At the time of writing this Unity seem to be planning to announce an update, a satisfactory one from the looks of things, they posted this statement:
“We have heard you. We apologize for the confusion and angst the runtime fee policy we announced on Tuesday caused. We are listening, talking to our team members, community, customers, and partners, and will be making changes to the policy. We will share an update in a couple of days. Thank you for your honest and critical feedback.”
Why do I say “satisfactory”? They used the words confusion and angst, meaning they do recognize that the new plan is a bit complex and a simpler and easier to understand plan is better to avoid any confusion.
But the more interesting word they used is “angst”, which is a feeling of deep anxiety or apprehension about something, often accompanied by a sense of uneasiness or existential dread. It tends to be more abstract and philosophical, often associated with questions about the meaning of life or one’s purpose. In the context of game developers whose livelihood depends on the Unity game engine, significant changes in pricing or policies by Unity that could impact their ability to sustain their work could indeed generate a deep sense of existential unease. In this case, the unease is not purely philosophical but tied to real-world concerns about the sustainability of their career and livelihood.
So with Unity using a strong word such as “angst” I believe they will radically change or retract the new plan and form a better one that addresses all the concerns voiced by the community.
What do I think personally?
First I think it’s important to know that Unity was in deep financial troubles for years now, they made profit only in the last fiscal quarter out of years, so I didn’t see the new pricing plan as pure greed, it was indeed made to make more money but not out of greed but to save themselves as business. So I was more sympathetic regarding their situation, don’t get me wrong, a pricing plan that could make devs bankrupt is terrible and should be changed, but I do agree and support a new plan that’s designed to make more money to save themselves, as long as it doesn’t harm users. Afterall Unity was incredibly cheap for what it offers, Godot is nowhere near Unity in terms of tech and capabilities, and UE5 is only better in the photorealism aspect, Unity remains powerful and easy to use in pretty much all other aspects, and it’s clear with how dominant it is, around 50% of ALL games are made with Unity. So I do believe Unity have the right to price their product a little bit higher than it was to save itself and stay operational. Many big studios also expressed the same sentiment, saying they oppose the new plan because it’s full of loopholes that can be exploited but are okey with a new plan designed to make more money as long as it’s safe and clear and immune to abuses from bad actors.
Lastly I want to briefly talk about some things I heard from other studios, the most dominant one being Unity needs to be cheaper or completely free because the studio’s profit margin is so thin, such studios seem to be developing simple games but they burn so much cash in doing so in my humble opinion, just because it takes you $10K to make a gameplay system that can be made with $500 doesn’t mean you’re entitled to have the engine for free or for cheap.
Another instance is some studios are trying to prove how the new pricing plan is bad for them while their math is completely off, I’ve been given an estimation of 200K USD in revenues and the fees calculated are over 1M USD, the studio mentioned they’re using Unity Pro and that alone should make them exempt from paying a single $ until they cross $1M in revenues & 1M installs. Under no circumstances they’d pay $1M on $200K of revenues. But their accounting was just that terrible.
So I do believe whatever Unity will come up with next, first it’ll be easy to understand to avoid confusion, it’ll be solid, free of abusable loopholes and predictable to plant a sense of security in developers when using the product, and lastly I do believe it’ll be more expensive, because like I explained before they need cash to stay operational and Unity was already incredibly cheap for what it offers, and I believe for such powerful and easy to use engine it’s only fair to value it higher.