Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

Big doubt if he is sat there going sell sell sell. It would be handled by a financial advisor or similar. Bit of a non story.

 

Can you please link me to that post because that is not what their entire description of the costs says and I've also read every post in this thread and don't recall that being said.

Edit: Actually I just re-read what you wrote and it doesn't make any sense so don't worry about it. You are not talking about what we are talking about.

 

Where?

 

Time to buy unity stocks before it bounces back after apology.

 

Just wanted to share a snapshot of the Answers as of now, for archiving purposes.


And I would like to comment that THESE MAKE IT WAY WORSE!

 

So, how would you even know on steam if you did an install or an update? Its just transferring bits. How would you know the difference? Would we have to pay every time we update a game? Wtf?

 

That's just fantasy, clearly suits love the change:

 

Well, nothing, since this company can change its mind and try to ruin you financially, I prefer not to touch it again, one less, thank God I had just started the project, otherwise I would join in suing for fraud.
Because they no longer let you take advantage of the contracts of previous versions, it is an invasive policy that totally confiscates the developers' benefits.

 

There are several opensource project on github, those include godot, Ogre and so on. Strider is also opensource, I believe.

Basically, makes more sense to join development of existing engine. Making your own stuff makes sense only for portfolio or fun.

 

Do you people not understand what And (&&) means? This whole topic would be a lot more productive if people learned to read and stopped talking wrong BS and wrong examples.

Oh yes, all the itchio games making a million a year will suffer. Indeed. For sure.

The install thing will never work without some major failsafes. Lets talk about that. But talk about problems after you have actually read and understood it.

 

POV: Unity HQ

 

Yeah, it went below 38 pretty fast and is now 37,79. Trend is only down.

 

You are saying that it is okay because it is free as long as it stays within sales and downloads, but
Which developer would stay and develop only within a limited scope? And do you know what your game is going to be like and stay within that confines? Those words are just a temporary solution.

Do you know what your entire life will be like?

 

Well you're checking the monthly graph for something that happened yesterday. Check the daily one.

 

It has begun...

 

From what is said so far, seems can get developers in huge debt

An example

Get 1,000,000 game installs. Average $0.2 per user over the year. That is $200,000 income. Unity takes 1,000,000 x 0.2 = $200.000

Developer works for nothing

or

Get 10,000,000 installs. Average $0.1 per user over the year. That is $1,000,000 income. Unity takes 10,000,000 x 0.2 = $2.000.000

Developer goes to $1.000.000 debt

Those without adding the development costs and time spent

Is there a safety around those scenarios above ?

 

Click on 1D for the last day and you see:

 

Without being explicit they intimated that they would check in different ways per platform, but to me that read as "if there's stuff for that game in the Windows registry already then it won't count again". Beyond basic measures like that they really have no way to tell.

They also have no actual fool proof legitimate way to tell if an install is bad actor, whether that's a user racking up repeated installs using basic methods, or a developer that has prevented the application from phoning home or maybe pre-adds registry values that Unity checks, etc.

 

Real time preview of Unity share price right now:

 

Hello! What about mobile?

 

Trades now opened. Do you have some popcorn?

 

runtime render pipeline

 

And do you not understand the issue for f2p games? Let's have $1M revenue and 100M downloads. Do the math. Even with $0.02 per install that's a receipe for a disaster. Of course it might not affect the average indie but that is a problem.

 

The fact that it is confusing for a large number of developers is a large problem.

It should be simpler - a % cut based on sales, aka something reasonably predictable.

Not this over-complicated nonsense.

 

The stock absolutely cratering is the best (maybe the only) avenue for JR to get the boot.

 

It just struck me. I see this kind of stuff every day actually.

In my country, we have a lot of this. New taxes, payments etc. introduced every 2-3 months, everything changing, super-complicated structure, tons of staff hired just to sift through new bills (All distributing platforms will have to adjust their systems to do that).

All this results in one thing: everything gets more expensive, more and more, to offset new taxes.

Because in the end, the PLAYERS will need to pay for those install fees. Not us. The only thing we will be forced to do is to raise the price of games by, maybe 2-3 dollars, to offset the risk of someone installing it more than once.

 

Ya i'm actively watching the stock ticker.

 

I do have a serious, maybe dumb, question though:

What if you haven't released your game yet, and decide to switch it over to a new engine, like Godot. You make some revenue, lets say enough to meet the threshold of $200k. However, you've released some demos, alphas, betas, etc. on the Unity version in the past. Some bad person installs your Unity game 200k times (also to meet the threshold). Does unity have the authority to charge every install above the threshold even though your game is primarily on a different engine?

I think i know the answer, but I would like another input.

 

So lets be honest and say this will never affect you lol.

Unless you are making a million PER YEAR you wont pay a single dime. Not a single one.

