Unity Technologies has made a major change to how it charges developers for using its engine. Starting January 1, 2024, Unity will begin charging a fee for every time a game is installed, with fees dependent on which subscription to Unity a developer has. Once a game has surpassed a threshold of $200,000 in revenue and 200,000 installs and are in either the Unity Personal or Unity Plus subscription tier, a "Unity Runtime Fee" will be applied to the development team. Those subscribed to Unity Pro, which is a tier that Unity will soon be retiring, or Unity Enterprise, will instead be charged fees once a game has made $1,000,000 and has been installed 1,000,000 times.

Depending on which tier a creator is a part of, these new changes could see developers charged as much as $0.20 every single time a game is installed by a user after the threshold is surpassed. It has been confirmed that if an owner of a game were to install a game, delete it, and redownload it, it would cost the developer money, if they were already past the limit. This will also retroactively apply to already released games as well.

Smaller developers have expressed their concerns over these changes, with some concerned about how pirated game installs will cost them, the impact it will have on free to play titles, or that Xbox Game Pass installs will also count, and have the potential to see smaller companies put at risk because of it.

SIGH pic.twitter.com/YgJEKGVQEI

— AGGRO CRAB 🦀 ACT OUT NOW‼️ (@AggroCrabGames) September 12, 2023

Additionally, Unity's own CEO, John Riccitiello, sold 2,000 shares of the company stock just prior to the announcement of the new Unity Runtime Fees.

 

[ombus]

This is insane.. its like one sided forced royalties.

 

[SonyUSA]

View attachment 393553​

Unity Technologies has made a major change to how it charges developers for using its engine. Starting January 1, 2024, Unity will begin charging a fee for every time a game is installed, with fees dependent on which subscription to Unity a developer has. Once a game has surpassed a threshold of $200,000 in revenue and 200,000 installs and are in either the Unity Personal or Unity Plus subscription tier, a "Unity Runtime Fee" will be applied to the development team. Those subscribed to Unity Pro, which is a tier that Unity will soon be retiring, or Unity Enterprise, will instead be charged fees once a game has made $1,000,000 and has been installed 1,000,000 times.

Depending on which tier a creator is a part of, these new changes could see developers charged as much as $0.20 every single time a game is installed by a user after the threshold is surpassed. It has been confirmed that if an owner of a game were to install a game, delete it, and redownload it, it would cost the developer money, if they were already past the limit. This will also retroactively apply to already released games as well.

Smaller developers have expressed their concerns over these changes, with some concerned about how pirated game installs will cost them, the impact it will have on free to play titles, or that Xbox Game Pass installs will also count, and have the potential to see smaller companies put at risk because of it.

https://twitter.com/AggroCrabGames/status/1701691036832309260

Additionally, Unity's own CEO, John Riccitiello, sold 2,000 shares of the company stock just prior to the announcement of the new Unity Runtime Fees.

Sooo... is insider trading OK now or... ?

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

I can't imagine them charging the users a fee everytime they want to reinstall a game in a situation like this.

What if the games was sold retail on a nintendo switch cart? They don't need any installation (with exception of updates) but are they gonna start a fee for game updates and dlc too? Or just start putting higher price tag on the games?

 

[LanHikariDS]

This is what you get when you decide to use proprietary software to develope your games.

This is a dumb take. Name a game in the last thirty years that doesn't use proprietary software. Development kits for consoles are proprietary software (and hardware). Game uses FMVs? It probably uses Bink's RAD Video format, which is proprietary software. Tried and true physics simulations and/or real time model deformation? Probably uses Havok's proprietary physics engine.

I can only think of one developer that makes games without any external/proprietary software, and his last three games released with an eight year gap between each of them.

 

[Youkai]

If it wasn't somehow hidden in the Terms already I doub't they can actually do that with stuff that is in production already and as hard as it might be for developers using unity for years they can still all switch to other engines so I doubt that unity will see this trough.

There wouldn't be a lot developer left who would willingly use Unity if they had to pay extra each time someone installs their game.

 

[Xzi]

Wow what a short-sighted and moronic decision. And what of older Unity games? Will they have to be pulled from sale in order to dodge these charges, or do the fees require agreeing to the new ToS?

 

[LokeYourLord]

Wow what a short-sighted and moronic decision. And what of older Unity games? Will they have to be pulled from sale in order to dodge these charges, or do the fees require agreeing to the new ToS?

They cannot retro-actively change back then agreed upon ToS', so those games will certainly fall out of that new change's range. Not that they won't try of course, but this isn't legally enforceable anywhere in the world, not even good old anti-consumer USA, as you cannot change a contract that was agreed upon in the past without informing of new changes and making the user consent to the new version. And unless the old contract somehow states that they can just then withdraw their license from usage for x developer, they needn't really fear that they cannot sell their old game actively anymore either. Although like I said, they'll try to enforce & tank their company as much as overtly possible, as it seems.

Feels like Minecraft really, with all their bullshit ToS/EULA changes that aren't really enforceable, especially to long term users. But they certainly can and will try, because corporations always run up the hill first, only to then realize that behind that hill is a 90° drop.

 

[Xzi]

They cannot retro-actively change back then agreed upon ToS', so those games will certainly fall out of that new change's range. Not that they won't try of course, but this isn't legally enforceable anywhere in the world, not even good old anti-consumer USA, as you cannot change a contract that was agreed upon in the past without informing of new changes and making the user consent to the new version. And unless the old contract somehow states that they can just then withdraw their license from usage for x developer, they needn't really fear that they cannot sell their old game actively anymore either. Although like I said, they'll try to enforce & tank their company as much as overtly possible, as it seems.

