Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

"Unity may add or change fees at any time [...] Consent is not required"

Very thoughtful response from the Unity lawyers. That totally makes me feel safe using Unity.

 

If Unity needs money so badly, then here is a super simple solution without uncertainty: just make a progressive % of sales!

Let an indie with a small income have a small % and then, as income grows, simply increase the threshold value of this %. A common simple and easy to understand way and no one will be afraid of going bankrupt/involving unpayable debt.

 

Thats a good point, if they actually made https://play.unity.com/ a good platform people would happily publish games there and cough up the % cut.

 

Specially when it is calculated PER project (on all platforms), the store's fees are also to be included and maybe also UNITY own cut's fee for running your ads, to tell the truth who knows with such of more than vague definition => etc.


Revenue definition

A game or app’s “total revenue” includes all revenue generated (without limitation) from retail sales, in-app purchases, subscription fees, web payments, offline payments, ads-based revenue, etc. Total revenue is calculated without deduction, including any relevant digital store fees.

 

I'm no expert, but I can't help but feel this may well be challengeable, especially from the point of view of what a customer would expect is reasonable.

However what is worse is that Unity have pulled this as their 'ace card'! ha, ha, dumb customers you agreed to anything, we can can what we want .. hey customers where are you going, no, please come back....

 

“Our terms of service provide that Unity may add or change fees at any time. We are providing more than three months advance notice of the Unity Runtime Fee before it goes into effect. Consent is not required for additional fees to take effect, and the only version of our terms is the most current version; you simply cannot choose to comply with a prior version. Further, our terms are governed by California law, notwithstanding the country of the customer. ”
​

Sorry but I received ZERO notice. I only heard about it through word of mouth, which brought me to the blog post. Where's my official notice?

 

If we don't pay, what can happen? Can California law apply to my country?

 

Reminder that this fee has no upper bound and can be used against you by your competition and haters, costing you more than your revenue. Learning a new engine has less risk and will be better on the long run.

 

well now i'm just sad

 

This makes me much less confident in using your product. Every clarification unity makes about this stupid decision makes it worse.

 

GPT 4:

1. Unconscionability: A contract or clause may be found unenforceable if it is deemed unconscionable. Unconscionability can arise from terms that are overly harsh, one-sided, or that the other party did not have a real opportunity to understand. Here, the fact that fees can be added or changed at any time and that consent is not required might be scrutinized under this doctrine, especially if the fee changes are significant and unpredictable.
   
   
2. Notice: Even if a company retains the right to modify terms, many jurisdictions require that adequate notice of changes be given to users. While the provision does mention three months' notice for the Unity Runtime Fee, it's unclear if this standard applies to all changes.
   
   
3. Jurisdictional Issues: The clause stating that the terms are governed by California law, regardless of the country of the customer, may not always be enforceable. Some countries may not recognize a foreign choice of law provision, especially if it deprives consumers of mandatory protections under their local law.
   
   
4. Implied Good Faith: In many jurisdictions, contracts have an implied duty of good faith and fair dealing. This means that even if the contract grants one party broad discretion (e.g., to change fees), that discretion might be limited by a duty to act fairly and not exploit the other party.
   
   
5. Consumer Protection Laws: Many countries have consumer protection laws that prevent businesses from implementing terms that are deemed unfair or deceptive. For example, in the European Union, the Consumer Rights Directive may render certain terms unfair and therefore unenforceable.
   
   
6. Previous Versions: The statement that users cannot choose to comply with a prior version might be challenged if the new terms are substantially more burdensome and users had no real opportunity to reject them.
   
   
7. Acceptance of Changes: Even with notice, the mechanism by which users accept or reject changes can be critical. If users are deemed not to have meaningfully accepted the new terms (e.g., if they were not adequately notified, or if the only option was to stop using a service they'd invested heavily in), those terms might not be enforceable.
   
   
8. Clarity and Ambiguity: Terms must be clear. Any ambiguities can sometimes be construed against the drafter, especially in consumer contracts.
   
   
9. Public Policy: Some terms might be unenforceable if they violate public policy. For example, if a term deprives users of a fundamental right they'd have under local law, a court might refuse to enforce it.
   

 

It does if (install volume > 200000 && revenue > 200000 && ARPU < install_fee)

Even if your game isn't popular, you will be actively in fear of it becoming popular and your ARPU stays the same. Like it or not, free2install, microtransaction games are the majority of games these days.

 

But these aren't fees, no? These are terms of the contract completely. We never agreed to a fee of download, we agreed to fees of a monthly/yearly based. This is adding new fees and removing old services or adding new services without us agreeing, and in Canada, or the EU (where we operate in both) we need to have to agree to these new terms?

I don't think your lawyer realizes that... you are also operating in these other countries contracting with their nationals, yeah? When you do business with us you're doing business internationally, not locally, not in the USA. You have to abide by European Union or Canadian laws. You would need to meet the SCC Standards Council of Canada here, or you would not be permitted to do business here or across seas.

