Unity reveals plans to charge developers per game install - plans modified and CEO fired, lol

[Alter Sack]

Pretty sure Unity fired a lot of people in the last few years.

Unity has still more than 7000 people.
Considering the state of the engine one can easily assume most aren't even devs or at least capable devs.

More than 7000 people?

Jesus fucking Christ.

Add to that the five executive officers who are compensated with over 100 million dollars per year in total and you know they have a problem on the expenditure side and not on the income side.

 

[Grauken]

Even 700 would be too much for this kind of product. 7000 sounds like overkill

 

[Caim]

Meanwhile Whatsapp, one of the biggest and most used communication programs, has some 50-ish employees.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Meanwhile Whatsapp, one of the biggest and most used communication programs, has some 50-ish employees.

It still collapsed when opening in India due to the good morning sirs messages lol

 

[negator2vc]

Some of those 7000+ people are probably from the several acquisitions (Weta Digital for example) they did in the last few years
but still.....

 

[negator2vc]

thesecret1
Western studio - no (except mobile)
Eastern studio - yes
2D is common in indie games (and not just the small ones for ex. Supergiant Games)

I find it doubtful that an indie studio, usually struggling just to fund the game, would find the money to develop an in-house engine.

developing an in-house engine 2D isn't difficult and can give quite a lot of freedom to design a game until most popular engine that force you to work in a certain way.
Especially when you can easily use commonly available libraries like SDL or even frameworks like FNA (XNA reimplementation)
to build your engine on top.
a 3D engine on the other hand is quite a different story.

 

[Alex]

thesecret1
Western studio - no (except mobile)
Eastern studio - yes
2D is common in indie games (and not just the small ones for ex. Supergiant Games)

I find it doubtful that an indie studio, usually struggling just to fund the game, would find the money to develop an in-house engine.

I believe the one used in Sonic Mania was developed in house (in fact, I think the engine may have come first and then they made the game when they had the opportunity). Of course, this kind of engine is much more focused on a certain kind of game than a "generic" one, which means that it is much less trouble than trying to just do something like Godot or Unity from scratch, even if you limited it to 2D games.

 

[flyingjohn]

developing an in-house engine 2D isn't difficult

No it actually isn't for many reasons:
-The industry is full of graduates or the cheapest labor available.
These people have neve made any engine and it will be a nightmare to make one with their limited knowledge, unless you manage to snag a zoomer John Carmack.
-Even if you are able to make progress the key people will leave, leaving you with nothing.
Once the crunch starts, the people actually making the engine will just leave for another firm. You can't increase their pay because you are already putting a lot of money into said engine. And even if you do, you can't compete with the banking sector/AAA scouts.
-The engine is going to be very limited in what it can do.
Custom engines are designed to specific things very well, but what happens when that thing fails financially? If you fail, you just made a useless engine only your company can make and by that point you are probably scrapping it and moving to any free one.

 

[negator2vc]

developing an in-house engine 2D isn't difficult

No it actually isn't for many reasons:
-The industry is full of graduates or the cheapest labor available.
These people have neve made any engine and it will be a nightmare to make one with their limited knowledge, unless you manage to snag a zoomer John Carmack.
-Even if you are able to make progress the key people will leave, leaving you with nothing.
Once the crunch starts, the people actually making the engine will just leave for another firm. You can't increase their pay because you are already putting a lot of money into said engine. And even if you do, you can't compete with the banking sector/AAA scouts.
-The engine is going to be very limited in what it can do.
Custom engines are designed to specific things very well, but what happens when that thing fails financially? If you fail, you just made a useless engine only your company can make and by that point you are probably scrapping it and moving to any free one.

I don't understand. Are you agreeing with my post or not?
the first line look like a yes
but the rest of your post looks like a no....

