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Games

Unity Overhauls Controversial Price Hike After Game Developers Revolt 61

Video-game tool maker Unity Software said Monday it's backtracking on major aspects of a controversial new price hike, telling staff in an all-hands meeting that it's now considering changes including a cap on potential fees. From a report: Unity, which operates and licenses a suite of video-game development tools called the Unity Engine, set off a firestorm last week when it announced plans to charge customers for every new installation of their game after a certain threshold. The decision triggered widespread protests, leading several video-game makers to say they would boycott Unity until the policy is changed. Under the tentative new plan, Unity will limit fees to 4% of a game's revenue for customers making over $1 million and said that installations counted toward reaching the threshold won't be retroactive, according to recording of the meeting reviewed by Bloomberg. Last week, Chief Executive Officer John Riccitiello delayed an all-hands meeting on the pricing changes and closed two offices after the company received what it said was a credible death threat.
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Unity Overhauls Controversial Price Hike After Game Developers Revolt

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  • by ebunga ( 95613 ) on Monday September 18, 2023 @01:45PM (#63858238)

    They're not coming back.

    • Once technical issues [github.io] are solved, then yes they will.

    • by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Monday September 18, 2023 @03:13PM (#63858536)
      Moving to a different game engine is typically a large amount of work. It wouldn't be too different from rewriting an application in a different language or moving to a different framework even if the language isn't changing. It's doubtful that any developers would have completed porting even a single game to a whole new engine let alone an entire library of games.

      What has likely happened is that every developer who previously used Unity without much thought is looking for alternatives. Maybe the terms aren't quite as onerous now as they were set to be, but everyone already knows which way the company wants to head and they'll slowly move in that direction even if it takes several years to get there.
    • by RedK ( 112790 ) on Monday September 18, 2023 @03:25PM (#63858584)

      If they haven't they should.

      Unity has proven now that they are looking to monetize and that they don't care to do it retroactively. If anything, alarm bells should be going and you should swap whatever the outcome *this time*, because next time might not go down the same way.

  • Today's Unity story might be a follow-up on yesterday's story, "Unity Says 'We Apologize,' Promises Changes to Previously-Announced Pricing [slashdot.org]".

    Two front page Unity stories in less than 24 hours almost made me skip the 'dupe'.

  • I really feel like they’re shooting themselves in the foot with this install fee. Besides the obvious huge PR hit now they’re capping at 4%? Why only 4? It seems crazy to me that Apple and Google get 15% for distribution while the engine that actually runs the game gets far less.

    What do they have against royalties? Just ask for 10% of purchase price or something. That way devs know what they’ll be paying and won’t fear losing their shirts.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by moogaloonie ( 955355 )
      Because 10% of zero is zero. They were trying to make money off of the huge number of games which are free to play but then make a fortune off of in-app purchases.
      • I would hope that Unity's pricing does let them make money off of those types of games. Gaming engines of today are as large as entire operating systems of a few years back. And the only reason they aren't larger is because the operating systems have gotten more functional. Nobody is going to maintain that for free and there aren't viable open-source alternatives. I'm happy to pay for the games I play (although I don't make in-app purchases) and want to see the game creators, the hardware makers, and the
      • by jonwil ( 467024 )

        They could do like Apple does and insist that revenue from in-app purchases counts towards the royalty payments.

    • Re:Why installs? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by edwdig ( 47888 ) on Monday September 18, 2023 @03:13PM (#63858532)

      Unreal Engine charges 5% of revenue over your first million. If you expect to make several million, they're willing to negotiate a fixed fee license.

      That puts a limit on how much Unity can get away with charging.

      The two engines have different strengths and weaknesses, so people aren't going to switch if the fees are close, but there's definitely a tipping point where people will say "I prefer Unity, but Unreal is a lot cheaper".

      • by Tom ( 822 )

        Unreal Engine charges 5% of revenue over your first million. If you expect to make several million, they're willing to negotiate a fixed fee license.

        More importantly, if you make several millions, you're not a small studio, you have a lawyer and someone handling licenses, fees and budgeting. You're not worried about what is a tiny fraction of your costs compared to salaries and marketing.

    • Unity is well-differentiated in the market in that it doesn't charge anything extra once your game goes live. It doesn't matter how successful your game is, you pay your yearly license and that's it! This makes Unity the best deal in town.

      The new fees apply a charge based on how well your game sells, thus double-dipping into your revenue. It also encourages the use of DRM software, which is widely hated by the gaming community. Your proposal has the same two problems.

    • The best theory I've seen suggests they're actually targeting competing mobile ad companies. IronSource is mobile development and monetization company that merged with Unity Technologies in 2022.

