Current Events > Unity plans to start charging devs per install

(+) Yeah! (+)

Doe posted...

Just because you do closer to the right thing only after universal overwhelming backlash over a breach of trust, doesn't mean people are obliged to let it all be water under the bridge. It will take a long time if ever for Unity to rebuild its relationships with the larger community, and that's a good thing.

True. Like I said in #238, it's understandable if devs want to ditch Unity for future projects after this. I sure as hell wouldn't want my business to depend on a company that tried to pull this stunt either.
But that's unrelated to how we should evaluate the newest price package, which imo is pretty reasonable.

TheGoldenEel posted...

This is misleading because Unity charges a fee to use it for the Pro edition, whereas Unreal is free to use

the 2.5% plus the Unity Pro per-user fee could easily be more than 5%

Unity is has a free tier as well. Pro currently costs 1800 per seat/py. So let's say a game makes $1m revenue in a year, Unity would be cheaper than Unreal for 13 seats or less. With $2m revenue it's 27 seats. That is a worst case scenario assuming the runtime fees hit the cap every month, and the studio has only 1 revenue-generating game released.

UnholyMudcrab posted...

You've been suckered. They started with something completely awful, then backtracked to something a bit less awful, and now you're singing their praises like their updated plan isn't still bad.

Classic anchoring/door-in-the-face effect. They hardly deserve kudos for this.

Hornezz posted...

It isn't. The fees are capped at 2.5% monthly revenue, Unreal for example charges 5%. More importantly: no one is getting retroactively forced into this plan. It only applies to projects using future versions, so devs are free to choose their engine with that info in mind.

If this was their initial proposal there wouldn't have been any drama whatsoever. You're free to have your Gamer outrage though.

The runtime fee, now based on "initial engagement," still has potentially severe unforeseen consequences. They're luring people in with the promise that it will be cheaper, and will totally for real accept your self-reported numbers, but it raises a few questions. Why would a for-profit corporation, that is in desperate need of more revenue, willingly give that option? They claim they've been working on this since the beginning of the year and had spoke with developers and publishers and internal staff before publishing their initial proposal - why didn't they "fix" it then when it was so obviously horrible? The most generous explanation is they wanted to implement a 2.5% fee for the big earners and they decided this was the best way to go about it because now they receive a tiny bit of undeserved praise.

And just a reminder, this is the second time Unity has tried to make sweeping changes to the TOS on a whim, backtracked, and promised they won't do it again.
https://blog.unity.com/community/updated-terms-of-service-and-commitment-to-being-an-open-platform
You can argue that in a vacuum the new plan isn't so bad but to do so is foolish and naive. As good of an engine as it is the leadership continues to be it's biggest liability. If their business continues to flounder you can bet they're going to try pulling more shit and next time they might not be persuaded otherwise. It's no good to sit idly and wait for that to happen. Other alternatives need to be talked about and built upon sooner rather than later, and this is as good an excuse as any.

Board_hunter567 posted...

They hardly deserve kudos for this.

Nah, it's a good thing when a company actually responds to criticism and reverts their obviously bad decisions. Compare this to recent examples of Twitter and Reddit who responded to internet outrages by telling their users to go fuck themselves and doubled down on their plans.

The most generous explanation is they wanted to implement a 2.5% fee for the big earners and they decided this was the best way to go about it because now they receive a tiny bit of undeserved praise.

I'm sorry but claiming this all was intended as a door-in-the-face strategy sounds like conspiratorial nonsense. If the 2.5% was the plan all along they could have announced that without much controversy. (Reminder: their main competitor charges 5%)

Are we really believing Unity intentionally announced a terrible plan, that:
- made negative headlines world wide,
- caused a massive internet outrage,
- outed them as a greedy and unreliable business partner,
- hurt their stocks,
- had tons of game studios publicly distancing themselves,
- had several big names switching to, and endorsing, alternatives,
- pissed off their own employees so much that one of them got arrested for death threats?

...all of that only to make their 2.5% plan sound slightly more reasonable?

The more plausible explanation is that some greedy suits actually believed they could get away with the install fees - and after realizing they couldn't, changed directions before every last user dumped them.

As good of an engine as it is the leadership continues to be it's biggest liability. If their business continues to flounder you can bet they're going to try pulling more shit and next time they might not be persuaded otherwise. It's no good to sit idly and wait for that to happen. Other alternatives need to be talked about and built upon sooner rather than later, and this is as good an excuse as any.

