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As indie game developer myself, again: It only affect people developing mobile games, which mostly are full of ads and are super addictive. I see people trying

As indie game developer myself, again: It only affect people developing mobile games, which mostly are full of ads and are super addictive. I see people trying now to get attraction to godot and etc, but the fact is that mostly "game studios" affected by the new pricing model, are studios releasing mediocre mobile apps, full of ads, addictive, which are just money grab. I for sure dont support Unity, I don't like their new strategies, the ironsource thing, but looking who is affected by that, basically are companies developing "games" that IMO shouldn't even exist.

pelasaco 3y ago
for the mobile game developers downvoting me https://venturebeat.com/games/game-devs-with-2b-installs-say-they-will-boycott-unity-ads-until-its-price-increase-is-reversed/ https://venturebeat.com/games/game-devs-with-2b-installs-say...
pelasaco 3y ago
Only games that meet the following thresholds qualify for the Unity Runtime Fee: Unity Personal and Unity Plus: Those that have made $200,000 USD or more in the last 12 months AND have at least 200,000 lifetime game installs. Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise: Those that have made $1,000,000 USD or more in the last 12 months AND have at least 1,000,000 lifetime game installs.^ So, if you have the Pro or Enterprise that most studios have, they should have more than 1 million Revenue in the last year AND have more than 1 million game installs. https://blog.unity.com/news/plan-pricing-and-packaging-updates https://blog.unity.com/news/plan-pricing-and-packaging-updat...
livefox 3y ago
"it mostly affects people I don't like" doesn't make it good (or legal) policy. Take for example genshin impact: it's made in unity, has a high production value, is f2p with a in-game currency that can be purchased, and meets the threshold for the change requirements. The same company has several other similarly modeled games released across multiple platforms (PC and PlayStation). Without any sort of heads up this company now will face massive charges because of high install volume, especially if the average user installs on multiple devices, but low individual income. Should Hoyoverse have to remake all of their games in a new engine or deal with this new price structure with no way to plan for how much the new structure will cost them? The game is also often review bombed by rival games. What would stop a rival company from setting up a bot that just mass installs on VMs to try and charge up their bill? If that company sticks with the pricing structure there is a high chance production value will go down simply because costs have skyrocketed. Unity has basically entrapped developers. Whether the devs are worth saving doesn't come into play - whether you can trap someone into using your product then retroactively charge them for their success is the question, and I think most game devs would say "no".
- pelasaco 3y ago
  I understand your point, but tbh: "Take for example genshin impact: it's made in unity, has a high production value, is f2p with a in-game currency that can be purchased, and meets the threshold for the change requirements. The same company has several other similarly modeled games released across multiple platforms (PC and PlayStation)." From what I can tell, if you were to sell a $5 game made with Unity and made $200,000 per year, the total charge would be $8,000. But that charge would be $40k if your game was only $1 and $800 if your game sold for $50. For Unity Pro if you made $10 million selling 1 million copies you would be charged $60,000. That same studio making $10 million on a game written with Unreal Engine would be charged $500,000 in royalties. That is far more than $60k for Unity. It still appears that Unity is the budget option, it just isn't quite as cheap as it used to be. Considering Unity has a negative operating margin of around 50%, it seems clear they need to start making more money. Customer acquisition and R&D costs have been growing much faster than revenue so they need to start making more money somewhere. R&D costs have risen by 275% over the past 3 years, and sales/marketing costs have increased 175%. Revenue has only increased 150% over the same period.
  - livefox 3y ago
    The problem isn't that Unity is changing their pricing model, it's that without warning they have changed their terms to a highly volatile pricing model that is holding game developers hostage.
    - acdha 3y ago
      Also that they hired thousands of people based on the assumption that they’d be selling tons of ads. That 50% unprofitability was a choice made by their management.
- pelasaco 3y ago
  > The game is also often review bombed by rival games. What would stop a rival company from setting up a bot that just mass installs on VMs to try and charge up their bill? This is FUD, but its covered by Unity FAQ. Either way, I would like to see "rivals", aka game studios, developing such amazing technology.. it would show even more that such "indie studios", developing high addictive, full of ads and "in game currency" are just bad for the whole game ecosystem and society.