      If this is true, then the absurd imbalance against low cost and free to play games wasn't an accidental side effect they didn't consider, it was the entire point of the move.

      Upper Echelon Gaming is the one I saw put forward this theory, and they have an excellent analysis of it on their YouTube channel.

  • Fire the CEO (Score:4, Informative)

    by S_Stout ( 2725099 ) on Monday September 18, 2023 @01:53PM (#63858264)
    There must be consequences for being bad at your job. Fire him, now.
  • Is the moral of this that death threats work? That seems to be a reasonable conclusion

    • by RedK ( 112790 )

      Except there weren't any death threats to speak of.

      Unity claimed there were, but even their claims are about THEIR OWN EMPLOYEE, not any gamer or developer that used their engine. So no one really involved in the actual backlash issued any death threats. You got lied to and picked the wrong side.

      Stop trying to deflect away from the actual criticism of their crappy behavior because they pretended "bad gamers". There is no such thing in this instance.

      They are backing down because of the immense backlash th

  • Can we hope someone will maybe notice that the C-suite dumped their stocks ahead of this?
    I wouldn't be surprised if some of them were bold enough to short.

    • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Monday September 18, 2023 @04:11PM (#63858712)

      The C-suit stock "dump" is entirely insignificant. Most of them do it yearly. Even that shock Kotaku article that talked about the CEO selling his shares just days before the announcement ... turned out it was 2000 units or roughly 1.5% of his yearly share allowance he sold, and seems to be something he does every couple of weeks. In fact in total the CEO of Unity has sold less than 1/3rd of this years share package, ... less than he sold last year and the year before.

      At medium sized companies C-suits are paid largely in shares. They sell shares constantly and regularly and there's no reason to believe the sales have had anything to do with this announcement, instead of say ... you can't pay your credit card bill with a share certificate.

    • The C-suite has been dumping the stock on a regular basis for years, so the sale prior to this news likely has nothing to do with any expected stock price crash.

      If stock options are part of their compensation (and for a public company it would be crazy not to use them) there are sale/purchase windows, which would reasonably explain why they're regularly selling stock all on its own.

  • by Spamalope ( 91802 ) on Monday September 18, 2023 @02:25PM (#63858360)
    Sneaking in the license change, requiring the license with trap to get updates on old engines and then doing this?
    You can't trust them not to just wait until the dust settles then adopt a boil the frog policy...
  • by Tyr07 ( 8900565 ) on Monday September 18, 2023 @02:33PM (#63858384)

    Free to play games. If they use unity, and don't charge for the game but make tons of money off in app purchases, they pay unity nothing. This is a big problem.
    If you're expecting on a royalty system that these companies fairly report their in app purchases, guess again. They'll categorize purchases in way that 'aren't tied to the unity engine' and ergo do not have to pay on those to keep most of the profits.

    Royalties work for games that are charged for, and is usually a fair way to do it. Sell a copy of the game, the engine developer gets a cut.
    The outrage is the free to players know this, and panic because people may install their free to play game, and not buy anything, or make enough from the ad revenue / selling their data to cover the install fees.

    The only realistic solution is licensing and auditing companies with in app purchases, that if the product is solicited in the game, purchased via the game, or a purchase results in any kind of interaction with the engine the game runs on. IE items, status, premium things, etc, anything at all, royalties must be paid as it's considered earnings from the game.

    Companies not playing fair would risk their unity license being revoked. Of course then comes legal challenges, and does unity put in DRM then to shut them down? Well, everyone will rage about DRM....

    TL;DR
    Whiny gimmies of expect everything for free nerd rage when they realize all forms of slavery are banned, including free entitlement to someone elses labor.

    • by Tyr07 ( 8900565 )

      P.S I think most of the outrage came from the free use community. I don't think installs is a fair way to charge for companies that charge for their game and it should be a royalty on sales. People upset on that side I'm sympathetic to.

      I'm not sympathetic to the f2p group.

      • I don’t think unity has as much to worry about legally from f2p or small devs as the big names using unity getting outraged at these retroactive license shenanigans. Pokémon go uses unity and Nintendo has a 32% stake in the Pokémon company and a stake in Niantec with over a billion downloads and billions in total sales in that game alone. Nintendo has a sue happy score that lands it just under Disney, it’s often the company with more money and law firms on retainer that wins in the en
        • by Tyr07 ( 8900565 )

          If Nintendo is using unity for free or not paying any royalties to unity on pokemon go is my exact point.

          They definitely fall under the whiny f2p. Now their ability to fight them legally on, I have no expertise in this area and can't add anything of value to that.
          Doesn't stop them from being a company whining while cashing in on in-app purchases category though.

