flat requirement. Unity has just made them selves extremely untrustworthy even if this gets backed or adjusted to be tolerable the loss in faith alone will require some action to correct

 

You had better clarify that. Not that it excuses any of the other new terms, which your company is dropping on us out of the blue like a bunch of bricks. But if F2P games aren't counted then that at least doesn't punish those of us who need F2P scaling with low ARPU.

And by that, I mean what constitutes a free game. Games that players get for free off a promotion or giveaway? F2P games that can be installed with no upfront cost? What about games that have IAP and ad revenue then?

And if it's just your re-assertion that obviously games that make no revenue don't meet the $200k/$1mil threshold, then please don't treat us like fools.

I've never had to actually post publicly on the forums before or take notice of any Unity drama in my entire 9 year career. But this is...I just can't ignore it. The sheer audacity and breach of trust, if nothing else.

 

I pretty much never complain about a lot of outrages on the internet, but this is certainly one worth commenting on, at least for professional reasons. I won't reiterate all the obvious issues about the cost per install. What I find most appalling above all is a breach of trust between Unity and the devs. It often takes years to build a production level app/game, and to suddenly have a major change in pricing policy makes it impossible to trust Unity again.

Even if they do change their policy as a "we hear you!" PR moment, we won't be starting any new project on Unity, and will migrate our current projects do other alternatives.

 

What happens if a malicious group of people start installing/uninstalling hundreds of thousands of times per week with automation? Are there safeguards to detect/prevent that from happening?

With cloud compute, it's not unthinkable for people to be evil for no reason at all.

How would you filter out what is and isn't an actual install if that happens?

 

I would hope in that case the developer shows that month had 1000 sales, and unity records 100,000 installs, they should be able to resolve blatant botting.

I think who this affects is smaller studios who don't have a portfolio of many games to accurately predict installs. Their game could genuinely get a lot of installs and the game could monetize less per install than what they expected. The developer is exposed to much more risk than a revenue based model.

 

You better have your ARPU above 0.2$ now or you lose money when you scale.

 

Some platforms have installation tracking built into them.

 

No one is going to trust Unity to accurately count installs. And Unity obviously won't reveal their "proprietary" algorithm to determine install count. Relay the message.

 

Are you cool with how much you get charged being controlled by how many times I install? Even above a threshold, installs do not bring in money.

 

Q: If a user reinstalls/redownloads a game / changes their hardware, will that count as multiple installs?
A: Yes. The creator will need to pay for all future installs. The reason is that Unity doesn’t receive end-player information, just aggregate data."

"An install is defined as the installation and initialization of a project on an end user’s device."

This can't possibly be correct....
I've installed and reinstalled almost every game I've played hundreds of times (only slight exagerration). That would mean a developer made no money off my sale of those games if they were using unity with this model.

 

This is vague, generalising, and pointless information.

I make sandbox games, they don't have a "save state". If "save states" are relevant then does that mean sandbox games are an edge case? If you don't know how you're going to do tracking, maybe you shouldn't make sweeping statements like this.

My game is deliberately designed to function without an internet connection or any DRM restrictions; the player can copy all the files and put them on as many computers as they like without buying the game again. I won't comply with any of this if it forces my players to connect to your servers or if it prevents them from doing whatever they want with their game files.

It is unfair (and probably illegal) to make a blog post demanding a S***load of money and happily expect to rake in millions of dollars. Get real.

 

https://twitter.com/cultofthelamb/status/1701715971663425897

 

Someone else "should be able" doesn't help me getting good sleep.
Especially if that someone doesn't have any interest at all in reducing the numbers..

 

I mean if we're going to ask that question we need to ask why they don't just do royalties. It's likely not there because it wouldn't have the potential to make them as much as this does.

 

I don't believe a word you say... seems that others have said the exact opposite... but at least someone from Unity is saying something... lousy bunch of cowards!