Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

Yea and if a competitor doesn't like your game, they can just continuously uninstall/reinstall and eventually bankrupt you. So now if you want to make games, not only are you working for free but you must pay potentially infinite cost out of your own pocket. It's beyond insane they didn't foresee this.

 

Even runs on native apple silicon now... I don't have to get my loud-ass gaming PC involved.

 

No excuses for such a decision.

 

They don't track sold copies of the game, they track installs. Installs don't directly correlate with revenue. One of our WebGL demos has over 850,000 plays, which are considered "installs" by Unity, that WebGL demo does not generate any revenue.

 

people are crying over nothing, and developers have an incentive to add fuel to the flames and manipulate their audiences

Unity will figure something out and everything will be fine, and even better than before

That DOESN'T make good headlines tho ...

 

I have the same situation. If this turns out to be true unity has wasted 3 years of my life and my friends. If I knew this I would have chosen another graphics engine.

 

You keep omitting that it’s 2k per seat.

 

Again installs != copies sold.

 

Only if the following things are also true:

1) Your game is earning you revenue above the $200,000 yearly threshold and you have no paid Unity licence
(or You have a paid Unity licence and your game is earning above $1,000,000 yearly revenue.)
2) Unity don't have the ability to detect and ignore pirated installs.

 

On the other hand it's only truly worthwhile to stick around if you're a solo developer or an extremely small studio making less than that $1 million per year. Everyone else should just abandon the engine now.

 

no, because unity doesn't even have a way to track legitimate installs.

 

They might, they just pushed forward 3 steps to take one back as a test how fast can they make it worse.
No matter what they'll come up with there is not reason to expect them not to try something like that again.

 

When I read that for the first time, I thought it was April Fools joke... but wait... its not April yet!?

Nice way to shoot yourself in the feet, Unity.

Every major company that gets acquired by big money is always hell-bent on maximizing evil they can do, even if they lose money.

From the PR standpoint this reminds me of "dont you guys have phones" scenario, but Blizzard at least didn't hurt people livelihoods.

Do Unity even knows how the mobile market operates? Was this decision consulted with someone who knows how game publishing works (mobile market especially)? What about security? No matter how you collect the data, there will always be ways to go around that. Ever heard of a botnet? IP spoofing?

I guess it is time to move to Unreal...

 

Unity paying shills 0.20 per post, perhaps?

 

People defending the change by pointing out the thresholds are "high" are missing the point that this is a retroactive change to published and in development titles, and there is NOTHING stopping Unity from making more changes in the future. If they get away with this, then they've just proven that they can get away with worse, and worse and worse and worse. And they will.

(never mind how vague and "trust us, we have metrics " they're being about it all)

 

One of the most spineless "side-effect", although I'm pretty sure one of the intended ill-effect is that it forces you to buy Unity Pro and maintain it until your game dies. You can't release your game and cancel your subscription anymore, because they will hit you with bankrupting fees pulled out of their asses. So you need to maintain Unity Pro subscription to not to drive you bankrupt. It's a maffia. After you reach the 1M threshold, they can come again to triple-dip in your bank account again and still can bankrupt you. And don't you dare to cancel your F***ing Unity Pro subscription even if they raise the price to $6k per year. Until you can prove that you don't have income from your game.

Who the F*** want to do business like this?

 

Almost 10 years from me.

 

I don't know, but what I can say is their EULA likewise explicitly allows for this sort of situation to occur when using it (via Sections 10B, 10D, and 16).

 

John Riccitiello, he gots to go!

 

Quoting this so people in the serious gaming industry don't miss it.

Why would I want that service when I have more seniority than whoever will be my Unity representative?

These aren't services for us but to fake commercial activity to look good to shareholders.

 

#byebyeunity #voxelbasedcommunitygotogodot

 

And unless that webGL demo includes the full game then it won't factor in.

 

Demos don't count as installs. You still have to meet the revenue threshold before you will pay any fees.

 

But yet in A LOT of Unreal Engine games, you WILL see that "Powered by Unreal Engine" plastered across the screen PROUDLY. And if the game looks and plays good, that is marketing right there. Unity should be employed by people who MAKE GAMES. Making a complete game with your OWN engine should have been the litmus test. Dogfood THAT.

