We at Red Hook know something about madness... Much like Darkest Dungeon, game development is a dynamic and challenging effort where tough choices must be made using imperfect information. Making and releasing a game is an uncertain endeavor, with treasures never guaranteed. But that uncertainty should lie in the marketplace, not with fundamental business terms around which a project was built. We believe Unity has made a grave misstep in introducing a poorly thought out fee mechanic and then compounded that threefold by making it apply to games that have already been released. We are sympathetic to the idea that companies must sometimes change how they operate, but these changes should be carefully planned, communicated, and enacted in such a way that partners may choose whether they wish to accept these new rules for their next projects. We built Darkest Dungeon II using Unity, and a large part of our decision to do so was the relative cost certainty around the license and subscription model. We've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on licenses, and far more than that in engaging Unity to help us with parts of development. It is hard for us to imagine building another game with Unity unless we know we are protected from the possibility of massive changes to how we pay for that technology being introduced at the whims of executive management. Part of game development is knowing when a mechanic is not working and then having the courage to swallow your ego and undo the mistake. We call on Unity to recant this blunder. S Red Hook

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Origin Entry: Unity Installation Fee Controversy

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K Kotaku @Kotaku A Year Later, Unity Cancels Controversial Runtime Fees Completely dlvr.it/TD9GN6 Traduire le post ☑Unity • 5:28 PM 12 sept. 2024 14 k vues 3 121 49 ☐ 4 ↑

IGN @IGN In the wake of a massive controversy regarding previously announced (and then walked-back) install fees, Unity's CEO John Riccitiello is stepping down. bit.ly/48LeHyw Traduire le post Unity® 5:00 PM 9 oct. 2023 249,3 k vues .

Our Unity Personal plan will remain free and there will be no Runtime Fee for games built on Unity Personal. We will be increasing the cap from $100,000 to $200,000 and we will remove the requirement to use the Made with Unity splash screen. No game with less than $1 million in trailing 12-month revenue will be subject to the fee. For those creators on Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise, we are also making changes based on your feedback. The Runtime Fee policy will only apply beginning with the next LTS version of Unity shipping in 2024 and beyond. Your games that are currently shipped and the projects you are currently working on will not be included - unless you choose to upgrade them to this new version of Unity. We will make sure that you can stay on the terms applicable for the version of Unity editor you are using - as long as you keep using that version. For games that are subject to the runtime fee, we are giving you a choice of either a 2.5% revenue share or the calculated amount based on the number of new people engaging with your game each month. Both of these numbers are self- reported from data you already have available. You will always be billed the lesser amount.

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"we tried to warn them about how horribly this will be received"

Freya the stray @FreyaHolmer Dutch Game Day, Oct 4-5 me and a few other creators have been in a unity insiders Slack channel unity asked us for feedback ~24h before the announcement went live ... we tried to warn them about how horribly this will be received, we asked them not to do this, as did many unity employees before us 7:00 PM - Sep 14, 2023 94.4K Views .

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Wonder what they're gonna do next? | /r/memes

Unity changes Price Rates to per install Backtracks to just "first install" Backstracts to will be paid by distributor by instead of devs (ie Microsoft, PS, Nintedo) imgflip.com ???

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Microsoft reaction to Unity

imgflip.com A IN THE CASE OF GAMEPASS, ITS THE MICROSOFT THAT HAS TO PAY FOR EVERY INSTALLATION MICROSOFT LAWYERS quickmeme.com

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Anon developed with Unity | /r/Greentext

: Anonymous 09/12/23(Tue)22:27:03 No.650592448 hi 1694566646434838.png 461 KB PNG >OH NO, I DEVELOPED IT WITH UNITY : Anonymous 09/12/23(Tue)23:22:50 No.650596608 file.png 854 KB PNG ROL [adult swim] >>650592448 (OP) # >OH THE ENGINE'S F----- MORTY WE GOTTA PORT IT >>650596695 # >>650599659 # >>650606809 # >8 MONTHS >8 MONTHS TO PORT THE GAME TO UNREAL

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Marvel Snap is on Unity, they’ve messed with the Mouse | /r/memes

You have to pay us every download Indie Devs MOR Unity Microsoft A Nintendo Sony Unity made with mematic EVERY SINGLE DOWNLOAD! Unity FILM 4 DISNEY rur KY As Crônicas de Wesley

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Unity complaint criticism from /v/

