Developers are irate after Unity introduces new per-game install fee

[quadibloc]

It is very hard for me to criticize Unity for this, except perhaps for not including games given away for free (and not otherwise monetized, such as with in-app purchases) as an exception. The game engine is really the hard part of writing a graphical computer game, so why shouldn't game engine makers be entitled to some revenue for every copy sold?
I think that game engine makers are much more entitled to a major cut of game revenues than, say, distribution platforms (I.e. Apple's App Store, Google's Google Play, or the Microsoft Store).

 

[gamerk2]

They aren't retroactive. The installs only apply after Jan 1st......

It's absolutely retroactive. Say I want to play a game made in Unity that was legally purchased off Steam a half decade ago? The developer gets nothing when I download/install it off Steam, where Unity gets a cut. Now, multiply that by a couple hundred thousand; see the problem?

It's even worse for games that have been in development for years that expected to release without any form of royalty payment (one of the primary reasons for going with Unity over Unreal). It's an absolute bait and switch which puts developers, especially smaller ones, in a very bad situation all around.

You pretty much hear everyone who develops in Unity stating in one voice: "We will never do business with you again.". There's a reason for that. Applying these terms retroactively is an absolute bait and switch (and frankly, quite possibly illegal) and any trust that existed between Unity and developers is gone for good.

 

[gamerk2]

Retroactively as in it applies to games that were made before this change in the terms of service.

It's a stupid change which is hard to track and justify (how do I know if the number of installs is correct?) and if they don't backtrack they'll loose a lot of developers. I was currently testing some VR stuff with Unity, but I'm thinking of switching now.

They're going to lose developers in any case; no one will do business with a company that pulls a bait and switch like this one.

 

[Puiu]

It is very hard for me to criticize Unity for this, except perhaps for not including games given away for free (and not otherwise monetized, such as with in-app purchases) as an exception. The game engine is really the hard part of writing a graphical computer game, so why shouldn't game engine makers be entitled to some revenue for every copy sold?
I think that game engine makers are much more entitled to a major cut of game revenues than, say, distribution platforms (I.e. Apple's App Store, Google's Google Play, or the Microsoft Store).

It's not hard. You can say it like this: "It's not normal to use game installs as a metric!". Simple, right?

Nobody is denying Unity a price increase (even if they don't like it). But doing it this way makes absolutely no sense.

You seem to be misunderstanding something: you don't pay per COPY SOLD, but per INSTALL. I can buy a game once and install it multiple times on multiple systems. Who knows, maybe in a few years I'll install it tens or hundreds of times. Every 10 installs you, as the dev, lose 2$. Imagine me buying a 10$ indie game...

 

[gamerk2]

It's not hard. You can say it like this: "It's not normal to use game installs as a metric!". Simple, right?

Nobody is denying Unity a price increase (even if they don't like it). But doing it this way makes absolutely no sense.

You seem to be misunderstanding something: you don't pay per COPY SOLD, but per INSTALL. I can buy a game once and install it multiple times on multiple systems. Who knows, maybe in a few years I'll install it tens or hundreds of times. Every 10 installs you, as the dev, lose 2$. Imagine me buying a 10$ indie game...

Which is why Inides are getting absolutely screwed over; selling a title at low cost is non-viable, as the per-install fee could very well, over the course of the titles life, cost MORE then the profit the developer would ever see (remember: Steam takes it's cut too).

 

[Uncle Al]

I hope they go broke .... gamers are already being charged too much that this sort of thing is just plain greed at it's worst ....

 

[m4a4]

Retroactively as in it applies to games that were made before this change in the terms of service.

It's absolutely retroactive. Say I want to play a game made in Unity that was legally purchased off Steam a half decade ago? The developer gets nothing when I download/install it off Steam, where Unity gets a cut. Now, multiply that by a couple hundred thousand; see the problem?

*Sigh* the only thing I was clarifying was that Unity said installs aren't retroactive (for anyone thinking otherwise). As in, no one's getting a giant bill because of the total lifetime of installs before Jan 1st.
I don't get how people aren't seeing that bit of context....

