Monday, September 18th 2023
Unity to Start Charging Per-Installation Fee with New Business Model Update
Unity is introducing some notable changes to its pricing and service offerings, slated to take effect on January 1, 2024. The new Unity Runtime Fee will be based on the number of game installs at the heart of these changes. This fee will apply every time an end user downloads a qualifying game. Unity believes this initial install-based fee allows creators to retain the financial benefits of ongoing player engagement, unlike a model based on revenue sharing. The company clarifies that the fee refers explicitly to the Unity Runtime, part of the Unity Engine that enables games to run on different devices. Additionally, these changes are not going to be not retroactive or perpetual. Instead, all fees will start counting on January 1, 2024. The fee will apply once for each new install and not an ongoing perpetual license royalty, like revenue share.
However, the new Unity Runtime Fee comes with specific thresholds for revenue and installs, designed to ensure that smaller creators are not adversely affected. For Unity Personal and Unity Plus, the fee applies only to games that have generated $200,000 or more in the last 12 months and have a minimum of 200,000 lifetime installs. For Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise, the fee kicks in for games that have made $1,000,000 or more in the last 12 months and have at least 1,000,000 lifetime installs. The table below shows which Unity accounts pay what fees, with costs ranging from $0.2 per install after the first 200,000 installs. After one million installs, each new install starts at $0.15 and $0.125 for Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise, respectively. As the game gains traction, install fees decay, as shown in the table below.
Update 15:36 UTC: Unity issued a statement on company's Twitter/X account that promises changes in the couple of days.
Source:
Unity
However, the new Unity Runtime Fee comes with specific thresholds for revenue and installs, designed to ensure that smaller creators are not adversely affected. For Unity Personal and Unity Plus, the fee applies only to games that have generated $200,000 or more in the last 12 months and have a minimum of 200,000 lifetime installs. For Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise, the fee kicks in for games that have made $1,000,000 or more in the last 12 months and have at least 1,000,000 lifetime installs. The table below shows which Unity accounts pay what fees, with costs ranging from $0.2 per install after the first 200,000 installs. After one million installs, each new install starts at $0.15 and $0.125 for Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise, respectively. As the game gains traction, install fees decay, as shown in the table below.
We have heard you. We apologize for the confusion and angst the runtime fee policy we announced on Tuesday caused. We are listening, talking to our team members, community, customers, and partners, and will be making changes to the policy. We will share an update in a couple of days. Thank you for your honest and critical feedback.
67 Comments on Unity to Start Charging Per-Installation Fee with New Business Model Update
C# is usually a compiled language, but it's used for scripting in engines like Unity and Godot(optional) and you can see it from the poor performance of unity-made games when things start to get a bit more complicated.
Regardless of the articulation of the point though, the point stands: No one using and trained primarily in C# is going to easily migrate to a C++ world.This is really a dev skill issue much more than a "C# bad" issue. That said, Unity has sunk itself so why even bother to defend it now?
I'm half tempted too because I have a lot of skill in it (ironically half of my skill in it is in fighting it on telemetry, as well as other game mods), but unlike many, I am at least prepared to migrate for personal use, and mods aren't levied fees, so yeah.
Nothing left here but wasted talent and potential for a decent engine, sadly.
When board members sold shares before announcement, 1.4-2.5 mil
That is a nice nest egg, one that should be looked at.
My point is his sales have not been statistically significant relevant to his holdings, which they would need to be for an Insider Trading scenario.
If I was a board member when news of this broke I'd dump too. That wouldn't be insider trading at that point. If anyone dumped before public news I've yet to see solid evidence on it, but am open to being wrong.
Note: its a joke and contains a bit of misinformation. But then again, Unity itself is full of misinformation as they're backtracking / "clarifying" what their words actually mean. I don't think anyone has a solid idea of what's going on anymore aside from "trust has been broken" at a large scale. A lot of the details to this story will be changing as Unity realizes how much they've messed up here...
www.xfire.com/unity-executives-including-the-ceo-sold-shares-prior-to-the-recent-controversial-announcement/
www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/u/insider-activity
How do you prove that he knew this decision would be unpopular and the stock would fall? Why would they make such a decision, are they trying to screw their own company? How do you seperate incompetence from insider trading? How do you connect a trade to a specific piece of information only the insider knew?
Plenty of alternate opinions and alternate takes on this subject. I don't think I have an opinion yet. Something clearly has gone wrong but I'm not sure how to wrap my head around it.
I just don't know how many devs will have any trust in Unity after this debacle.
It's concerning that the CEO and one of the directors hold no shares or barely any shares in the company but from what I can see it's been that way for a long while and that would be a matter of shareholder confidence (or more appropriately lack thereof), not insider trading.I'm not defending anything, I'm just looking past a silly headline and instead looking at the actual numbers. Do i thrust a company where the CEO holds no skin in the game? Nope, not one bit, but is it insider trading when the same automatic orders go over every months? Also nope
Don't worry though, there are plenty of reasons to avoid it now.