Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

Ya as someone that prefers to work in code I just found Unity so much more dev friendly
Blueprints and any node based tool really dislike them

I actually prefer C++ to C# but the workflow is clunky at best with UE

That said we are a small company that just manages to be a game company ... so we can absolutly not tolerate even the chance that our entire lunch can be eaten by predatory royalty practice ... so UE it is ... also looking at Source, U3DE and others but ya these terms are a hard no go Unity and hard no go

And even when you roll them back we would also need a codified contract from you that says you won't go retroactivly trying to change things again ... I mean WT actual F where are you thinking with that one

 

This reminds me of a letter I got from my propane provider stating that they will be attempting to raise our rates despite them already reporting outlandish profits. The reason? 21.3% profit increase. Deplorable. Unity already takes revenue cuts. Them taking additional profits starves the creators, which is already one of the hardest working communities in any production industry. Deplorable.

Quite disappointing but far from surprising to see such a move from Unity.

Developers and Creators, we need to do everything in our power to not let this policy change take effect. This is how industry standards are created. If this policy change is able to pass and you're thinking "well at least this other platform wouldn't do that" think again. Samsung would have never sold phones for $1000+, until Apple did and now it's the norm.

We need to Put Up a Stink.

 

Yes. He and other youtubers are paid by Unity to always see the brightside in everything

 

I don't think they're even close to comparable tbh. This mistake has a decent chance of ending Unity as a business.

 

I have done some sample and excercise projects in unity and am now working on my actual project, luckily i'm still in the early stages and will switch to Unreal.

It's absolutely unimaginable to even for a moment think that this is a valid idea. Management and stakeholders must be so far away from reality to even anounce this.

Even if they rectify this, the damage is done. They have shown to have and use the ability to change licenses and fees on the fly, even if it damages their own product and their users.

Thrust is lost.


EDIT: @Unity, i want to use webgl, will i really pay per use in that case. e.g pay per boot. This will completely kill webgl support

 

Is it even legal to add a surprise fee to your product?
Could we make a class action lawsuit?

 

You know, Its real disappointment after almost 10 years of using this engine, First it was the malware , now its this, You people can go F*** your selfs, Not only will I not start 1 new unity project, But if you go through with this, expect a lawsuit for refund of all the assets i have purchased through your store which are now useless cause ya changed the goal posts.

 

nice sponsored stuff..

 

Alright, here's a quick plan for the steam indie devs: make the game free and sell the soundtrack/dlc content as a separate package with no unity runtime attached to it. By those definitions doesn't seem like it would count as a game install.

 

Well, let's be real here, there is no way they let him go. So, there is no solution for this.

I agree that a simple walk-back isn't enough anymore. And heads won't fall. So I guess that was it.
Although I'm pretty sure many of my business partners who are actively using Unity and they have financial incentive to stay will stay if Unity comes up with their second plan, ditch this horrible BS and say hey, we promise we will put more resources on the engineering team and simply ask for %4 revenue share over $500K gross and there are some incentives to use Unity's services to lower this number.

Maybe even I would thinking about staying, although slashing Unity Plus was a big wound for me.

 

I'm speechless. The Plus subscription retired (after Unity already slashed it multiple times by removing features over time), and this "install fee" on unverifiable installs (which I think is illegal in Europe and will be challenged in court) marks a clear path over the last few years: Unity is more and more hostile toward small studios and indies, positioning their products outside the set of those democratising the gaming industry. What will be next? I don't know, but I won't wait to see it... I'll be moving elsewhere.

 

Unity Team Forum Moderators right now:

 

Also noticing that they give away Sentis to personal plan

I guess they might nearly go bankrupt from investing too much and too fast in AI tools but cannot make profit from it. So they just need fast cash. And they think they can easily extort from us. And just give us that stupid AI tools they can't sell as compensation

 

Yes I would be up for that, we should build a website now, I bet it would be easy finding a lawyer !

 

Don't they refer to it as gross revenue + 200k players? Doesn't that mean that if a company makes 40 million selling pants but releases a free game with 500k active players, they still are on the hook for that?

 

I guess there will be implemented a code in each build, which will send data to Unity when the device is online. So, every time someone installs your game, Unity counter will add $0.20 to your debt history (or whatever it's named). Of course they will have access to your activity in Unity Editor too:

Unity Personal
"Starting in November, Unity Personal users will get a new sign-in and online user experience. Users will need to be signed into the Hub with their Unity ID and connect to the internet to use Unity. If the internet connection is lost, users can continue using Unity for up to 3 days while offline. More details to come, when this change takes effect."

 

Just my thoughts;

Nope.

 

uNITY...

 

"(..) 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."

Hooold up, does that mean that Unity games "phone home", even if I removed the analytics package?

 

This is insane:
- No clear Structure on how and what is collected and how it's calculated.
- Completely in their discretion, what gets counted and what isn't.
- No Guarantee that the price will just change on a whim in the future, like they do now.
- Unnecessary tracking, more privacy violations and data to sell.
- REINSTALLS are counted AGAIN!! WTF.
- Bankrupt People by mass buying and refunding, nice. Or other "install-tricks".

