UNITY NEWS - PRICE CHANGE, BACKLASH...

[Mel]

Even if they backpaddle now, the damage is done.
Alot of people will think twice from now on, wether to use Unity or another engine.

[DerVVulfman]

TWO stories this time...

OVER 500 DEVELOPERS JOIN UNITY
PROTEST AGAINST RUNTIME FEE POLICY
Magic Tavern, Lion Studios, and Machine Zone are among
the latest studios to sign a collective letter against Unity's
proposed changes

More companies and developers have joined a protest against Unity by switching off ads and monetisation.

Last week, 16 studios cut off all Unity-based monetisation in protest of the company's proposed Runtime Fee policy.

More than 503 developers (and counting) have now signed the collective letter to turn off all IronSource SDK and Unity Ads monetisation "until new conditions are reviewed."

Studios that have joined the collective include Tap Nation, People Fun, Magic Tavern, Lion Studios, Belka Games, Machine Zone, Clipwire, Mindstorm Studios, and more.

"As a course of immediate action, our collective of game development companies are forced to turn off all IronSource and Unity Ads monetisation across our projects until these changes are reconsidered," the letter read.

"We urge others who share this stance to do the same. The rules have changed, and the stakes are simply too high. The Runtime Fee is an unacceptable shift in our partnership with Unity that needs to be immediately cancelled."

Unity executives informed employees of planned revisions to the proposed plan on Monday. According to Bloomberg, these changes include a maximum fee cap of 4% of a game's revenue over $1 million, a non-retroactive installation threshold, and for users to self-report install numbers.

This followed an apology from Unity in response to the ongoing backlash, in which the company acknowledged the "confusion and angst" caused by the proposed changes. Changes to the policy will be shared in "a couple of days."

---

And...

UNITY TALKS OF PRICE CAPS AND FEES
FOR ONLY LARGEST GAMES DEVELOPERS
That sound? It's the screeching noise of a massive U-turn
as games engine biz admits mistakes

Unity is backtracking on commercial Ts&Cs for developers using its games engine, claiming that as part of a new tiering system under consideration fees will be capped and will apply only to top tier customers.

In what could be a business school case study on how not to introduce drastic changes to a pricing plan, Unity last week shot itself in the foot by telling software engineers it was, from January 1, to charge a fee per game after they'd reached a specified annual turnover and runtimes.

It set minimum thresholds for developers for the past 12 months: $200,0000 in revenue and 200,000 installs for Unity Personal and Unity Plus, or $1 million in sales and 1 million installs of Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise. The news went down as well as could be expected.

Management were forced to about turn and yesterday said: "We have heard you. We apologize for the confusion and angst the runtime fee policy… caused." Top brass vowed to report on updates in due course.

At a town hall later in the day – a recording of which was accessed by Bloomberg – Unity said it will limit fees to 4 percent of a game's revenue for developers generating $1 million in sales, and install counters won't be retroactive.

CEO John Riccitiello is quoted as saying the updated policy will be designed to produce more revenue from Unity's biggest customers, and more than 90 percent of users won't feel the impact.

Garry Newman, who created Garry's Mod for Half-Life 2, had said at the weekend that if the tracking had worked out, and it was 10 pence ($0.12) a sale, he'd be fine with that because "if that's what it costs, then that's what it costs."

"But that's not why we're furious. It hurts because we didn't agree to this. We used the engine because you pay up front and then ship your product. We weren't told this was going to happen. We weren't warned. We weren't consulted. We have spent 10 years making Rust on Unity's engine. We've paid them every year. And now they changed the rules."

Unity exec Mark Whitten said at the town hall meeting the company is still talking to customers and partners to prevent a re-run of last week's showdown.

Asked by employees if the company can emerge from this low point in its existence as a stronger entity, Riccitiello said Unity could have handled the communication better but that any price rise is a bitter pill to swallow.

"I don't think there's any version of this that would have gone down a whole lot differently than what happened…. It is a massively transformational change to our business model."

---

Perhaps I should point out that we have a GODOT prefix icon for projects:

[Remi-chan]

Too little too late, unity. Too little too late.

