Well they're not, they're doing per download up to 4% of revenue (presumably because Unreal is 5). Which just seems like a more convoluted way of getting to roughly the same place
So.. This'll all be "walked back" to 4% on revenue over 200k, right?
And that'll sound cheaper then unreal, as 4% is less then 5%?
Until you do the math:
0.04(x- 200000) = 0.05(x - 10^6)
x = 4.2 . 10^6
and find out that Unity is more expensive till you get to 80 4.2 million dollars revenue, a lofty number (but not as lofty as I thought):
(This is just speculation, on how it's going to shake out, btw.)
Damnit: got my math wrong, I originally had 0.04x - 200000 = 0.05x - 10^6. But I'm pretty sure that it should be 0.04(x- 200000) = 0.05(x - 10^6)
Which generally makes them more expensive than Unreal in basically all circumstances because of the per-seat subscription license. But at least it's not a debtor-prison level infinite liability....
(I cannot emphasize this enough, large companies *do not pay the public rates for software*. They negotiate their own contracts. Ain't no $100million/year or higher game that's giving Unreal a 5% cut in perpetuity, no chance in hell)
They're basically banking on enough people being locked in to their tools/workflow/knowledge, enough companies being scared of Unreal revenue-sharing maybe taking even more, higher system requirements and complexity and Godot not being mature enough yet
Yep, I've seen some devs comment about how much this shit pisses them off, but that Unity is sticky. So once they hit a certain point on their current project, it's not feasible to dump Unity and shift over to another engine because they lack the revenue to be able to do given that means likely learning a new engine (granted, could always hire new people or be extremely lucky and somehow have enough people versed in what you decide to transition to) and delay the game. This pretty much screws over many small and medium companies because dropping unity is a death sentence if they are far enough into a project. Granted, the pricing schemes are probably a death sentence for many small companies.
I would not be surprised if the assholes factored that in and it's why they aren't backing down because they think enough companies will be in a position where they are stuck using unity for years and that maybe they'll forget this transgression or stop being super pissed about.
Granted, I've also seen those same devs mention that if one is starting a new project or not far enough in to make an engine switch problematic. Then if they can get the knowledge on how to use a new engine and the license, it makes perfect sense to dump Unity ASAP.
That's the say Unity is probably a shambling corpse at this point, when we also factor in the low level people that have likely jumped ship. There are probably enough companies stuck with Unity that this won't be an instant death sentence, but at the same time, pretty sure they've burned the bridges well enough that once people make the landing onto something that doesn't use unity, they are going to do that. Not sure how long it takes to make the average game that utilizes Unity, but I'd wager take that figure and subtract the amount of time that the average developer can put into a project, until they have to commit to an engine. Then maybe add a year or two one and that's likely how much longer Unity has to live.
Of course, that all assumes this shit doesn't get them obliterated in court either. I want to say people have tried similar shit to fight piracy and had the court tell them to fuck off the claimed damage of piracy isn't sufficient enough to justify the trampling of consumer privacy rights. Hell, if Unity does do any sort of software licensing with a government, I don't see governments taking kind to the idea of a company getting used to the idea that it gets to track how often you install software. I mean, sure government want to track that for ensuring that the digital infrastructures stays secures because that's how you know what has or has not be secured against known threats, but they sure as fuck want a tight lid on who has access to that information and I get the impression that Unity likely doesn't do anything security related, so you'd want them right the fuck out on that loop. Finally, I don't see things going well for them if they try this shit of "we get to decide who qualifies for charity exception." Pretty sure the moment someone challenges that in court, Unity will get told "fuck you, you're a business and a business doesn't get to designate who is or isn't a business, that's the government's domain. Don't give a shit if you like it or not. If you do a charity exception, you give it to everyone listed as a charity or you don't do one at all."
Which generally makes them more expensive than Unreal in basically all circumstances because of the per-seat subscription license. But at least it's not a debtor-prison level infinite liability....
(I cannot emphasize this enough, large companies *do not pay the public rates for software*. They negotiate their own contracts. Ain't no $100million/year or higher game that's giving Unreal a 5% cut in perpetuity, no chance in hell)
Good point, although at the moment, we have no idea what they're doing, as the "per install but maybe 4%" messaging is just weird, we'll have to wait and see what the actual message will be.
You think the per seat license stays if they ask 4%? That would allow them to capture the below 1 Million market, and that's a fair amount of devs. And as you said, the big boys have their custom contracts.
Also, it flew under the radar, but from November onwards, the Unity editor will be online only, phoning in when you start, and disabling itself if it can't authenticate your license.
So the developer dream of taking a laptop, sitting outside under the trees/in a trendy café/traveling on the train, and programming away is now double dead:
a) You weren't going to do this anyway,
b) you can't do it anymore.
(so this doesn't change anything, except for those rare occasions, more of an annoyance then anything else.)
I'm not really aware of the specifics regarding when Unity authenticates its license in the first place, excepting that it definitely does so for batch builds on Jenkins servers, and at some various points it's needed to download packages or whatever. The Editor typically stays open for days at a time so calling when you boot isn't super relevant.
