Unity promises “changes” to install fee plans as developer fallout continues
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
I don't see a path where Unity can meaningfully do anything to regain trust - they've already silently modified license agreements to make any future changes apply to already shipped software. Who would ever want to enter an agreement with such a company? The silent nature of that update stinks of the company trying to get people on to an updated contract that would let them make this change and have it be unavoidable for everyone.
And while they pissed away money in the past on useless acquisitions that I wish they hadn't, but they've made significant enough technological progress in the last few years to justify raising more money.
They're just in the unfortunate place that their largest competitors make more revenue off non-game engine products than they do in total.
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I think people forget before Epic's hit games (which include a $26 Billion golden goose...) Unreal Engine was downright unaffordable for mere indies trying to do anything commercial.
UE2 was $350k + $50k per platform + 3% on revenue.
In the UE3 days their UDK indie option was 25% royalties while capped at 250k revenue. Above 250k you needed a traditional UE3 license, which wasn't openly shared but usually slipped out to being around $500k-$1M per title + 5% royalties
I mean even physic engines were going for $25k per-title.
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Unity played a large part in the democratization of game engine middleware for commercial use. Unfortunately they never went all in on the in-house studio concept, so they didn't make out like Epic, and they never hit big like Valve on distribution.
Everyone's pointing to the IPO but it was inevitable that Unity would need to do something. They got cheaper over the years, while going against competitors who make more revenue off video game skins in a single game than they do in total...
I can forgive the casual observer for not getting all this, but at the end of the day if your business is making games, this is the perspective you probably have. That's how you continue working with them as a business.
> And while they pissed away money in the past on useless acquisitions that I wish they hadn't, but they've made significant enough technological progress in the last few years to justify raising more money.
Being a profitable billion dollar company seems like the wrong starting point for pissing off users and figuring out monetization, no?
> I think people forget before Epic's hit games (which include a $26 Billion golden goose...) Unreal Engine was downright unaffordable for mere indies trying to do anything commercial.
But...that's not the world we're in now. Unreal Engine is cheaper and Unity has been, thus far, similarly cheap.
> I can forgive the casual observer for not getting all this, but at the end of the day if your business is making games, this is the perspective you probably have.
This statement is verifiably untrue. Also personally untrue.
Unity's latest quarter had them at about... -$200 million in profit.
They had one (!) profitable quarter in eighteen years of existing.
Now... I'm going to guess you Googled "Unity profit" and a headline from that one quarter... but I mean, did the price action not prompt you to at least spot check?
"Unreal Engine has been cheaper"
And it's been more expensive. My comment covers why it got cheaper and why Unity can't rely on the same playbook.
"This statement is verifiably untrue. Also personally untrue"
That's... a combination of words!
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Overall I think you need to put down the pitchfork and try reading what I wrote slowly.
It's not "all over the place" but it might be a little too methodical for some readers...
Unity provides a valuable service very cheaply, and the ship is going down for it. They should raise prices, but they should have done it in a way that doesn't turn them into a future case study in poor messaging.
I deeply believe executives need training in price testing. You don’t roll out radical changes to later stage companies without testing strategies, but it keeps happening over and over and over again.
Are execs unaware that they can do a small percentage test to see what feedback they get before they commit to massive changes and their concequences?
1. The ruling class thinks they are more intelligent/capable than the people they rule. This isn't nearly as true as it used to be, because of the democratization of knowledge brought on by the internet. We are seeing, I think, that in many cases the people at the top are not only not infallible, but incompetent.
This has always been true. But the average person today is significantly more informed than in prior decades, and so displays of incompetence by a CEO are now often met with some flavor of: "how could someone so high up be making mistakes that business 101 students learn to avoid?"
2. ZIRP has led to a generation of leaders who know how to raise money but not how to make it. Growing a business was easier in the 2000's and 2010's compared to the last 2-3 years. VC's were handing out money like candy. Not true anymore.
Tight monetary policy is shining a light on the leaders who were in the right place at the right time to take the right credit, but would not be in the position they are if it was up to merit alone.