Submitted 8 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world [bot] to technology@lemmy.world
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.
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 $10 and then I uninstall and install 51 times?
So… if your game becomes the most pirated game in history, you’re on the hook for millions of zero income.
Way to go Unity…
If I’ve read this right, they don’t count re-installs on the same hardware, so just “I don’t want to play this anymore” uninstall -later- “I want to play this again” reinstall won’t count as two installs. But reinstalls of the same license on different hardware does, so “I just bought a game! Let’s play it on my aging gaming PC” installs I just bought a new gaming PC, let’s see what that game looks like on high graphics settings installs again does count as two installs and the studio will…bewilderingly…be charged twice for that one sale.
Plus on top of all the other subscription fees.
it’s not even really about the money, even if it will fuck the devs and ruin projects and lives, but the breach of trust and a mark that more shit is probably on it’s way if this goes through. Unity owns a ecosystem that many people depend on and now they really start squeezing. It’s not right.
This is why things that act as commons should be either nationalised or replaced with free software.
I agree. This dipping of fingers into the pockets of devs errodes trust.
Plus on top of all the other subscription fees
False. This 200k number assumes you would stay on Unity Personal, which breaks EULA anyway since you’re required to buy Unity Pro once you make more than 100k funding annually, and paying the runtime fee means you’re making more than 200k.
The real cost for 1M installs, under Unity Pro, would be 62k$, 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.
Happening Jan 1st I think.
I suspect that’s just a sales pitch… ‘buy it now whilst you can!’ stuff.
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!
AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world 8 months ago
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.