1y ago

Unity’s new “per-install” pricing enrages the game development community | Fees of up to $0.20 per install threaten to upend large chunks of the industry.

arstechnica.com Unity’s new “per-install” pricing enrages the game development community

Fees of up to $0.20 per install threaten to upend large chunks of the industry.

Unity’s new “per-install” pricing enrages the game development community | Fees of up to $0.20 per install threaten to upend large chunks of the industry.::Fees of up to $0.20 per install threaten to upend large chunks of the industry.

Technology @lemmy.world

Unity’s new “per-install” pricing enrages the game development community

arstechnica.com /gaming/2023/09/game-developers-unite-against-unitys-new-per-install-pricing-structure/

685 83

TechNews @radiation.party

Unity’s new “per-install” pricing enrages the game development community

arstechnica.com /gaming/2023/09/game-developers-unite-against-unitys-new-per-install-pricing-structure/

1 1

42 comments

This is why we as consumers must demand open source software
- $0.00 dollars per inStallman of godot engine.
- While I'm a huge open source advocate this has little to do with open vs closed source software.
  
  The issue of having to put up with software changes you dislike is solved when you (or 3rd parties) have the freedom to change the software in ways you like.
  It is my hope that people see this as very much a proprietary vs free software issue. I hope this leads to further introspection; it's bad when an engine mistreats them (game devs) so maybe they should give software freedom to their users too.
  
  This has everything to do with FOSS.
  If a company can get away with pulling the rug on you, they will.
  Once you've heavily invested in using a a piece of software, the company behind it has leverage over you, but if you could pay for updates to that software from another company, the original company has no leverage over you.
  The only reason these companies refuse to release the source code is because they are planning on fucking you over in the future. As consumers we need to demand open source products to prevent this sort of abuse.

When capitalism runs out of places to grow/metastasize, it will consume itself.
And it has been for years, in every sector. People try to blame everything but the cause.

So out of every 1M downloads, that's $200,000 to Unity's pocket and out of the pockets of developers. Am I doing this math right?
- Not downloads. Installs. They also count re installs. So if you. Install a game, play it, remove it, then install again later that is an additional charge to the dev.
  
  How does that even work if say I buy a game at $10 and then I uninstall and install 51 times?
  
  So.. if your game becomes the most pirated game in history, you're on the hook for millions off zero income.
  Way to go Unity..
  
  If I've read this right, they don't count re-installs on the same hardware, so just "I don't want to play this anymore" uninstall -later- "I want to play this again" reinstall won't count as two installs. But reinstalls of the same license on different hardware does, so "I just bought a game! Let's play it on my aging gaming PC" installs I just bought a new gaming PC, let's see what that game looks like on high graphics settings installs again does count as two installs and the studio will...bewilderingly...be charged twice for that one sale.
- Plus on top of all the other subscription fees.
  it's not even really about the money, even if it will fuck the devs and ruin projects and lives, but the breach of trust and a mark that more shit is probably on it's way if this goes through. Unity owns a ecosystem that many people depend on and now they really start squeezing. It's not right.
  This is why things that act as commons should be either nationalised or replaced with free software.
  
  I agree. This dipping of fingers into the pockets of devs errodes trust.
  
  Plus on top of all the other subscription fees
  False. This 200k number assumes you would stay on Unity Personal, which breaks EULA anyway since you’re required to buy Unity Pro once you have more than 200k in revenue and funding.
  The real cost for 1M installs, under Unity Pro, would be 62k$, to which you’re adding 2k annually for every seat of Pro you need, that’s it. Again, this assumes you’re making upwards of 2M$ annually. As soon as your game falls back under that, there’s no runtime fees anymore.
  Compare with Unreal, where as soon as your game made 1M$ revenue over its lifetime, you’re on the hook for the 5% revshare perpetually. Over time, there’s loads of situations where that will stay more expensive.
- Basically unless you're going to make a sellout game, it might cost you money to make a game.
- Not necessarily. It depends on the Unity license being used and it scales based on installs. So higher tier license and more installs makes each additional install cheaper. But if they are using the free license, it stays at 20c per install no 'discount' at any install counts. It is a bit convoluted: https://unity.com/runtime-fee

Is there any legitimate reason for this other than "shareholders go wahhhh!" Like is there a financial burden on unity every time someone installs a game?
If not this is insanely disgusting...
- There is a reason. The current CEO is EA's former CEO. Dude was kicked out of EA for pulling something similar.
  
  Well that makes all the sense in the world now. Man fuck EA even when it's not EA lol
- Unity do not suffer financial hit just because someone installs the game.
  They don't host the code. You use their code but the code itself is hosted by the likes of Valve or Microsoft or Sony. So no they have no legitimate reason, other than they like money and they reckon this will generate them some.

This is the best summary I could come up with:
That goodwill has now been largely thrown out the window due to Unity's Tuesday announcement of a new fee structure that will start charging developers on a "per-install" basis after certain minimum thresholds are met.
The newly introduced Unity Runtime Fee—which will go into effect on January 1, 2024—will impose different per-install costs based on the company's different subscription tiers.
Outside of those countries, an "emerging markets rate" ranging from $0.005 (for Enterprise subscriptions) to $0.02 (for Unity Personal users) will apply after the minimum thresholds are met.
This is a major change from Unity's previous structure, which allowed developers making less than $100,000 per month to avoid fees altogether on the Personal tier.
Larger developers making $200,000 or more per month, meanwhile, paid only per-seat subscription fees for access to the latest, full-featured version of the Unity Editor under the Pro or Enterprise tiers.
"Gloomwood will definitely be my last Unity game, likely even if they roll back the changes," developer Dillon Rogers wrote on social media.
The original article contains 506 words, the summary contains 168 words. Saved 67%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

42 comments