Unity closes offices, cancels town hall after threat in wake of runtime fee restructure
- Reference: 1694779508
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/09/15/unity_runtime_fee_backlash/
- Source link:
As reported by our sister publication [1]DevClass , Unity dropped a bombshell on its developer community earlier this week by telling them it is introducing per-install fees for games built with the engine once they pass [2]specified thresholds based on the license purchased.
This flies in the face of a [3]"commitment" – their words – the company made only back in 2019 to being "an open platform." Unity once took pride in charging "a flat fee per seat," not royalties from a game developer's revenue.
[4]
But it looks like that promise was not worth the paper it was written on. The issue is that Unity's former business model – license fees and free tiers – was the precise reason why so many games are built on the engine. It is powerful and versatile, and had a low barrier to entry for hobbyist and independent devs.
[5]
[6]
This allowed small teams of one or more people who had struck gold with a game idea to make comfortable wages off their work.
From January 1, those types of developer could feel like they are being penalized for success as Unity takes a cut of their product's revenue. Some are reporting that it will no longer be financially viable for them to sell their Unity-based game going forward, meaning livelihoods may be put at risk by this about-turn.
[7]
It's somewhat akin to Adobe, which is already expensive software, waking up one day and deciding it requires a slice of all revenue generated where PhotoShop, Premiere Pro, After Effects etc were involved in the production of that good or service. Or a more mundane example – a tool manufacturer taking royalties from any house purchase where its hammers were used in construction.
[8]Atari pulls nostalgia power move and buys homebrew community forum
[9]Microsoft wants Activision so badly, it's handing streaming rights over to ... Ubisoft?
[10]Unity game engine attracts big cash from China's tech titans
[11]Unity devs warned of breaking changes ahead in video game engine as team gets to grips with mutating face of .NET
Developers have been vocally opposed to the change in Unity's forums and further afield online, with many declaring intent to take their business elsewhere, but the counterblast took a dark turn yesterday when the company said it had been "made aware of a potential threat" against its offices in Austin, Texas, and San Francisco, California.
Unity CEO John Riccitiello was due to address staff that morning, [12]Bloomberg reported , but this was also canceled as a precaution.
San Francisco police, which responded to a report from Unity, told [13]Polygon that "an employee made a threat towards his employer using social media." The employee works in office outside California, police said.
The Register asked Unity to comment on the closures, to confirm the employee line, and whether the company would consider revisiting its policy change given the magnitude of the backlash.
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A spokesperson told us: "We have taken immediate and proactive measures to ensure the safety of our employees, which is our top priority. We are closing our offices today and tomorrow that could be potential targets for this threat, and are fully cooperating with law enforcement on the investigation."
Why Unity would do this to its business is mind boggling. It can squeeze its existing base however much it likes, but it beggars belief to assume that developers will keep opting to use Unity after the license change when alternatives, like [15]the open source Godot , are available. We can only assume they like money. ®
Bootnote
Riccitiello was once CEO at Electronic Arts. During a 2011 investor meeting, [16]he said :
When you are six hours into playing Battlefield and you run out of ammo in your clip and we ask you for a dollar to reload, you're really not that price sensitive at that point in time, and so essentially what ends up happening, and the reason the play-first, pay-later model works so nicely, is a consumer gets engaged in a property. They may spend ten, twenty, thirty, fifty hours in a game. And then, when they're deep into the game, they're well invested in it, we're not gauging but we're charging.
More recently, of mobile games developers who don't think about monetization early on in the process, [17]he said :
Ferrari and some of the other high-end car manufacturers still use clay and carving knives. It's a very small portion of the gaming industry that works that way, and some of these people are my favorite people in the world to fight with – they're the most beautiful and pure, brilliant people. They're also some of the biggest fucking idiots.
He later [18]apologized to Unity's customers.
