this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2023
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Unity has changed its pricing model, and game developers are pissed off (www.theverge.com)
submitted 1 year ago by L4s to c/technology
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Unity has changed its pricing model, and game developers are pissed off::Unity has announced that starting on January 1st, 2024, it will implement a new pricing model that will charge developers based on how many times a game was installed.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

According to the article, it's not retroactively charged, but still bad if your game is about to come out and you haven't accounted for this.

[–] Humanius 32 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

https://www.eurogamer.net/unity-reveals-plans-to-charge-per-game-install-drawing-criticism-from-development-community

Other articles I have been reading on the topic do mention it:

Unity has also clarified the changes are "not retroactive or perpetual", noting it will only "charge once for a new install" made after 1st January 2024. However, while it won't be charging for previously made installs, fees do indeed apply to all games currently on the market, meaning should any existing player of an older game that exceeds Unity's various thresholds decide to re-install it after 1st January, a charge will still be made.

When I say that it applies retroactively, I mean that it applies to games released in the past.
It's true that they are not retroactively charging devs for past downloads. That would have been even worse.

[–] UxyIVrljPeRl 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So if i want to ruin a developer, I only need to install and deinstall all day?

[–] Humanius 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Unity walked back from charging per installation earlier today. Now they will be charging per device it is installed on.
It doesn't solve the core problem, but it at least prevents install-bombing like you are suggesting

https://www.eurogamer.net/unity-backtracks-slightly-on-plans-to-charge-developers-for-game-installs

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'd be interested to know how they're going to track this? They'd need to create some sort of fingerprint for each device, and store it together will all already installed games / software in some sort of database in perpetuity.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Saw this screenshot on Mastodon. They won't tell how they're going to track it exactly but it sounds like some weird estimation work.

2b75c0c16828af54

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

My 100 VMs are just ripe with anticipation

[–] UxyIVrljPeRl 4 points 1 year ago

Well, it makes it a bit harder to inflate the rates but not impossible.