At this point I just assume it's just going to be exactly as bad as they can get away with. Their original proposal was to have *both* the rate hike on subscriptions *and* the convoluted illegal install tracking fee, so unless they say otherwise I'd just assume the subscriptions are staying.
I had always assumed the subscription was there because they had some data indicating their customer base would provide more revenue that way due to the particulars of who is actually using the engine. I don't actually know that though or really much at all about how Unity makes money. I will say I was surprised when they added the Plus tier because it's like 4x cheaper than Pro with all the same benefits and we immediately switched to it because why wouldn't we. My initial CS complaints about this mentioned that we would be "happy to pay for Pro" because it's true; $30/month with no royalties is a steal for what you're getting in a commercial production engine.
And from my view the original price point of $120/month with no royalties beat Unreal very handily because I aspire to make real cash with my projects, even if I probably won't actually reach those highs, aspiring to success is part of the whole package of being a small dev. I am not the only dev who has stated that being royalty free was *the single reason* for picking Unity over Unreal way back at project start. And that's a less talked about reason why this install deal was so soul crushing for indies to begin with.
Vontre on
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Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
Which generally makes them more expensive than Unreal in basically all circumstances because of the per-seat subscription license. But at least it's not a debtor-prison level infinite liability....
(I cannot emphasize this enough, large companies *do not pay the public rates for software*. They negotiate their own contracts. Ain't no $100million/year or higher game that's giving Unreal a 5% cut in perpetuity, no chance in hell)
Good point, although at the moment, we have no idea what they're doing, as the "per install but maybe 4%" messaging is just weird, we'll have to wait and see what the actual message will be.
You think the per seat license stays if they ask 4%? That would allow them to capture the below 1 Million market, and that's a fair amount of devs. And as you said, the big boys have their custom contracts.
Also, it flew under the radar, but from November onwards, the Unity editor will be online only, phoning in when you start, and disabling itself if it can't authenticate your license.
So the developer dream of taking a laptop, sitting outside under the trees/in a trendy café/traveling on the train, and programming away is now double dead:
a) You weren't going to do this anyway,
b) you can't do it anymore.
(so this doesn't change anything, except for those rare occasions, more of an annoyance then anything else.)
Nah, you can still do all of that. No one is stopping someone clever enough. Even if you end up building/repairing the plane(s) engine(s) in mid-flight/mid-air.
Tom Francis (Gunpoint, Heat Signature, the upcoming Tactical Breach Wizards) had things to say about it: https://www.pentadact.com/2023-09-16-unitys-trap/
tldr; The broken trust from going back on their established word is way more damaging than the financial changes (as it affects everyone, even small developers that likely won't get dinged by this), and the only way to restore that is going to be to make it an inviolate part of the EULA that past versions will be held to past terms.
This is also the first I ever heard of Tactical Breach Wizards, which now has a place on my wishlist based on the name alone.
His stance makes no sense to me, nor did it yesterday when I originally read it. Being allowed to stay on the old system WAS in the EULA...and Unity quietly removed it. Like, they straight out showed that having something in their EULA doesn't mean anything...and that's what Tom Francis thinks will help solve this?
That's why he says move it to the very top. As he says, it's the fact that they quietly took that part out, and he's almost certainly scrolled to the bottom and clicked 'agree' since then.
Put it right at the top in big letters, so if/when it gets changed again, everyone notices right away. It takes the option to remove it quietly off the table, so loud is the only choice left to them.
(Although after this I assume any TOS changes will be picked up pretty quickly, now that people know they need to look for them)
I found the Sungrand guy's comments very interesting because one of the points that he made was that Unity have been neglecting the "make our software better for actually making games with" part for several years, and focused almost entirely on monetisiation, so this current situation is basically Sungrand's "they showed us who they were and now we believe it" moment.
I found the Sungrand guy's comments very interesting because one of the points that he made was that Unity have been neglecting the "make our software better for actually making games with" part for several years, and focused almost entirely on monetisiation, so this current situation is basically Sungrand's "they showed us who they were and now we believe it" moment.
I have privately thought this about Unity, but in a slightly different way: Namely, Prototyping with Unity is super quick. Making a little tutorial that does "complicated thing X": that's pretty easy.
Actually having a big project in Unity: Pretty disastrous, and yeah, everything gets more complicated when the scope expands.
But Unity has a knack of layering of having all these systems and it just becomes a complex mess. I had to look back at a project my lead dev did a year ago, and just finding out where things happened was an adventure.
Partly, this is our fault, be more consistent and all, but Unity doesn't help at all.
My only quibble with the comment by the CEO of Sungrand, is that he neglects to mention the political option. There are parts of the industry that badly needs some god damn regulatory changes or in same cases actually needs to move from having nonexistent regulation, to having some codified rules with real consequences.
Unity bullshit, is a good example of how an unwillingness to embrace the idea of proactive regulation will bite you in the ass. Bad actors will not that their are less consequences for fucking around in an industry that has inadequate regulation and move in. Yes, their schemes might blow up in there faces, but there is always the chance they make a huge payday. Part of the idea with regulations is that you discourage them because you codify guaranteed consequences for certain actions. If that doesn't dissuade them, then you get to cut them off a the knees for violating the regulations and make an example out of them; hopefully, to dissuade others from pulling the same crap.
I'll state that Unity is probably a dead company walking, but it's CEO and top executives likely don't give a damn because they are going to make a shit ton of money despite running the company into the ground and many of them, if not all, did fuck all to build the company at all. They've already made their money and it's about getting all the money they can get. Hell, they might not necessarily be in legal territory where they'll lose money because they have perform illegal actions first. The retroactive bit is illegal, but they have to try to collect money on that before people can challenge it. Same deal with the whole charity thing. Unfortunately, what isn't illegal is the type of rent seeking they are up to. Hell, even if they do attempt those illegal actions, thanks to how we've setup the rules for corporations, those assholes running Unity will see zero consequence. Unity the company might incur fines and have to pay out money in lawsuits, but Unity's leadership will get to fuck off, scot free, to the next host company they'll parasitize. It'll be the low level employees and developers that can't afford to dump Unity right now, that will get fucked over most.
Honestly, one thing that I hope this whole fucking mess gets more attention on. Is there is a need to take a long hard look at how various software companies are abusing the licensing model in a way that is ultimately harmful to everyone. There has been a ton of "you don't own this software, it's a subscription that you have to pay money for. We're not really do anything to justify getting a steady subscription fee, we just want more money and there isn't anything illegal about what we're doing. So fuck you, got mine!" I'm not saying subscription models for software or games should be outright banned. I'm saying we probably should require companies to meet some standards before they can legally pursue such models for their software. Like are you actively supporting this product beyond just basic security updates, in a way where you need a dedicated revenue stream to keep things running smoothly? No, then fuck off with your subscription plans because there is no justification for that shit. Are these features that your clients actually want and isn't just some bullshit the executives and useless ass manages came up with because they want the clients to buy it, even if the clients have no fucking desire whatsoever for those features. As a consumer, I'm getting a bit tired of getting fucked over by that shit because that's more shit that my antivirus has to check, resulting in longer scans because it's more potential areas for exploits to be found. It also gets to be really shit when you're on a mid tier or lower device or have an old device because that's a fuck ton of superfluous processes that are going to eat up processing power and slow a devices down for no damn good reason, just for the avarice of a bunch of assholes.
I bring that last bit up because I do see a number of companies that are actively adding to their software, be that run of mill software or game software, and they aren't seeking rent for the additional work they are doing in support of a product they've already sold. Right now a good example of this is Paradox's Stellaris. Someone can buy the base game and any updates that the developer make to the content that comes with the base game will be free. Again there are a ton of businesses where they force your to pay rent to continue using their product and they aren't adding anything new to it. Hell, I'd argue you get some where you're not even getting security updates and if an exploit is found, better hope your operating system is getting something to plug that hole. So I'd love to see people take the anger they rightfully have over Unity's bullshit and use that to get regulations into place, that excise some of the rot we're seeing. Yes, people should dump companies who get up to this bullshit and support companies that aren't doing these practices, but at the same time we don't have to live in a world where they can just legally get away with certain bullshit. There are cases where we should say "you know what? Fuck you! Fuck the horse you rode in on! Also this shit should be fucking illegal, so let's go ahead and get that codified, so that we can fine the shit out both you and the horse you rode in on, the next time you pull this shit!"
I will comment that historically, demanding that $_Industry CEOs be responsible for legislating regulation for $_Industry has not been a reliable pathway to effective, socially responsible legislation.
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KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
edited September 2023
Something about not retracting the installs thing, but instead saying "Yeah, the companies will report their installs and we'll charge them .20 per install." is just... one of the dumbest things I've read in awhile.
I was a big Unity advocate in 2014 because it was my main application and learning engine in college apart from GameMaker Studio, and hot damn. Fuck Unity.
If you are willing to pay the subscription then clearly the software is valuable enough to justify it. You cannot effectively regulate that a product be "good". Not defective is a very low bar.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
If you are willing to pay the subscription then clearly the software is valuable enough to justify it. You cannot effectively regulate that a product be "good". Not defective is a very low bar.
Wrong. You absolutely wrong on this point. People being willing to pay for something, does not in fact mean that the company was justified in how they set the payment options up. There are plenty of ways a company can go about setting up some real shitty deals and people are stuck paying, even if they feel it's a bad deal. Specifically, in this case, there are probably a number of developers that are shit out of luck because they need to renew their license with Unity, likely be forced to agree to whatever bullshit terms Unity is able to get away with because they are in the middle of a project and they do not have the resources to kick Unity to the curb.
Just because a company is able to get someone to pay for their bullshit setup, doesn't mean it's a setup that should be defended nor allowed to stay legal. Unity's bullshit here is a natural evolution of the predatory bullshit we've been seeing for awhile. It's "How can I squeeze more money out of my customers without doing a god damn thing to justify it." Again, there is a need for a long hard look at the whole licensing model and then putting in some god damn standards on how and when a company can legally pursue that. "We get to collect X dollars for each game install," isn't any different than "We get to collect X dollars from you every month, for using our software that we aren't actively supporting in any way whatsoever." If a company wants to to do rent seeking, then they damn well need to be offering enough of a service to justify it or they need to be told to fuck off and charge for a one time purchase.