HEY GAMERS! Today, Unity (the engine we use to make our games) announced that they'll soon be taking a fee from developers for every copy of the game installed over a certain threshold-regardless of how that copy was obtained. using Und de contuny, I f------ hate it here. installatio ashold. For eashold. For Jnity is now a n If you follow any indie games, it's thely you'll see many messages ke this on your timeline today. While our game is not developed in Unity, we stand with developers everywhere nited plan optic The Unity Is reverse n te priete shareholders over the products actual users LED Unity (a ced th used by in be cha velopers f their sof their sof ove a ce velo is mean incial hese u added W hot be urtst the ga pers bi en the tru Unity to re hese ch ARGE AUDIEN ALTHOUGH A IS DECISION WILL & DESPITE BEING A SMALL INDIE STUDIO, WE HOPE THAT OUR TITLES IN DEVELOPMENT WILL REACH WHEN THE SHAREHOL ANGE IN DOING BU THAT ECTS PRICES, AFFECT ENDLY CONDITION IMMEDIATELY TED BY THE DEC Fun Fact: Super Dark Deception is made in Unity foes presenficant new chafengeing je in and eams. tinyware Aggro Crab STOP THE GREED UNITY veloper communi profoundly disaj GAMES right out of the gate. It may even cause some publishers to avoid publishing FEE PER COPY L MOVE FORW S BOTH DEVELL expertise we've accumulated over the years and starting from scratch in a new engine. It's something we'd really rather not do GHEST TEAM On behalf of Abstract Digital Team and the developer community, we expect Unity to reverse their action, or we as many developers will be forced to change the engine. ve ayground Well darn... oh, darn... This so shocking it's hard to know where to start Unity, a company and game engine that has long been lauded for its accessibility to and support of small developers, has announced plans tha Unity has just made sarpelling annoncest, meing that they will now lepose a fee on as developers for each installed cop We'bells of Ualty Englas far asarly d pars, and these adden paller changes are deeply disappolaring. They contrailet Usity's prius comments and bench TO CODE YOUR TIC INNERSLOTH Inity to make our gam but fellow game stu ve'd delay content and he elsewhere (as other 't have the time or me it. W--? बिग्गा Pixel la rou decide dis tinu Unity for e deve mer uction of () Per All Fees, have made our game development process economically unsustainable. ello nds, erson studio TOEBUNCH OF pushes Unity's rompted serious, new this sucks of work and acquired skis for a new engine. e use the for Unity to put all and revent this insane decision, before we are forced to abandon year ch AFTER MORE THAN 8 YEARS OF DEVELOPMENT IN UNITY, WE WILL BE JOINING MANY OTHER STUDIOS IN LEAVING UNITY AND ALL OF ITS SERVICES FOR FUTURE PROJECTS IF THIS CONTINUES TO BE THEIR POLICY. THIS DECISION THREATENS THE SUSTAINABILITY OF OUR STUDIO AND OUR PRESENT AND FUTURE PROJECTS, EVEN THE ONES WE HAVEN'T ANNOUNCED YET F--- you John Riccitiello. the Spire CRIT The Mega Crit team has been hard at work these past 2+ years on a new game. But unlike with Slay the Spire, the engine we have been developing it in is Unity. 't know what this mean ou for continuing to stick with us UNITY HAS JUST ANNOUNCED THAT THEY WILL START CHARGING US DEVELOPERS A FEE TALENTLESS SUP WE HAVE ED FROM 1 AND THE I AROUNDS WE HAVE HAD TO IMPLEMENT TO ACHIEVE SIMPLE STUFF WITH THE ENGINE. The retroactive pricing structure of Runtime Fees is not only harmful in a myriad of ways to developers-especially indies-it is also a violation of trust. We believe Unity is fully aware of this, seeing as they have gone so far as to remove their TOS from GitHub. Unity shocked us with their announcement last night. They said that they'll be taking a fee from developers based on installs. Human Fall Flat is made with Unity... and, you guessed it, Human Fall Flat 2 is also being made with Unity. Despite the immense amount of time and effort our team has already poured into development on our new title, we will be migrating to a new engine unless the changes are completely reverted and TOS protections are put in place. We have never made a public statement before. That is how badly you f----- up. This decision completely disregards the impact on Game Developers & Studios. It's totally inconsiderate ur exclusive choice attainable otherwisi be a great experience for capabilities even furt concerns regarding i This week, Unity announced a new pricing model which is linked to game installations. We don't believe the new approach is reasonable, fair, or workable. Moreover, we fear that it has the potential to adversely impact indie developers, subsequently diminishing the richness and quality of titles available to gamers. can Fugitive back in 2 has empowered craft expansive ope d experienc at far surpass w game, The Pr ourney with e this dr ne developr BRAKL in our de 0:02 nt announcemen ent pipeline. forward, ine. concerns, as well considerat hd reconsider this stra enable us to concentrate on what we excel at: crafting unique games using this exceptional engine. C'MON! greed. 나 FallEN TREE GAMES As we proach the ration of the For he King 2 launch, we can't help but wonder if having this knowledge before we began development would have changed our engine choice completely. Sincerely, FOLLOW ANY GAME DE ELYSEECH OF THESE TEXT SLIDES PO THAT'S BECAUSE MANY OF US WHO ARE USING UNITY HAVE BEEN PUT INTO A VERY DIFFICULT SITUATION UNITY HAS JUST ANNOUNCED THAT THEY'LL BE CHARGINGA FEE FROM DEVS EVERY TIME HER CAME DETS ALLED AFTER A DOANH SATYSMATINYA KIONYES BASED ON SALES NEW N ALL IT EVEN NUDES DEMONSTRATIONS AND FADE TIME THE GAME IS STREAMOVACLOUD PLAY THIS WILL BE FRANCIALLY DEVASTASING TO A LOT OF GAME DEVELOPERS AND STOKIS TE THE WE ALSO BE FEL IN THE PLAYERS BECAUSE WHAT GANES W BE UNCACLE IN SERVICESUKE MULE BUNDLE, GAME PASS AND MANY MORE WILL BE SEVERELY FRANCANGAS SIMPLE AS RELEASING A DENO SUNLY BECOMES A ADVANCONING UNITY SNT AN EASY CHTENSTHEATERESTING WEARS WORTHO TIME AND M MEANS LEA QUIT BEING STINKY UNITY Rhyzl sage For those who don't know Cult of the Lamb is made in Unity, Unity is introducing a Runtime Fee that's based on game installs Our team specialises in unity games So, what's the impact on us? Well, we have future projects in the pipeline that were initially planned to be developed in Unity. nge would result in significant delays since our team would need to acquire an entirely new skill set a Monster, our mission has been to support and promote new and sThe introduction of these fees by dient challenges for aspiring developers We would love to stick with the engine we have used to make our games for the seat 10 persent We bone now we can any new projects using Unity when there is no way to know whand of ve buness model they might throw at us in the future In ligh NOT b 24117 ceaWork TOL ut any form of opt-in or consert trom developers and leased years ago. This goes again (The ntim is BAC DAL ON -AlceaAkaza (AlceaWorks) To made the decision to use un t DEV COMMUNITY LEGE THE LEARN TO REALL Fee." After nearly position where we mig hot ou able to justify using oniity for our future titles. If these changes aren't rolled back, we'll be heavily considering abandoning our wealth of Unity Shauku Games, which has primarily used the Unity Game Engine, has negatively been affected by Unity's new announcement, which affects all projects we We're planning and we're almost released, which now have to be canceled as a result. This is especially damaging as I Tehillah, learned game develop ne development from Unity, and this