Unity Technologies has made a major change to how it charges developers for using its engine. Starting January 1, 2024, Unity will begin charging a fee for every time a game is installed, with fees dependent on which subscription to Unity a developer has. Once a game has surpassed a threshold of $200,000 in revenue and 200,000 installs and are in either the Unity Personal or Unity Plus subscription tier, a "Unity Runtime Fee" will be applied to the development team. Those subscribed to Unity Pro, which is a tier that Unity will soon be retiring, or Unity Enterprise, will instead be charged fees once a game has made $1,000,000 and has been installed 1,000,000 times.

Depending on which tier a creator is a part of, these new changes could see developers charged as much as $0.20 every single time a game is installed by a user after the threshold is surpassed. It has been confirmed that if an owner of a game were to install a game, delete it, and redownload it, it would cost the developer money, if they were already past the limit. This will also retroactively apply to already released games as well.

Smaller developers have expressed their concerns over these changes, with some concerned about how pirated game installs will cost them, the impact it will have on free to play titles, or that Xbox Game Pass installs will also count, and have the potential to see smaller companies put at risk because of it.

SIGH pic.twitter.com/YgJEKGVQEI

— AGGRO CRAB (@AggroCrabGames) September 12, 2023

Additionally, Unity's own CEO, John Riccitiello, sold 2,000 shares of the company stock just prior to the announcement of the new Unity Runtime Fees.

 

[Taleweaver]

Christ... I had heard of flask over unity, but only now i realize how bad it is. Even with all the backpedaling I'm baffled how they're basically extorting their own customers...especially since this is somehow retroactively. That's downright insane. It's like Microsoft suddenly charging any programmer who ever built something for windows.

The backpedaling somehow makes the criticism worse...
"demo's are unaffected"
Am i really supposed to believe they haven't thought of devs selling unrestricted "demos"of the full game?
" charity bundles excluded"
... That are 100% the same game as the non charity. I don't even know if this'll create shadow charities ("now with 0.0000000001% of the profit going to Libian victims") or that an accidental miscalculation will bankrupt a small studio after a charity.
"only one install per device counted"
Great... So every unity game now phones in our rig upon installation. At least this has a silver lining of potentially not overinflating cost, but this can spell doom once it's reverse engineered. A malicious hacker could create a script that spoofs 100'000 installs on 100'000 pc's, thus effectively sinking whatever company still dumb enough to use unity.


I'm also kind of cynic how this will change the business models of those stuck on unity (and you don't "just" switch programming language). Why do any form of long term planning of your game if a reinstall on another device (which is more likely after, say, a year or two) is a financial drain?

And software pirates now do actual damage if this garbage isn't removed in the cracking process. Fuck... Runaway success indie titles run the chance of ruining the studio because they're successful (presuming pirates pirate successful games rather than random asset flip games).

Edit: Oh right... Forgot to paste the link that opened my eyes here...
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023...nst-unitys-new-per-install-pricing-structure/

Some good quotes on there.
Now excuse me... I'm busy being angry.

Edit 2: another interesting link https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023...d-to-just-change-its-fee-structure-like-that/

 

[linuxares]

Even if they did the crack would presumably patch that out? Plus doesn't everyone block cracked games in their firewall anyway? I really don't get how using piracy as a threat is going to work here.

Yeah! Or is it included during the install process? I have no idea how it would work

 

[Guacaholey]

Christ... I had heard of flask over unity, but only now i realize how bad it is. Even with all the backpedaling I'm baffled how they're basically extorting their own customers...especially since this is somehow retroactively. That's downright insane. It's like Microsoft suddenly charging any programmer who ever built something for windows.

The backpedaling somehow makes the criticism worse...
"demo's are unaffected"
Am i really supposed to believe they haven't thought of devs selling unrestricted "demos"of the full game?
" charity bundles excluded"
... That are 100% the same game as the non charity. I don't even know if this'll create shadow charities ("now with 0.0000000001% of the profit going to Libian victims") or that an accidental miscalculation will bankrupt a small studio after a charity.
"only one install per device counted"
Great... So every unity game now phones in our rig upon installation. At least this has a silver lining of potentially not overinflating cost, but this can spell doom once it's reverse engineered. A malicious hacker could create a script that spoofs 100'000 installs on 100'000 pc's, thus effectively sinking whatever company still dumb enough to use unity.


I'm also kind of cynic how this will change the business models of those stuck on unity (and you don't "just" switch programming language). Why do any form of long term planning of your game if a reinstall on another device (which is more likely after, say, a year or two) is a financial drain?

And software pirates now do actual damage if this garbage isn't removed in the cracking process. Fuck... Runaway success indie titles run the chance of ruining the studio because they're successful (presuming pirates pirate successful games rather than random asset flip games).

Edit: Oh right... Forgot to paste the link that opened my eyes here...
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023...nst-unitys-new-per-install-pricing-structure/

Some good quotes on there.
Now excuse me... I'm busy being angry.

Edit 2: another interesting link https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023...d-to-just-change-its-fee-structure-like-that/

What's funny is they apparently removed the bit saying that you can keep using older versions of Unity if the new TOS impacts your rights, because obviously everybody would just use those versions.

 

[tech3475]

Yeah! Or is it included during the install process? I have no idea how it would work

I would have thought it's integrated into the runtime engine itself, probably a check done as part of initial startup. So you either have to patch it out or block it.

It makes me wonder now if Unity will eventually introduce an online requirement for initial startup, since it will need to 'register' the device.

 

[SunsetFelid]

Everyone at Unity:

 

[Megadriver94]

Unity did it, then other gaming engines companies will follow, developers can't get fucked alone so they will increase the games price even more, and who's going to eat all that shit alone? Us the consumers.

Yeah, Unity did it, that's for sure. However, not every gaming engine company has the same leadership as them. Time will tell as to what will become of it. Glad that I removed my exe of Unity after this announcement got to me.

 

[Kitocco]

Sooo... is insider trading OK now or... ?

Like most crimes, it's only really illegal if you get caught, and you only get caught if you're not rich.

See: the times crAAApital publishers have used Scene cracks in patches or to re-sell their games on modern platforms

 

[chrisrlink]

the US DOJ/FTC should get on their case this is worse than Microsoft/actibliz deal (which the lawsuit shouldn't have EVEN existed, maybe against bobby for the toxic workplace but to trash a deal that would save a company? anyways my point is,a lawsuit will probably not happen cause Unity has the ftc in their back pocket most likely

 

[wilburie]

as a unity dev, i'm in the all clear because i don't have the guts to sell any of my games