Look at how CryEngine came to prominence

 

I think it's important to note nothing from the internet is truly gone, even if you delete it (Take note Unity).

https://web.archive.org/web/2020111...lob/master/Unity Software Additional Terms.md

The relevant section is here:

Unity may update these Unity Software Additional Terms at any time for any reason and without notice (the “Updated Terms”) and those Updated Terms will apply to the most recent current-year version of the Unity Software, provided that, if the Updated Terms adversely impact your rights, you may elect to continue to use any current-year versions of the Unity Software (e.g., 2018.x and 2018.y and any Long Term Supported (LTS) versions for that current-year release) according to the terms that applied just prior to the Updated Terms (the “Prior Terms”). The Updated Terms will then not apply to your use of those current-year versions unless and until you update to a subsequent year version of the Unity Software (e.g. from 2019.4 to 2020.1).


Legally, anyone using the older Unity software under these license terms in no way has to accept the new terms (and fees). They can continue to operate under the last iteration of the older terms provided they do not update their software.

 

they haven't clarified very well so far what an install is.

 

From the blog article:

• So Plus was removed because it was too confusing.
• Remaining subscriptions get "extended" to another year...

Fxxk this.

 

By releasing a game that no one was able to properly run for years?

 

They can barely fix their engine, so I have zero reason to believe they have solved a problem that companies are willing to pay millions upon millions of dollars for. They don't have this technology and even if they did, there will be ways around it.

 

Even your hypothetical studio has a huge barrier to overcome to grow... and that which doesn't grow tends to die.

 

Throwing in some really good 2d niche cross platform language I bet nobody knows: Cerberus-X: https://www.cerberus-x.com

It's basically a transpiler so you use a Java/C# like code and get out a target project (e.g. Android Studio Java, XCode Obj-C, Javascript for HTML5, C++ for Desktop). It's very lite weight, powerful, open source but it lacks some tools. So it's more pure coding but there are some big titles made with it like Crypt of the Necrodancer.

 

I also want to point out that Unity's excuse that most developers shouldn't care because they don't hit the revenue or install caps is irrelevant. If they are actually allowed to get away with this and the game industry decides it's fine for engines or tools to retroactively change the terms of their licensing for already existing games whenever they want, then there's nothing stopping Unity from deciding in a few more months that they want 95% of revenue from everyone over $100 and ten installs. The numbers themselves and who they're going after NOW aren't the point; it's that Unity have announced they're even willing to try legally dubious and unethical crap like this.

 

How does unity track revenue?

 

The people defending unity in this thread are hilarious. Probably just the CEO or unity employees on alt accounts.

Also just going to repost this link for those who have not seen. This was probably planned for months.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/16hnibp/unity_silently_removed_their_github_repo_to_track/

 

Because thats it's intended function. Thats how it's intended to be charged.

Unity isn't in the business of bankrupting people over an install bot or some S***, they just want their cut. Even if it's a bit complicated.

 

just like installs, they use crystal ball

 

Stop trying to correct misconceptions by adding more misinformation.

 

Also made a similar Reddit post

 

No. Just no. That is not how it works. At all.

 

John Riccitiello needs to resign. We need someone in charge that actually understands games and can bring actual value to game developers. Going public was the worst thing to happen to this company, they are more worried about the short-term stock movements than providing stable and finished features to actual developers using their product it seems.

 

They can't.

 

What does that even mean? Our demo is the full game that's not content complete and is artificially limited in progression. Same app id as far as Unity are concerned. Are we supposed to maintain completely separate projects just for demos? That's a significant operation overhead if we want to continue to do WebGL marketing.

Just yesterday they did count. Unity are now backtracking. Pray tell how will they differentiate the demo from the full game when it's the same project, just in a different branch?

 

Can developers retroactively invoice Unity too?

I mean if the ToS are not set in stone anymore.. serious question

 

This right here. This is all a performance for the stock market, and could be gone tomorrow, and back the next day. Unity Technologies has completed the transition from game engine maker to financial instrument.

 

are you serious, mobile is the main market of unity, and F2P is main monetization type on mobile market

 

Here is a 5 head take. If Unity somehow have some BLACK BOX solution for determining what a pirated copy of a game is, why the hell haven't you already used this technology to BLOCK PIRATED GAMES...

 

Yeah screw those games. How dare they exist.

 

Most if not all of upper management needs to go. A CEO doesn't make all of the decisions at a company.

 

So, which major year LTS version is the last version to be exempt from the Unity Runtime Fee?

(I find it ironic that this almost rhymes with "one-time fee.")

 

I think this is some kind of record.