Get our [19]Tech Resources
[1] https://devclass.com/2023/09/13/unity-disunity-community-up-in-arms-after-announcement-of-runtime-fee-from-january-2024/
[2] https://blog.unity.com/news/plan-pricing-and-packaging-updates
[3] https://blog.unity.com/community/updated-terms-of-service-and-commitment-to-being-an-open-platform
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZQR-pdXOQsGAXAW7ZGW9kQAAAQY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZQR-pdXOQsGAXAW7ZGW9kQAAAQY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZQR-pdXOQsGAXAW7ZGW9kQAAAQY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZQR-pdXOQsGAXAW7ZGW9kQAAAQY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/08/atari_snaps_up_atariage/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/22/microsoft_activision_ubisoft_cma/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/10/unity_china/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/13/unity_devs_mull_future_of_dotnet/
[12] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-14/video-game-company-unity-closes-offices-following-death-threat
[13] https://www.polygon.com/23873727/unity-credible-death-threat-offices-closed-pricing-change
[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZQR-pdXOQsGAXAW7ZGW9kQAAAQY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[15] https://godotengine.org/
[16] https://youtu.be/ZR6-u8OIJTE?si=DF7c1xxsVsaGUwkU
[17] https://www.pocketgamer.biz/interview/79190/unity-ironsource-john-riccitiello-marc-whitten-merger/
[18] https://twitter.com/johnriccitiello/status/1548326529217679365
[19] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Damn!
The proliferation of modern programming languages which seem to have stolen countless features from each another sometimes makes it difficult to remember which language you're using. This guide is offered as a public service to help programmers in such dilemmas.
C
You shoot yourself in the foot.
Assembly Language
You crash the OS and overwrite the root disk. The system administrator arrives and shoots you in the foot. After a moment of contemplation, the administrator shoots himself in the foot and then hops around the room rabidly shooting at everyone in sight.
C++
You accidentally create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them all in the foot. Providing emergency medical care is impossible since you can't tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and saying "that's me, over there."
FORTRAN
You shoot yourself in each toe, iteratively, until you run out of toes, then you read in the next foot and repeat. If you run out of bullets, you continue anyway because you have no exception processing ability.
Algol
You shoot yourself in the foot with a musket. The musket is aesthetically fascinating and the wound baffles the adolescent medic in the emergency room.
COBOL
USEing a COLT 45 HANDGUN, AIM gun at LEG.FOOT, THEN place ARM.HAND.FINGER on HANDGUN.TRIGGER, and SQUEEZE. THEN return HANDGUN to HOLSTER. CHECK whether shoelace needs to be retied.
Full list at:
https://www-users.york.ac.uk/~ss44/joke/foot.htm
Re: Damn!
Nice to see people still have such websites :D
CEO contempt of users ends badly as predicted
The very idea of charging per install is lunacy. No-one with any technical knowledge cleared that as a good idea and Unity saying that they "have proprietary tech" for dealing with it is essentially implying they've solved the problem with privacy. Not to mention Xbox game pass installs (who foots that bill? Microsoft?). Although I've been working on my game for 4 years in my spare time, I'll be moving away from Unity with great sadness.
"we're not gauging but we're charging"
Yeah, and drug dealers always give the first hit free.
This is just another bait-and-switch. Once Unity was certain that theirs was the market standard, boom! time to turn the screws.
Kind of makes you wonder just what the other "open" toolboxes have in store.
We're going to end up with a saying : beware the open-source developer bringing gifts.
Re: "we're not gauging but we're charging"
> beware the open-source developer bringing gifts
What about Unity was ever open-source? Their test suite and a few sample projects perhaps.
I hope those Adobe Flash developers who jumped onto Unity and now have to jump onto the next thing *actually* choose open-source rather than a strong marketing department this time!
I wish them luck! ;)
Re: "we're not gauging but we're charging"
Well, Humble and Godot (open source engine!) are straight in there - https://www.humblebundle.com/software/everything-you-need-to-know-about-godot-4-encore-software
This license change is mostly for Microsoft as a value added incentive.
In about half a year, Microsoft will buy Unity to go along with their other "portfolio" related investments (GitHub, LinkedIn).
Microsoft Unity has a nice ring to it.
I guess they have been rebranded...
...because their customers are calling them "Punity" now.
