Changes to Unity Plans and Pricing • Hacker News Board

Re: Changes to Unity Plans and Pricing

#21

Post by pyrophane » Sat, Sep 23, 2023, 8:40 PM UTC

Pat_Murph wrote: post #2

So they rolled back the most abusive aspects of the new fees but are still going forward with some fees... Seems like they win on the end. Looks to me like the good old strategy of we'll start with a very high proposal then come back with a more watered down version thst people will accept as being more reasonnable than the initial terms. But they still get to charge more and seem reasonnable doing so.

I'm not so sure about that.

The engine is such a central part of a game company's stack. On one hand that makes it harder to just up and switch, so there is some lock-in there, but on the other hand, if developers don't regard Unity as a reliable partner, they are going to be taking a hard look around at alternatives.

I think the real problem with this pricing move is that it made a lot of Unity users think "hey, we can't trust Unity not to screw us over." That is something that is hard to take back.

Re: Changes to Unity Plans and Pricing

#22

Post by jamesaurichs » Sat, Sep 23, 2023, 8:41 PM UTC

j_maffe wrote: post #17

jamesaurichs wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have greatly damaged their users and their indirect users' trust. When big time streamers like cohhcarnage and asmongold directly replies to unity and tell them how much they have messed up https://twitter.com/CohhCarnage/status/1703577526809845760 https://twitter.com/Asmongold/status/1703636396718555428 , you know you've done fucked up

Streamers don't really play much of a role in gamedev communities though. The professional perception of the developer community is what will really be tested here.

I would beg to differ. A lot of game developers watch gaming streams. There's a reason why cohhcarnage was asked to voice in cyberpunk and baldur's gate 3, and why blizzard personnels will respond to asmongold directly

Re: Changes to Unity Plans and Pricing

#23

Post by jamesaurichs » Sat, Sep 23, 2023, 8:42 PM UTC

ffgjgf1 wrote: post #20

jamesaurichs wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the stock is doomed, check out asmongold's video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNXQ2bYik78 . more importantly, insiders have been selling a ton, for example the founder of iron source. Silver lake sold all of theirs direct stocks for example.

> more importantly, insiders have been selling a ton Hired execs always do that because they are paid in stock. They couldn’t even afford to pay their taxes without doing that.

silver lake is a private equity firm, pretty famous on hacker news

Re: Changes to Unity Plans and Pricing

#24

Post by troupo » Sat, Sep 23, 2023, 8:46 PM UTC

This and the apology post [1] are probably industry's (any industry's) first in how concise, to the point and with no bullshit they are.

Goes to show how deeply Unity screwed up that they couldn't even corporate speak their way out of this.

[1] https://blog.unity.com/news/open-letter-on-runtime-fee

Re: Changes to Unity Plans and Pricing

#25

Post by theshrike79 » Sat, Sep 23, 2023, 9:05 PM UTC

jamesaurichs wrote: post #9

pard68 wrote: post #5

Glad my buy-orders went through Friday when it broke into the $31/share territory. This'll make for a tidy flip.

the stock is doomed, check out asmongold's video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNXQ2bYik78 . more importantly, insiders have been selling a ton, for example the founder of iron source. Silver lake sold all of theirs direct stocks for example.

Why link to a reaction video instead of the original? https://youtu.be/ZOCTSp_U-KI

Re: Changes to Unity Plans and Pricing

#26

Post by bitwize » Sat, Sep 23, 2023, 9:35 PM UTC

CSMastermind wrote: post #6

Pat_Murph wrote: post #2

So they rolled back the most abusive aspects of the new fees but are still going forward with some fees... Seems like they win on the end. Looks to me like the good old strategy of we'll start with a very high proposal then come back with a more watered down version thst people will accept as being more reasonnable than the initial terms. But they still get to charge more and seem reasonnable doing so.

Our Unity rep has been applying a ton of pressure to purchase more licenses and I've heard similar stories from other companies. I think Unity has some bad financials right now and are pressing every part of the business to generate more revenue. I don't think this was some grand scheme - I think they're panicking about money and acting without thinking through the long term consequences of their actions.

When this started happening I thought it was bog-standard enshittification. They can't sustain user-base growth so they turn to squeezing existing users as a source of revenue.

Re: Changes to Unity Plans and Pricing

#27

Post by meheleventyone » Sat, Sep 23, 2023, 9:36 PM UTC

jamesaurichs wrote: post #22

j_maffe wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Streamers don't really play much of a role in gamedev communities though. The professional perception of the developer community is what will really be tested here.

I would beg to differ. A lot of game developers watch gaming streams. There's a reason why cohhcarnage was asked to voice in cyberpunk and baldur's gate 3, and why blizzard personnels will respond to asmongold directly

These two things, game devs watching streamers and game companies engaging with streamers are largely orthogonal. The latter is to appeal to the streamers general audience as they are influential. It is however excellent that these two have game developers backs.

From the perspective of understanding and reacting to this the OP is correct that streamers aren’t really driving this.

Re: Changes to Unity Plans and Pricing

#28

Post by victorgama » Sat, Sep 23, 2023, 9:38 PM UTC

meheleventyone wrote: post #14

victorgama wrote: post #12

> How does Unity estimate the Runtime Fee when I have not supplied data? > While we always recommend you supply your own data, in the absence of that, we will use our own data from Unity services that you have agreed to integrate into your project, and readily available external data. > Does the Unity Runtime phone home by default? > It does not, unless you have hardware stats enabled. ---- I'm not a gamedev nor have…

Unity has way more services than turning on hardware stats. If you use them they can make some estimate of unique users. Unity would now prefer you give them the information yourself.

Thank you so much for clarifying that! It makes sense now. I just wonder if folks are required to use at least one of those services in order for Unity to have at least some kind of information regarding titles sold or something like that.

Re: Changes to Unity Plans and Pricing

#29

Post by mirashii » Sat, Sep 23, 2023, 9:48 PM UTC

meheleventyone wrote: post #14

victorgama wrote: post #12

> How does Unity estimate the Runtime Fee when I have not supplied data? > While we always recommend you supply your own data, in the absence of that, we will use our own data from Unity services that you have agreed to integrate into your project, and readily available external data. > Does the Unity Runtime phone home by default? > It does not, unless you have hardware stats enabled. ---- I'm not a gamedev nor have…

Unity has way more services than turning on hardware stats. If you use them they can make some estimate of unique users. Unity would now prefer you give them the information yourself.

> Unity would now prefer you give them the information yourself.

I’m sure they’d prefer to capture the data themselves, but they’re now allowing you to self report in order to placate the outrage from the recent announcements.

Re: Changes to Unity Plans and Pricing

#30

Post by hapticmonkey » Sat, Sep 23, 2023, 10:47 PM UTC

CSMastermind wrote: post #6

Pat_Murph wrote: post #2

So they rolled back the most abusive aspects of the new fees but are still going forward with some fees... Seems like they win on the end. Looks to me like the good old strategy of we'll start with a very high proposal then come back with a more watered down version thst people will accept as being more reasonnable than the initial terms. But they still get to charge more and seem reasonnable doing so.

Our Unity rep has been applying a ton of pressure to purchase more licenses and I've heard similar stories from other companies. I think Unity has some bad financials right now and are pressing every part of the business to generate more revenue. I don't think this was some grand scheme - I think they're panicking about money and acting without thinking through the long term consequences of their actions.

Bad financials? Maybe they should stop making multi-billion dollar acquisitions, then.