Not to mention you would be breaking the law in California even-so. In California you MUST HAVE THE AGREEMENT of the signatory to do ANY CHANGES of the contract TOS/Terms. These are not just fees, you are adding entirely new clauses and structure to it. I never agreed to a per-install basis of pricing, the pricing was completely based on a different thing and I believe I, as well as EVERYONE ELSE, under Californian law are protected until we agree to this basically brand new contract.

This has been run through the 9th circuit, and you are in clear violation if you want to move forward with this, So I ask again, who do I contact to opt out of any new future updates/builds of Unity and remain on the previously agreed contract.
Or do we really h ave to begin filing complaint letters to you and through the California consumer protection agency? And the SEC???

 

So Unity can change their pricing model at any point and we have 2 choices:

Pull our game or comply with the new pricing?

Is this really the correct understanding? I’m not a lawyer, but this sounds exceptionally hostile.

 

If I'm interpreting that correctly, that essentially means every time an end client runs the app, we'll get hit with a fee. So if someone gets on in the morning and then logs off for lunch but logs back in the afternoon, is that $0.40? That is wild if that's the case.

It's still super vague and preceded with PR so it's still unclear to me but maybe it can save an "install" in the client's cookies but what if they erase their cookies? That would surely count as a new install right? Either way, that makes Unity a non-starter for our web app.

 

If Unity think that California law governs the entire planet, they are in for a rude awakening.

However, their attitude in itself is just another example of why devs would have to be insane to trust this company in future.

 

if you dont pay, they will revoke your unity lisence (cannot login to Unity, cannot develop game, cannot push new updates, patches for released game, cannot receive money from ads, IAP because all the plugins goes through Unity first)

Yes in case you wonder how: a large income of ads come from Unity + Iron Source adsnetwork (which they merged)

When you want to develop IAP function, you need to install Unity IAP package, which they have total control of your IAP revenue.

I am listing small obvious example here, there might be a lot more cases.

 

Yeah, there might be some people at the EU commission that might disapprove of that approach. Our laws usually kinda against that sort of behavior. More than often companies who infringe those laws are fined to the tune of billions.

Wouldn't it be ironic that your shameless money grab resulted in fines that would deprive you of said money?

 

Save this man's reply before they try to delete it.

 

They had to have talked with the major distributors already. They would never win against Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc. individually in court, much less combined.

 

"Consumers should be protected by such rules of the country of their habitual residence that cannot be derogated from by agreement, provided that the consumer contract has been concluded as a result of the professional pursuing his commercial or professional activities in that particular country"


REGULATION (EC) No 593/2008 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL
(25)

 

Are you telling me that, if Unity didn't reach the objectives on the next financial quarter,
you can literally rob any (big enough) studios using Unity to fill your gaps by using an automated server to install their games over and over again?
I get it, engine development needs more money and this policy must be a carefully calculated outcome of some sort of simulation, but could you not put it in such an anti-customer way? People have feelings.

 

Truly sad. I've created five games over the years using Unity and all are on Steam and my latest one did ok for a solo dev. I've been aiming to hire people and perhaps create a studio in the future, but with this kind of pricing model, it is extremely difficult to understand future costs and many professional full time devs like myself just don't have the financial buffer to accept that level of uncertainty. I also have no work hours available to waste trying to create a financial model to interpret Unity pricing. It was a nice journey while it lasted Unity, but with this uncertainty and unfairness, it looks like I have to move on to another engine so I can actually grow. Fyi I have spent thousands of dollars on the Unity Asset Store over the years but I have to give that up to ensure a successful future of my business by moving on to a better game engine.

 

This. This is the only way unity can come back from this bull S***

 

Unless of course, you only use unity for Dev and keep everything else under your control. Ads can be purchased and managed outside Unity. In fact, one of the goals for this non-sense is to place us more under their control, thus making the consequence for infringement more severe.

 

This contradicts Unity's own public statement: https://blog.unity.com/community/updated-terms-of-service-and-commitment-to-being-an-open-platform

 

What's to stop them from increasing this from 0.2$ to 0.25$ or 0.5$? This is just an arbitrary number, and there's no reason for them not to increase it in the future, ask any other company known to mankind that is trying to profit. They will squeeze us dry for every penny. You have to stop this right now, or jump ship. There are no other options.

 

Unity should CAP the per-install fee. *proposed* is unbounded and that's bad .. because ...

A case example, a real dev, but anonymously cited:

- current (2023) monthly fees to Unity is $200
- 2024 monthly fees will be $175,000

 

0 to 200,000k a year = 0%, 200,001 to 499,999k a year = 3%, 500,00 to 999,999k a year = 4%, 1,000,000k+ a year = 5%, then offer their tier plans for extra services to devs who need it. People would get that, Unity would make money, and it would push devs to make more profitable games without worrying about getting slammed with some big bill. I think this new system is going to lead to some weird stuff like devs pulling their games off the market to keep from overselling too many copies, then putting them back on after so many months, or always worrying about you having some game that's been out awhile, that's not really making any money but for some dumb reason goes viral for a month and costs you $20,000 out of nowhere. I realize these are low-level, very hypothetical, situations, but don't we stay stressed out enough without Unity adding more crap to worry about?!?!? I just started a new project and now I don't know whether to stay with Unity or get out Unreal. This is so disappointing and confusing.