And a free 100% guarantee that the "support" will look like the Unity Ads Section, where people randomly get banned, never get an answer to anything, because every decision is final and won't be reinstated and money will be kept.

This feels like an inside Job to kill the Engine. Oust the CEO and whoever else is responsible for this.

Here's a simple Solution:
- Make a Game with your f*ing Engine like Unreal, with robust networking and make a money printing Game like Fortnite. There is no Unity Game, and they fired the Gigaya Team, that so many People yearned for. They don't know how to use their own engine.

- Make it a flat fee like Unreal and be done with it. You are just bleeding out Companies, that have lots of Downloads but little Revenue. It's going to kill a huge part of the Indie Sector. Shave it off the top, if you are successful after 1mil revenue - i'm at a loss of words, for whatever this structure is.

Wouldn't have thought it's possible to f up this hard, but they actually surpassed the PR debacle of the CEO, we actually do look like and i quote the Unity-CEO here: "the biggest f*ing idiots". Devs are just a bunch of suckers to them.

 

This is also why you want to store and use your old Unity version offline.
No way I'm installing a software that will try to phone home every 3 days. If I want to stay online I stay online, if I want to stay offline I should be able to stay offline.

 

Time to set up a new company per game.

 

First off, I feel for all you hard working Unity engineers who work your asses off to build the engine and services that actually brings value to game developers, you don't deserve to be in the middle of this train wreck. This post clearly highlight the fundamental problem with Unity, you must have some of the worst and unfit execs in the industry, and that's why you are in such a big trouble.

1. Your execs clearly doesn't understand the fundamental business model of your most important customers, as well knowledge how the underlying tech and ecosystems actually work to come up with such a flawed per install payment model.
2. They clearly don't listen to their own employees, a lot of you customers use your analytics, ad and IAP systems, it must have been clear to anyone spending 5 minutes looking at the data that this payment structure will be completely unsustainable for low ARPU / high engagement games.
3. Even if you fix all the edge cases, loop holes and technical implementation of this (that will take resources from improving you actual products), the business model is fundamentally flawed. It severely punish low priced indies, ad-supported and freemium game developers who should be your bread and butter, that will now look for alternatives. While you will leave money on the table for low volume full priced PC and console titles, that will pay pennies relatively to their revenue, even if they are huge successes.
4. No one is disputing that you should be able to make money of you product, but the fact that amateurs here can both see the flaws in this model as well as come up with other models that would both increase you revenue, still keep your product competitive, and keep most customers happy speaks volume how bad the decision from your execs to push this through is. A flat rev share in line or lower then Unreal for Pro users would be more fair, transparent, predictable, easier to implement and would netting a higher revenue than today, while you could continue to invest in your gaming services and ad networks to both give more value and increase revenue from smaller developers.

 

count me in

 

No, in that case you pay NOTHING to Unity. If you do sell 200,000 copies (for revenue of $2,000,000, then you will either pay 20c per copy sold above the 200,000 OR pay for a Pro licence and pay nothing else until you sell 1,000,000 copies.

 

Just that part should be enough to quit Unity.

 

These are the "answers" to the community questions they have? This made it even worse.

Obviously the only option for Unity here is to roll back these changes as soon as possible and come up with a better system in the long run, that does not include an arbitrary number like game installs.
Who in their right mind is going to continue to use Unity with these policies? This will not increase their revenue but tank it to the bottom of the sea.

 

Unity literally paid him for making this video in advance and say that new changes are great. It's prepared and montaged then released within 2 hours after news reveal.

 

Came here to say, you can go to hell

 

Oh man, the asset creators are F***ed even worse, Imagin building a business around publishing game assets on the asset store , then you suddenly lose all your customers because of this S***, I am on discord now asking the asset creators if they have Unreal or Godot versions of things like Space Graphics Tool Kit and Space Combat Kit, also play maker, Man what a shiity decision , heads should roll, who evers idea this was

 

https://www.axios.com/2023/09/13/unity-runtime-fee-policy-marc-whitten - secondhand, but reliable source

 

Holy crap. The Godot spike in earlier screenshots was wild, but seeing it keep pace with the boost in searches for UE compared to its previous volume really drives home how deeply Unity has F***ed themselves over here.

 

Is it reliable? This just proves they are fickle, they might say something else tomorrow.

 

Yep its more useful than Unity's coms

But only solidifies understand of the problem

for devs like us aiming at F2P games that use DLC to monetize a small % of a large install base ... the per-install is a HORRIBLE solution that yes absolutely could nuke us

Then the issue of this change coming out of the blue, applying quickly and apparently to some effect being retro active ... trust level fell through the floor on that.

way we see it the only way this is recovered at all is

• Switch to a simple easy to understand % of revenue
• Apply a contractually binding statement showing how you can simply never retroactively nuke a price model like this again

baring that we feel we cannot build apps or games on Unity without unreasonable risk

 

For existing projects? Sure. What choice do we have. For new projects? Riccitello already broke Unity's promise not to alter the TOS, and did so arbitrarily and retroactively. Very few will willingly work with such a sword of Damocles placed over their head--certainly no one who is thinking rationally.

