Unity plan pricing and updates

[LordCerveau]

Unity License Fee will change on 1-1-24.

https://unity.com/pricing-updates

It will be retroactively applied on all installs of a game.

The developer will incur a fee for every install of their game.

Unity say "we are introducing a unity runtime fee that is based upon each time a
qualifying game is downloaded by an end user."

so every time you install a game built in unity, the developer would be required to pay a fee.


(this has just been announced 12 Sep 23, many are expecting some sort of retraction or lesser outrageous costing by 1-1-24)

How will this affect TSO and its playerbase ?

could potentially be very bad for TSO.

[EDIT]

according to the link above :

Question : Does the Unity Runtime Fee apply to web and streaming games?

Answer : We are not going to count web and streaming games toward your install count.

Hmm so TSO is safe then it seems - at the moment..

[topgearfan]

seems wise to invest in good legal department when dealing with those guys

[Qualan]

The fee per new install is not so high that they will change a FTP game into a pay-to-play model so it is BB's problem to solve

Judging by the subscription plan, the fees won't be crippling but if applied will mean a potential earlier pulling of the plug on the game down the line

[LordCerveau]

The fee per new install is not so high that they will change a FTP game into a pay-to-play model so it is BB's problem to solve

Judging by the subscription plan, the fees won't be crippling but if applied will mean a potential earlier pulling of the plug on the game down the line

maybe not for a web game because its free at the moment... but thats not the case for other games.

but the problem is Unity just decided to change their agreement with developers arbitrarily, its not like a simple price increase, its a fundamental change. this could put small devs who have a successful hit in jeopardy.

a small game that gets a million downloads on steam, suddenly owes unity a lot of money.

20 cents per install upto 1 million installs, thats 200 grand.

Also unity don't even have the tools to tell them how many downloads/installs are happening, its going to take them the rest of the year to dev them.

By the way this change has come from Unity’s CEO who was the former EA exec that wanted to sell you bullets in battlefied


Epics Unreal Engine is free with 5% share in revenue when you Go Over 1 million in sales.

at least this will make a 2 horse race into a 1 horse race.

[halv12]

I dont think it will be a problem for small devs -

Who does the Unity Runtime Fee apply to?

Unity Personal and Unity Plus: The Unity Runtime Fee will apply to games made with Unity Personal and Unity Plus that have made $200,000 USD or more in the last 12 months AND have at least 200,000 lifetime installs.

Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise: The Unity Runtime Fee will apply to games made with Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise that have made $1,000,000 USD or more in the last 12 months AND have at least 1,000,000 installs.

[Qualan]

Still the plan- even when rolled out to webgames will not make a company change a FTP to a paid game - They will raise money a different way or pull the plug

For new developments it will have an impact on choice and choice of model to run.

So from my point of view- This won't impact TSO in the short run so nothing to worry about

Any unity issues for new games or other developments are unity and the gaming companies to sort out

If and when it applies to TSO and BB then charges a monthly fee- i think a plug will be pulled by many a player leading to a plug to be pulled by BB but i don;t read this in the announcement as a short term issue - so i wont worry about it

[Miserary]

As said above, short term at least it won't impact on SoL but how the hell do they expect to charge people/companies retroactively and get away with it?

[Miserary]

Just had a belated thought, the game does make money from people who buy gems, I'm fairly certain that will count.

[LordCerveau]

I dont think it will be a problem for small devs -

Who does the Unity Runtime Fee apply to?

Unity Personal and Unity Plus: The Unity Runtime Fee will apply to games made with Unity Personal and Unity Plus that have made $200,000 USD or more in the last 12 months AND have at least 200,000 lifetime installs.

Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise: The Unity Runtime Fee will apply to games made with Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise that have made $1,000,000 USD or more in the last 12 months AND have at least 1,000,000 installs.

The Personal and Unity plus is everyone, its the small studios with less 20 people, its the 1 man dev remortgaging his house to produce the game.

A very small game made by a handful of devs, the cost to produce that, you are looking at 250K easy.

The Personal tier of Unity is every little guy.

the 2nd tier is for the big companies.

Make no mistake this very much affects small games.

If steam has a sale and their game suddenly gets 1000s of downloads in 1 month that they werent prepared for, its going to cost them money.


its retroactive, from the 1-1-24 if your game has had enough downloads you will owe Unity money immediately.
a bill you hadnt planned for or even agreed to when you signed up to unity

Those small studios who signed up to unity in the last year are feeling betrayed.

The pushback from the industry has already been enormous, so much so right now unity is rethinking this.

But its to late they have shown their face, game devs will not be picking unity in the future

[LordCerveau]

10 days since they announced the Runtime Fee, Unity finally announced they will walkback a lot of the updated costs, But is it enough to win back any trust.

Marc Whitten, Leader of Unity Create released a statement.

https://blog.unity.com/news/open-letter-on-runtime-fee

Unity Personal (for small indie devs / people just playing around with unity)
- Remains Free
- No runtime Fee
- Cap on revenue before needing to upgrade to Pro increased to $200,000 from $100,000
- Requirement to use the "Made with Unity" splash screen removed.
- Will be subject to a new sign in policy, where from Nov 23 users will need to
have a Unity ID and login, as well as an active Internet Connection


Unity Pro/Enterprise
- Runtime fee will Only apply to next version of Unity Shipping from 2024,
existing shipped products wont be included or anything made in the version before
that wont count.

- No game with less then $1m made over 12 months will be subject to the fee
- if they are subject - they either pay:
2.5% revenue share
or
"calculated amount based on unique initial engagments"


(that 2.5% was originally 4% in the leaked version of the document)


That effectively does away with the biggest problem with their previous announcement
which in short was anybody who has made a unity game now owes them more money. thats gone.
which would have killed free to play games.

Personal users are getting no runtime fee and below the revenue share, so indie devs will not pay.

Finally some sense.