In January 2024, Unity will introduce a new Unity Runtime Fee based on game installs. Prior to this, Unity subscription plans will add cloud-based asset storage, Unity DevOps tools, and AI at runtime at no additional cost.
IMPORTANT EDIT: I have learned that Unity is going to charge for games already released now. This is a scummy move. I have still not found info on whether devs will be back-charged, like suddenly a huge bill will show up for games which already have a million downloads and a lot of revenue. I was previously in tentative favor of this change only so long as:
it would apply to newly-released games after the change (no longer valid)
the first 200,000 installs would not be back-charged even after the change over (still unknown to me)
Scummy move, Unity.
ORIGINAL POST:
I’m seeing a couple pieces of misinformation in here so I just wanted to clarify:
This applies to the free Unity and Unity Plus - the enterprise version has different thresholds.
The fee will apply to games that have made $200,000 USD or more in the last 12 months AND have at least 200,000 per-game lifetime installs.
Even then, the costs are different depending on which country you are in - “emerging market” is only $0.02 vs $0.20 for other countries.
Essentially it looks to me like you have to have made a significant amount of money already to be charged these fees - someone releasing a free game that goes viral won’t be charged. One thing I haven’t found is whether those first 200,000 installs will or won’t be back-charged. If the initial installs aren’t back-charged then I would consider this very reasonable, frankly, and cheaper than Unreal provided the game you release costs more than $4.00 (since Unreal takes a flat 5% of revenue I believe).
Unity does need to make money to be able to keep developing their engine, and right now as far as I understand it they aren’t making money.
Genuine question, are they not making money, or are they not making more money than they did last year? I just tend to hear that companies aren’t making money when all they really mean is that profits aren’t growing, but they’re still making a big profit.
I’m just looking at Wikipedia here but their net income in 2022 was US$ –921 million. Granted I’m not a financial wizard but I am at least somewhat confident that a negative number for net income is bad, like they’re not actually making money after their expenses.
IMPORTANT EDIT: I have learned that Unity is going to charge for games already released now. This is a scummy move. I have still not found info on whether devs will be back-charged, like suddenly a huge bill will show up for games which already have a million downloads and a lot of revenue. I was previously in tentative favor of this change only so long as:
Scummy move, Unity.
ORIGINAL POST:
I’m seeing a couple pieces of misinformation in here so I just wanted to clarify:
Essentially it looks to me like you have to have made a significant amount of money already to be charged these fees - someone releasing a free game that goes viral won’t be charged. One thing I haven’t found is whether those first 200,000 installs will or won’t be back-charged. If the initial installs aren’t back-charged then I would consider this very reasonable, frankly, and cheaper than Unreal provided the game you release costs more than $4.00 (since Unreal takes a flat 5% of revenue I believe).
Unity does need to make money to be able to keep developing their engine, and right now as far as I understand it they aren’t making money.
Genuine question, are they not making money, or are they not making more money than they did last year? I just tend to hear that companies aren’t making money when all they really mean is that profits aren’t growing, but they’re still making a big profit.
I’m just looking at Wikipedia here but their net income in 2022 was US$ –921 million. Granted I’m not a financial wizard but I am at least somewhat confident that a negative number for net income is bad, like they’re not actually making money after their expenses.
deleted by creator
Thanks for taking the time to respond! Yeah that doesn’t sound good.