Watching this entire thing unfold has been incredible. A mediocre but respected game engine fell from grace faster than a lad with waxen wings who thought he could fly to the sun.

Take a bow, Icarus.

[Bounty Hunter Lani]

Yet another company that makes a stupid decision, then says "Sorry you're mad and confused at our plain wording, we'll make changes. Just don't look at the patch notes in a few months to a year, when we do the same thing again." The trust is gone. Even if they 100% reversed the decision, they've already made it clear that they're willing to arbitrarily change your agreement with them on a whim, all with 0 input from you.

I'll just leave this here:

Terraria devs to donate $100,000 + $1,000 a month to Godot Engine and FNA to "light the candle" in the darkness the Unity statement has put out. They don't even use Unity, but felt strongly about the situation Unity devs were put in. 

[DerVVulfman]

EU GAME DEVS ASK REGULATORS
LOOK AT UNITY'S ANTI-COMPETITIVE BUNDLING
Company's power is a "market failure" with "significant vendor lock risk" for devs.

In the wake of Unity's sudden fee structure change announcement last week, a European trade group representing thousands of game developers is calling on governments to "update their regulatory framework" to curb what they see as a "looming market failure" caused by "potentially anti-competitive market behavior."

In an open letter published last week, the European Games Developer Federation goes through a lot of the now-familiar arguments for why Unity's decision to charge up to $0.20 per game install will be bad for the industry. The federation of 23 national game developer trade associations argues that the new fee structure will make it "much harder for [small and midsize developers] to build reliable business plans" by "significantly increas[ing] the game development costs for most game developers relying on [Unity's] services."

The organization also publicly worries about "professional game education institutions" that may need to update their curriculums wholesale if there is a mass exodus from Unity's engine. "Many young industry professionals who have built their career plans on mastering Unity’s tools [will be put] in a very difficult position."

Beyond simply being bad for the industry, though, the EGDF argues that "Unity's move might be anti-competitive" in a way that demands government action. The group takes a special exception to Unity's history of bundling its game engine with services like analytics, in-game chat, ad networks and mediation tools, user acquisition tools, and more. That kind of bundling creates "a significant vendor lock risk for game developers using Unity services," which "also makes it difficult for many game middleware developers to compete against Unity."

This kind of bundling directly supports Unity's new fee structure plans, the EGDF argues, thanks to a clause where the company promises that developers "may be eligible for credits toward the Unity Runtime Fee based on the adoption of Unity services beyond the Editor." This amounts to Unity "strategically using install fees to deepen the lock-in effect by creating a solid financial incentive to bundle other Unity services even closer to its game engine," the EGDF says. This "will create a competitive disadvantage for those game distribution platforms that do not use ad-based monetization at all," and punish games that generate viral attention without much in the way of monetization.

If the EGDF's invocation of the B-word sounds familiar, it might be because similar bundling accusations led to an official European Union antitrust probe of Microsoft's Teams and Office products and Google's ad platform and search engine just this summer. And the EU has shown a willingness to put some bite behind these kinds of bundling charges, with judgments of 4.1 billion, 2.4 billion, and 1.5 billion euros against Google in recent years.

Bundling aside, the EGDF implies that Unity's previous royalty-free structure was a form of artificially low price-dumping designed to hurt competition before jacking up the price with the new install fees. "It is clear that if Unity’s pricing model had, in the past, been similar to the now-introduced model, it would likely never have achieved the level of dominance it enjoys today, as more developers would have chosen another alternative in the beginning," the EGDF writes.

To prevent companies like Unity from exploiting their market power in this way, the EGDF urges EU governments to create new regulations focused on reining in "non-negotiable [business to business] contract terms." Such regulations might force companies to give "sufficient time" (e.g., six months) before unilateral changes to terms of service go into effect.

"Game productions can take years, and game developers cannot change their game engine at the last minute, so they are forced to accept all changes in contract terms, no matter how exploitative they are," the EGDF points out. "Unity must know that if they had given more notice, many more developers might have had a realistic chance of abandoning Unity altogether by the time the new pricing came into play."