          • If Nintendo is using unity for free or not paying any royalties to unity on pokemon go is my exact point

            You mean Niantec, they would be the ones paying and there is zero chance they weren’t already under a paid contract. I hope for any devs still using Unity that they didn’t even think at changing the terms because even if Niantec/Nintendo/Pokémon company lost in court Unity would still suffer massive losses.

    • by edwdig ( 47888 )

      Ignore the mega hits here. Hearthstone and Pokemon Go and things like that can afford these fees easily.

      There's tons of free to play games that are successful enough to support a small studio but not make anyone rich. Those games are getting absolutely slammed by this. Only a tiny percent of players spend anything at all on the games. They need tons and tons of install to make money. These fees devour a huge chunk of their revenue.

      The other big area that gets hit is games that go on Game Pass, PS+, Epic Sto

      • by Tyr07 ( 8900565 )

        Most people are not going to choose a model that costs them any reasonable amount of money. It's like people choosing consequences, if you give them a choice, they'll pick whatever consequences they're fine with that lets them keep doing the bad thing.

        I personally think installs is a poor way to do it. But I also think companies would absolutely try hard weasel out of paying any fair royalties from in-app purchases.
        In the ideal world, the fair way would be an agreed upon percentage of revenue, with honest a

    • by RedK ( 112790 ) on Monday September 18, 2023 @03:44PM (#63858632)

      > Whiny gimmies of expect everything for free nerd rage when they realize all forms of slavery are banned, including free entitlement to someone elses labor.

      The costs to Unity are the same whether there's 1 install of a game vs 100,000 installs of a game. Unity does not operate installation infrastructure.

      So basing their pricing on installations is insane. Unreal uses revenue share, which makes much more sense. You make X money off Y game, you owe us 5% for using our engine.

      Let's not forget though that Unity used years of good will and "We're the free option!" to gain traction and are now doing a 180 and trying to retroactively change the deal on people. That is in and of itself shitty.

      But sure, rag on people who accepted Unity's terms as offered by Unity themselves.

    • by BigFire ( 13822 )

      The Dev have already paid for their license until Unity changed the terms.

    • they pay unity nothing

      This has never been how Unity works. Setting aside the monitization of spyware, Unity gets fixed up-front fees from developers. That's their business model.

      They do have a free version, but it comes with limitations and if you make above a certain amount in revenue (used to be $200k / year) then you're required to upgrade to the premium version.

      • by Tyr07 ( 8900565 )

        Wasn't that what they were changing? Their install fee was after the first 200k as well. I didn't believe the changes were for the premium version, or am I wrong?

        • The changes were for all versions, but developers with the free version had to pay the full 20 per install after the minimum install threshold. (I'm not sure how Unity was planning to enforce that.) Developers with the premium version would pay per install at a discounted rate depending on how many installs they had.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    If Slashdot is going to keep reporting this threat, maybe include that it was made by an employee, for the sake of accuracy, FFS. https://www.polygon.com/23873727/unity-credible-death-threat-offices-closed-pricing-change [polygon.com]

  • Isn't a credible death threat something that news outlets should source from a police department with the responsibility of investigating that crime, not something to be sourced from a babbling suit while the stock prices are descending eager to say something, anything to draw attention away from the absolute steamed hams happening in the next room?

    Yes my suspicion is perhaps cynical and unsympathetic, but as there's a disproportionately high number of megalomaniacs attracted to positions offering power wit

  • So now devs have to trust Unity's numbers and Unity has to trust devs' accounting number reporting, which apparently is also now Unity's business. You know who doesn't ask for your entire company's financial reports? Every other engine in all of existence.
  • "leading several video-game makers to say they would boycott Unity until the policy is changed" - if anyone built an implied conditional return to Unity into the language of their letters of condemnation and goodbyes, I think those people were a minority. It seems like I heard almost everyone say that Unity can't and shouldn't ever be trusted again. I thought that that sentiment, the thought that Unity will stab you in the back at any time, was part of the reason most people were making the extremely diffic
  • by MBGMorden ( 803437 ) on Monday September 18, 2023 @03:42PM (#63858626)

    The reality is they've already showed their hand. Any smart developer is planning on switching as any change in policy is just a change *FOR NOW*.

    They turned the temperature up too fast and the frogs jumped out of the pot. They're not going to get back in for you to try it again a second time a little more gradually.

  • Pay per install is a farce, that's the part that need to go AND the retroactive application. They think we're clowns really.

The fancy is indeed no other than a mode of memory emancipated from the order of space and time. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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