Feels like Minecraft really, with all their bullshit ToS/EULA changes that aren't really enforceable, especially to long term users. But they certainly can and will try, because corporations always run up the hill first, only to then realize that behind that hill is a 90° drop.

Yeah I wonder if it'll require a lawsuit to prevent them from charging devs of older games. Also, what if someone downloads an old standalone version of the engine and agrees to the old ToS without any mention of the fees in it? Seems like a legal minefield for sure.

 

[auntnadia]

This kind of crap is always terrible, but I‘m enjoying that DRM is being extended to the folks who have pushed it for the best part of 2 decades. NOW you know why consumers hate it so much! Still, we all know that the extra cost will just get passed on to us all.

looking forward to the dystopian future where every press of a consoles buttons requires payment to the inventor.

 

[Ryccardo]

I can't imagine them charging the users a fee everytime they want to reinstall a game in a situation like this.

What do you mean, install?
Just extracting an archive of portable software...

 

[LokeYourLord]

What do you mean, install?
Just extracting an archive of portable software...

There's a bunch of telemetry in pretty much every game now a days, which is also how rough piracy metrics and statistics are made. Not like it cannot be patched out, but it's also not like every developer or cracker/modder will want to patch out the telemetry, because in reality they don't care. Indie devs do, and so I can imagine patches to come around soon enough for their games, but big companies have deals/contracts with Unity to begin with so it's not like it'll affect them anyways. Make no mistake, this broad sweep isn't intended for the big players in the game, they already pay their share to Unity on an agreed upon contract made by legal teams on both sides that have egos bigger than the circumference of our sun. This is done deliberately to rake in some extra pennies and be penny pinching as much as overtly possible from all those who have NOT made any such contracts or agreements with them, aka. Indie developers and medium sized studios. And as I see it, those will soon be moving to Unreal Engine or other engines, because Unity will very soon become unsustainable for devs, especially those who make free games (like some of the SCP games on Steam, SCP: Secret Laboratory or the upcoming CBM remake in Unity, they are free and so basically, they'll only keep losing money on this even if their product is entirely free).

 

[RAHelllord]

What do you mean, install?
Just extracting an archive of portable software...

The executable is already always identical across all installs, so they (Unity) need to track it differently. What this likely ends up as is telemetry baked into the game, a session token that will be created on first launch uniquely to each PC and time stamped, then they'll count that as an install.
Presumably if the game is uninstalled and the folder removed the session token will also be removed, so a new one will be created the next time the game is extracted or installed.

 

[NinStar]

This is a dumb take. Name a game in the last thirty years that doesn't use proprietary software. Development kits for consoles are proprietary software (and hardware). Game uses FMVs? It probably uses Bink's RAD Video format, which is proprietary software. Tried and true physics simulations and/or real time model deformation? Probably uses Havok's proprietary physics engine.

I can only think of one developer that makes games without any external/proprietary software, and his last three games released with an eight year gap between each of them.

You are talking about console games, there you are forced to use proprietary software anyway because of how their ecosystem works, I'm not into that boat as a developer but you can 100% make games without proprietary software on PC and any other platforms that are open by nature, a lot of people do.

But still, when you put your entire game into a proprietary engine or framework you are prone to things like this happening.

 

[Bladexdsl]

most games made with unity are garbage and buggy AF with poor jump mechanics or terrible physics anyway devs can find something better. every time i download a game and i see that logo popup on the screen i think oh fuck here we go again wonder how long this one will last with me and usually it's less than a day because it will have one of the problems i mentioned earlier or CTD at the drop of a hat which at that time i will delete it and never see it again. the only game i have played that used it and hasn't been a train wreck is cities skylines.

 

[Xzi]

most games made with unity are garbage and buggy AF anyway devs can find something better.

Not sure there's anything else freely available to indie devs in terms of 3D engines. UE5 sucks because it's barely an improvement over UE4 visually and it performs like a dumpster fire. It's also mostly an engine for AAA or at least AA devs.

 

[VartioArtel]

Thank god, finally less shovelware on... everywhere, really. I also never liked Unity really. Not that Unreal is great either, but it's certainly better because at least Timmy isn't trying to purposely tank his company via such moves. I suppose we'll see a lot more games on Godot and Unreal going forward, or finally people start creating their own engines again (or none at all, and dare I say it, native code even).

The way it's worded, this wouldn't even hurt shovelware because they wouldn't even normally get to 200,000 downloads...

 

[LokeYourLord]

The way it's worded, this wouldn't even hurt shovelware because they wouldn't even normally get to 200,000 downloads...

I'd agree with you under normal circumstances, but the crap people accept now a days because of how companies have mentally prepared them for such crap & brainwashed them, well I wouldn't be surprised. People willingly accept subscriptions and microtransactions and lick corporate boots & ass as if it was McDonald's Sundae you know. The normies and general gaming community can hardly sink any lower at this point, so nothing surprises me anymore in terms of acceptance of burning turd bags.

 

[Sono]

Sounds like this was made solely for Cities:Skylines 2, considering how aggressive the DLC split has been in the base game...
They probably have seen the trailers and went "I'm sure we can milk this hype train, they have enough DLCs to not hurt them financially with this".

 

[James_]

This is the first time where the "pirated game installs take away money from innocent devs" argument could work...

It really is just this greentext but real.

Fuck John Riccitiello.

 

[LokeYourLord]

It really is just this greentext but real.

View attachment 393615

Fuck John Riccitiello.

That's the scenario I had in mind actually, exactly that image (seen it a couple of times). Thanks to Unity, devs will now hammer in even more DRM! Actually scrap that, since DRM will be an additional cost on TOP of pointless charges/fees from Unity, they'll just drop Unity entirely I bet.