The EGDF also urges regulators to consider making engine makers like Unity subject to the Digital Markets Act, which would put it in the company of other so-called "gatekeeper" online platforms like YouTube, Amazon, TikTok, Twitter, and LinkedIn. DMA identification would subject Unity to strict new rules and "ensure that Unity cannot use data it collects through its game engine to gain an unfair competitive advantage for its other services like advertisement services," according to the EGDF.

The EGDF also says governments should consider offering financial support to "privacy-friendly open-source alternatives for game engines" such as Godot. Such financial support could help solve the "market failure" that has allowed a company like Unity to have outsize power over game developers' livelihoods in the first place.

After seeing the "confusion and angst" that its announcement caused across the game industry last week, Unity has promised vague "changes" to its proposed fee structure will be announced soon. But any such changes may come too late for many developers, who have said they are moving on to other engine options because they feel they can no longer trust Unity as a reliable partner.

[kyonides]

Giving developers just some crappy six months to make a final decision to either stay there or change the engine is laughable.  Actually, I suspect they would need like 12 to 36 months to effectively move out from Unity to Godot or RPG Maker or any other engine they could ever find in the market. That would depend a lot on how advanced the project was at that given point.

[DerVVulfman]

We have another Two-for-one here:

First... from UNITY itself!

An open letter to our community

To our community:

I’m Marc Whitten, and I lead Unity Create which includes the Unity engine and editor teams.

I want to start with this: I am sorry.

We should have spoken with more of you and we should have incorporated more of your feedback before announcing our new Runtime Fee policy. Our goal with this policy is to ensure we can continue to support you today and tomorrow, and keep deeply investing in our game engine.

You are what makes Unity great, and we know we need to listen, and work hard to earn your trust. We have heard your concerns, and we are making changes in the policy we announced to address them.

Our Unity Personal plan will remain free and there will be no Runtime Fee for games built on Unity Personal. We will be increasing the cap from $100,000 to $200,000 and we will remove the requirement to use the Made with Unity splash screen.

No game with less than $1 million in trailing 12-month revenue will be subject to the fee.

For those creators on Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise, we are also making changes based on your feedback.

The Runtime Fee policy will only apply beginning with the next LTS version of Unity shipping in 2024 and beyond. Your games that are currently shipped and the projects you are currently working on will not be included – unless you choose to upgrade them to this new version of Unity.

We will make sure that you can stay on the terms applicable for the version of Unity editor you are using – as long as you keep using that version.

For games that are subject to the runtime fee, we are giving you a choice of either a 2.5% revenue share or the calculated amount based on the number of new people engaging with your game each month. Both of these numbers are self-reported from data you already have available. You will always be billed the lesser amount.

We want to continue to build the best engine for creators. We truly love this industry and you are the reason why.

I’d like to invite you to join me for a live fireside chat hosted by Jason Weimann today at 4:00 pm ET/1:00 pm PT, where I will do my best to answer your questions. In the meantime, here are some more details.*

Thank you for caring as deeply as you do, and thank you for giving us hard feedback.

Marc Whitten

---

and... from a separate point of view...

From a separate point of view...

Unity revamps Runtime Fee,
allowing devs to choose
either 2.5% revenue share
or fees based on self-reported installs

Unity has finally shared an update to its controversial Runtime Fee model. Following massive backlash from game developers, the company has changed key aspects of the policy, exempting a large portion of customers from any fees and giving others options to choose from.

In a new blog post, Unity Create president Marc Whitten first apologized to the community, saying that “should have spoken with more of you and we should have incorporated more of your feedback before announcing our new Runtime Fee policy.”

Here is how the new version of the pricing model will work:

• Runtime Fee will only apply to developers using Unity Pro or Enterprise plans;
  
• All games with less than $1 million in revenue in the past 12 months won’t be subject to fees;
  
• Runtime Fee will only apply starting with the next Long Term Support (LTS) release in 2024 — all existing projects made with previous versions of Unity won’t be subject to fees (unless they are upgraded to a new version;
  
• Developers of games that are subject to the Runtime Fee will be able to choose either additional fees based on the number of new installs each month or a 2.5% revenue share;
  
• Only new engagements will be counted, so the Runtime Fee won’t be charged for re-installs;
  
• All numbers will be self-reported by developers for more transparency, so Unity won’t track installs or any data using its own tools.
  