 

[human7]

*Sigh* the only thing I was clarifying was that Unity said installs aren't retroactive (for anyone thinking otherwise). As in, no one's getting a giant bill because of the total lifetime of installs before Jan 1st.
I don't get how people aren't seeing that bit of context....

In your first post (which I see you since edited and it is clear now), you quoted another post referring to the retroactive change, and that post was clearly referring to changes to the license. That's why we thought you were countering that argument.

 

[brucek]

It gets worse:

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/16hnibp

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

Let's put it this way, this can easily be a 20% tax on developers. If someone made a game on their own and sells it for $1, then after 200k sales/$200k revenue, they will charge the developer $40k. If the developer charges users $20 for a game, it dwindles down to a 1% tax. This obviously affects developers who create smaller games more so than bigger developers.

 

[ComputerGuy55]

For a bit of context:
I am not a developer, programmer or have any Real knowledge about Game Engines. I do follow a lot of news related to this stuff and I have one concern/question, someone might know the answer to in regards to Unity buying IronSource in 2022. I've played a game called Escape from Tarkov that's been developed on Unity since its Alpha in 2016, which is where most of my interest in Unity comes from.

A lot of developers were upset over this when it was announced, due to IronSource's creation of "InstallCore" [2011] that was used as a Cross-platform installer and advertisement platform.
This program was viewed as a PuP (Potentially Unwanted Program) from Sophos & Microsoft Essentials [2014], Malwarebytes labled it as a Bundler [2015]. The software was discontinued in 2020 [1]

When you read about IronSource - "ironSource Ltd. is an Israeli software company that focuses on developing technologies for app monetization and distribution, with its core products focused on the app economy" [2]

So, if their focus is App Monetization, then I have a feeling that this is one of their ideas, even though Unity is the Parent company.

[Question/Concern] If the company was known for producing software that acts like malware, and it only recently stopped using it, then what is stopping them from utilizing their 'skills' to create a program that simply downloads and installs their software to 'generate income' for them.

After reading m4a4's responses, it seems that they may only be charging for the "First install" I do work on computers, but I have a hard time understanding how they are going to track first time installs. This seems like something that could either be easily manipulated or the skewed numbers that the Developer may not even have access to.

Interested to see others opinions on this.

[1] & [2] Taken from Wikipedia

 

[Shirley Dulcey]

That fee for reinstalls is the worst part of it. That's an accounting nightmare; the financial department is not going to want to sign off on something that can result in costs years down the road; they like to close the books on liabilities. Customer buys new computer, reinstalls game: fee. Customer buys new hard drive, reinstalls: fee. Customer messes up Windows, reinstalls Windows and game: fee.

The only way to escape the problem of open-ended costs is to turn off downloads and reactivation after a certain amount of time. But then you're setting yourself up for customer complaints; people aren't going to be happy if they lose their games because of an upgrade or a drive crash. Rock, meet hard place.

 

[brucek]

Yeah, "per install" is just not a well-understood metric, and they're not doing a very good job explaining it. I'm not sure there is any acceptable explanation. Even if we trust them not to cheat with "extra" downloads (or even just cooking the books that they solely maintain, how would a developer know?), how are they going to handle:

1. Bulk distribution deals like Game Pass, Apple Arcade, Promos/Freebies, etc.
2. "Free to play" games where most of the revenue comes from a small percentage of whales, while the 98% are generating installs but no revenue.
3. Frequent consumer upgrades of client devices like phones, tablets, laptops, etc. which may end up counting as "new installs" since it's a new device. Or even worse if the counter is incremented simply by an OS update. A developer could end up selling their indie title once for $5 and then get billed for more than that over the next few years.

What's going to happen the first time Unity presents an invoice claiming a total number of installs that is far divorced from the developer's own records as far as sales and user accounts? What will the resolution process be?

