Huh, so Unity has reached the killing-the-golden-goose point of their enshittification: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/unity-to-start-charging-fee-pegged-to-game-installs
20c per install doesn't sound like much to PC users, but that's potentially enough to nuke mobile gaming entirely. Which they know, because they also run the stats system mobile devs use to calculate ARPU/ARPPU.
Unreal taking a small cut of revenue works fine. That's based on you know, money you made.
Unity charging based on "Installs" might actually cost you money in mobile space. Or if you do a PS+ freebie. Or GamePass. They know what they're doing, and it's fucking evil.
Oh fuck, @gord pointed out this is also a grab for your ad revenue. "Developers of free-to-play games (which have a much higher install rate than premium titles) will have the option to offset this fee by adopting other Unity services, such as its LevelPlay advertising mediation service."
Yeah fuck you very much Unity, you had everyone over a barrel and thought "well who's gonna stop me".
(We're fine, but I know a whole lot of devs who will be shitting bricks, because mobile has been low-margin for years now)
Also. Woof.
Obviously I can't talk dollar amounts cus (business blah) but anyone who was considering an Epic Store Freebie deal with a Unity game?
Uh. Do some napkin math.
I don't think we can do one of those, like, period.
Presumably other free-on-store deals (or free weekends) run afoul of the same.
So anyways I'll be ending my Unity license end of this year, but not until then, because I need the higher Unity
Oh and this bit in their FAQ is fun.
They aren't going for developers, or indies. We're just causalities. This is poorly written, because Unity are idiots who don't understand the business they make tools for, but:
this is meant to target publishers
They're fishing for EA Originals here, Blizzard, Curve Studios, anyone who publishes a lot of indie games. That's who gets the bill. They're bigger targets more likely to roll over, who will pay out a lot bigger.
What do you imagine that'll have publishers thinking, when they see your game is Unity? Probably not great things.
@glassbottommeg what if someone made their own runtime for unity games? They technically wouldn't be using Unity's runtime
@RogueLodge @SteelWool apparently there's a class action suit forming up (Xalavier talking about it, @writnelson, though I think mostly on Twitter)
@SteelWool @glassbottommeg for web there already is https://needle.tools
@SteelWool @glassbottommeg I'll bet there would be a lawsuit but I have no idea.