I wish there was some way to regulate about rent-seeking in particular, but given the subjectivity involved and the games companies play to justify it I have no idea how that would work in practice.
Maybe hit them with a tax that goes up every time a CEO uses the terms "rate increase" and "innovation" in the same statement.
Using exactly the same system they said they would, but implementing a cap, just seems like a way to set up their system so that they can quickly and quietly raise or remove the cap as the outrage exhausts itself.
Otherwise yeah, it's just a needlessly complicated way of taking 4% of revenue.
Do you want up front pay-each-upgrade $10000/seat licensing to be the cheap option? Because that's how you get it. Unity was the engine for indies. Indies typically fail and won't meet rev-sharing levels, so a subscription or upfront fee is the only way to reliably get paid
And if Unity legitimately wasn't making updates that were worthwhile then maybe people should switch anyway to something that was. But you can't legislate that people ship software that you want with a licensing scheme that you want, that's nonsense
And for that matter just because the updates aren't relevant to your interests doesn't make them invalid! Unity added a bunch of monetization stuff because they have been going after mobile stuff quite hard and all that crap is heavily monetized, that's quite relevant to their interests
Nah their dev has been crap lately. Stability on their LTS branches is piss poor and improvement of art pipeline features is slapdash and not moving nearly fast enough. I've had to constantly bounce around different LTS versions to find the exact one that doesn't introduce or re-introduce some breaking issue into my game.
When that guy says they are focusing on "monetization" I think he means "monetizing the Unity Technologies company somehow", not adding features for devs to monetize their games. Maybe their ad integration is good, I don't use ads. Their IAP integration package is acceptable enough but that's kind of a low bar, supporting essential features of the devices your customers target. Their analytics service is a complete joke - miles behind even free tier competitors. So I think he really just means "they are an ad company now" which, yeah seems that way. They were already losing market share to Unreal before this catastrophe, because Unreal aggressively pushes features that are useful to their business customers.
Which generally makes them more expensive than Unreal in basically all circumstances because of the per-seat subscription license. But at least it's not a debtor-prison level infinite liability....
(I cannot emphasize this enough, large companies *do not pay the public rates for software*. They negotiate their own contracts. Ain't no $100million/year or higher game that's giving Unreal a 5% cut in perpetuity, no chance in hell)
Can't be emphasized enough. Even small and moderate size companies will negotiate better-than-brochure terms if they have at least one decent business person working for them.
The people paying these prices are the smallest indies and most vulnerable users.
Do you want up front pay-each-upgrade $10000/seat licensing to be the cheap option? Because that's how you get it. Unity was the engine for indies. Indies typically fail and won't meet rev-sharing levels, so a subscription or upfront fee is the only way to reliably get paid
And if Unity legitimately wasn't making updates that were worthwhile then maybe people should switch anyway to something that was. But you can't legislate that people ship software that you want with a licensing scheme that you want, that's nonsense
You can 100% legislate that certain methods of changing a licensing agreement are illegal, though. Like, say, requiring payment metrics be based in actual facts and not "trust us bro". Or removing the ability to retroactively change the license agreement without consent (and no, "stop using it" is not consent)
Another developer, Robot Gentlemen, has sayonara'd Unity, and they'll be donating the amount they were paying Unity for licence fees directly to Godot.
This is the part from Tycho's news post that really describes what Unity would have to do to undo the damage they've done:
I made the comparison to WotC's OGL debacle, the kind of unforced error made against the very grain of the people who work there - in either case, we're talking about a definitive player in their respective spaces, undertaking an obviously fucked course of action that abraded an already uneasy trust. I mentioned it because what Wizards had to do in order to get out from under that particular Sword of Damocles - one they installed themselves, directly o'erhead - was to make concessions even greater than the original status quo they'd been attempting to amend.
And that's what it will take here.
They would have to give up the fees idea entirely, and lower the original pricing of the per-seat license model. They'd have to lose more than they were losing before to not lose as much as they're now bound to lose. There is no path to making more money here, they will completely lose what they have unless they commit to making less money than they were before. That's the scale of damage Riccitiello and crew have done to the company here.
This is the part from Tycho's news post that really describes what Unity would have to do to undo the damage they've done:
I made the comparison to WotC's OGL debacle, the kind of unforced error made against the very grain of the people who work there - in either case, we're talking about a definitive player in their respective spaces, undertaking an obviously fucked course of action that abraded an already uneasy trust. I mentioned it because what Wizards had to do in order to get out from under that particular Sword of Damocles - one they installed themselves, directly o'erhead - was to make concessions even greater than the original status quo they'd been attempting to amend.
And that's what it will take here.
They would have to give up the fees idea entirely, and lower the original pricing of the per-seat license model. They'd have to lose more than they were losing before to not lose as much as they're now bound to lose. There is no path to making more money here, they will completely lose what they have unless they commit to making less money than they were before. That's the scale of damage Riccitiello and crew have done to the company here.
