Unity U-turns on controversial runtime fee and begs forgiveness | TechCrunch
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Unity has done a 180 on a controversial new pricing scheme that users of its cross-platform game engine almost unanimously disparaged.
    • El Barto
      English
      7•10 months ago

      Indeed. Learning Unity was in my bucket list. Welp. Not anymore.

  • krei [it/its]English
    13•10 months ago

    This was on purpose. This was a door in face negotiation tactic. They always planned on their scaled back policy but they introduced a ridiculous one so that people would accept a small walk-back. This is exact same shit that Wizards of the Coast pulled with Dungeons & Dragons. It’s getting so predictable. When I first heard the news I knew this is exactly how it would play out.

    Fuck Unity anyway. Godot is gaining popularity and it’s not stopping.

    • BrikoXOPEnglish
      5•10 months ago

      I think they really were that stupid and though people would just go with it. And once that didn’t go how they planned this was backup plan.

      This allows studios to not rush the transition to different engines, but staying with Unity shouldn’t be an option for anyone that wants to make a living from making games. There is just no trust left.

    • beef_curds [she/her]English
      3•10 months ago

      I’d usually be inclined to agree with you, except no one in gamedev would have balked at the final position. 2.5% revenue share over 1m is less than Unreal even.

      Maybe it’s a tactic they believed they were using. But that would just be a different kind of stupid, because they burnt a lot of trust over something no one would care about.

      It could be another kind of bluff though. It could have been the CEO signalling he’s the toughguy who’s willing to make tough decisions so he can get some job down the line.

  • Echo DotEnglish
    11•10 months ago

    See the thing here is that because they tried to apply this retrospectively this doesn’t really help because they’ll just do it again in a while when they think that the dust is settled. Probably not quite as obviously but they’ll try something.

    How are you supposed to have a business relationship with a company who not only move the goal posts but also travel back in time and move them in the past as well.

  • AutoTL;DRBEnglish
    6•10 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    A new pricing policy is still incoming, but it’s far less fraught for independent developers, many of whom threatened to leave the engine and platform behind rather than pay.

    The plan was intensely unpopular, as apart from the increased costs many would incur under it, it suggested that the people running the show at Unity were completely disconnected from the community.

    Less than two weeks from its debut, however, the runtime fee policy has been almost completely reversed and its architects are abasing themselves before their customers.

    Overall the changes seem to address most of the issues people had with the new terms, and importantly it is more or less opt-in (or the unavoidable product of success) come 2024, on new projects, rather than taking effect on games that are out now or have been for years.

    But the high-handed manner in which Unity attempted to squeeze its customers has unquestionably spooked the community, and while the threatened exodus will likely now be far smaller, they will remain watchful for future shenanigans.

    What trust Unity had built up was seriously damaged by this ill-conceived foray, and many developers may look more seriously at competitors rather than run the risk of the company altering the deal again.

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