Do people cared about new Unity engine laws?

[Mulyono]

being tortured by steam tax is already pain in the ass, now unity will force unity indie game developer to killing their dream

[Brian9824]

引用自 Spawn of Totoro：

引用自 brian9824：

From what they clarified it only would be in effect for the FIRST install of a game, so once user X installs a game, they won't be charged ever again for that license. Still think its not a good model and will be hard to manage, but its slightly better then the original confusion from it

https://kotaku.com/unity-engine-subscription-cost-unreal-godot-indie-dev-1850831032

That is what I have read so far. Can you link to where it states that it will only be for the first install?

And, honestly, even then, there shouldn't really be a fee for it.

https://www.truetrophies.com/n24198/sony-unity-pricing-changes

This one even talks about how it may effect subscription services.

And going by their FAQ:
https://unity.com/pricing-updates

"How is Unity collecting the number of installs?

We leverage our own proprietary data model and will provide estimates of the number of times the runtime is distributed for a given project – this estimate will cover an invoice for all platforms."

"What is the Unity Runtime Fee?

We are introducing a Unity Runtime Fee that applies to certain Unity subscription plans based on per-game installs across any Unity-supported game platform. Creators only pay once per download."

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/unity-clarifies-new-fee-plans-amid-developer-backlash

[Muppet among Puppets]

引用自 Tito Shivan：

He hoped this would allay fears of "install-bombing," where an angry user could keep deleting and re-installing a game to rack up fees to punish a developer.
But an extra fee will be charged if a user installs a game on a second device, say a Steam Deck after installing a game on a PC.

.... or say,...... a virtual machine

[Silverkite]

just block unity analytics domains ,in a tl : dr manner (since subdomain quota goes over 13k domains) just

0.0.0.0 *unity.com
0.0.0.0 *.unity.com

0.0.0.0 *unity3d.com
0.0.0.0 *.unity3d.com

that way they will never know if you have installed their game or not

if you have pi-hole or any other means whom doesn't work with wildcards you are SoL

[xBCxRangers]

Not knowing much about this issue, do know a small dev who uses Unity, and posted over there hoping everything works out.

In addition, isn't this the engine they use to port PC games over to Console? So, i guess we on console get screwed as well.

Thank you Mr Riccitiello. You ruined EA and BF, and now you want hurt folks here as well. Gaming is becoming a very ugly business.

[Tito Shivan]

引用自 Muppet among Puppets：

.... or say,...... a virtual machine

https://twitter.com/unity/status/1702077049425596900

- Fraudulent installs charges - we are not going to charge a fee for fraudulent installs. We will work directly with you on cases where fraud or botnets are suspected of malicious intent.

Anyone well versed enough in legalese could translate this as "We're charging you first, then we may sort it out"

And this didn't even cross my mind:
https://x.com/Olifiers/status/1701880402657386810?s=20

So games made with Unity all of a sudden cannot have 'Free Weekends'

Some more interesting questions:
https://x.com/Alistair_McF/status/1701997285167489522

The Rust cheat community already has a working reinstall script for Rust with a unique HW spoofer on each install #Unity

Landfall (TABS Studio) statement on the matter:
https://x.com/LandfallGames/status/1701893371290075315?s=20

[Start_Running]

引用自 Satoru：

引用自 nullable：

I don't think Unity will have much success collecting fees from pirated installs. That reads more like imagination run amok than a realistic scenario. I mean do you have some resource with the pricing model where developers are on the hook for pirated installs? Or did you get a little quick with your assumptions?

Note that the core problem is that these fees are UNPREDICTABLE

There are too many edge cases. Too many abuse vectors. Too many ways in which someone can be absolutely screwed by it without notice or recourse

You can argue about steam's 30% cut but no matter what that is

1) clear
2) predictable
3) has a ceiling

Bingo. The fact that a dev can be hit with fees months or even years after the corrosponding purchase wass made is going to make things a bit of a nightmare,accountingwise..on both ends because Unity certainly can't make any prediction on those fees. I mean think about it.

Not uncommon for people to have games they purchased in a sale years back but have yet to install

引用自 Satoru：

regardless of how good or bad your game does. Because there are absolutely real world scenarios in which you can make money on your game, especially in the mobile space, and then get bankrupted by Unity's fees. Or if you're just a small indie dev that gets Unity Plus becuse you can't afford Unity Pro, then get SLAUGHTERED with fees. imagine Vampire Surivors being popular and then getting slammed with a 20 cent per install fee on a $1 game

And there in lies the rub. Did they ever clarify isf those fees kick in retroactively? Like once you cross the threshold.. bam the 20k copies you sold before.. suddenl;y hit you with fees.