And yet somehow he will still make out like a bandit, because these fuckers always do.
Do you want up front pay-each-upgrade $10000/seat licensing to be the cheap option? Because that's how you get it. Unity was the engine for indies. Indies typically fail and won't meet rev-sharing levels, so a subscription or upfront fee is the only way to reliably get paid
And if Unity legitimately wasn't making updates that were worthwhile then maybe people should switch anyway to something that was. But you can't legislate that people ship software that you want with a licensing scheme that you want, that's nonsense
You can 100% legislate that certain methods of changing a licensing agreement are illegal, though. Like, say, requiring payment metrics be based in actual facts and not "trust us bro". Or removing the ability to retroactively change the license agreement without consent (and no, "stop using it" is not consent)
Exactly, like I said, if they want to charge me a recurring fee for software. Then they have to be doing something that justifies it. Like show some documentation that there is an actual ongoing service, that is doing work that they wouldn't otherwise be doing. The reason why I say security updates shouldn't count is because I'm pretty sure most companies will do that for PR reason and also so that people will keep buying the software, given that it takes time to release a new version. Not patching risks having people go with a competitor, should those customers get a new device or the vulnerability is bad enough that they can't just wait for the next version to get released. Then show documentation on how much they are spending properly fund that service.
I'm quite tired of the whole "trust us and give us your money" shit that too many companies have been up to. Often times it's entirely just greed from the top of the company, who usually have no idea how their company actually works, don't really do anything of real value, but think they should have all the money. My issue isn't that they wan t to make a profit, I'm fine with companies making reasonable profit. My issue is that it's pure fucking greed and is divorced from what is actually being done. It's a fee that is being collected that isn't going towards giving me a better service or product, nor is it goes towards making sure the employees are getting fair wages or covering for increased costs that have to be paid to keep the company going. It's just a fee that is being taken, so that that some assholes can try to goose their score of the douchebag oligarch scoreboard.
HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I’ll go further and say that as a company sure they can take fees just to send that money to the shareholders. I may not like it but it’s what they do. That’s not a Unity problem, that’s a Word problem.
For me it’s all about how insane the fee method is. Per install is legitimately insane. Insane. And that’s before all the poor communication and how not-thought-through it is.
I’ll go further and say that as a company sure they can take fees just to send that money to the shareholders. I may not like it but it’s what they do. That’s not a Unity problem, that’s a Word problem.
For me it’s all about how insane the fee method is. Per install is legitimately insane. Insane. And that’s before all the poor communication and how not-thought-through it is.
It's sane if you start from the axiom that games exist as a way to get people to look at advertising. Therefore every installation is an advertising platform. Therefore every installation that doesn't show their crappy adware is stealing money from them.
I'm really kind of in awe. All of that edge case crap, with how they'd have loopholes for bundles, or people using ads, or how they 'totally wouldn't bankrupt devs owing more than 100% of income', and all the questions about how on earth they'd be tracking installs. Changing whether or not browser plays count as installs, or reinstalling on the same device...
And the final result can just be summed up with '2.5% rev share'. They spent so much effort shooting themselves in the foot over this update.
A summary:
no splash on free anymore
changes will be from 2024 lts, and you can choose 2,5% rev share instead
licenses from older versions remains as it was
you self report your userbase
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KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
These are actually okay changes, but the trust is 100% just gone. Why would you willingly deal business with a C-suite that has proven that they will change it on a whim? Just move on to other engines at this point.
Yeah, give it six months, or maybe even six years, but they're absolutely going to try some variant on that insane cash-grab again, possibly retroactively again, at least as long as the current leadership's in place.
Still an absolute mess. Why are they even offering the insane install count thing alongside a rev share? Who is going to pick that?
Happy to see they've come to the realization that the old licenses can't be magically erased. But this does mean that Unity, as a game engine, is no longer being developed. The final version of Unity has already been released. The feature set is locked in stone, it is done, if the thing you want to make can't be made in that version, then use a different engine.
Unity has made themselves a liability to even bother learning. Dead engine once people have had a chance to adjust to something else and adapt their pipelines. Will take awhile, of course.
Though not looking forward to when we start to get old games that no longer play well with current operating systems. You figure there is a point where once people agree it's a dead engine, you'll eventually hit a point where no one is really do anything to make a setup where all the old game that have a unity engine will continue to play nice with current OS's. Though will be interesting to see how much media ends up as lost media after that happens. Like I figure you'll probably get a few titles that were absolute hits that fall into that hole because they are either in legal limbo or the IP holder decides to be an asshole dragon that is greedily guarding it's hoard and deems that the games just aren't enough enough to remake. Also figure there will be a shit ton of mediocre and dogshit mobile games falling into that pit because they were only made to be cash grabs.
gavindelThe reason all your softwareis brokenRegistered Userregular
Just once it would be nice if the C-suite jerkbags that throw these bombs suffered actual consequences instead of, you know, selling all their shares the week before it drops.
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So.. This'll all be "walked back" to 4% on revenue over 200k, right?