 

[Grauken]

developing an in-house engine 2D isn't difficult

No it actually isn't for many reasons:
-The industry is full of graduates or the cheapest labor available.
These people have neve made any engine and it will be a nightmare to make one with their limited knowledge, unless you manage to snag a zoomer John Carmack.
-Even if you are able to make progress the key people will leave, leaving you with nothing.
Once the crunch starts, the people actually making the engine will just leave for another firm. You can't increase their pay because you are already putting a lot of money into said engine. And even if you do, you can't compete with the banking sector/AAA scouts.
-The engine is going to be very limited in what it can do.
Custom engines are designed to specific things very well, but what happens when that thing fails financially? If you fail, you just made a useless engine only your company can make and by that point you are probably scrapping it and moving to any free one.

I don't understand. Are you agreeing with my post or not?
the first line look like a yes
but the rest of your post looks like a no....

I assume his first line meant is not isn't, otherwise the rest doesn't make sense

 

[negator2vc]

The latest official response (today)
https://blog.unity.com/news/open-letter-on-runtime-fee

To our community:

I’m Marc Whitten, and I lead Unity Create which includes the Unity engine and editor teams.

I want to start with this: I am sorry.

We should have spoken with more of you and we should have incorporated more of your feedback before announcing our new Runtime Fee policy. Our goal with this policy is to ensure we can continue to support you today and tomorrow, and keep deeply investing in our game engine.

You are what makes Unity great, and we know we need to listen, and work hard to earn your trust. We have heard your concerns, and we are making changes in the policy we announced to address them.

Our Unity Personal plan will remain free and there will be no Runtime Fee for games built on Unity Personal. We will be increasing the cap from $100,000 to $200,000 and we will remove the requirement to use the Made with Unity splash screen.

No game with less than $1 million in trailing 12-month revenue will be subject to the fee.

For those creators on Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise, we are also making changes based on your feedback.

The Runtime Fee policy will only apply beginning with the next LTS version of Unity shipping in 2024 and beyond. Your games that are currently shipped and the projects you are currently working on will not be included – unless you choose to upgrade them to this new version of Unity.

We will make sure that you can stay on the terms applicable for the version of Unity editor you are using – as long as you keep using that version.

For games that are subject to the runtime fee, we are giving you a choice of either a 2.5% revenue share or the calculated amount based on the number of new people engaging with your game each month. Both of these numbers are self-reported from data you already have available. You will always be billed the lesser amount.

We want to continue to build the best engine for creators. We truly love this industry and you are the reason why.

I’d like to invite you to join me for a live fireside chat hosted by Jason Weimann today at 4:00 pm ET/1:00 pm PT, where I will do my best to answer your questions. In the meantime, here are some more details.*

Thank you for caring as deeply as you do, and thank you for giving us hard feedback.

Marc Whitten

It's official, Unity management are complete IDIOTS!

At least for now games already in production aren't affected by the fees (Unity previous LTS versions aren't included in this whole crap)
but most unity devs will move to different engines.

 

[Eisen]

developing an in-house engine 2D isn't difficult

No it actually isn't for many reasons:
-The industry is full of graduates or the cheapest labor available.
These people have neve made any engine and it will be a nightmare to make one with their limited knowledge, unless you manage to snag a zoomer John Carmack.
-Even if you are able to make progress the key people will leave, leaving you with nothing.
Once the crunch starts, the people actually making the engine will just leave for another firm. You can't increase their pay because you are already putting a lot of money into said engine. And even if you do, you can't compete with the banking sector/AAA scouts.
-The engine is going to be very limited in what it can do.
Custom engines are designed to specific things very well, but what happens when that thing fails financially? If you fail, you just made a useless engine only your company can make and by that point you are probably scrapping it and moving to any free one.

I don't understand. Are you agreeing with my post or not?
the first line look like a yes
but the rest of your post looks like a no....

I assume his first line meant is not isn't, otherwise the rest doesn't make sense

meds NOW

 

[Aemar]

Meanwhile Whatsapp, one of the biggest and most used communication programs, has some 50-ish employees.

They had that number around the time when Facebook acquired them in 2014. Nowadays they have 3000, and the fact that Unity has more than twice the number of employees when compared to them is insane.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Buying out Unity will cost 10B, there is no game engine in this world which is worth that much. Don't forget AppLovin tried to buy Unity for $17.54 billion last year and Unity said no.

it's not like you can put unity on a scale and say precisely how much it's worth. at the moment, unity is actually worth around zero.

