Engine maker may also eliminate "retroactive" install counts for minimum thresholds.
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Report: Unity considering revenue-based fee caps, self-reported install numbers
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Why would a gamer care?
Goodbye updates to indie games.
There are quite a few Devs who have said they will remove their game from sale. There are many more who will stop developing in the Unity Engine.
Some may have the time and funds to port their games. Many will not be able to or willing though.
This is extremely bad for everyone.
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Now that they've floated this once it WILL happen some time in the future. You can't trust this sleazy a-hole, his Hannibal Lecter eyes, his even sleazier president and board members, or the two giant vampire squids on the face of Unity (the private equity).
If you stick with Unity, at some point they will f@#$ you even harder than this. Self-reported install numbers can't possibly last, because they obviously plan on even more Comcast like per-install fees.
https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2023/09/18/undercraw
If you stick with Unity, at some point they will f@#$ you even harder than this. Self-reported install numbers can't possibly last, because they obviously plan on even more Comcast like per-install fees.
https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2023/09/18/undercraw
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His golden parachute is going to be so behind ridiculous.
We need to stop allowing these people to have money and power.
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What I don't understand is what is going through the heads of the people making decisions like this. It seems like it should be obvious to anyone with a brain what the precise reason would be, and the effect on the business and its value. It's bizarre.
Yet more evidence that CEO is actually not a really a job that needs any skill or ability.
Yet more evidence that CEO is actually not a really a job that needs any skill or ability.
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The only way this works is if they leave their hands off games that were licensed under the prior terms entirely.
"Royalty free means royalty free." means you can't go backwards and charge royalties to people who entered into an agreement under those terms.
"Royalty free means royalty free." means you can't go backwards and charge royalties to people who entered into an agreement under those terms.
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AxiomEater
Ars Centurion
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Agreed. Whether it's legal or not, I don't know. But it was definitely stated in the past. And you can't make that kind of change without infuriating your devs. It was a terrible play.
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I'd say that the only reason he isn't doubling down was that Plan B was the plan all along, but I'm not convinced he's smart enough to come up with such a dumb idea.
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Steve Jobs died from cancer, and while he did pursue some quack cures, by then it was too late anyways.
His death is no more a morality tale than if I died of status ep tomorrow or you got hit by a bus.
Sorry, but I have zero tolerance for medical moralists. Been there, got the scars.
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The man, without fostering an entire culture of sexual harassment and misogyny, still managed to make EA the most hated and disliked company in the world, based on his personal comments and business decisions alone, which you could argue is even more impressive than Activision-Blizzard (Recall A-B scandal is caused by the actions of many, many people).
That THIS "MAN" (I can't bring myself to type out his name, and I use the term man to be polite) single handedly managed to make Unity the most hated company in the business with just ONE ANNOUNCEMENT is pretty much characteristic for him.
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I'm happy enough with "doubling down." This is basically just "what we said before, but with some minor modifications to make it sound less bad, and DEFINITELY nothing like a promise that we won't change the terms again or any actual reversion to what we promised last time." With excuses, fingerpointing, and "gosh, NOBODY could have foreseen this" crap.
In particular, the fact that they're STILL talking about per download/install fees (something basically nobody else does) is weird -- it's such a bizarre hill to die on: trying to put a toll on something unrelated to revenue generation. The reason they can't find the right band-aid is because it's such a gaping wound.
And die on it, they will, I think. This has been a week now, and Unity obviously isn't even considering that maybe the fundamental idea needs to be redrawn and reconsidered. They're just brainstorming "ways we can make people less mad about it, but without changing anything." Even WotC had figured out by this point that they had a losing hand.
In particular, the fact that they're STILL talking about per download/install fees (something basically nobody else does) is weird -- it's such a bizarre hill to die on: trying to put a toll on something unrelated to revenue generation. The reason they can't find the right band-aid is because it's such a gaping wound.
And die on it, they will, I think. This has been a week now, and Unity obviously isn't even considering that maybe the fundamental idea needs to be redrawn and reconsidered. They're just brainstorming "ways we can make people less mad about it, but without changing anything." Even WotC had figured out by this point that they had a losing hand.
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I get what you're probably trying to say, so I'm just gonna politely point out that you're pulling a Riccitiello yourself here, in that there is really no way that this post is going to come across well.
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bearcatman
Smack-Fu Master, in training
Doesn’t matter how good the advice is if you don’t take it. I’m sure they’ve been told by many people internally that this would go to shit, but this type of executive is incapable of hearing it.
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And the people who are good at giving that advice, people with words like "analyst" in their job description, often just laugh and refuse to work for those types of executives.
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Agreed. Any increase right now is ridiculous. Hold a year, rejigger, simplify and prostrate yourself at the feet of your community.
.....I still don't see any reason to do business with them at this point unless you are locked in or half way through making a game. Oust the CEO make major changes, and clean up your damn TOS.
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This could very well change a ton of things for end users. Delays and price increases are definitely part of it. That being said I think the damage to the indie community will be the biggest thing. A whole community that existed in the Unity world is going to be shattered and reformed by this, and who knows where they will land. A crap ton of man hours learning this utility will be at least partially gone and learning new systems will come into play. Quality will likely take a hit while designers and coders with years of Unity experience will partially have to start over relearning new tools. It's not just the devs, it's all the devs customers who will feel this, just in different ways.
