RIP Unity
From https://unity.com/pricing-updates
Unity Personal and Unity Plus: The Unity Runtime Fee will apply to games made with Unity Personal and Unity Plus that have made $200,000 USD or more in the last 12 months AND have at least 200,000 lifetime installs.
Yeah, I don’t understand what the controversy is about. Free games still won’t have to pay anything. Asking 20 cents per install if the players pay at least $1 per install seems fair to me.
This assumes that each player only installs it once but games can be installed multiple times.
I could even write a script that automatically reinstalls a game over and over again and thereby cause high cost for the developers.Edit: Apparently Unity plans to detect and prevent fraudulent behavior. However, a user can still install a game multiple times for valid reasons. Something like Gamepass would also be very problematic for devs.
I truly feel bad for unity developers here. While unity as a company was always a bit shitty from what I’ve heard, the engine itself still was a very low barrier to entry into game development, however now it feels like you are being punished for releasing something which is marginally successful.
If you are looking for Unity alternatives, I’d like to suggest Godot. While some things are rough around the edges the engine has made huge improvements in the last year or so. It’s developed by a small independent team as well as it’s own community and completly open source, effectively eliminating the chance for corporated fuckery like in Unity’s case.