Meanwhile Whatsapp, one of the biggest and most used communication programs, has some 50-ish employees.

and for its complexity it's something the mirc guy would do in his spare time for free as a side project.

 

[mediocrepoet]

The latest official response (today)
https://blog.unity.com/news/open-letter-on-runtime-fee

It's official, Unity management are complete IDIOTS!

At least for now games already in production aren't affected by the fees (Unity previous LTS versions aren't included in this whole crap)
but most unity devs will move to different engines.

Eh, they also said that if you stay with prior versions you wouldn't be subject to any of their new fee schemes. Probably after realizing that there was zero upside to trying to push it since they'd just lose if it ever went to court and most people would tell them to piss off.

I think they tried to walk it back as much as possible while still keeping whatever their intended revenue generation scheme going so they didn't look completely cucked. As it is, the damage has been done, so it's not clear to me what they can do or should have done to try and rectify the damage. This is probably about as good as it gets, since even saying that they were abandoning the plan wholesale doesn't give them the cash that they need to operate, still has the broken trust, and additionally makes them look even more incompetent than they already do.

 

[negator2vc]

Of course now the removal of Unity logo for older Unity versions became more expensive with the removal of Plus and the fact that older Personal may not get an optional logo update.

Also Unity now don't have any reason to offer critical updates to older LTS since they can use the updates as leverage to "force" the devs to the current fee enabled version

 

[JarlFrank]

The new terms sound reasonable, but their trust is completely gone.

I know several people in the gaming industry (and may or may not be involved in a few projects myself), and the consensus is that Unity should be moved away from.
I know one team that is now porting their entire game to Unreal, because they lost trust in Unity.
I know two teams that will finish their current Unity projects because switching engines isn't practical at this point of development, but are seriously considering using a different engine for future projects.

The most common attitude I've seen is "These new terms aren't terrible, but what if Unity's management decides to do something retarded in the future? We just don't trust them anymore."

Unity completely annihilated its reputation and at this point it's far too late for them to get it back. Many programmers are now looking into other engines like Godot, some games are already being ported to Godot or Unreal, and many dev teams using Unity for their current game are considering to switch to a different engine for the next.

This is the most complete and rapid destruction of a company's reputation I've ever seen in the game dev sphere.

GG WP, Unity.

 

[PlayerEmers]

Of course now the removal of Unity logo for older Unity versions became more expensive with the removal of Plus and the fact that older Personal may not get an optional logo update.

Also Unity now don't have any reason to offer critical updates to older LTS since they can use the updates as leverage to "force" the devs to the current fee enabled version

thats true.
tbh im out of the loop about Unity, i've been messing with other engines for a while... when was the last time Unity released a unquestionable GREAT update with nice features that made devs switch to new version instatly?
most of the time I see people talking about Unity recents updates, they complain about them being buggier as hell or mediocre (paid assets do the job that Unity should do).

the definitely can use use new updates and features as leverage but are they still capable of releasing actual features that are worth upgrading to?

 

[ADL]

In the end, it was anchoring.

Consumers might be dumb enough to fall for it time and time again but I don't think these tactics work on devs who view their tools as an investment of their time and a matter of their livelihood. They don't appreciate being bait and switched and being told they owe a gillion quadrillion dollars retroactively.

Their biggest studios on console/PC already told them to get fucked and committed to moving away from Unity for future projects, something I believe they'll do regardless of these changes. Those games were important for mindshare because they were a showcase for the tech. "Oh Rust and Genshin Impact run on Unity? Those are big, incredibly successful games. Seems good enough for my project"; now even mobile devs are aware of Godot which is sufficient for the vast majority of those games raking in the big bucks. They've already lost all the clients that got them interested in the runtime fee in the first place and in the process, indirectly financed their open source competition lmao

2.5% royalty is far too much for what Unity offers currently and I don't see that ever changing. At that point you might as well cough up the extra 2.5% and just use Unreal 5. Hard to complain about their royalty when you're getting the best tech on the market and unlimited free access to Quixel Megascan assets.