And that'll sound cheaper then unreal, as 4% is less then 5%?
Until you do the math:
and find out that Unity is more expensive till you get to 80 4.2 million dollars revenue, a lofty number (but not as lofty as I thought):
(This is just speculation, on how it's going to shake out, btw.)
Damnit: got my math wrong, I originally had 0.04x - 200000 = 0.05x - 10^6. But I'm pretty sure that it should be 0.04(x- 200000) = 0.05(x - 10^6)
Which generally makes them more expensive than Unreal in basically all circumstances because of the per-seat subscription license. But at least it's not a debtor-prison level infinite liability....
(I cannot emphasize this enough, large companies *do not pay the public rates for software*. They negotiate their own contracts. Ain't no $100million/year or higher game that's giving Unreal a 5% cut in perpetuity, no chance in hell)
Yep, I've seen some devs comment about how much this shit pisses them off, but that Unity is sticky. So once they hit a certain point on their current project, it's not feasible to dump Unity and shift over to another engine because they lack the revenue to be able to do given that means likely learning a new engine (granted, could always hire new people or be extremely lucky and somehow have enough people versed in what you decide to transition to) and delay the game. This pretty much screws over many small and medium companies because dropping unity is a death sentence if they are far enough into a project. Granted, the pricing schemes are probably a death sentence for many small companies.
I would not be surprised if the assholes factored that in and it's why they aren't backing down because they think enough companies will be in a position where they are stuck using unity for years and that maybe they'll forget this transgression or stop being super pissed about.
Granted, I've also seen those same devs mention that if one is starting a new project or not far enough in to make an engine switch problematic. Then if they can get the knowledge on how to use a new engine and the license, it makes perfect sense to dump Unity ASAP.
That's the say Unity is probably a shambling corpse at this point, when we also factor in the low level people that have likely jumped ship. There are probably enough companies stuck with Unity that this won't be an instant death sentence, but at the same time, pretty sure they've burned the bridges well enough that once people make the landing onto something that doesn't use unity, they are going to do that. Not sure how long it takes to make the average game that utilizes Unity, but I'd wager take that figure and subtract the amount of time that the average developer can put into a project, until they have to commit to an engine. Then maybe add a year or two one and that's likely how much longer Unity has to live.
Of course, that all assumes this shit doesn't get them obliterated in court either. I want to say people have tried similar shit to fight piracy and had the court tell them to fuck off the claimed damage of piracy isn't sufficient enough to justify the trampling of consumer privacy rights. Hell, if Unity does do any sort of software licensing with a government, I don't see governments taking kind to the idea of a company getting used to the idea that it gets to track how often you install software. I mean, sure government want to track that for ensuring that the digital infrastructures stays secures because that's how you know what has or has not be secured against known threats, but they sure as fuck want a tight lid on who has access to that information and I get the impression that Unity likely doesn't do anything security related, so you'd want them right the fuck out on that loop. Finally, I don't see things going well for them if they try this shit of "we get to decide who qualifies for charity exception." Pretty sure the moment someone challenges that in court, Unity will get told "fuck you, you're a business and a business doesn't get to designate who is or isn't a business, that's the government's domain. Don't give a shit if you like it or not. If you do a charity exception, you give it to everyone listed as a charity or you don't do one at all."
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Good point, although at the moment, we have no idea what they're doing, as the "per install but maybe 4%" messaging is just weird, we'll have to wait and see what the actual message will be.
You think the per seat license stays if they ask 4%? That would allow them to capture the below 1 Million market, and that's a fair amount of devs. And as you said, the big boys have their custom contracts.
Also, it flew under the radar, but from November onwards, the Unity editor will be online only, phoning in when you start, and disabling itself if it can't authenticate your license.
So the developer dream of taking a laptop, sitting outside under the trees/in a trendy café/traveling on the train, and programming away is now double dead:
a) You weren't going to do this anyway,
b) you can't do it anymore.
(so this doesn't change anything, except for those rare occasions, more of an annoyance then anything else.)
At this point I just assume it's just going to be exactly as bad as they can get away with. Their original proposal was to have *both* the rate hike on subscriptions *and* the convoluted illegal install tracking fee, so unless they say otherwise I'd just assume the subscriptions are staying.
I had always assumed the subscription was there because they had some data indicating their customer base would provide more revenue that way due to the particulars of who is actually using the engine. I don't actually know that though or really much at all about how Unity makes money. I will say I was surprised when they added the Plus tier because it's like 4x cheaper than Pro with all the same benefits and we immediately switched to it because why wouldn't we. My initial CS complaints about this mentioned that we would be "happy to pay for Pro" because it's true; $30/month with no royalties is a steal for what you're getting in a commercial production engine.
And from my view the original price point of $120/month with no royalties beat Unreal very handily because I aspire to make real cash with my projects, even if I probably won't actually reach those highs, aspiring to success is part of the whole package of being a small dev. I am not the only dev who has stated that being royalty free was *the single reason* for picking Unity over Unreal way back at project start. And that's a less talked about reason why this install deal was so soul crushing for indies to begin with.
https://www.pentadact.com/2023-09-16-unitys-trap/
tldr; The broken trust from going back on their established word is way more damaging than the financial changes (as it affects everyone, even small developers that likely won't get dinged by this), and the only way to restore that is going to be to make it an inviolate part of the EULA that past versions will be held to past terms.
