Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

Mike, give us a reason to stay. Godot is entirely free and open source. Unreal has plain and easy to understand licensing terms, with a contract that does not allow retroactive changes to said terms.

Unity are here changing terms retroactively on games that are already released with 4 months notice. Even if this was a decent change, where's the trust? We already barely trust the software itself as-is.

 

What a terrible and harmful policy. This decision needs to be reversed immediately.

Let's say I have a studio which launched a game that exceeded the revenue/install threshold but the operational costs (paying developers, etc.) exceeded the game revenue (meaning the company didn't have a profitable year). Unity would then drop a fat bill and bankrupt the studio?

Am I understanding this correctly? @LeonhardP @Mike-Geig

 

Only if one of those products makes more than 200k in the last 12 months, then you pay for installs of that product that month.

 

Its time for this video again

 

This incident is an indicator that the top managers of unity are completely incompetent. This means that investing time and resources in this game engine is an extremely dangerous undertaking. Apparently today we see the final answer to the question: "Unreal or Unity3d?". The publication of such obviously negative news, these incompetents did not even prepare at least some reasonable pitch. With such incompetent leadership, this company is doomed.

 

THIS

AND THIS

MADE ME THINK THIS

BUT ALSO

So, it's fine for all the small devs and the big ones will get a discount and give Unity their feedback on other channels.

In total: Yet another marketing desaster from Unity by introducing a hillariously complicated business model and to top it all off it would require the Unity Player to become the ultimate spyware as now it's no longer about some statistics, it's about money. People will dispute those install numbers if every install reduced means cash. I also wonder how compatible this would be with the GDPR.

I am interested in what Unreal will say to this. I guess they are just leaning back and enjoy the show right now.

 

A manual on how to antagonize your userbase and kill your product with 1 announcement

 

This also seems a huge oversight when it comes to WebGL. How are anonymous users from a web browser supposed to be tracked?

 

Not me, my installation of Unreal Engine just finished downloading. Even a rat is smart enough to know when to abandon a sinking ship.

 

This is what happens when you merge with an ad company. Unity merging with IronSource was the sign of the end of Unity as we know it.

These S***ty monetization strategies will not stop and only get worse. They want us to force ads on our customers.

Just Say No to ads

 

It's like even the executives and the CEO knew what they were about to unleash.

 

@Mike-Geig Checked all your answers, these questions appear still be not answered:
* How installs will be counted/tracked? Unity will be spying on our players?
* How do reinstalls will be counted?
* What about piracy? Will pirated installs will be billed too? (Even for free-to-play games piracy is an issue. Pirated versions don't support IAP. And some well paying ad-networks don't work, if a game isn't installed from the store.)

 

If you're going to implement this over complicated fee system, why don't you just go for a fixed % revenue share instead?
Are everyone involved in this decision drunk af for years?

 

Here's a quick version of it:

1) How will "installs" be counted on WebGL? On one hand, nothing is installed locally. On another, something is downloaded each time you play on WebGL.
2) How will "installs" be counted when a free demo is available, either on WebGL or Steam or wherever, alongside a paid product? In these instances, there will often be TONS of installs per actual purchase.

On a related note:
3) Am I correct that a freemium game with IAP subscriptions or upgrades to the full paid version will be charged for each download above the minimum even if the player never upgrades or only plays for free?

 

I long for the time when Joachim Ante in his pink tshirt announced really great news at keynotes. Today:F***ing idiots, AI AI AI and money.

 

Here's the meat of it where I get into more details, but it's based on what i posted in the second post of this thread.
https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-plan-pricing-and-packaging-updates.1482750/#post-9289144

Second post of this thread*
https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-plan-pricing-and-packaging-updates.1482750/#post-9289021

 

If Unity wanted to take % of revenue, it would be totally understandable. But this installation tracking is just batshit insane for a million obvious reasons.

It's not just developers who will hate this, players will hate this.

 

Wait until you get a invoice from Unity...hahahahaha!!!!!!
I am going to delist my past games.

 

So the Unity business will be to create farms in Bangladesh making fake installations of games?

 

TBH if I had to guess it could also be like their revenue tracking, it's entirely possible they just guess like before.

 

I saw this in an article the other day and I'm like wtf is happening now?

 

Public trading brings us another banger idea. Love it. Guess I'll fling a useless cry into the gale.

Anyway, without being hyperbolic, this pay model that is entirely disconnected from revenue (past the thresholds) is unworkable to any sane developer. GamePass is now a liability. GOG is now a liability. F2P is a minefield waiting to explode. To say nothing of piracy.

Truly a transcendent work of sabotage that could only come from the mind of people with finance backgrounds.

Going forward, I'll be warning people away from Unity and fully intend to find an alternative engine for future development. Which, I know, worthless to say on here. But the point is you're turning evangelists into detractors.