In addition, Unity Personal plan will not only be completely exempt from the Runtime Fee, it will also let developers remove the “Made with Unity” splash screen.

To help developers calculate the amount of the Runtime Fee types (revenue share or per-install fees), the company also launched a Runtime Fee Estimator.

The Runtime Fee will now only apply after a game hits $1 million in
12-month revenue and 1 million lifetime initial installs

“You are what makes Unity great, and we know we need to listen, and work hard to earn your trust,” Whitten wrote. “We have heard your concerns, and we are making changes in the policy we announced to address them.”

Unity also updated its FAQ to include the latest changes to the Runtime Fee. However, some aspects of the revamped pricing model remain unclear. That’s why the company will host a live chat today, where Whitten will be answering developers’ questions. So more details are expected later.

So to sum it all up, many developers won’t have to pay any fees at all, as the Runtime Fee will only apply to projects with over $1 million in trailing 12-month revenue. Plus, there is a choice between revenue share and per-install fees depending on what suits each developer best.

Another important change is that the Runtime Fee will now be forward-looking, not retroactive. This was one of the main points of criticism, apart from the controversial nature of per-install fees themselves and a serious breach of trust.

  Now for small-time beginning companies, this is fantastic.  If you don't need Havok systems, you just use Personal edition.  But I noticed that they made separate pay grades based on Country.  And the country that makes Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail, and Honkai Third Impact need only pay HALF of what other developers at the very least.  For games as popular and "Gatcha Money Grab" as they are... why?

---

Again... just in case, I did make a GODOT prefix if anyone transfers their game from Unity to Godot:

[kyonides]

People like Vietnamese or the pinoy might enjoy it, but I don't see why China should be part of that special group with lower costs than the Western world.

By the way, I think there's a catch in their new fee scheme. They could "force" people into thinking that their next LTS release is so vital  for the future of their clients' projects that they have "no choice" but to upgrade the engine. At the end of the day, Unity team will stop providing fixes and patches for older LTS...

[DerVVulfman]

That they clearly stated...

Our Unity Personal plan will remain free and there will be no Runtime Fee for games built on Unity Personal.

... and with that, that they need to have available the Personal edition of Unity. And along with that, they need to support and provide updates and bug fixes without exclusion.  The moment they begin excluding the Personal edition or give suggestion that they may no longer provide such an edition for download, then more backlash would obviously ensue. 

And how many bother with  the "your trial period for WinRar has expired"...   Being coerced into upgrading to the Pro or Enterprise edition?  Only for the exclusive features like Havok Physics or Game Console options.  If they start 'removing' features, again backlash would ensue.

And they already saw how the community would treat them.

Its not that I don't trust them.  However, their back is against the wall if they wish to remain marginally relevant.

[DerVVulfman]

Unity CEO John Riccitiello is retiring,
effective immediately
Former EA CEO will be replaced in interim by James Whitehurst from IBM/Red Hat.

John Riccitiello, CEO of Unity, the company whose 3D game engine had recently seen backlash from developers over proposed fee structures, will retire as CEO, president, and board chairman at the company, according to a press release issued late on a Monday afternoon, one many observe as a holiday.

Riccitiello "will continue to advise Unity to ensure a smooth transition," the company stated, as it seeks to find a permanent CEO. James M. Whitehurst, a former Red Hat and IBM executive, will serve as interim CEO, while Roelof Botha, lead independent director of the Unity board, is now chairman.

“It’s been a privilege to lead Unity for nearly a decade and serve our employees, customers, developers and partners, all of whom have been instrumental to the Company’s growth,” Riccitiello said. “I look forward to supporting Unity through this transition and following the Company’s future success.”

The timing of Riccitiello's retirement is certainly intriguing, given Unity's recent history. After announcing a per-install fee that many developers felt would endanger their livelihoods, Unity made major changes and has sent other executives on something of an apology tour. Riccitiello previously served as CEO at Electronic Arts, where his resignation came soon after SimCity's technically (if not financially) disastrous launch, though Riccitiello himself cited financial results.