Unity wants royalties from devs now

NAHTMMM · Sep 13, 2023

And they've already started backtracking from the uproar.

The fees, which Unity said are essential for funding development of its tech, left many game makers wondering if having a hit game through Unity would cost them more money than they could make.

Developers spoke throughout the day of delaying their games to switch to rival Epic Games' Unreal Engine or other services on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
But by the evening, Unity exec Marc Whitten was updating Axios on the policies, potentially defusing some concerns raised by game creators.
Details: The new "Runtime Fee" announced Tuesday morning is tied to a player's installations of a game, an action that previously didn't cost developers anything.

With Unity's new plan, developers who use Unity's free tier of development services would owe Unity $0.20 per installation once their game hit thresholds of 200,000 downloads and earn $200,000 in revenue.
Developers paying over $2,000 a year for a Unity Pro plan would have to hit higher thresholds and would be charged with lower fees.
The newfee system will begin at the start of 2024.

Yes, but: Game developers, rallying on X, began fuming immediately that any game enjoying a spike in installations due to a big sale, inclusion in a charity bundle or even just by being included in a popular subscription service like Microsoft's Game Pass, would trigger back-breaking Unity fees.

"Stop it," development studio Innersloth, makers of the hit Among Us, tweeted Tuesday evening. "This would harm not only us, but fellow game studios of all budgets and sizes...."
Another studio, Aggro Crab, called on Unity to reverse its plans, saying that it feared that its next game, set for release to the 25 million subscribers on Game Pass, could incur fees that "threaten the stability of our business."

The intrigue: Unity has scrambled to clarify and in one key case alter what it has said about its policies around the fees.

Zoom in: After initially telling Axios earlier Tuesday that a player installing a game, deleting it and installing it again would result in multiple fees, Unity's Whitten told Axios that the company would actually only charge for an initial installation. (A spokesperson told Axios that Unity had "regrouped" to discuss the issue.)

He hoped this would allay fears of "install-bombing," where an angry user could keep deleting and re-installing a game to rack up fees to punish a developer.
But an extra fee will be charged if a user installs a game on a second device, say a Steam Deck after installing a game on a PC.
Between the lines: Runtime fees will also not be charged for installations of game demos, Whitten said, unless the demo is part of a download that includes the full game (early access games would be charged for an installation, he noted).
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Links in the article.

This could really put a dent in Unity usage.

Tuckerfan · Sep 13, 2023

Was it Unreal or Unity that got into a spat with Apple over the app store and sued to try and force Apple to allow them to have their own app store on Apple devices? Whichever one it was, that backfired on them and lots of folks started switching over to the other one.

NAHTMMM · Sep 15, 2023

Unity bosses sold stock days before fee announcement

Unity executives sold thousands of shares in the weeks leading up to last night's hugely controversial announcement it will soon charge developers when one of their games is downloaded.

The company has subsequently softened its stance slightly on a couple of aspects - but fury across the industry remains.

Behind the scenes, CEO John Riccitiello shifted 2000 shares last week on 6th September, as noted by Yahoo Finance, which noted this move was part of a trend over the past year where the exec has sold more than 50,000 shares in total and bought none.

Several others on Unity's board of directors also sold shares in the past few weeks, including president of growth Tomer Bar-Zeev who sold 37.5k shares on 1st September, for around $1.4m. Shlomo Dovrat, meanwhile, sold 68k shares on 30th August for around $2.5m.
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Looks like the execs have great faith in how this cash grab will go!

Tuckerfan · Sep 17, 2023

Rincewiend · Sep 17, 2023

Rincewiend · Sep 22, 2023

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Unity wants royalties from devs now

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Unity wants royalties from devs now

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