This is also the first I ever heard of Tactical Breach Wizards, which now has a place on my wishlist based on the name alone.
Put it right at the top in big letters, so if/when it gets changed again, everyone notices right away. It takes the option to remove it quietly off the table, so loud is the only choice left to them.
(Although after this I assume any TOS changes will be picked up pretty quickly, now that people know they need to look for them)
I have privately thought this about Unity, but in a slightly different way: Namely, Prototyping with Unity is super quick. Making a little tutorial that does "complicated thing X": that's pretty easy.
Actually having a big project in Unity: Pretty disastrous, and yeah, everything gets more complicated when the scope expands.
But Unity has a knack of layering of having all these systems and it just becomes a complex mess. I had to look back at a project my lead dev did a year ago, and just finding out where things happened was an adventure.
Partly, this is our fault, be more consistent and all, but Unity doesn't help at all.
Unity bullshit, is a good example of how an unwillingness to embrace the idea of proactive regulation will bite you in the ass. Bad actors will not that their are less consequences for fucking around in an industry that has inadequate regulation and move in. Yes, their schemes might blow up in there faces, but there is always the chance they make a huge payday. Part of the idea with regulations is that you discourage them because you codify guaranteed consequences for certain actions. If that doesn't dissuade them, then you get to cut them off a the knees for violating the regulations and make an example out of them; hopefully, to dissuade others from pulling the same crap.
I'll state that Unity is probably a dead company walking, but it's CEO and top executives likely don't give a damn because they are going to make a shit ton of money despite running the company into the ground and many of them, if not all, did fuck all to build the company at all. They've already made their money and it's about getting all the money they can get. Hell, they might not necessarily be in legal territory where they'll lose money because they have perform illegal actions first. The retroactive bit is illegal, but they have to try to collect money on that before people can challenge it. Same deal with the whole charity thing. Unfortunately, what isn't illegal is the type of rent seeking they are up to. Hell, even if they do attempt those illegal actions, thanks to how we've setup the rules for corporations, those assholes running Unity will see zero consequence. Unity the company might incur fines and have to pay out money in lawsuits, but Unity's leadership will get to fuck off, scot free, to the next host company they'll parasitize. It'll be the low level employees and developers that can't afford to dump Unity right now, that will get fucked over most.
Honestly, one thing that I hope this whole fucking mess gets more attention on. Is there is a need to take a long hard look at how various software companies are abusing the licensing model in a way that is ultimately harmful to everyone. There has been a ton of "you don't own this software, it's a subscription that you have to pay money for. We're not really do anything to justify getting a steady subscription fee, we just want more money and there isn't anything illegal about what we're doing. So fuck you, got mine!" I'm not saying subscription models for software or games should be outright banned. I'm saying we probably should require companies to meet some standards before they can legally pursue such models for their software. Like are you actively supporting this product beyond just basic security updates, in a way where you need a dedicated revenue stream to keep things running smoothly? No, then fuck off with your subscription plans because there is no justification for that shit. Are these features that your clients actually want and isn't just some bullshit the executives and useless ass manages came up with because they want the clients to buy it, even if the clients have no fucking desire whatsoever for those features. As a consumer, I'm getting a bit tired of getting fucked over by that shit because that's more shit that my antivirus has to check, resulting in longer scans because it's more potential areas for exploits to be found. It also gets to be really shit when you're on a mid tier or lower device or have an old device because that's a fuck ton of superfluous processes that are going to eat up processing power and slow a devices down for no damn good reason, just for the avarice of a bunch of assholes.
I bring that last bit up because I do see a number of companies that are actively adding to their software, be that run of mill software or game software, and they aren't seeking rent for the additional work they are doing in support of a product they've already sold. Right now a good example of this is Paradox's Stellaris. Someone can buy the base game and any updates that the developer make to the content that comes with the base game will be free. Again there are a ton of businesses where they force your to pay rent to continue using their product and they aren't adding anything new to it. Hell, I'd argue you get some where you're not even getting security updates and if an exploit is found, better hope your operating system is getting something to plug that hole. So I'd love to see people take the anger they rightfully have over Unity's bullshit and use that to get regulations into place, that excise some of the rot we're seeing. Yes, people should dump companies who get up to this bullshit and support companies that aren't doing these practices, but at the same time we don't have to live in a world where they can just legally get away with certain bullshit. There are cases where we should say "you know what? Fuck you! Fuck the horse you rode in on! Also this shit should be fucking illegal, so let's go ahead and get that codified, so that we can fine the shit out both you and the horse you rode in on, the next time you pull this shit!"
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
I was a big Unity advocate in 2014 because it was my main application and learning engine in college apart from GameMaker Studio, and hot damn. Fuck Unity.