On false equivalences
It's somewhat akin to Adobe, which is already expensive software, waking up one day and deciding it requires a slice of all revenue generated where PhotoShop, Premiere Pro, After Effects etc were involved in the production of that good or service. Or a more mundane example – a tool manufacturer taking royalties from any house purchase where its hammers were used in construction. I can understand the reaction of the community, especially if Unity itself said it would never go down this path, but I don't believe it is akin to the examples you gave. When you produce an image with Photoshop, or a movie with Premiere, or build a house with a hammer, the resulting product doesn't contain Photoshop or Premiere or the hammer. Unity is more than simply a development tool because games and other software that run on Unity also contain Unity.
Re: On false equivalences
Have an upvote. I came to say the same thing. While I love a good hyperbolic table flip as much as the next guy, we do need to acknowledge that Unity binaries/technologies are redistributed with the games. I'm not saying what Unity is going is good or bad - just indicating that a redistribution royalty is not uncommon in the software industry and is not the same as using a hammer to build a house.
Re: On false equivalences
Mind the distinction between the runtime and the full developer tool suite.
Even companies like Cadence that charge 10X as much as Adobe recognize the need for free viewers etc.
Re: On false equivalences
Then more like if the brick or cement company asked for a license fee per house built?
Or perhaps more relevant, if Oracle asked for a license fee for every installation of an app that bundles the JRE… Minecraft being a prominent gaming example.
Re: if Oracle asked for a license fee
Shhhhhh.... Don't tempt them.
Re: On false equivalences
games and other software that run on Unity also contain Unity
The question is how long it will be before that statement only makes sense in the past tense.
an employee made a threat towards his employer using social media
Guess it's Game Over for him then. Should shut the boss up too, as he turned out to be employing the biggest fucking idiot of them all.
On the one hand
Regardless of your opinion on this matter, making threats serious enough they need to call the cops and shut offices is not how you handle things in a civilized society.
That said, I have zero empathy for Unity. As a coworker of mine put it [about a completely different situation]: They thought it would be a great idea to shoot their foot off, now they're complaining about how much it hurts. The CEO who came up with this brilliant idea seems like a 1980's Gordon Gecko sort of executive who only cares about profits today, even if it means robbing future profits, and represents pretty much everything wrong with modern corporate culture. I'm sure the brilliant thinking went somewhere along the lines of only thinking about large games like Genshin Impact or others that have managed to strike it rather big and won't realistically be able to go anywhere. In the process they're going to lose a lot of the smaller games that may not make a lot of money, but do serve as advertising for the game engine. I seem to recall seeing that the game Cult of the Lamb will voluntarily delist from all game stores as soon as this policy goes into effect. I'm sure there are plenty of others that will do the same whether they make a public announcement or not.
I hope the authors of business books are paying attention, because you could probably teach an entire class around this example of what not to do. Rarely does the universe provide you with such a perfect case study that is as easy to understand as a made-up example, but is also something that actually happened.
This is set to go down as one of the worst decisions ever taken - and future people will do well to heed the warning and lessons this offered.
I will not be surprised if Unity goes all /dev/null
Will Russian criminals turn this into a protection racket?
Could a criminal demand money for not burning your game business to the ground? "Pay us money or we will use the millions of machines that we have control over to download and install your game causing you to owe millions to Unity." Instead of ransomware having to screw around with a users' files, the hack downloads and installs games as required by the command and control site. I'm not going to do it but an existing ransomware asshole might easily switch to this. If you don't have a million machines at your finger tips would a bluff still work?
For perspective...
The current CEO of Unity, John Riccitiello, is a former CEO of EA and came up with such amazing brainwaves in his tenure there as wanting to charge Battlefield 3 players a dollar every time they reloaded their guns in a match.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/its-almost-a-decade-since-ex-ea-ceo-john-riccitiellos-we-ask-you-for-a-dollar-to-reload-remark.375684/
The man is a total clown who is completely out of touch with the industry he works in, and seeing him drive Unity into the ground like this is both amusing and frustrating at the same time.
A Serious world we live in
I find it Unreal that we can not live in simple Unity.
As Clausewitz might have said, even though you Cry in the Dark as you watch your Genie fade to be no more than an Irrlicht, do not give in to your Ogre. Take some Sage advice, wait patiently for Godot, enjoy a Marmalade sandwich and never lose the LÖVE.
Damn!
And there was I ready to launch my Unity-based game all about the fine pastime of foot shooting!