Agreed with this part. Preferably FOSS alternatives. The studio behind Terraria announcing their financial support for Godot is the best thing that came out of this.

Tyranthraxus posted...

The massive subscription is $5000. The fee for that tier doesn't kick in until $1m so it's mathematically impossible for the subscription+install fee to be more than 5%

the Unity pro fee is per user

TheGoldenEel posted...

the Unity pro fee is per user

Unity pro is a cheap subscription intended for really small indie teams. If need a lot of seats you need Enterprise or Industry.

Tyranthraxus posted...

Unity pro is a cheap subscription intended for really small indie teams. If need a lot of seats you need Enterprise or Industry.

Regardless, Unreal is either free or way cheaper than Unity for a subscription depending on the level, so claiming their 2.5% vs Unreals 5% is strictly less is misleading

Unreal Enterprise is $1500/user compared to $5000/user for Unity

TheGoldenEel posted...

Regardless, Unreal is either free or way cheaper than Unity for a subscription depending on the level, so claiming their 2.5% vs Unreals 5% is strictly less is misleading

Unreal Enterprise is $1500/user compared to $5000/user for Unity

No it's not $5000 user per unity. It's $5000 to have the subscription at all, then it comes with some seats (need to determine how many with sales) and if you need more you purchase more at a different pricing rate.

But regardless Unreal has the most transparent pricing up front. Just 5% or for like $2 million dollars they give you the source code and you can do whatever you want.

https://twitter.com/unity/status/1705317639478751611?s=20

"Genuinely disappointed at how our removal of the ToS has been framed across the internet. We removed it way before the pricing change was announced because the views were so low, not because we didn't want people to see it."

They still are digging themselves a hole. TOS is there for transparency, not for views. It's not a Youtube or social media platform, lmao. I truly hope no developer is crawling back to them if they have a chance to switch engines.

Hornezz posted...

Nah, it's a good thing when a company actually responds to criticism and reverts their obviously bad decisions.

It's a good thing, but that doesn't mean they deserve kudos. Companies reverse decisions like this when the backlash is more than they are prepared to accept, not because they have a genuine change of heart. The only lessons they've learned here are a) to not reach so far next time, and b) to do so more subtly.

We've seen this behavior from pretty much every single AAA publisher, and that's just in the video game industry. I'd wager that most big corporations regardless of industry have done this sort of thing before - "over reach, get massive backlash, apologize and backtrack a bit to the tune of people celebrating them as the good guy." It's a calculated move, and too many people fall for it.

Heck, I'm probably gonna get called "ungrateful" for this post. That too is part of their strategy.

^ Refer to post 253. What you're posting is some tinfoil hat nonsense. Thinking this whole thing was some secret 4d chess plan from Unity to manipulate people, where plain incompetence is the more plausible explanation.

Twitter and Reddit users are there in their free time and generally don't have a financial stake in its lame user end decisions. They can weather backlash because the reward (eg IPO for Reddit) is way sweeter than the pain their users are able or willing to inflict.

Unity on the other hand broke the trust of the people who have a huge financial stake in the old Unity policies. They are realizing now that the benefit of the new policy is outweighed by the fact nobody would use Unity anymore, killing the company.

Kudos/morality/etc is just not a factor in this comparison. In either case the company's reaction is to seek what's profitable.

Hornezz posted...

^ Refer to post 253. What you're posting is some tinfoil hat nonsense. Thinking this whole thing was some secret 4d chess plan from Unity to manipulate people, where plain incompetence is the more plausible explanation.

Nah, no one is that incompetent. It is the classic release something horrible and then walk back a bit so it is still horrible, but not as horrible to make the bitter pill easier to swallow.

It's still a game tax. It's anti discount and encourages delisting games years later.

Apart from unreal though its not easy to find an engine that can perform at the scale Unity does. Godot is not that and not even at no 3, its just no 3 in popularity.

A_A_Battery posted...

Apart from unreal though its not easy to find an engine that can perform at the scale Unity does. Godot is not that and not even at no 3, its just no 3 in popularity.

From what I hear, the changes their implementing will put Unity about at the same price point as Unreal. So you might as well just use unreal at that point.