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So they rolled back the most abusive aspects of the new fees but are still going forward with some fees... Seems like they win on the end. Looks to me like th

So they rolled back the most abusive aspects of the new fees but are still going forward with some fees... Seems like they win on the end. Looks to me like the good old strategy of we'll start with a very high proposal then come back with a more watered down version thst people will accept as being more reasonnable than the initial terms. But they still get to charge more and seem reasonnable doing so.

paholg 3y ago
They initially proposed changes that were retroactive, potentially leading to fees for released, unmaintained games. I just don't see how anyone can trust them after that.
Drakim 3y ago
While I totally believe that's a strategy that's often employed, the amount of goodwill lost and bitter devs created can't possibly be worth it.
- kemayo 3y ago
  Yeah, the main outcome of this seems to have been a massive amount of distrust seeded amongst game developers, and nobody planning to start a new project on Unity. Also, Godot has mysteriously acquired a large surge in their funding, and has a much less abusable license structure...
CSMastermind 3y ago
Our Unity rep has been applying a ton of pressure to purchase more licenses and I've heard similar stories from other companies. I think Unity has some bad financials right now and are pressing every part of the business to generate more revenue. I don't think this was some grand scheme - I think they're panicking about money and acting without thinking through the long term consequences of their actions.
- Subdivide8452 3y ago
  The great thing is, if it was a scheme as implied, they now have so much reputational damage on their hands.
  - j_maffe 3y ago
    Which is why this "scheme" seems highly unlikely.
- bitwize 3y ago
  When this started happening I thought it was bog-standard enshittification. They can't sustain user-base growth so they turn to squeezing existing users as a source of revenue.
- hapticmonkey 3y ago
  Bad financials? Maybe they should stop making multi-billion dollar acquisitions, then.
- distract8901 3y ago
  Unity recently forced us to upgrade to their Industrial tier. We had to cut back on the number of licenses we use because our costs went up at least 10x. Fortunately the rest of their pricing changes don't affect us, but it's still a real pain in the ass
  - seanthemon 3y ago
    > Fortunately the rest of their pricing changes don't affect us For now. Reminds me of "first they came" [0] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...
TheRealPomax 3y ago
Downvotes notwithstanding, the reality is that Unity is not profitable. They desperately need a revenue stream. And sure, they should have gone with plain old revenue sharing from the get go ("we get X% of your sales, so if you sell nothing, we get nothing, and if you move 2 million units, we get an amount you can quite easily part with"), instead they came up with a batshit insane plan, and their CEO should have been fired already. That doesn't mean they can backpaddle on the part where they need to put a sales-based revenue stream in place. Either they do, or they go out of business (which is an even worse deal for everyone. Folks seem to vastly underestimate how close to failing Unity was even before this debacle). As much as people will want to go raise pitchforks despite these changes, reading through them these changes are actually massive. The part where it only applied to Unity 2023LTS and beyond is a HUGE change. It's aggressive, and and a grandfather clause for already in-progress games is clearly missing so fuck em, they have more work to do, but it's also nowhere near as insane as the previous arrangement. And it almost certainly won't be their last change as long as the dev/studio world goes "good start, but this is still unacceptable".
- sdenton4 3y ago
  Unity having financial trouble is like a shovel-factory going bankrupt during a gold rush. It means they screwed up /pretty/ bad on the business side... You likely don't need 7000 people to build a top-notch game engine, and likely invested way too much in side-bets which haven't panned out.
  - Closi 3y ago
    They probably thought they had more venture-capital runway, but the broader economy is now in belt-tightening mode.
ffgjgf1 3y ago
Aren’t the fees pretty much the same? Besides the 2.5% revenue option.
NikkiA 3y ago
In the process though they've made many game devs start a transition to a more open or reasonable game engine. It's not much of a win when their userbase is now essentially falling.
pyrophane 3y ago
I'm not so sure about that. The engine is such a central part of a game company's stack. On one hand that makes it harder to just up and switch, so there is some lock-in there, but on the other hand, if developers don't regard Unity as a reliable partner, they are going to be taking a hard look around at alternatives. I think the real problem with this pricing move is that it made a lot of Unity users think "hey, we can't trust Unity not to screw us over." That is something that is hard to take back.

paholg 3y ago

They initially proposed changes that were retroactive, potentially leading to fees for released, unmaintained games. I just don't see how anyone can trust them after that.