Twitch: KoopahTroopah - Steam: Koopah
Wrong. You absolutely wrong on this point. People being willing to pay for something, does not in fact mean that the company was justified in how they set the payment options up. There are plenty of ways a company can go about setting up some real shitty deals and people are stuck paying, even if they feel it's a bad deal. Specifically, in this case, there are probably a number of developers that are shit out of luck because they need to renew their license with Unity, likely be forced to agree to whatever bullshit terms Unity is able to get away with because they are in the middle of a project and they do not have the resources to kick Unity to the curb.
Just because a company is able to get someone to pay for their bullshit setup, doesn't mean it's a setup that should be defended nor allowed to stay legal. Unity's bullshit here is a natural evolution of the predatory bullshit we've been seeing for awhile. It's "How can I squeeze more money out of my customers without doing a god damn thing to justify it." Again, there is a need for a long hard look at the whole licensing model and then putting in some god damn standards on how and when a company can legally pursue that. "We get to collect X dollars for each game install," isn't any different than "We get to collect X dollars from you every month, for using our software that we aren't actively supporting in any way whatsoever." If a company wants to to do rent seeking, then they damn well need to be offering enough of a service to justify it or they need to be told to fuck off and charge for a one time purchase.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Maybe hit them with a tax that goes up every time a CEO uses the terms "rate increase" and "innovation" in the same statement.
Otherwise yeah, it's just a needlessly complicated way of taking 4% of revenue.
And if Unity legitimately wasn't making updates that were worthwhile then maybe people should switch anyway to something that was. But you can't legislate that people ship software that you want with a licensing scheme that you want, that's nonsense
When that guy says they are focusing on "monetization" I think he means "monetizing the Unity Technologies company somehow", not adding features for devs to monetize their games. Maybe their ad integration is good, I don't use ads. Their IAP integration package is acceptable enough but that's kind of a low bar, supporting essential features of the devices your customers target. Their analytics service is a complete joke - miles behind even free tier competitors. So I think he really just means "they are an ad company now" which, yeah seems that way. They were already losing market share to Unreal before this catastrophe, because Unreal aggressively pushes features that are useful to their business customers.
Can't be emphasized enough. Even small and moderate size companies will negotiate better-than-brochure terms if they have at least one decent business person working for them.
The people paying these prices are the smallest indies and most vulnerable users.
You can 100% legislate that certain methods of changing a licensing agreement are illegal, though. Like, say, requiring payment metrics be based in actual facts and not "trust us bro". Or removing the ability to retroactively change the license agreement without consent (and no, "stop using it" is not consent)
They would have to give up the fees idea entirely, and lower the original pricing of the per-seat license model. They'd have to lose more than they were losing before to not lose as much as they're now bound to lose. There is no path to making more money here, they will completely lose what they have unless they commit to making less money than they were before. That's the scale of damage Riccitiello and crew have done to the company here.
And yet somehow he will still make out like a bandit, because these fuckers always do.
Steam | XBL
Exactly, like I said, if they want to charge me a recurring fee for software. Then they have to be doing something that justifies it. Like show some documentation that there is an actual ongoing service, that is doing work that they wouldn't otherwise be doing. The reason why I say security updates shouldn't count is because I'm pretty sure most companies will do that for PR reason and also so that people will keep buying the software, given that it takes time to release a new version. Not patching risks having people go with a competitor, should those customers get a new device or the vulnerability is bad enough that they can't just wait for the next version to get released. Then show documentation on how much they are spending properly fund that service.
I'm quite tired of the whole "trust us and give us your money" shit that too many companies have been up to. Often times it's entirely just greed from the top of the company, who usually have no idea how their company actually works, don't really do anything of real value, but think they should have all the money. My issue isn't that they wan t to make a profit, I'm fine with companies making reasonable profit. My issue is that it's pure fucking greed and is divorced from what is actually being done. It's a fee that is being collected that isn't going towards giving me a better service or product, nor is it goes towards making sure the employees are getting fair wages or covering for increased costs that have to be paid to keep the company going. It's just a fee that is being taken, so that that some assholes can try to goose their score of the douchebag oligarch scoreboard.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
For me it’s all about how insane the fee method is. Per install is legitimately insane. Insane. And that’s before all the poor communication and how not-thought-through it is.
It's sane if you start from the axiom that games exist as a way to get people to look at advertising. Therefore every installation is an advertising platform. Therefore every installation that doesn't show their crappy adware is stealing money from them.
I'm really kind of in awe. All of that edge case crap, with how they'd have loopholes for bundles, or people using ads, or how they 'totally wouldn't bankrupt devs owing more than 100% of income', and all the questions about how on earth they'd be tracking installs. Changing whether or not browser plays count as installs, or reinstalling on the same device...
And the final result can just be summed up with '2.5% rev share'. They spent so much effort shooting themselves in the foot over this update.
A summary:
Twitch: KoopahTroopah - Steam: Koopah
Happy to see they've come to the realization that the old licenses can't be magically erased. But this does mean that Unity, as a game engine, is no longer being developed. The final version of Unity has already been released. The feature set is locked in stone, it is done, if the thing you want to make can't be made in that version, then use a different engine.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.