basically requires me to switch into new engines, So, to Unity, Our long time love we say... UNITY, CISION Rhyzinus is built and e id like to say that Rhyzi d daci: à bad Exciting news! Agregat Studio will e to develop ames vithout any reservations! However, there's a twist - we're limiting each game to just 199,999 downloads. Get ready for the ultimate battle of the fittest! by DanDans yesterday, Unity and CRY HARDER ABOUTIT W--!? w ty ibith GATE We really the soft and ILL AlcaaWorks 67 GOODBYE IT WAS FUN WHILE IT LASTED. AGREGAT STUDIO day Un lease develo it anc WHAT THE F---??? As some of you may know, our upcoming game Eternal Damnation is currently being made via Unity bet MASSIVE DELAYS EXPECTED. isagre istallo billa sting f changes that drastically impact ing community overall, including SD Games ted changes in regards to the new murges. The proposed 'Runtime Fee' means fter a set revenue is reached. This includes ds, which will directly affect the quality of here on out. Should Unity enforce these changes, SD Games as a company will have to aquire a new skill set to migrate to another game engine that respects its consumers. The move will cause massive delays to our upcoming project and future updates from here on out, but would be nessassary to produce quality games for our community. Even if Unity decides to not follow through with these changes we feel like the trust between them and us has been broken. -SD Games NOT A SAILOR STUDIOS Unity has destroyed our trust with their recent announcement. Along with many of our te game study is jarding the ability of inde development as a while and as a possible career path for many like us. By placing the new "Fee Unly has unincanted publishers and other companies from wang gle maler developers a chance who use this engine. Financial burdens and c alwady weightly on developers, specially independent ones, but this will put the na In the coffin for many in inconsiderate, vile, and a financially selfish policy that demonstrates Unity's lack of Yesterday, Unity (the engine I use) announced that it will change its pricing model, effective January 1 2024, from a yearly tiered subscription fee to a model based on how many installs a game has. HACKS LMAO Sincerely, We have our ofning and destment into Unity for our c however, we now question our future with You have already seen the news. Below the Stone is created with Unity. Our goal for Early Access is Q4 this year Having our agreement with Unity change so close to our planned release creates a lot of instability for a growing indie stude Indie studies ours should not be put in a situation where they fear the repercussion of having a suco demo, or launching successful free-to-play game Indie game development can already be a very unstable career. All that To keep things somewhat professional personally think this is the exact opposite of a smart business decision Many des are reconsidering their future plans in the lace of these news and since KalFS has been in development in Unity for way 2 years are Corrent plan come the pre-apa KafS de linding the challed to part over the be allowing how the ful y develops-what ALLY COD of experience in esodermal condons cal but also the with the Prin in the these so soon does not create the four jeda read to le is a major cultural hit happ rebrne have led he y other be anyone who been following the india game space is probably aware of Undys pricing changes by now, before from deeper resulting from abuse of wh and how they would prove decion, double the development a can do to see the rm cancelling my subscription, so the splash screen will return to the game at some point next year. Kaffs, but the SPLASH SCREEN IS BACK Unity removed its low-end subscription plan (Unity Plus) Splash screen removal now requires Unity Pro ($1.8k USD per year), which is way outside budget. when Unly www. ed lois Dear colleagues, Dear gamers, It's the first time I spoke openly about a subject, but Unity Technologies" announcement of a fee for the installation of titles created with the Unity Engine has hit me like a bombshell. When you consider how important Unity Engine is and has been in our lives as developers and gamers. It is not acceptable! Although, for my part, I'm not a Unity user, but in no way I endorse the introduction of an installation fee. There are far too many random factors (demos, bundles, piracy,...) and potential risks both for studios, developers and for the video game world in general. I therefore invite everyone to support the studios and developers who work with Unity Engine, as well as the Unity Technologies teams who are also suffering from this catastrophic decision (it's a purely management and commercial decision). I sincerely hope that this situation will improve and that a solution will be found very soon! Maxim ROSE CITY Vesley Unity announced to its that they will need to pay addtional fees who players in their games when asked regan to charge gane deopes based on t BAD WEATHER AMBER'S TALE See is coming with no saming and actively LazyTeaStudios wishes to express its solidarity with the game development community conceming Unity's recent changes to its game to align our transparent practices. It is our belief that no engine should employ tactics that can be perceived as predatory against its dedicated user base. PixelRift Studios Hello frog fant Unity ha this may not affect us currently, this doesn't mean that we are hurt and concamed after this decision pers for Yesterday, Unity surprised everyone when they announced they're introducing a new fee that will charge developers $0.50 per install upon hitting a threshold that will affect all games made in Unity starting January 1st no matter when they were made. As we're a small indie game studio, this would affect us greatly to the point where we would even shut our doors. We've used unity for all of our projects, and have spent multiple years our experience with the engine to the point we are now. using Unity alternative Cuently we are in the process of deciding what path we want to take given the news. We're still focused on releasing new content for Run a Café, however we are currently pausing development on both Virus and Pixel Core while we wait to see if the situation changes or until we figure out what engine we swap to for these tes. As well we will be removing the Run a Café Demo from all store fronts effective January 1st 2024 unless the situation changes We still want deliver fun experiences to our players, and don't intend to stop any time soon but we just ask you to bear with us as we find our way through this devistating news. If anything changes reguarding any tide or the situation as a whole, we'll make another post currently close to this threshold, any future de now nounced that they will be charging installation of games created in their is not We urge you to take a stand with indie. games, and call for Unity to reverse these harmful changes. software, abov ertain threshold. While Pro lopment in me a financial risk for indie developers like Free downloads are charged, which makes giveaways, charity bundles, and platforms like GamePass too high of a financial risk for us to be able to pursue. These fees do not benefit developers in any way, and instead can actively harm them. Frogsong's Nintendo Switch port will continue to be developed in Unity, as it's far too late to change engines, but we will not be working in Unity for future games. We cannot stand by these decisions, and we cannot afford the risk it would place on our small team. Frogteam Games

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Update: Everyone leaves the ship, if January 1st no changes,

HEY GAMERS! Today, Unity (the engine we use to make our games) announced that they'll soon be taking a fee from developers for every copy of the game installed over a certain threshold - regardless of how that copy was obtained. Guess who has a somewhat highly anticipated game coming to Xbox Game Pass in 2024? That's right, it's us and a lot of other developers. That means Another Crab's Treasure will be free to install for the 25 million Game Pass subscribers. If a fraction of those users download our game, Unity could take a fee that puts an enormous dent in our income and threatens the sustainability of our business. And that's before we even think about sales on other platforms, or pirated installs of our game, or even multiple installs by the same user!!! This decision puts us and countless other studios in a position where we might not be able to justify using Unity for our future titles. If these changes aren't rolled back, we'll be heavily considering abandoning our wealth of Unity expertise we've accumulated over the years and starting from scratch in a new engine. Which is really something we'd rather not do. On behalf of the dev community, we're calling on Unity to reverse the latest in a string of shortsighted decisions that seem to prioritize shareholders over their product's actual users. I f------ hate it here. If you follow any indie games, it's likely you'll see many messages like this on your timeline today. While our game is not developed in Unity, we stand with developers everywhere against what has happened. This morning Unity (a game engine commonly used by indie developers) announced that they'll be charging developers for each installation of games made in their software, above a certain threashold. For indie developers this means releasing a game made in Unity is now a real financial risk. These unnecessary added fees and limited plan options do not benefit developers. They hurt small teams. They hurt the gaming industry as a whole. Unity has broken the trust of developers big and small. We urge Unity to reconsider these changes. DESPITE BEING A SMALL INDIE STUDIO, WE HOPE THAT OUR TITLES IN DEVELOPMENT WILL REACH A LARGE AUDIENCE, AND ALTHOUGH WE MAY NOT BE IMMEDIATELY AFFECTED BY THE DECISIONS THAT UNITY (THE ENGINE WE USE TO MAKE GAMES) MADE REGARDING THE FEE PER COPY OF AN INSTALLED GAME. IT IS REALLY DISAPPOINTING NOT TO KNOW HOW WE WILL MOVE FORWARD FROM HERE SINCE IT IS A TOTAL CHANGE IN DOING BUSINESS THAT AFFECTS BOTH DEVELOPERS AND PLAYERS. Fun Fact: Super Dark Deception is made in Unity. Today, Unity's leadership announced that they've decided to go after the income of developers by using a Unity Runtime Fee based a revenue & install threshold. While a revenue threshold is reasonable and is already utilized by their main competitor, Unreal Engine, the install policy is ludicrous. It will put many smaller developers out of business with the way it tracks and charges for installs. How will this affect us? To avoid the fees and future arbitrary policy changes by Unity, we may have to delay Super Dark Deception's release and rebuild it entirely from scratch in a different game engine. We will continue to hope that it doesn't come to that, but it's not looking good. It's highly disturbing that Unity can unilaterally change the terms of agreements whenever it wants to. If the announced policy changes are not reversed or significantly altered, it looks very likely that we will never make another game in Unity. tinyware THIS DECISION AFFECTS FUTURE PLANS, AFFECTS PRICES, AFFECTS THE WILLINGNESS TO CONTINUE USING THIS ENGINE WHEN THERE ARE OTHERS WITH MUCH MORE FRIENDLY CONDITIONS FOR THEIR USERS. WE HOPE THAT THIS DECISION WILL BE REVERSED BUT EVEN SO THIS WAS A BETRAYAL OF THE TRUST THAT USERS HAD WITH THIS ENGINE, WHEN THE SHAREHOLDERS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE USERS WHO USE YOUR TOOL, THIS HAPPENS. -GHOST TEAM As a publisher, we seek to support promising new indie horror games. The new fees present a significant new challenge for emerging Unity developers to face right out of the gate. It may even cause some publishers to avoid publishing games built in Unity entirely. STOP THE GREED, UNITY. W-- Dude!?? -Aggro Crab W--!? by DanDans Hello, I'm "ByDanDans," the developer of "Super Shooter" and "La Sombra." Yesterday, Unity announced, without warning, a new per-install fee. This fee is incredibly abusive and has the potential to harm many game studios and indie developers Dear indie developer community, As the Abstract Digital team, we want to share our deep concern regarding Unity's recent decision to implement the "Unity Runtime Fee." After nearly a decade using Unity, this move has left us profoundly disappointed. This decision puts us and countless other studios in a position where we might not be able to justify using Unity for our future titles. If these changes aren't rolled back, we'll be heavily considering abandoning our wealth of Unity expertise we've accumulated over the years and starting from scratch in a new engine. It's something we'd really rather not do. GAMES On behalf of Abstract Digital Team and the developer community, we expect Unity to reverse their action, or we as many developers will be forced to change the engine. "1 [ABSTRACT DIGITAL 100 INNERSLOTH We use Unity to make our games. This would harm not only us, but fellow game studios of all budgets and sizes. If this goes through, we'd delay content and features our players actually want to port our game elsewhere (as others are also considering). But many developers won't have the time or means to do the same. Stop it. W--? ग्गा Pixel Playground Pixel Playground has decided to discontinue the use of Unity for game development due to the introduction of Unity's new Per Install Fees, which have made our game development process economically unsustainable. Venice is made in Unity. Our new projects are made in Unity. And this sucks a lot. SAFE PLACE Hello friends, Yesterday, the game engine Unity has decided to soon introduce a new "Runtime Fee". After a certain threshold, any new game install will charge us developers. There are still many question marks about this practice, and too many risks for us to ascertain the continue use of Unity as engine for our games. We join in the call for Unity to put off and revert this insane decision, before we are forced to abandon years of work and acquired skills for a new engine. UNITY HAS JUST ANNOUNCED THAT THEY WILL START CHARGING US DEVELOPERS A FEE PER COPY INSTALLED. WE HAVE BEEN WORKING WITH UNITY ENGINE FOR ALMOST A DECADE NOW, AND WE ARE VERY DISAPPOINTED TO BE HIT BY SURPRISE WITH THESE SUDDEN CHANGES IN THEIR POLICIES. THIS GOES AGAINST THEIR PREVIOUS STATEMENTS AND IS A HUGE BREACH OF TRUST. RELEASING OUR GAME IN UNITY HAS BEEN A CONSTANT STRUGGLE FOR US. NOT ONLY BECAUSE OF THE BUGS, BUT ALSO BECAUSE OF THE LACK OF SUPPORT WE HAVE RECEIVED FROM THEM AND THE NUMBER OF WORK- AROUNDS WE HAVE HAD TO IMPLEMENT TO ACHIEVE SIMPLE STUFF WITH THE ENGINE. AFTER MORE THAN 8 YEARS OF DEVELOPMENT IN UNITY, WE WILL BE JOINING MANY OTHER STUDIOS IN LEAVING UNITY AND ALL OF ITS SERVICES FOR FUTURE PROJECTS IF THIS CONTINUES TO BE THEIR POLICY. THIS DECISION THREATENS THE SUSTAINABILITY OF OUR STUDIO AND OUR PRESENT AND FUTURE