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And we should as gamers care because what hits developers financially will hit the paying consumer as well. What we don't want to happen is this per-install based royalty approach to become a ubiquitous model adopted across the industry. Costs and risks are eventually passed down to us after all.
Unity install base and influence, especially on mobile, is big enough to be a concern. Normalizing this royalty model (and perhaps extending it to other software and middleware) disincentives developers from the 'pay once and get the entire game experience' and encourages further entrenchment of recurring revenue models like live service games, micro-transactions and ads.
So as a dev and a gamer - I want this per install based royalty model dead and buried deep in the Graveyard of Bad Ideas and never dug up again.
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The community has invested so much in this tool, that finding documentation and doing something on Unity is considerably easier than any competing product, just for that, I hope Unity comes up with something to partially salvage the situation. The revenue based cap is a no brainer, it simply doesn't make sense without it and probably wouldn't have changed Unity's cut anyways. Their entire approach was so shrewd and inconsiderate though.
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Nah, wouldn't work. It'd still be a Sword of Damocles just waiting to fall on anyone starting a project in Unity. Or anyone who has any possibility of moving away from Unity before releasing their game. Dropping the subject would actually make the whole thing much worse, because they've already raised the specter of retroactivity in counting installs.
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Riccitello used to be head of EA, during it's monetizing-shitfest heyday, and once called game developers "f*cking idiots," for not focusing on monetizing their games.
Go figure that a greedy, short-sighted PoS like that would land their company in the middle of shit-creek, without a paddle.
If only his kind of moronic, parasitic behavior wasn't actively rewarded by the fetid swamp that Americans call their economy.
Go figure that a greedy, short-sighted PoS like that would land their company in the middle of shit-creek, without a paddle.
If only his kind of moronic, parasitic behavior wasn't actively rewarded by the fetid swamp that Americans call their economy.
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Agreed that he should be fired, but this line about how he "dumped stock before the announcement" really needs to be dumped itself.
2000 shares may sound like a lot, but it's a fraction of a percent of his total holdings. I've seen no credible basis to the allegations of illegal insider trading (nor any explanation for why, if the executives were so sure this was going to tank their company's value, they...went ahead and did it anyway).
There are plenty of things to criticize Riccitiello and the rest of Unity's management for without resorting to conspiracy theories.
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I mean, I'm pretty sure there are companies that are more disliked than EA. Purdue Pharma, Halliburton, Koch Industries, Theranos, whatever Blackwater and Philip-Morris are calling themselves these days...EA sucks, but let's keep things in perspective; they're not a patch on those guys.
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They haven't walked it back yet. Note that the cap of 4% of the revenue only applies to customers that make over $1million. Note they said customer, not game.
No mention of a cap for devs making less than that. The ones most at risk of install fees exceeding revenue, especially if they make someone angry and get targeted for install spam.
Nothing to ease the fear of what retroactive changes they will make next time.
They haven't even done anything that would dodge any lawsuits.
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He knows EXACTLY what he's doing; it's the same guy which thought we should pay 1 USD for RELOADING in Battlefield.
It's the same guy which stated that you are a fucking moron unless you use MTX.
FIRE HIS ASS.
It's the same guy which stated that you are a fucking moron unless you use MTX.
FIRE HIS ASS.
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You can track installs easily without breaking GDPR. For starters, AppStore & PlayStore tell you the numbers and you can include your own analytics with the game. As long there's no personally identifiable information they can do that
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Also, didn’t the stock initially go up in value on the day of the announcement. So yeah, please stop this insider trading crap. I see some gaming ‘news’ channels have latched onto it as well.
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The problem isn't just tracking the # of installs, but differentiating an install vs. reinstall on the same device vs. an install on another device vs. pirated installs vs. installs on VMs/emulators/simulators etc. without relying on a hardware or OS level identifiers.
There's a reason Android and iOS sealed off access to those IDs years ago, because of privacy issues.
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The inevitable face of non-free software. Convenience has a price.The ugly face of personal and corporate greed.
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Even if they try to make things better we need to start sending a message to these greedy corporations that we don't need them. Burn Unity down, there will always be another, newer, engine.
Also that face looks AI generated.
Also that face looks AI generated.
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Did anyone suggest out loud what I'm sure many were thinking in this 'brain-storm' session?
step 1: Resignation of CEO.
step 2: Resignation of board.
step 3: Resignation of any other CxO's involved in proposing or supporting the initial scheme.
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I suspect they might have a contract with Apple, promising not to charge traditional royalties, in exchange for the AR deal. So they feel forced to do something stupid instead.
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You want a good solid article on how Riccitiello operates, this will serve:
https://venturebeat.com/games/the-u...ello-and-its-outlook-for-the-future/view-all/Of course the article is 10 years old, but he hasn't changed that much.
He looks like a dead-eyed shark in his official portrait with good reason-it's completely on the mark.
https://venturebeat.com/games/the-u...ello-and-its-outlook-for-the-future/view-all/Of course the article is 10 years old, but he hasn't changed that much.
He looks like a dead-eyed shark in his official portrait with good reason-it's completely on the mark.
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