What kind of thought process is that. "well, if my game sells a thousand times more I will have to pay unity for using their tool to become a millionaire? Are they crazy?"

Honestly, reactions like that just makes both sides look stupid. Install thing? Stupid. Every random on the internet thinking they will ever be affected? Stupid.

 

Unity staff at their HQ when share holders ask who's to blame for the stock crashing

 

Same Here. Im working with unity about 11 Years. I have a stomach ache watching this scenario because obviously I'm going to have to re-learn everything from the competitor.


It's very clear to me that the decisions are coming from people who don't understand the current scenario for independent developers.

Since Unty emerged, many developments have been made in the world to accommodate independent games. Unity, with its accessibility, allowed anyone to change careers and develop a dream game. Companies like Microsoft, Epic and recently even Google had to create receptacles in the face of the rain of independent games.

Unity made history here. But this is coming today! There is no doubt that the story will continue for its competitors.
My last games will be finalized here and this decision will remain until December. My career in unity also ends here!
Congratulations CEOs..

 

To me, this new fee structure makes the freemium model completely unviable and extremely risky to use in Unity. You just cannot guarantee that a user that downloads your game will ever pay for anything in it (e.g. micro-transactions). In such scenarios, and especially for mobile games, a developer could rack up enormous debt without receiving a cent in revenue off a download. I cannot for the life of me see why any developer would place themselves at such financial risk to use the freemium model in a game made with Unity ever again. If the pay-per-install model is Unity's only way forward, then the only way this can work is to have the runtime fee be paid back as a percentage of revenue (i.e. Unity may charge the develop x% of revenue to a total amount equal to the runtime fee it has accrued to date) AND to only charge the fee on installs that have at least generated the runtime-fee worth of revenue. For example, if 2 million players download your game, and only 100,000 players generate some revenue, then whatever revenue you earned on those 100,000 players could be gobbled up in Unity's fees on the 1,900,000 people who didn't pay anything, UNLESS in such a scenario Unity only charged the fee on the 100,000 installs that generated the revenue, AND that they only charged the developer if the revenue generated was greater than Unity's fees.

In short, pay-per-install just does not work logically/financially/logistically. I have no idea how John Riccitiello got the job as CEO of Unity, but this move is nothing short of career-breaking level of stupid. The hubris, ignorance and arrogance displayed by the leadership team at Unity in vomiting up this new fee structure out-of-the-blue beggars belief.

Oh and side note. Getting rid of Unity Plus altogether (which is getting less attention) is equally disastrous. That news alone would have been difficult enough without the addition of the new fee structure.

 

DON'T

That's the reason why they're acting greed to begin with.

Let this ship sink in

 

And the stock is below 37; now 36,92 with a start of 38.97. Bye bye Unity.

 

This is most likely an act of desperation. Unity hasn't been profitable and this looks like banks or some major investors put a knife to their neck. The pay-per-install model as presented here will destroy many smaller F2P apps, including mine, because they are completely nonsensical and if I count in my long-term average revenue per user install, I can just de-list everything and be done with it. This is the END OF UNITY. Thank you for everything.

 

Do you understand that small indie studio can make $500k and barely keep itself alive? Unity is counting the revenue, not profit. What do you not understand about it?

"... will have to pay unity for using their tool to become a millionaire" is the most moronic thing you could have written

 

Guess it depends what you are doing there?

On any platform storefront you will just update the title, so your engine switch applies to everyone - its no longer a unity exe.

 

I really doubt the white knights in the thread are a software developer, because they have exhibited inexplicably low critical thinking skills by being a white knight for this change.

 

Q: If a game that's made enough money to be over the threshold has a demo of the same game, do installs of the demo also induce a charge?
A: If it's early access, Beta, or a demo of the full game then yes. If you can get from the demo to a full game then yes. If it's not, like a single level that can't upgrade then no.

Now every store will be flooded with
Game 1: Level 1
Game 1: Level 2
Game 1: Level 3

Every single one of them will say "new game, different game" or something like that

isnt?

 

This is our exact problem, and why we can't continue with Unity if it goes forward with what it wants to do.

 

One million can be very low i think for a middle sized company, which needs this revenue to pay salaries to multiple developers

 

This is so cathartic. Feel on the verge of bursting into maniacal laughter.

 

So when people create bots to hurt developers by repeatedly installing a game, all they need to do is open the installer. They don't need to install and uninstall? That makes it easier for them I guess.

 

The CEO will make millions from the stocks he sold recently. He doesn't care that it will mean Unity dying, he's not the one who spent 20 years building it.

These things are punishable with many years in prison, but he's a smart enough guy, probably figured out it can't be proven.

 

the only way unity will act if the stock goes free fall. If money whales dont agree with this change, only then they will backtrack, mark my words. They will ignore 70 pages of us pushing back, money talks...

 

OH MY GODOT...

 

BREAKING: Live footage of Unity share holders right now: