technology

popular new word cloud
2

This is not a good look, at all. Unity seemingly is shooting themselves in the foot.

From the article:

Popular video game engine Unity is making big changes to its pricing structure that’s causing confusion and anger among developers. On Tuesday, Unity announced that on January 1st, 2024, it would be implementing a pay-per-download pricing scheme that would charge developers a flat fee any time a game using Unity software is installed.

“We are introducing a Unity Runtime Fee that is based upon each time a qualifying game is downloaded by an end user,” the company shared on its blog. “We chose this because each time a game is downloaded, the Unity Runtime is also installed. Also we believe that an initial install-based fee allows creators to keep the ongoing financial gains from player engagement, unlike a revenue share.”

log in to comment
4 total comments
0
dubnobasswithmyhead 17 days ago

"The primary complaint is that these changes would be particularly harmful to solo, indie, marginalized, and mobile developers."

The tl;dr ^ ^

0
OP hal9000 17 days ago

I think Godot and Unreal are popping champagne at the moment.

What on earth is Unity thinking?

0
dubnobasswithmyhead 17 days ago

This screams of economic consultants looking at the financial potential via the books, with no understanding of the sector. It probably looks great on paper.

1
OP hal9000 17 days ago

Yeah, that seems about right...or they've hired one too many MBAs and the inmates have taken over the asylum.

Either way they are in for a really bad time.

Game development is hard enough, but this will allow malicious users to kind of ddos a game and make the developer pay for it.

From everything I've read the fee isn't linked to revenue, but the number of downloads in a given 12 month period.

Unity is going to have to backtrack, but talk about losing trust, if I were a game dev I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot poll after this.