Unity price changes and it's impact

MatteRB26 · 15 Sep 2023 at 20:22

Seems Unity have caused quite the stir with their proposed price changes!

With developers releasing statements on the damage it will cause, what do you think will happen to the games industry if this goes ahead? Will we see developers changing engines? Games dying?

I've opted for.Unity in the past due to their free tier, but used Godot more recently. Starting to like that decision

CaptainRAVE · 15 Sep 2023 at 20:26

Either Unity will back down or every single developer will ditch them.

StarShock · 15 Sep 2023 at 20:28

There are certainly some projects that are too far into development with small enough teams to not change. But I can't see anyone starting a new game with unity right now.

MatteRB26 · 15 Sep 2023 at 20:31

I can see a lot of developers ditching Unity even if they do back down tbh - it's not like there isn't plenty of other options, though learning a new platform is a big cost.

I think the others could capitalise on this - Epic could make Unreal pricing more appealing, we could see more open source options used and supported?

Tetras · 15 Sep 2023 at 20:45

MatteRB26 said:
Epic could make Unreal pricing more appealing, we could see more open source options used and supported?

If I was epic, I'd be publishing some "how to learn UE4/5 from Unity" videos right about now

MatteRB26 · 15 Sep 2023 at 20:47

Tetras said:
If I was epic, I'd be publishing some "how to learn UE4/5 from Unity" videos right about now

They should definitely start releasing some "Moving to Unreal" content!

mid_gen · 16 Sep 2023 at 09:23

It's just spectacular levels of stupidity from the investors that bought the company. Unity has only ever haemorrhaged money and they're flailing around trying to find ways to make money...... and probably killed the company in the process.

Can't stand working in closed source engines personally so not used it much. Give me C++ and Unreal every time.

MatteRB26 · 16 Sep 2023 at 09:59

I do need to try Unreal out again. I've never really picked up C++ but I'm intrigued by the blueprints system.

Unity always made sense to me being C# with its free tier - Unreal was always a very daunting engine.

I do feel that Unity needs to go into damage control mode, even if they do back out of this change. The fact that they've suggested it has broken trust with a lot of developers.

fish · 16 Sep 2023 at 21:09

interesting to see how activision view this with hearthstone being the cash cow it is. Is it leaving the door open for a purchase from microsoft aftere the share price of unity tanks? i know it will affect smaller and cheap games the most seems and incredibly greedy short sighted move.

jeffk · 17 Sep 2023 at 13:57

I bought the “Our games are made in Unity

“ bundle that Kairosoft released on Steam.

mrk · 17 Sep 2023 at 21:50

CaptainRAVE said:
Either Unity will back down or every single developer will ditch them.

Unity are now saying that Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft and Apple will pay them on behalf of developers.

They are in another dimension of brainfart and will never recover from this.

Raymond Lin · 24 Sep 2023 at 00:42

Nevermind...it's been superceded.

MatteRB26 · 24 Sep 2023 at 08:34

Raymond Lin said:
Nevermind...it's been superceded.

It doesn't matter if they back out now, their shares have plummeted and nobody trusts them anymore. They've got some serious damage control to do.

I know people who have quit Unity over this and have said that internally it's an absolute poop show.

hdpcgamer · 27 Sep 2023 at 17:55

MatteRB26 said:
It doesn't matter if they back out now, their shares have plummeted and nobody trusts them anymore. They've got some serious damage control to do.

I know people who have quit Unity over this and have said that internally it's an absolute poop show.

Yeah, what they did was financial suicide and theres no going back now as the backlash is too great. Did they honestly expect everyone to accept it with open arms?

MatteRB26 · 30 Sep 2023 at 07:32

I honestly don't know what they were expecting :cry:

feels like another case of a good, competitive company being destroyed by corporate greed

t31os · 8 Oct 2023 at 02:20

It would not surprise me (tin foil hat moment) if these moves were actually intentional with an aim to tank the company stock value for a buyout, let's see if that plays out of the next few years.

Rroff · 8 Oct 2023 at 03:42

t31os said:
It would not surprise me (tin foil hat moment) if these moves were actually intentional with an aim to tank the company stock value for a buyout, let's see if that plays out of the next few years.

Seems to be happening a lot lately. Though for Unity Tech. it seems to be on a slight swing back up at that moment.

Sucks for all the people it impacts often in terms of livelihood, etc.

Tykey · 8 Oct 2023 at 06:37

I'm just getting started with using Unity as a hobby, i have no idea what has happened regarding prices, seemed clear to me a few days ago that it's free for people like me. Am i making a mistake starting to learn Unity? Seemed a sensible choice to me :confused:

MatteRB26 · 8 Oct 2023 at 08:23

tyke_ said:
I'm just getting started with using Unity as a hobby, i have no idea what has happened regarding prices, seemed clear to me a few days ago that it's free for people like me. Am i making a mistake starting to learn Unity? Seemed a sensible choice to me

They amended their licensing to charge a fee per install - which for indie company's with masses of installs on cheap games, it'd kill them.

They backtracked (though I believe only mostly? Need to check it again) but there's a lot of trust lost in Unity. I'm pretty sure UE has a free tier? Godot is free forever.

Devil_Spawn · 9 Oct 2023 at 15:53

They backtracked on a lot of the issue but the fee does still remain. It doesn't come in to play until you are earning significant revenue though which feels like a pipe dream most of the time