 

This right here. This is why this is so confusing. TECHNICALLY it's a better deal than Unreal (if you ignore the 200K threshold, which you should because of the Pro license), but Unreal's revenue cut is a static number on paper which businesses can account for, not some arbitrary fees for things out of our control. It completely messes up freemium games though. Like you say, it is baffling that freemium is such a big part of Unity and they would effectively close down that entire demographic.

 

This is hilarious because following this logic if Mr. Riccitiello wakes up someday and decides that every single Unity game released in history now will have to pay 1 million dollars per day, per current user, it should be allowed. But don't worry they will give us 3 months' advance notice of the change. If it's allowed by California's law, then it's a very strange place

 

And that's 100% what will happen. You never start a program like this with your highest number.

 

I should have see this type of mess coming when hippocoder stop posting on the forum and left the discord. I'm unsure why and if it was related to the overall behaviour of unity the last years. One of his last post was about the probabilty of bankruptcy of unity was higher than 50%. I miss him now .

 

You said yourself that HWID can be spoofed. Everything that is data can be spoofed. Doesn't matter how much you try to lock things down. You white knights need to stop nitpicking when the point is that this system is *expletive* and there is no reason for Unity to implement a robust anti-abuse system that would reduce their revenue, which is what this whole "runtime fee" was made to increase in the first place.

 

tbf, Unity can disregard EU law if they want.

All they have to do is stop doing business with everyone in the EU

 

Does anyone know the answer to: What happens if we don't pay?

I'm genuinely curious because surely Unity don't own the game, they can't prevent it from being sold. Are they expecting to sue every developer and publisher with existing games now getting billed these new amounts out of the blue that don't want to pay it? Surely they're overestimating their ability to change the Unity TOS in a way that can affect released products like this.

 

This should also be kept for records that Unity is indeed breaking their own TOS agreement they are trying to use as a way to force people to pay more.

 

Nah what they did atm is impossible to repair. Who will trust them from now on ? Who sane would bet their business on the whim of some suits of external tool?

What they did atm will dent them for years to come, I definetly am not considering Unity anymore for my projects atm.

 

+1 for the opinion "per-install is dumb".

Just do it like Unreal Engine instead, it's a model that has already proven beneficial for both Epic and game devs.

 

It's this announcement. None of these changes go into effect until January. That's three months away.

 

Have you ever worked with Unity on mobile game ? One of the main income of ads is from Unity + IronSource ads network (which is the same now) If you want to implement IAP function in your app, you will have to install UNITY IAP package, that means the IAP money will go through Unity system first. If they revoke the license, you will not be able to use IAP.

The price per install just shoots up the marketing cost through the roof for mobile platform, which mainly is f2p. There are different tiers of user acquisition cost in mobile, but unity charges the same price PER download, regardless of tier.

 

Also, there's this:

 

I cant imagine any reality where Microsoft, Steam, Apple, Epic allow an engine developer to bill them arbitary amounts of money on games in their catalogue at some random point in the future unless they agreed to pass on bills to the developers. Whi could rightly refuse it as they hadn't agreed to pay them.

 

Imagine putting terms and conditions on a screwdriver to charge per-screw and trying to make them apply to everybody who already bought and used those screwdrivers for houses they built eight years ago.

 

Yeah this was something I was digging for but couldn't find, I 100% remembered this but just couldn't pin it down. Not to mention they are in violation of California's own 9th circuit as they asked NO CONSENT from us, they are against their own damn TOS and that can easily be used in a court of law.

Also, their "you must arbitrate" bs doesn't fly in the court either. THat's been tested and junked so many times it's not even worth including in contracts.

 

Just wanting to add my voice to the list of very disappointed paying customers:

We're a small studio so (thanks to the yearly revenue goals) we are unlikely to feel a financial impact beyond paying more for our Pro license because we don't want the Unity splash screen.

That said, this announcement combined with the seemingly glacial pace of bug fixes, stability improvements, and editor performance as well as the recent changes to the way Unity Cloud Build is priced is shaking my confidence that Unity is being run well enough for us to invest in beyond our current project.

The damage is done for me and, even if these changes are completely rolled back, I feel like Unity has played it's hand. I could only seriously consider Unity for our next project if these mess is cleaned up and there is observable redirection of resources and progress made to the areas of editor performance, editor stability, and rate of bug fixes.

Otherwise I'll have little reason to believe that the slowly lowering baseline of expectations on Unity will ever reverse course and for our next game will be looking at engines that prioritize my ability to develop and deliver games.

I'm a game developer, not a Unity developer.

 

The link doesn't work. Nah, they don't care anymore.

 

So I'm responsible for Valves tracking too? Your argument makes no sense. You are just arguing to argue bro. I'm just saying that the telemetry to do it is programmatically possible. I'm not arguing the ethics of it at all lol

 

The fact that this is official communication between a publicly traded company and its commercial customer is F***ing wild. Like this isn't a pr disaster anymore its transcended that and become something really special.