PROJECTS, EVEN THE ONES WE HAVEN'T ANNOUNCED YET. EVERYONE AT BLOODIOUS GAMES, ALONGSIDE THE GAME DEV COMMUNITY, URGE THE RESPONSIBLE PEOPLE AT UNITY TO RECONSIDER THESE CHANGES. BLOODIOUS F--- you John Riccitiello. the MEGA Slay CRIT Spire - Missing Shader The Mega Crit team has been hard at work these past 2+ years on a new game. But unlike with Slay the Spire, the engine we have been developing it in is Unity. The retroactive pricing structure of Runtime Fees is not only harmful in a myriad of ways to developers--especially indies--it is also a violation of trust. We believe Unity is fully aware of this, seeing as they have gone so far as to remove their TOS from GitHub. Despite the immense amount of time and effort our team has already poured into development on our new title, we will be migrating to a new engine unless the changes are completely reverted and TOS protections are put in place. We have never made a public statement before. That is how badly you f----- up. Well darn... OF COLOR GRAVE This is so shocking it's hard to know where to start. Unity, a company and game engine that has long been lauded for its accessibility to and support of small developers, has announced plans that dramatically and negatively impact those same developers. Obviously, this also includes us. We're sure you're hearing it from other developers as well, but Unity is going to start charging developers based on downloads of their games. Not just purchases, but free downloads, re-downloads, and even pirated downloads. It's also unclear if this will retroactively include future sales of our already released games. For us and many other developers, it's a struggle to release our games, sacrificing our time and often our well-being to put out what we hope will be a great experience for the player. Now Unity has betrayed the people who gave it the position it has enjoyed until now. We don't know what this means for us going forward and we apologize for any delays this might cause in our development as we try to figure out what the heck we're going to do. All we can say for now is thank you for continuing to stick with us. - The Colorgrave Team Unity shocked us with their announcement last night. They said that they'll be taking a fee from developers based on installs. Human Fall Flat is made with Unity... and, you guessed it, Human Fall Flat 2 is also being made with Unity. This decision completely disregards the impact on Game Developers & Studios. It's totally inconsiderate. We seriously question whether we can trust Unity moving forward, and whether we can continue to use this game engine. Unity, we're asking you to reverse this decision. Prioritise your customers and players over corporate greed. Sincerely, This week, Unity announced a new pricing model which is linked to game installations. We don't believe the new approach is reasonable, fair, or workable. Moreover, we fear that it has the potential to adversely impact indie developers, subsequently diminishing the richness and quality of titles available to gamers.. Since we embarked on our journey with American Fugitive back in 2015, Unity has been our exclusive choice for game development. It has empowered our 5-person studio to craft expansive open-world experiences that far surpass what would have been attainable otherwise. Our upcoming police game, The Precinct, pushes Unity's capabilities even further. This is why the recent announcement has prompted serious concerns regarding its place in our development pipeline. NO BRAKES GAMES We sincerely hope that Unity will take our concerns, as well as those voiced by numerous other devs, into consideration and reconsider this strategy. This would enable us to concentrate on what we excel at: crafting unique games using this exceptional engine. FOR THE KING We at IronOak Games stand in solidarity with the game development community in regard to the recent Runtime and Licensing update from Unity. 0:02 As we approach the celebration of the For The King 2 launch, we can't help but wonder if having this knowledge before we began development would have changed our engine choice completely. Sincerely, FALLEN TREE GAMES SUP' GANG! IF YOU FOLLOW ANY GAME DEVS ON HERE YOU'LL LIKELY SEE A BUNCH OF THESE COLORED TEXT SLIDES POP UP. THAT'S BECAUSE MANY OF US WHO ARE USING UNITY HAVE BEEN PUT INTO A VERY DIFFICULT SITUATION. IRONOAK UNITY HAS JUST ANNOUNCED THAT THEY'LL BE CHARGING A FEE FROM DEVS EVERY TIME THEIR GAME GETS INSTALLED AFTER A CERTAIN THRESHOLD. USUALLY YOU SIMPLY PAY A ROYALTY FEE BASED ON SALES. THESE NEW FEES WILL INCLUDE PLAYERS REINSTALLING, INSTALLING ON SEVERAL DEVICES, PIRATED VERSIONS GETTING INSTALLED... IT EVEN INCLUDES DEMO INSTALLATIONS AND EACH TIME THE GAME GETS STREAMED VIA CLOUD PLAY. THIS WILL BE FINANCIALLY DEVASTATING TO A LOT OF GAME DEVELOPERS AND STUDIOS. C'MON! THIS WILL ALSO BE FELT BY THE PLAYERS BECAUSE WHAT GAMES WILL BE AVAILABLE IN SERVICES LIKE HUMBLE BUNDLE, GAME PASS AND MANY MORE WILL BE SEVERELY IMPACTED. SOMETHING AS SIMPLE AS RELEASING A DEMO SUDDENLY BECOMES A FINANCIAL RISK. ABANDONING UNITY ISN'T AN EASY OPTION EITHER AFTER INVESTING YEARS WORTH OF TIME AND MONEY IN PROPRIETARY PIPELINE TOOLS. SWITCHING TO ANOTHER ENGINE MEANS LEARNING A LOT FROM THE BEGINNING AND GIVING UP ON YEARS OF EXPERIENCE. CHANGING ENGINE CAN BE, ONCE AGAIN, FINANCIALLY DEVASTATING FOR MANY. EVERYONE AT FABRAZ, ALONGSIDE THE GAME DEV COMMUNITY, URGE THE RESPONSIBLE PEOPLE AT UNITY TO RECONSIDER THESE CHANGES. DO THE RIGHT THING. - FABRAZ MASSIVE MONSTER For those who don't know Cult of the Lamb is made in Unity, Unity Unity is introducing a Runtime Fee that's based on game installs. Our team specialises in Unity games, So, what's the impact on us? Well, we have future projects in the pipeline that were initially planned to be developed in Unity. This change would result in significant delays since our team would need to acquire an entirely new skill set. At Massive Monster, our mission has been to support and promote new and emerging indie games.The introduction of these fees by Unity could pose significant challenges for aspiring developers. QUIT BEING STINKY UNITY Yesterday Unity announced without warning to its user base that they will start charging Unity developers a fee per copy installed of their games. LANDFALL We have used Unity to develop all of our major titles, such as Totally Accurate Battle Simulator which has been installed tens of millions of times throughout the years. To say that this announcement is concerning is an understatement and we are questioning our continued use of the engine. They are making this change without any form of opt-in or consent from developers and retroactively applying this new rule to games developed and released years ago. This goes against their previous statements and is a huge breach of trust. When we started working on TABS and Stick Fight we made the decision to use Unity partly because of their flat payment model, something that they are now going back on. It's like if we increased the price of our games and sent everyone who has played them an invoice for the difference. We would love to stick with the engine we have used to make our games for the past 10 years, but at present, we don't see how we can start any new projects using Unity when there is no way to know what kind of retroactive business model they might throw at us in the future. Rhyz1 71117 A message from AlceaWorks. In light of Unity's (The game engine that Rhyzinus is built on) decision to implement a "Runtime Fee", we would like to say that Rhyzínus WILL NOT be affected by this change. But a bad decision is still a bad decision. So, dear Unity..* BACKPEDAL ON THE DECISION DR BURN IN PURGATORY. -AlceaAkaza (AlceaWorks) Exciting news! Agregat Studio will continue to develop Unity games without any reservations! However, there's a twist - we're limiting each game to just 199,999 downloads. Get ready for the ultimate battle of the fittest! AlceaWorks 7 ATT? - 7 X Yesterday, Unity (the engine I use) announced that it will change its pricing model, effective January 1 2024, from a yearly tiered subscription fee to a model based on how many installs a game has. ibith ED This is very bad news for Bloody Bastards because I will eventually have to pay them more money than my game makes. Since this is impossible, I only have 2 choices: go full corpo and squeeze my playerbase by putting loads of paywalls in my game or just retire my game while I port it to a new engine, which of course will take some time. DELEZ AGREGAT STUDIO This absolutely ridiculous ToS-changing decision by Unity will be a deathblow to almost all indie game developers and is frankly a stab-in-the-back greedy corporate rug-pull. Sincerely, As some of you know, our L-- game was created with the "Unity" game engine. We will have to delay and completely pause the development of L-- (including updates) due to the announcement about the fee for installed copies of the game that we may be charged in the future (announced by Unity). Let's hope this doesn't happen, because this is going to be a big problem not only for us and our game, but also for other developers, especially those with very low profits like us currently. If in the end these changes occur, we will have to directly remake the game from scratch with a completely different game engine, which we want and hope does not happen in any way, in order to continue development, since we have managed to do enough to be able to get this far and then receive news about something that may be unfair to us as developers. We hope you understand this situation that has just appeared, since we really do the best we can to provide a good quality game, and for that we need those resources to improve our game, we will keep you informed. We really hate these types of situations and news. GOODBYE IT WAS FUN WHILE IT LASTED. tifillaby G SHAUKU GAMES Shauku Games, which has primarily used the Unity Game Engine, has negatively been affected by Unity's new announcement, which affects all projects we We're planning and we're almost released, which now have to be canceled as a result. This is especially damaging as I, Tehillah, learned game development from Unity, and this basically requires me to switch into new engines, So, to Unity, Our long time love we say.... UNITY, MASSIVE DELAYS EXPECTED. oh, darn... Unity has just made a surprising announcement, stating that they will now impose a fee on us developers for each installed copy. We've been loyal users of Unity Engine for nearly 6 years, and these sudden policy changes are deeply disappointing. They contradict Unity's previous commitments and breach our trust. Our journey of releasing games through Unity has consistently been a struggle. It's not only due to technical bugs but also the lack of adequate support from Unity. We've had to implement numerous workarounds just to accomplish basic tasks with the engine. After investing over six years in Unity development, we're seriously considering following in the footsteps of many other studios and parting ways with Unity and its services for future projects if this policy remains unchanged. Such a decision jeopardizes the sustainability of our studio and the fate of both announced and unannounced projects. Everyone at Galactic Crows, alongside the broader game development community, urges the responsible parties at Unity to rethink these alterations. These changes have a significant impact on our studio and others like us, and we hope for a more collaborative and transparent approach moving forward. GALACTIC CROWS WHAT THE F---??? As some of you may know, our upcoming game Eternal Damnation is currently being made via Unity. Today Unity released a summary of changes that drastically impact the development and gaming community overall, including SD Games. We strongly disagree with the stated changes in regards to the new revenue and installation charges. The proposed 'Runtime Fee' means all installs are billable after a set revenue is reached. This includes betas and testing periods, which will directly affect the quality of games from here on out. Should Unity enforce these changes, SD Games as a company will have to aquire a new skill set to migrate to another game engine that respects its consumers. The move will cause massive delays to our upcoming project and future updates from here on out, but would be nessassary to produce quality games for our community. Even if Unity decides to not follow through with these changes we feel like the trust between them and us has been broken. -SD Games Unity has destroyed our trust with their recent announcement. Along with many of our fellow game studios, Unity is jeopardizing the stability of indie development as a whole and as a possible career path for many like us. By placing the new "Runtime Fees", Unity has unincentivized publishers and other companies from wanting to give smaller developers a chance who use this engine. Financial burdens and sacrifices already weigh heavily on developers, especially independent ones, but this will put the nail in the coffin for many. NOT A SAILOR STUDIOS It is an inconsiderate, vile, and a financially selfish policy that demonstrates Unity's lack of care for their community. We have put countless hours of learning and development into Unity for our projects, however, we now question our future with utilizing this engine. The incentive for success is now a burden. Make this right, Unity. + STrollarl You have already seen the news. Below the Stone is created with Unity. Our goal for Early Access is Q4 this year. Having our agreement with Unity change so close to our planned release creates a lot of instability for a growing indie studio. Indie studios like ours should not be put in a situation where they fear the repercussions of having a successful demo, or launching a successful free-to-play game. Indie game development can already be a very unstable career. All that indies want is stability. Actions like these so soon does not create that for us. We are not diggin' it. SPLASH SCREEN IS BACK KALIA AND THE FIRE STAFF So anyone who's been following the indie game space is probably aware of Unity's pricing changes by now, but for those still unaware: Unity wants to claim a fee from developers everytime their application is installed. The exact details of what counts as an installation for the purposes of calculating this fee, how they would be tracked to begin with and how they would prevent fraud resulting from abuse of this system are all over the place. To keep things somewhat professional. I personally think this is the exact opposite of a smart business decision. Many devs are reconsidering their future plans in the face of these news, and since KatFS has been in development in Unity for nearly 2 years now, so have I. Currently, I plan to complete the pre-alpha KatFS demo (including the third chapter, all the general improvements, and later hotfixes) in Unity, as it would be a lot of effort to port over the game to a different engine at this point. Since I'm very unlikely to reach the Unity Personal revenue threshold in the near future, this change likely woulnd't affect KatFS, but the fact that Unity Technologies can make such extreme changes in their model at a whim makes continued work with them unpalatable. I will be following how the situation with Unity develops - whether they back down from this decision, double down, or reach a compromise. If I can't see a return to trust and normalcy, I might consider porting KatFS to a different engine such as Godot when the project is ready to make the move to an alpha stage. Even if I can feel secure in continuing the development of KatFS in Unity. unless a major cultural shift happens in the company, it'll likely be my last project in the engine as I'll move over to alternatives. I would rather not have to do that, as I have years of experience in Unity and plenty of established systems in place for KatFS, but sometimes external conditions call for major shifts. But regardless, I'm willing to do everything I can do to see the Kalia project to its conclusion! Unity removed its low-end subscription plan (Unity Plus). Splash screen removal now requires Unity Pro ($1.8k USD per year), which is way outside budget. I'm cancelling my subscription, so the splash screen will return to the game at some point next year. Dear colleagues, Dear gamers, It's the first time I spoke openly about a subject, but Unity Technologies' announcement of a fee for the installation of titles created with the Unity Engine has hit me like a bombshell. When you consider how important Unity Engine is and has been in our lives as developers and gamers. It is not acceptable! Although, for my part, I'm not a Unity user, but in no way I endorse the introduction of an installation fee. There are far too many random factors (demos, bundles, piracy, ...) and potential risks both for studios, developers and for the video game world in general. I therefore invite everyone to support the studios and developers who work with Unity Engine, as well the Unity Technol teams who also suffering from this catastrophic decision (it's a purely management and commercial decision). BAD WEATHER STUDIOS I sincerely hope that this situation will improve and that a solution will be found very soon! - Maxim ROSE CITY GAMES Yesterday, Unity announced to its users that they will need to pay additional fees when players install their games. When asked for details about how the model works. Unity doubled down on an obscure plan to charge game developers based on data that no one can see but Unity. Rose City Games is a small indie studio that uses Unity for its games, and we have two unannounced projects currently being developed in Unity, Unity's announcement will affect us and many other studios in our ability to continue making games that are unique and innovative - a core tenant of what people consider "indie games" to be. The fee is coming with no warning and retroactively affects some of your favorite games that are already on the market. hurting studios that need their sales to be unaffected by ridiculous and unpredictable fee models so that they can continue making games and looking towards the future. Choosing to no longer use Unity in the future becomes a viable business consideration for us and many more studios, which would cost so much time and money in skilling up in other engines. This decision (and many decisions made by Unity lately) has deemphasized Unity as a safe and friendly tool for new. emerging. and small-team developers, instead moving in the direction of making complex policies that are out of touch with the game industry. We're so disappointed in yesterday's announcement, and the response made by Unity is so similarly out of touch that they are losing trust with wonderful creatives who could benefit from their tools. We really don't know what Unity could say next, but we're losing trust quickly and expect that this decision will put hardship on our studio and so many more that we love. It's hard enough to contribute to the joy of games as a living. We ask you. gamers and the games industry, to understand Unity's terrible mistakes so that we can all focus on making business for creatives more viable and sustainable. AMBER'S TALE LazyTeaStudios wishes to express its solidarity with the game development community concerning Unity's recent changes to its Runtime and Licensing model. Our game, "Amber's Tale", is currently in development using Unity. However, given the recent developments, we are evaluating alternative paths for its continuation. Our primary mission is to inspire and support emerging game developers. With that in mind, it's important for us to align our ourselves with platforms that uphold fair and transparent practices. It is our belief that no engine should employ tactics that can be perceived as predatory against its dedicated user base. PixelRift Studios Yesterday, Unity surprised everyone when they announced they're introducing a new fee that will charge developers $0.50 per install upon hitting a threshold that will affect all games made in Unity starting January 1st no matter when they were made. As we're a small indie game studio, this would affect us greatly to the point where we would even have to shut our doors. We've used unity for all of our projects, and have spent multiple years building our experience with the engine to the point we are now. While this may not affect us currently, this doesn't mean that we are hurt and concerned after this decision. Currently we are in the process of deciding what path we want to take given the news. We're still focused on releasing new content for Run a Café, however we are currently pausing development on both Virus_and Pixel:Core while we wait to see if the situation changes, or until we figure out what engine we swap to for these titles. As well we will be removing the Run a Café Demo from all store fronts effective January 1st 2024 unless the situation changes. We still want deliver fun experiences to our players, and don't intend to stop any time soon, but we just ask you to bear with us as we find our way through this devistating news. If anything changes reguarding any title or the situation as a whole, we'll make another post! Hello frog fans, Today, Unity has announced that they will be charging developers for each installation of games created in their software, above a certain threshold. While Frogsong is not currently close to this threshold, any future development in Unity has now become a financial risk for indie developers like ourselves. Free downloads are charged, which makes giveaways, charity bundles, and platforms like GamePass too high of a financial risk for us to be able to pursue. These fees do not benefit developers in any way, and instead can actively harm them. Frogsong's Nintendo Switch port will continue to be developed in Unity, as it's far too late to change engines, but we will not be working in Unity for future games. We cannot stand by these decisions, and we cannot afford the risk it would place on our small team. Frogteam We urge you to take a stand with indie games, and call for Unity to reverse these harmful changes.