pelasaco 3y ago

for the mobile game developers downvoting me https://venturebeat.com/games/game-devs-with-2b-installs-say-they-will-boycott-unity-ads-until-its-price-increase-is-reversed/ https://venturebeat.com/games/game-devs-with-2b-installs-say...

pelasaco 3y ago

Only games that meet the following thresholds qualify for the Unity Runtime Fee: Unity Personal and Unity Plus: Those that have made $200,000 USD or more in the last 12 months AND have at least 200,000 lifetime game installs. Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise: Those that have made $1,000,000 USD or more in the last 12 months AND have at least 1,000,000 lifetime game installs.^ So, if you have the Pro or Enterprise that most studios have, they should have more than 1 million Revenue in the last year AND have more than 1 million game installs. https://blog.unity.com/news/plan-pricing-and-packaging-updates https://blog.unity.com/news/plan-pricing-and-packaging-updat...

livefox 3y ago

"it mostly affects people I don't like" doesn't make it good (or legal) policy. Take for example genshin impact: it's made in unity, has a high production value, is f2p with a in-game currency that can be purchased, and meets the threshold for the change requirements. The same company has several other similarly modeled games released across multiple platforms (PC and PlayStation). Without any sort of heads up this company now will face massive charges because of high install volume, especially if the average user installs on multiple devices, but low individual income. Should Hoyoverse have to remake all of their games in a new engine or deal with this new price structure with no way to plan for how much the new structure will cost them? The game is also often review bombed by rival games. What would stop a rival company from setting up a bot that just mass installs on VMs to try and charge up their bill? If that company sticks with the pricing structure there is a high chance production value will go down simply because costs have skyrocketed. Unity has basically entrapped developers. Whether the devs are worth saving doesn't come into play - whether you can trap someone into using your product then retroactively charge them for their success is the question, and I think most game devs would say "no".

pelasaco 3y ago
I understand your point, but tbh: "Take for example genshin impact: it's made in unity, has a high production value, is f2p with a in-game currency that can be purchased, and meets the threshold for the change requirements. The same company has several other similarly modeled games released across multiple platforms (PC and PlayStation)." From what I can tell, if you were to sell a $5 game made with Unity and made $200,000 per year, the total charge would be $8,000. But that charge would be $40k if your game was only $1 and $800 if your game sold for $50. For Unity Pro if you made $10 million selling 1 million copies you would be charged $60,000. That same studio making $10 million on a game written with Unreal Engine would be charged $500,000 in royalties. That is far more than $60k for Unity. It still appears that Unity is the budget option, it just isn't quite as cheap as it used to be. Considering Unity has a negative operating margin of around 50%, it seems clear they need to start making more money. Customer acquisition and R&D costs have been growing much faster than revenue so they need to start making more money somewhere. R&D costs have risen by 275% over the past 3 years, and sales/marketing costs have increased 175%. Revenue has only increased 150% over the same period.
- livefox 3y ago
  The problem isn't that Unity is changing their pricing model, it's that without warning they have changed their terms to a highly volatile pricing model that is holding game developers hostage.
  - acdha 3y ago
    Also that they hired thousands of people based on the assumption that they’d be selling tons of ads. That 50% unprofitability was a choice made by their management.
pelasaco 3y ago
> The game is also often review bombed by rival games. What would stop a rival company from setting up a bot that just mass installs on VMs to try and charge up their bill? This is FUD, but its covered by Unity FAQ. Either way, I would like to see "rivals", aka game studios, developing such amazing technology.. it would show even more that such "indie studios", developing high addictive, full of ads and "in game currency" are just bad for the whole game ecosystem and society.