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Unity’s pricing is a symptom, not the cause of tougher times for the industry

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Re: Unity’s pricing is a symptom, not the cause of tougher times for the industry

#3
The part I found interesting:

With the rise of free-to-play, cloud gaming and live ops, the power (and revenue) will increasingly become concentrated among a smaller number of games companies as games production and publishing become a lower margin business (just like any business that experiences content commoditisation via streaming).

The number of installs / downloads / plays will not go down (neither will the number of gamers), but the number of developers and publishers likely will.

Hence Unity's per-download pricing decision. It is recognising tougher times ahead and de-risking against the coming consolidation of the games industry's landscape – which is, strategically speaking, sound thinking for a company that spent a lot of time and money to move towards profitability and is looking to maintain it in the current landscape.

Re: Unity’s pricing is a symptom, not the cause of tougher times for the industry

#4

>Developers unsurprisingly threw their proverbial toys out of the pram following the news. It doesn't get better. Garbage article.

Yeah, I thought that going all on in language implying "game developers are babies throwing a tantrum" was a bit much.

Re: Unity’s pricing is a symptom, not the cause of tougher times for the industry

#5

>Developers unsurprisingly threw their proverbial toys out of the pram following the news. It doesn't get better. Garbage article.

>As a side note, I always find it quite amusing when for-profit companies accuse another for-profit company of being unfair by wanting to make more money.

Maybe because most people think you shouldn't announce that you are going to fundamentally alter the way your payment model works for the reason of "We didn't make ENOUGH profits last quarter".

Article was written by a soulless mba-style cretin. Into the garbage it goes.

Re: Unity’s pricing is a symptom, not the cause of tougher times for the industry

#6
Not the best article. It basically entirely ignores how this is going to hurt the small/indie developers the most, who are the main reason Unity exists as it does today.

Indie games will have lower price points than AAA games, and thus Unity's cut is a larger piece of the ever-shrinking pie.

My personal opinion about this whole fiasco is that they'll go back on their original statement to something still quite greedy but less so than the prior. Perhaps they planned that all along?

Re: Unity’s pricing is a symptom, not the cause of tougher times for the industry

#7
post #6

Not the best article. It basically entirely ignores how this is going to hurt the small/indie developers the most, who are the main reason Unity exists as it does today. Indie games will have lower price points than AAA games, and thus Unity's cut is a larger piece of the ever-shrinking pie. My personal opinion about this whole fiasco is that they'll go back on their original statement to something still quite greedy…

>> It basically entirely ignores how this is going to hurt the small/indie developers the most, who are the main reason Unity exists as it does today.

You only start paying if you have 200k installs AND $200k in revenue. Most indie devs never reach anything like those numbers.

Re: Unity’s pricing is a symptom, not the cause of tougher times for the industry

#8
post #6

Not the best article. It basically entirely ignores how this is going to hurt the small/indie developers the most, who are the main reason Unity exists as it does today. Indie games will have lower price points than AAA games, and thus Unity's cut is a larger piece of the ever-shrinking pie. My personal opinion about this whole fiasco is that they'll go back on their original statement to something still quite greedy…

Is Godot mature enough to offer Indy games developers an alternative to unity? If not, what is missing?

Re: Unity’s pricing is a symptom, not the cause of tougher times for the industry

#9
post #6

Not the best article. It basically entirely ignores how this is going to hurt the small/indie developers the most, who are the main reason Unity exists as it does today. Indie games will have lower price points than AAA games, and thus Unity's cut is a larger piece of the ever-shrinking pie. My personal opinion about this whole fiasco is that they'll go back on their original statement to something still quite greedy…

Are indies still Unity's raison d'etre? They may have started there, and they're hardly a AAA engine, but I'm pretty sure they've moved upstream.

Re: Unity’s pricing is a symptom, not the cause of tougher times for the industry

#10
post #6

Not the best article. It basically entirely ignores how this is going to hurt the small/indie developers the most, who are the main reason Unity exists as it does today. Indie games will have lower price points than AAA games, and thus Unity's cut is a larger piece of the ever-shrinking pie. My personal opinion about this whole fiasco is that they'll go back on their original statement to something still quite greedy…

>> It basically entirely ignores how this is going to hurt the small/indie developers the most, who are the main reason Unity exists as it does today. You only start paying if you have 200k installs AND $200k in revenue. Most indie devs never reach anything like those numbers.

Right, but once a dev does hit that threshold, they could very easily be upside down on their income if the app goes viral and gets installed at a much higher rate than the revenue it generates and that's what people are mad about. You could instantly go from 200k revenue to being in the red on developer fees alone.
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