No, I agree with you on the point that Riccitello is unlikely to be canned. The problem is that if he isn't, Unity is very likely to die, or at least become a shell of its former self. I don't see a third alternative here. The damage done today is immeasurable and can only be cured with drastic action. A walkback won't be enough. Hardening the EULA won't be enough because even then Riccitello can't be trusted not to try something anyway.

Imagine if a restaurant manager spat in your food. Even if they refund the meal and promise that no one will spit in your food in the future, there's just no way you're going back to that establishment while the manager is still employed.

 

They went full capitalist. Never go full capitalist.

 

Unity's main mistake in this new pricing structure is having the equation where (according to them):
+installations = +revenue.

What does Unity tell us about games that have a LARGE gap between revenue and number of installs?

For example, who earns $500,000 from a game but with a number of installations of 40M?
Unity should understand that in this case the game would automatically go from being profitable to a loss. Free2Play will transform from being an advantage to just being a cost.
I am NOT referring only to those who distribute game pass or streaming on Netflix but also to those who distribute the free2play game on steam (around 50-60M potential installer users).

If this tax must remain at least please UNity cancel it for those who distribute free2play.

 

have you listen to the video? He just clarifies some stuff based on his understanding. He said what he sais may not apply for mobile because he doesn't know how mobile dev works etc etc
he doesn't comment on the changes if they are good or bad in any way.

let's not see everybody who doesn't see unity as the devil an enemy. I don't think now it's the time to argue one with another.

 

Unity's source for telling how much "installs" your game has and how much money you owe them:

 

The audacity of Unity is just unbelievable! It's impressive to see what kind of monsters capitalism™ creates. The transition from the nice, creative Danish company to this despicable, soulless US-Behemoth is astounding. But what do you expect from a CEO fro EA?
Instead of improving the engine and quality, they spent all the money on the merger with the shady "ironSource" and on never finished "plugins" for everything - none of that works for serious professionals.

Anyway, Unity now basically ruins all the small indie devs but they (including me) don't deserve it any better.
The signs were on the wall for many years, at least since 2017 and my laziness and nostalgic memories of what Unity once was, prevent me from switching to a real game engine like Unreal or investing more into Godot or similar OSS engines. That being said, better late than never and it's time to say goodbye to this sinking ship. In fact, we will start porting our assets to other engines.

Good luck to all of us!

 

Most hilarious, hysterical forum thread I've ever read.

No you don't. You have to have reached $200,000 revenue in A YEAR AS WELL 200,000 installs before the you even pay $0.20. READ THE UNITY POST not someone else misunderstanding the facts. About 5% of unity users will have to pay any money to Unity. The hysteria is crazy in this forum.

 

Your numbers are a bit off, but for F2P style revenue models, this change is going to potentially hurt.

With 20 million installs you will be paying 1c per install for 19 million of them (potentially less since installs from developing countries are cheaper), so that's about $190,000. Let's just say $250,000 total because I can't be bothered calculating the rest. That's $250,000 plus the Unity paid licence from a revenue of $2,000,000.

 

2.5 is calculated from estimates that your demo gets downlaoded twice as much as your game is getting sold (sold copies to demo ratio of 0.5) and only 25% of them ended up purchasing the game. That means if you sell 100k copies, you also had your demo downloaded 200k times (300k installs), out of which only 25% (200k * 0.25 = 50k) are overlapping with your paying users => 300k - 50k = 250k installs on 100k sold copies => 2.5.

This is in par with what unity said that as long as your demo supports upgrade without reinstall, you will be elligible for a fee. You are also meant to make a copy and put in realistic numbers, this is no where near representative of any real situation.

 

LMAO on that dislike ratio.
nice way of losing his game dev YouTube career.

on the topic, I wish Unity's stack would crash like a meteorite.
it's the only way investors will learn; Unity has nothing going for it for a couple of years now.

so, after they will lose almost the entire indie market (no Plus and now this)
they think the couple of AAAs left will still use them?

this is long overdue, and I predict Unity will become just an Ad company with ad-making tool.

 

I think you guys need to roll this back, tell us how this happened, address those issues so they don’t repeat themselves, and beginning the correction process. Otherwise, I don’t see how we can trust you moving forward.

 

Please don't remind me. The day before doomsday (the day before yesterday) I just bought another round of Microsplat and Microverse stuff (~$100+), the only reason I don't ask for refund is that I don't want to screw over @jbooth, he is a great guy. Although his assets suddenly worth very little to me given that those aren't transferable. Anyway.

 

I am really done with Unity. After my current project I am moving on to Unreal. They should offer refunds for Asset Store purchases + no penalty cancellation for the subscriptions. This is garbage.

 

Just no. People in their right mind understand that Unity will never ever be able to track installs correctly.

 

That is a lot.

Unity might change those thresholds and prices to even worse in a couple more months because why not.