$0.20 per install when you’re over the threshold… Yikes
For a game engine that does all the hard work? Why is this unreasonable. Have you any idea how much work goes into Unity?
For a game engine that does all the hard work?
Tell me you’re not a developer without saying you’re not a developer.
Unity already has a business model, it’s licensed to the developers. That’s how they have operated for years. This change is retroactive and frankly dangerous.
It’s retroactive and it’s not based on sales, it’s based on installs. So for example, I purchase a game on steam and I own a PC, a steam deck, and I have a kid with a PC. That’s 3x the fees for one sale even though I can only play it on one device at a time. Maybe I get bored of the game and uninstall it. A year later I want to play it again, there’s a new fee for the same sale and PC that unity gets.
Now imagine someone makes a program that repeatedly installs and uninstalls the game. They let this program run all day every day. They also give the program to their friends or post it online.
From what I understand there is also a risk that pirated copies could count. It’s hard to see how Unity can effectively defend against it.
Yes, unity costs money to develop and a fee is reasonable. But I think the are a few risks with this model.
How do they track installations? Metrics from steam and other platforms? Connecting to a license server at install time? Or maybe at runtime? I don’t know the answers but they all seem to have implications for users regarding privacy and/or offline gaming.
It’s also a variable fee to game developers. A single user can install a game on multiple devices despite buying the game once. Similarly, a game can be installed repeatedly over time. This is a financial risk to game development companies. I could see them mitigating this risk in several ways. First, they can pass the fee to the end user. So every install costs the user $0.20. Secondly, they can limit the number of installs per user. You want to install more than 5 times ever? Buy the game again! Thirdly, they could simply shut down the download service after a certain amount of time, making new installations impossible. None of this is good for a gamers.
And what happens to games made by companies that shut down entirely? Today, games remain available through steam, etc. But with this new pricing model, Unity based games will continue to cost money over time. Who pays the bill after the company is gone? This reminds me of Worlds Adrift, a game that used a licensed library. When the developer company shutdown, they were unable to release their server source code because the third party couldn’t can’t send bills to the open source community. Thus, the servers were destroyed and running the client today (still vailable via steam!) just gives the user an error message about license issues or something. Users paid for a game that they are now unable to use.
Thanks for this. A lot of challenges for sure. I still don’t think it’s a bad business model per se and that these challenges can’t be addressed; I am sure they’ve thought of most of these challenges if not all. All business models are plagued with such challenges, but I think the worst thing about this one is simply that it is a departure from an old business model.