Bottom line, "per-install" pricing is just not a thing for game consumers, nor is "per-install" revenue for developers, so it's going to be hard to accept it as an expense category. Throw in the attempt to change the terms for games already developed or already far into development, along with vague definitions and accounting mechanisms, and a corporate owner with potentially precarious finances (maybe not necessarily over the game engine itself, but there's been a lot of acquisitions in other markets), and it starts to feel like a sketchy situation with an untrustworthy partner that no sober company should agree to engage with if they have a choice.

 

[BobHome]

Get charged a fee for every reinstall of something you already bought? Well, that's just Unreal!

 

[Gastec]

Let me see if I got this straight: if I, a user/client/gamer buy 1 million copies of a video game made with Unity engine, and install them on 1 million computers using Steam, then I reinstall Steam on those million PC's and reinstall that video game, then Unity Technologies is to receive $400,000 from the developer of that game? Or from Steam? Or perhaps even $0.1/game install (after a 50% discount for special club members) directly from me, in the dystopian future some CEO of Unity Technologies imagines? Is the payment going to be handled by an automated "A.I." system, so I won't have to be bothered to sign every single such financial transaction?

 

[Gastec]

*Sigh* the only thing I was clarifying was that Unity said installs aren't retroactive (for anyone thinking otherwise). As in, no one's getting a giant bill because of the total lifetime of installs before Jan 1st.
I don't get how people aren't seeing that bit of context....

What if I do 10 million installs of a video game on January 1st 2024 at 00:01 hours? How will Unity Technologies charge me?
I think this whole shenanigan is a mockery and a market test done by Unity Technologies, to test the waters for a future subscription service. They will discard this crazy idea of a fee per game install and offer instead the "salvation" in the form of a monthly subscription service.

 

[Sir Sparkles]

I'm going to start a business giving away "free" hammers, where builders will have to give me 0.5% of their construction revenue going forward. Seems legit.

 

[human7]

I'm going to start a business giving away "free" hammers, where builders will have to give me 0.5% of their construction revenue going forward. Seems legit.

Not a bad idea. Even better if you pull a Unity and add a per-nail fee 3 years later

 

[godrilla]

I hope they go broke .... gamers are already being charged too much that this sort of thing is just plain greed at it's worst ....

They must be desperate to pull something like this. I wonder if someone will buy them or will they Unity engine that once competed with likes of Unreal engine, will cease to exist? In a time when everyone is putting all their eggs in one Unreal engine 5 basket. This includes Cdprojectred that has a pretty competitive engine themselves for Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 and is already using Unreal engine 5 for the next Witcher. While justice sounds sweet, at what long term cost do gamers have to suffer; when the only engine has no competition and currently runs at maximum brute force capacity as well as the latest Unreal engine 4 games. Either way this is bad news for gamers. While Unity is top ai developer tools heavy, who knew that in order to develope using ai tools you still need capable developers. The ai will not sh!t out games itself . This engine!

 

[Bobbydpue]

Sure, it doesn't apply to installs retroactively. That doesn't mean it doesn't change the conditions to which developers agreed to release their games under retroactively.

It applies to previously sold games. I think that's the point the OP was making. A gaming company would still have to pay fees for games sold years ago, just because someone decided to reinstall a game they've owned for a long time.

 

[MaXtor]

Forget review bombs, Redditors will be able to bankrupt companies by organizing mass groups of people to constantly uninstall and reinstall a game, each time costing the developer. Heck, someone will write and share a script to do it autonomously.

 

[ComputerGuy55]

Forget review bombs, Redditors will be able to bankrupt companies by organizing mass groups of people to constantly uninstall and reinstall a game, each time costing the developer. Heck, someone will write and share a script to do it autonomously.

I think that it's very likely that Unity is going to create something that does it autonomously.

As I posted above:

"If the company [IRONSOURCE] was known for producing software that acts like malware, and it only recently stopped using it, then what is stopping them from utilizing their 'skills' to create a program that simply downloads and installs their software to 'generate income' for them."

I see it as a very real and likely scenario; once again, Greed has corrupted something that so many people enjoy.