Three days ago, Unity announced its forthcoming pricing plan changes effective January 1st, 2024.
They now ask for a $0,20 runtime fee for every install of a game!
To be precise: for install #200,001 onwards when the game also generated $200,000 in revenue in the past 12 months.
Unimaginable! But … it gets worse if you compare this to a hypothetical Unreal game with the same numbers:
The developers would only have to pay Epic $5,000!
Unsurprisingly, the corresponding forum thread now has 174 pages and counting. Most of it is the expected hyperbole, memes, angry rants, only occasionally interspersed with rational, relatable concerns or requests for clarification.
And naturally, numerous portraits of Unity’s CEO John Ricitiello.
That said … there have to be CONSEQUENCES!
For 10 years I’ve been using Unity almost exclusively on a daily basis. Until now I was looking forward to being a freelance Unity expert and Unity Asset Store publisher.
Sadly, I’m now forced hands to change plans accordingly …
Because … you see, this huge majority of unhappy shitstormers rampaging against Unity is – in fact – largely the same group that caused EA to falter!
Remember? Wow, that had a REVERBERATING impact on the entire game industry!
Not only did EA get into such financial troubles that they ended up as a subsidiary of Amazon after a quick and quiet buyout. On no favorable terms for EA’s board members. It was said this was important to Bezos, as he wanted to drive home a point.
But, not only that! Ever since, no other game company ever has even so far as openly considered (!) anything close to selling virtual items or ingame currencies.
Not to mention how this – largely the same albeit much younger – group forced hands on Valve and made them pull the plug on the digital spymalware they wanted to force on users who had nothing else on their mind than to play the eagerly anticipated Half Life 2.
But … nobody, not even Valve, expected the spanish inquisition!
Gamers stood their ground, loud and clear! Hardly anybody bought the game. After several months of trying to sit it out, Valve was eventually forced to publicly admit having made terrible decisions.
Effective immediately, they forced Gabe Newell on a diet. At the same time they began distributing the game DRM-free exclusively via retail in those beloved plastic DVD boxes, complete with a two-page printed manual (Collector’s Edition only).
So the gaming community stood united and Steam was history.
Now, we will soon mourn the death of Unity.
At the longest by 2025, according to raging business analysts on X, who retracted their earlier positive outlook in regards to Unity’s business after themselves having been the target of a shitstorm.
[ Notably that was some other group, allegedly with links to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korussia. ]
According to various game industry inside sources, several big game studios are already planning to lay off staff who, in the past, have either spoken favorably about Unity, or expressed reservations towards having to learn and use another game engine.
Leading Universities worldwide reportedly began rewriting their curricula tailored to the hot kid on the block everyone’s talking about because that’s what academia is best known for: teaching the latest technologies the corporate world deems in demand.
Which of course is: UNIGINE!
Or was it EVERGINE?
Ah, well, really doesn’t matter. The point is:
That’s it! I’m going to go back to making DOS games!
C:\> _
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