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The Unity goal of democratizing game development specifically targeted game engine royalties which were a massive barrier to entry. 5% may seem small but before
by pnw 4y ago
The Unity goal of democratizing game development specifically targeted game engine royalties which were a massive barrier to entry. 5% may seem small but before Unity stole their thunder, Epic used to charge upwards of 20% royalty plus a massive upfront cost in the six figures, which put a commercial engine out of reach for independent developers.
- daenz 4y agoIf Epic was charging 20% + upfront costs, it seems like Unity could have beat them to the punch with 5% and still stolen their thunder.
- Arelius 4y agoYeah, except in the early days Unity wasn’t really a production ready game engine. Very few games would release on unity and fewer made money. Unity’s profit model had generally been users who wanted to make games enough to buy a license, but there were few incentives for Unity to make a game engine good for Shipping games. Unity has always had a pretty predatory business model. And has basically never made money from successfully shipping games.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y agoIf one wanted to solve that, perhaps "$X per month and 5% of sales after the first $50k"?
- tekknik 4y agoWith UE the 5% only kicks in after the first million dollars. This solution you provided seems worse as now Im paying for seat licenses and royalties.