[Start_Running]

I wonder how many devs are reevaluating their pruduction pipelines.
Because again... it's something they cannot control. will be rife for abuse and quite frankly...makes no sense and the Unity guys know it. If they were being fair they'd just say they're upping the per sale licensing fee by say $1, but this is MTX as applied to game developers. Did your game go viral overnight because some youtuuber screamed and made funny faces while playing.. whoopsies.

I mean in reality this technically means the more successful the game is the less profitable it will be to the developer.

[Tiberius]

Epic keeps winning

[❤ Sly Succubus ❤]

引用自 Tiberius：

Epic keeps winning

Was not aware they started to win at all, good for them, about time they climbed out of that metaverse nonsense their pushing on people and getting back to making games.

[Prof.Jackie]

引用自 Tito Shivan：

And this didn't even cross my mind:
https://x.com/Olifiers/status/1701880402657386810?s=20

So games made with Unity all of a sudden cannot have 'Free Weekends'

Same for giveaways that suddenly would cost a lot of many because of the new fees.

[Brian9824]

引用自 Tiberius：

Epic keeps winning

This effects EPIC just as much as Steam. Lots of unity games are on EPIC as Unity has no partnership with Steam.

If anything this would hurt EPIC more, as all those free games EPIC gives away they will also have to pay unity per install of them supposedly.....

[IFIYGD]

引用自 brian9824：

引用自 Tiberius：

Epic keeps winning

This effects EPIC just as much as Steam. Lots of unity games are on EPIC as Unity has no partnership with Steam.

If anything this would hurt EPIC more, as all those free games EPIC gives away they will also have to pay unity per install of them supposedly.....

But developers switching from Unity to Unreal Engine will benefit Epic *greatly*. UE is not a free engine- but it doesn't charge per-install fees like Unity is getting ready to do. And it's a cross-platform engine that works well on PC games, console games and mobile games. And you can almost guarantee the Epic and other platforms will stop accepting new Unity Engine games onto their platforms, as well as publishers refusing to consider new Unity Engine games as a publisher.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

引用自 IFIYGD：

引用自 brian9824：

This effects EPIC just as much as Steam. Lots of unity games are on EPIC as Unity has no partnership with Steam.

If anything this would hurt EPIC more, as all those free games EPIC gives away they will also have to pay unity per install of them supposedly.....

But developers switching from Unity to Unreal Engine will benefit Epic *greatly*. UE is not a free engine- but it doesn't charge per-install fees like Unity is getting ready to do. And it's a cross-platform engine that works well on PC games, console games and mobile games. And you can almost guarantee the Epic and other platforms will stop accepting new Unity Engine games onto their platforms, as well as publishers refusing to consider new Unity Engine games as a publisher.

You do realize it requires ALL of them to rework their whole games for Unreal right? Porting assest isn't the issue, it everything else that can be the problem, from soft/hard coding, to engine itself they tweak, so not a light switch thing really so requires devs to go back on their games, and port their games, and not only that but have to do it for console, and mobile devices as well, so start seeing the problem grows right away. So it already hurting them before it even started if they have to waste more time, and money to port everything to another engine.

引用自 Silverkite：

just block unity analytics domains ,in a tl : dr manner (since subdomain quota goes over 13k domains) just

0.0.0.0 *unity.com
0.0.0.0 *.unity.com

0.0.0.0 *unity3d.com
0.0.0.0 *.unity3d.com

that way they will never know if you have installed their game or not

if you have pi-hole or any other means whom doesn't work with wildcards you are SoL

Assuming Unity don't try to take action agasint game devs that block outgoing calling in their game to unity, and yeah this shouldn't be a problem at all if end users were doing this themselves, just have feeling they do some other scummy things to get back at devs if they try to block unity telemetry in their own game.

[IFIYGD]

引用自 Dr.Shadowds 🐉：

You do realize it requires ALL of them to rework their whole games for Unreal right? Porting assest isn't the issue, it everything else that can be the problem, from soft/hard coding, to engine itself they tweak, so not a light switch thing really so requires devs to go back on their games, and port their games, and not only that but have to do it for console, and mobile devices as well, so start seeing the problem grows right away. So it already hurting them before it even started if they have to waste more time, and money to port everything to another engine.

I said *nothing* about porting from Unity to Unreal.
I said *switching*- meaning no longer paying for a Unity Engine licence to produce new games, and instead having their devs get to learning how to develop using Unreal, and developing their new games in Unreal 5 (and the next UE versions). And for games that are not deep into development, scrapping it in Unity and starting over in UE or another engine is also going to be a thing that happens- that is the most likely path the mobile-only studio my daughter works at will be taking. But it may involve support staff and junior devs losing their jobs- the intial funding for the game has been used, and starting over (and training devs in a new engine) may cost more than smaller studios can afford without cutting the number of employees.

TL;DR- I said *switching* not *porting*. The two words do not mean the same thing.

[Yzal]

Honestly, knowing that a former EA cockroach runs the place i'm surprised it took them this long to pull ♥♥♥♥ like this.