| Verter said: Just for clarity and just in case, I'll post here a (kind of crudely) translated excerpt from an article that I wrote recently, covering the Unity fee and its potential impact on the gaming industry. I'll also attach the official Unity image with the fee prices. I'm doing this because, while I may be wrong, I feel like there's a bit of misinformation here. [...] Also, as a (semi)professional Unity developer, I want to say that, in my opinion, the only bad thing about this fee (apart from the fact that Unity hasn't given developers enough time to fully prepare for this) is that it's linked to installations, which is absolute and utter nonsense, and has the potential to cause many headaches and unfair situations. Other than that, I'm totally fine paying a well-implemented fee (although I'd rather not, because who wouldn't?) if that means that a game I created has reached over 200,000 lifetime installations AND generated 200,000 dollars in revenue. In fact, if that were the case, I would just spend 2,000 of my 200,000 dollars to update to the Pro license, which would mean that I wouldn't have to pay the fee until I reached ONE MILLION dollars AND ONE MILLION total installations. I mean, Unity is a professional game engine, one of the only two publicly available engines holding that status (the other being Unreal). And, despite that fact, it's 100% free to use unless your game has reached more than 200,000 total installations and generated more than 200,000 dollars in revenue. And, if your game has generated one million dollars and reached one million installations, it still only costs you 2,000 dollars per year if you have upgraded to the Pro version. It's only when you've surpassed those humungous amounts when you actually need to pay the fee (which also means, by the way, that the smaller developers are the least affected —if at all— by this measure). Again, I think that tying the fee to the new intallations instead of the monthly revenue is a terrible decision, and also the reason why I'M AGAINST IT in its current state. But I guess that what I'm trying to say is that this whole situation has been blown WAY out of proportion, mainly due to two reasons:
And for the third time, I think linking the fee to the new installations instead of the monthly revenue is a garbage move, and I'm glad Unity is going to make changes, but, seriously, the majority of reactions on the internet are disproportionate. Also, Unity is not going anywhere anytime soon. Not even close to that. People are focused on the public reactions of a number of companies that have made a name for themselves in the industry thanks to a beloved game or two, sometimes a few of them, but this industry is way, way larger than that. |
We mostly agree when it comes to the reach of the change in a nutshell, however, the dissension in opinion isn't about the change in itself but rather the breach of trust that it brought with it and the clear picture of unity's unsettling current priorities.
I really don't feel there's misinformation here, all the modalities you have posted were known. I believe that your view differs only because you don't weigh the gravity of the move the same as me/others and not because we lack some infos.
The only bad thing about this fee (apart from the fact that Unity hasn't given developers enough time to fully prepare for this) is that it's linked to installations, which is absolute and utter nonsense, and has the potential to cause many headaches and unfair situations.
We agree it's the only bad if you take this change in a nutshell yet the fact that Unity CEO and board value their greed enough so that they implement such nonsense is really the crux of the issue. It's not like It's it can be treated as an oopsie to be forgotten as soon as it is reverted.
Other than that, I'm totally fine paying a well-implemented fee
if it was a well-implemented fee there would not be such a pushback right now, but it isn't. It's a change that has been half-assed and half thought and yet still implemented against all logic. it's the same as if Java started charging companies for clients' installation of the Java runtime environment or MS started charging companies for clients' installation of .net clients.
Many people around the web (most likely here too) are giving their opinion based on other people's opinions, without having actually read the Unity announcement or the FAQ (particularly the FAQ, which is the most informative of the two), and therefore many people actually don't know for sure what they're talking about.
I didn't read all of this thread tbh but as far as I'm concerned and as far as what I've seen this is not the case here. You are just minimizing the implications of such, garbage move and utter nonsense, and has the potential to cause many headaches and unfair situations, to make use of your own words.
Also, Unity is not going anywhere anytime soon. Not even close to that. People are focused on the public reactions of a number of companies that have made a name for themselves in the industry thanks to a beloved game or two, sometimes a few of them, but this industry is way, way larger than that.
There are already hundreds of those companies that have released statements against the recent change which this Twitter tracks: https://twitter.com/FuckedByUnity
Those are not just a vocal minority, they literally represent the vast majority of Unity's customer base.