If I ever make another game, I'll just use Godot or O3DE because I don't like royalties. I'm never touching the Unity editor again.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

The only thing they got right really was that LTS versions from pre this year will be exempt from the new pricing. Otherwise all they've done really is walk back 50% of the way.
It's not good enough.

 

[Shinji]

developing an in-house engine 2D isn't difficult

No it actually isn't for many reasons:
-The industry is full of graduates or the cheapest labor available.
These people have neve made any engine and it will be a nightmare to make one with their limited knowledge, unless you manage to snag a zoomer John Carmack.
-Even if you are able to make progress the key people will leave, leaving you with nothing.
Once the crunch starts, the people actually making the engine will just leave for another firm. You can't increase their pay because you are already putting a lot of money into said engine. And even if you do, you can't compete with the banking sector/AAA scouts.
-The engine is going to be very limited in what it can do.
Custom engines are designed to specific things very well, but what happens when that thing fails financially? If you fail, you just made a useless engine only your company can make and by that point you are probably scrapping it and moving to any free one.

Well the Stardew Valley dev built his 2D game on top of MonoGame all by himself.

It's not that impossible as it sounds if you keep it simple and straightforward.

 

[lycanwarrior]

 

[Azdul]

developing an in-house engine 2D isn't difficult

No it actually isn't for many reasons:
-The industry is full of graduates or the cheapest labor available.
These people have neve made any engine and it will be a nightmare to make one with their limited knowledge, unless you manage to snag a zoomer John Carmack.
-Even if you are able to make progress the key people will leave, leaving you with nothing.
Once the crunch starts, the people actually making the engine will just leave for another firm. You can't increase their pay because you are already putting a lot of money into said engine. And even if you do, you can't compete with the banking sector/AAA scouts.
-The engine is going to be very limited in what it can do.
Custom engines are designed to specific things very well, but what happens when that thing fails financially? If you fail, you just made a useless engine only your company can make and by that point you are probably scrapping it and moving to any free one.

Well the Stardew Valley dev built his 2D game on top of MonoGame all by himself.

It's not that impossible as it sounds if you keep it simple and straightforward.

2D engine is not that complicated. More than half of 2D games on 8 bit / 16 bit machines were written by people with no formal computer science education in few months.

Hiring programmer straight out of college - underpaying him and forcing him to crunch until he quits - is probably not a way to do it. It still will work if you find Carmack-level one - who will be done with the 2D engine by the time he finds out better paying job with reasonable work hours.

 

[Jaedar]

Also Unity now don't have any reason to offer critical updates to older LTS since they can use the updates as leverage to "force" the devs to the current fee enabled version

Ordinarily I'd say that any software company that uses it's LTS police as a stick like that will swiftly lose the trust of its consumers (what is the point of a LTS if it's not supported for a long time?), but unity doesn't seem to care.

The only thing they got right really was that LTS versions from pre this year will be exempt from the new pricing. Otherwise all they've done really is walk back 50% of the way.
It's not good enough.

It's probably good enough that most/all devs working on a game right now will continue to use unity and just not update to versions where this is in effect. This may or may not prevent a critical mass of need from crystallizing, which in turn might prevent godot (and similar) from getting a massive bump.
Time will tell. I think the current revision of their intent is the first one that is likely to be actually legal, so that's at least something.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

This may or may not prevent a critical mass of need from crystallizing, which in turn might prevent godot (and similar) from getting a massive bump.

Its not gonna. But it will be enough at least to get the current in developed games across the line which is an improvement from the situation they had before. The trust is gone they'll never get it back. As long as the threat of license changes are a thing no one will use Unity, this isn't even the first major game engine to pull this either and its going to be common as tech businesses go bust. That's why everyone needs to be running GPL/MIT going forward because those projects aren't dictated by the market they are dictated by interest. The license cannot be rescinded once MIT/GPL this is why its superior.