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Also see WotC's OGL 1.1

ephemeralhorror honestly open source will be the only thing anyone can ever trust in the end i guess ephemeralhorror see the thing about the fundamental foundational flaw of "the line must always go up" is that the consequences will come for everything you get attached to if they exist within that system, no matter what rlyehtaxidermist "but no one would ever-" they always will. literally "no one would ever charge for a runtime" was the foundational defense of using proprietary libraries like unity. maybe the current developers mean it when they say they won't. but there's no way to say if their next owners will be as free with the leash. and there is always a leash - the very nature of proprietary software is the leash. any control you relinquish will be used against you. if you can't build it yourself, they can always bar the door.

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Apparently unity has been losing alot of money over the last few years and this might have been them grasping straws

Unity Revenue vs Total Costs (thousands) - Revenue (thousands) 2500000 2000000 1500000 1000000 500000 0 2019 2020 Total Costs (thousands) Year 2021 2022

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Anon Doesn't Care

: Anonymous : Anonymous : Anonymous 09/13/23(Wed)15:45:47 No.650616863 >pirate game >dev literally loses money due to single install tax Well what's your argument now? 7 KB JPG unity 333.jpg 173 KB JPG 09/13/23(Wed)15:46:38 No.650616910 09/13/23(Wed)15:46:40 No.650616915 Not my problem.

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Parody Unity Statement

Unity Hi there. It's certainly been a week, hasn't it? Recently, Unity's been going through some changes. We just announced that Unity will now be charging a flat fee to the developers for every install think of it like a rental payment and we purged our terms of service agreements. We also said that we can track user installs retroactively, implying that we've been constantly and secretly harvesting the data of users who didn't consent to it. This might put us in direct violation of GDPR, which would be illegal (and immoral!). We just want to say: we hear you. We don't care, but we do hear you. And the reason why we don't care is simple: we're just trying to pick the bones of this company clean before we all bail out. Our CEO, John Riccitiello, sold 2,000 of his shares the week before we made this announcement; he's sold 50,610 since the start of the year. Tomer Bar-Zeev, our president of growth, sold 37,500 shares two weeks ago; two days earlier, our board director Shlomo Dovrat sold 68,454. Some would suggest that this is insider trading, and they'd likely be correct. But we're all rich, so it's not like we're getting in trouble for this. Some companies like Nintendo and Disney are gonna sue us over this, we'll shutter Unity, and then walk away unscathed with the millions we made from selling off our stock. The good news is this: developers won't have to worry about paying the install fee, because Unity as a company will no longer exist by this time next year. Even if it does, you'd have to be pretty oblivious to ever work with us again. This is the best marketing push Godot might ever see.

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Poor Unity / Greedy Indie Developers

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+3

Unity Installation Fee Controversy - Red Hook on Unity Changes

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We at Red Hook know something about madness... Much like Darkest Dungeon, game development is a dynamic and challenging effort where tough choices must be made using imperfect information. Making and releasing a game is an uncertain endeavor, with treasures never guaranteed. But that uncertainty should lie in the marketplace, not with fundamental business terms around which a project was built. We believe Unity has made a grave misstep in introducing a poorly thought out fee mechanic and then compounded that threefold by making it apply to games that have already been released. We are sympathetic to the idea that companies must sometimes change how they operate, but these changes should be carefully planned, communicated, and enacted in such a way that partners may choose whether they wish to accept these new rules for their next projects. We built Darkest Dungeon II using Unity, and a large part of our decision to do so was the relative cost certainty around the license and subscription model. We've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on licenses, and far more than that in engaging Unity to help us with parts of development. It is hard for us to imagine building another game with Unity unless we know we are protected from the possibility of massive changes to how we pay for that technology being introduced at the whims of executive management. Part of game development is knowing when a mechanic is not working and then having the courage to swallow your ego and undo the mistake. We call on Unity to recant this blunder. S Red Hook

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