 

Why didn't you prepare in advance? Is everyone in your company so incompetent that they could not foresee such obvious questions?

 

It's quite worrying to see this level of desperation on Unity's side to get money, are they about to go bankrupt?


Who would have guess that Argentina was coming to rescue the videogames industry with Godot lol.

 

Sorry, I already published them all somewhere without your consent. What now?

 

How are you getting on with your big duck in The Matrix?

 

All of your official communication around this is extremely confusing. We are all angry for various reasons and the horribly vauge commincation around this is only making things worse.

 

Will you be going to work at Epic Games and Unreal after Unity is liquidated?

 

So, I would have to pay almost 2k per year to publish on consoles and 0.15 peer install on the first 100 installs ? And on his mind is this right in any way? Remove the subscription plan and this would be a little fair

 

I am a college professor, Indiecade winner, and Games for Change and IGF honoree. My first game in 3D was using Unity, and I currently had plans for a second 2D one in the next 6 month window. I see no way that I can use Unity for this project with the amount of uncertainty and potential financial liabilities resulting from these changes. I also cannot recommend my university students use Unity from this point forward with this policy.

This must be converted to some kind of per sale rather than per install fee for any project to be financially viable.

 

It doesnt help if they sent you guys here just to weather the mob. I hope you all collectively go back to the higher ups and make it clear that this decision is garbage and they should find a different industry and product to ruin. I really apologise for the storm you have to manage

 

If I understand correctly, let say u are using Unity Personal that u earn $200,000 USD or more in the last 12 months AND have at least 200,000 per-game lifetime installs then u will need to start paying per install fee. So even after that u earn nothing but u have insane amount of players like 1,000,000 playing the game, u will still need to pay 1,000,000 x $0.02 = $200,000 which means that now u earn basically zero. Is that true?

 

Guys. Honestly.

Fire whoever thought this scheme up and simply introduce royalties.

This is absolutely on the level "I'm not going to deal with this nonsense". Your engine license already causes problems when somebody tries to earn money through freelancing with it (because you need same tier as client).

 

Sorry, we're all upset currently but I guess @Mike-Geig is simply just doing his job. Nobody here knows how good or bad internal comms are at Unity.

 

How do you track this without UDIDs like IDFA? That doesn't make any sense, in our analytics tools a user that doesn't opt in on iOS is seen as a new user, are you circumventing that? AFAIK that's grounds for termination under Apple's rules if your app does that

 

Welp, has been a fun 20 years with you guys, but this is the one for me. This change just makes it anathema to making money using Unity as a platform. Sorry, but thanks for making the choice for me I guess.

Cheers.

 

I think some people in leadership think they're Apple. The partnership has probably gone to their heads.

 

Exactly why people are mad...this is pure greed. And they have the audacity to say that this is the better plan...hahahahahahahaha!!!!!!

 

Everyone's going to have a different revenue per user, the people that manage to make the lowest revenue per user are the one going to have to pay the most in term of % fees... So you know the one struggling the most to keep their game / company alive...

% based revenue is the one that is the fairest. And the one that should make Unity the most moneys, for successful companies their revenue per user should already be pretty big meaning the % will be so much less compared to the one struggling, yet the one struggling have the potential to become big but you're crippling them before they even have a chance to make it?

This is a big hit for anything that isn't a "game that sell for a set amount X$"

 

Knowing the corporate suits, they probably dont know themselves and are getting advised by 5 other suits who have no clue what they re talking about. All they specialise in is making money.

 

Here's some simple math: freemium games are lucky to make $0.50/install on most platforms. If one is lucky enough to be successful and gets above the $200k revenue threshold, 40% of subsequent revenue ($0.20/$0.50) will go to these install fees.

EDIT: Ah, I see. The idea is that in this case you MUST switch to Pro/Enterprise. If you are getting $0.50/install and over $1m in annual revenue (the threshold for Pro/Enterprise), you must have at least $2m downloads, which means you "only" pay $0.02 per install. Still annoying but only 4% of revenue. Being in Pro/Enterprise will be painful tho

 

I'm sorry but this is absolutely a lie. Only if the user allows to be tracked you could calculate installs but not re-installs, and most of the stores are creating strong guidelines against it (and is not possible at all in some markets like games targeting minors), otherwise you will be fined by almost every single privacy agency in the world.

 

Are there any game developers that work for Unity? Lately it feels like it's just business men who have never once looked at competition or touched a game.

 

I understand that people are vexed right now but please don't be abusive or negative at Mike Geig personally; I can strongly vouch that he is a huge advocate for the community & game developers internally at Unity and is a lovely & wonderful guy. He will get answers as best as he possibly can and will be of help in a constructive manner.

 

Games already developed/released made under the previous business model. This now puts those titles under this new business model with no opt-in decision by us.