Drakim 3y ago

While I totally believe that's a strategy that's often employed, the amount of goodwill lost and bitter devs created can't possibly be worth it.

kemayo 3y ago
Yeah, the main outcome of this seems to have been a massive amount of distrust seeded amongst game developers, and nobody planning to start a new project on Unity. Also, Godot has mysteriously acquired a large surge in their funding, and has a much less abusable license structure...

CSMastermind 3y ago

Our Unity rep has been applying a ton of pressure to purchase more licenses and I've heard similar stories from other companies. I think Unity has some bad financials right now and are pressing every part of the business to generate more revenue. I don't think this was some grand scheme - I think they're panicking about money and acting without thinking through the long term consequences of their actions.

Subdivide8452 3y ago
The great thing is, if it was a scheme as implied, they now have so much reputational damage on their hands.
- j_maffe 3y ago
  Which is why this "scheme" seems highly unlikely.
bitwize 3y ago
When this started happening I thought it was bog-standard enshittification. They can't sustain user-base growth so they turn to squeezing existing users as a source of revenue.
hapticmonkey 3y ago
Bad financials? Maybe they should stop making multi-billion dollar acquisitions, then.
distract8901 3y ago
Unity recently forced us to upgrade to their Industrial tier. We had to cut back on the number of licenses we use because our costs went up at least 10x. Fortunately the rest of their pricing changes don't affect us, but it's still a real pain in the ass
- seanthemon 3y ago
  > Fortunately the rest of their pricing changes don't affect us For now. Reminds me of "first they came" [0] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...

TheRealPomax 3y ago

Downvotes notwithstanding, the reality is that Unity is not profitable. They desperately need a revenue stream. And sure, they should have gone with plain old revenue sharing from the get go ("we get X% of your sales, so if you sell nothing, we get nothing, and if you move 2 million units, we get an amount you can quite easily part with"), instead they came up with a batshit insane plan, and their CEO should have been fired already. That doesn't mean they can backpaddle on the part where they need to put a sales-based revenue stream in place. Either they do, or they go out of business (which is an even worse deal for everyone. Folks seem to vastly underestimate how close to failing Unity was even before this debacle). As much as people will want to go raise pitchforks despite these changes, reading through them these changes are actually massive. The part where it only applied to Unity 2023LTS and beyond is a HUGE change. It's aggressive, and and a grandfather clause for already in-progress games is clearly missing so fuck em, they have more work to do, but it's also nowhere near as insane as the previous arrangement. And it almost certainly won't be their last change as long as the dev/studio world goes "good start, but this is still unacceptable".

sdenton4 3y ago
Unity having financial trouble is like a shovel-factory going bankrupt during a gold rush. It means they screwed up /pretty/ bad on the business side... You likely don't need 7000 people to build a top-notch game engine, and likely invested way too much in side-bets which haven't panned out.
- Closi 3y ago
  They probably thought they had more venture-capital runway, but the broader economy is now in belt-tightening mode.

ffgjgf1 3y ago

Aren’t the fees pretty much the same? Besides the 2.5% revenue option.

NikkiA 3y ago

In the process though they've made many game devs start a transition to a more open or reasonable game engine. It's not much of a win when their userbase is now essentially falling.

pyrophane 3y ago

I'm not so sure about that. The engine is such a central part of a game company's stack. On one hand that makes it harder to just up and switch, so there is some lock-in there, but on the other hand, if developers don't regard Unity as a reliable partner, they are going to be taking a hard look around at alternatives. I think the real problem with this pricing move is that it made a lot of Unity users think "hey, we can't trust Unity not to screw us over." That is something that is hard to take back.