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Unity Overhauls Controversial Price Hike After Game Developers Revolt

Maker of video-game development tools backtracks after customers threaten boycott

www.bloomberg.com

Video-game tool maker Unity Software Inc. said Monday it’s backtracking on major aspects of a controversial new price hike, telling staff in an all-hands meeting that it’s now considering changes including a cap on potential fees.

Under the tentative new plan, Unity will limit fees to 4% of a game’s revenue for customers making over $1 million and said that installations counted toward reaching the threshold won’t be retroactive, according to recording of the meeting reviewed by Bloomberg. Last week, Chief Executive Officer John Riccitiello delayed an all-hands meeting on the pricing changes and closed two offices after the company received what it said was a credible death threat.

Marc Whitten, a Unity executive, said the company hasn’t yet announced the latest changes because executives are still running them by partners and don’t want to repeat last week’s communications debacle, which led to several clarifications.

In the meeting, Riccitiello emphasized that the new policy is designed to generate more revenue from the company's biggest customers and that more than 90% of Unity users won’t be affected. Several employees asked during the meeting how Unity would bounce back from what appeared to be a breach of trust. Executives said the company will have to “show, not tell” and handle future communications more carefully.

“I don’t think there’s any version of this that would have gone down a whole lot differently than what happened,” Riccitiello said. “It is a massively transformational change to our business model.”

But, he acknowledged, “I think we could have done a lot of things a lot better.”

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

We heard you

 

[rofif]

Doesn't matter at all. Not without firing that awful ceo and the board

 

[DeepEnigma]

There was no "confusion." Your message was loud and clear, cunts.

 

[Deft Beck]

How on Earth are you going to get reliable self-reporting? A checkbox on install? So, anyone who consents to data collection will contribute to these metrics?

 

[Fake]

But what about the gamers death threat? Real or not?

 

[Killjoy-NL]

But what about the gamers death threat? Real or not?

It was a Unity employee

 

[Punished Miku]

You'd have to be a moron to keep working on this engine with this guy in charge.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

See, and this is where the real mess begins. It's going to be so difficult to keep track of what is or isn't the policy. I do think they'll dial it back from something that'd be a potentially existential problem for the company to something that's merely awful, but I'm not sure I'd say they learned their lesson.

 

[TheUsual]

Good luck rebuilding developer trust after this blatant bull shit move. It'll take years, if ever, to unfuck this.

 

[T4keD0wN]

Altering instead of cancelling is still extremely disappointing and bad news.

 

[rofif]

But what about the gamers death threat? Real or not?

It's never real. With any posts on the internet ever, you can find 12yo cod player "death threats"...

 

[SmokedMeat]

I don’t remember any confusion about developers getting fucked over.

What developer would trust going with Unity at this point?

 

[Tams]

 

[Fahdis]

They'll blame it on the intern.

 

[skit_data]

I think most bridges are burned by now, impressive display of capital destruction

 

[VolticArchangel]

So, they're still sticking with that installation count horseshit, just not retroactive now.

"We heard you" my ass.

The audacity of this motherfucker, lmao.

 

[ssringo]

1. Make absurdly awful changes
2. Obvious backlash ensues.
3. Roll back the worst so what you actually wanted to go through doesn't sound quite so bad.
4. "We're totally listening to our valuable customers!"
5. Profit.

 

[Lupin3]

We heard you, we apologize, we are listening...

Twitter apology bingo at its finest.

 

[skit_data]

But hey, I think we might have a contender:



Edit: Something about Elon Musk wanting everybody to pay for twitter

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Unity is f***ed.

They didn't attempt the change due to greed. They attempted the change due to survival. Walking back on the change means they're left with their original problem of being a sinking ship.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

I thought Mexico... I mean the platform holders were going to pay the difference?

 

[Bradamante3D]

Holy crap that response from Unity only makes it worse. This is textbook "how not to respond in such a crisis". Who is that PR team?

 

[newtypepilot]

They have already destroyed any trust they had from devs.

Plus, this price hike is really there to gut the company. The CEO, as well as some of their top level executives, have been selling their stocks beforehand. Basically insider trading.

 

[DenchDeckard]

Why would any developer risk using unity after this shit show.

 

[TheBomb]

Just seeing how far they can get away with.

 

[simpatico]

More like "Nintendo's Pokemon lawyers caved in my butthole and now I can't walk"

 

[killatopak]

I mean how can we trust you not to do this again in the future?

 

[Barakov]

This is a black eye for them that they probably won't recover from. I would think Unity is an engine you would actively avoid especially if you're a smaller dev.

 

[Puscifer]

This is a black eye for them that they probably won't recover from. I would think Unity is an engine you would actively avoid especially if you're a smaller dev.

Yep, cats out of the bag now. I can't imagine anyone wanting to trust them after whatever project they're working on is done and over.

 

[MLSabre]

See, and this is where the real mess begins. It's going to be so difficult to keep track of what is or isn't the policy. I do think they'll dial it back from something that'd be a potentially existential problem for the company to something that's merely awful, but I'm not sure I'd say they learned their lesson.

Until that CEO and board of directors are out, they won't. They are nothing but persistent cockroaches of the industry.

 

[StereoVsn]

Ohh it's the "we are sorry" message.

 

[Tams]

The CEO and board of directors are clearly greedy cunts.

Unity are no longer trustworthy.

They've been bleeding money for years.

There's nothing special about the engine anymore.

Why would anyone start using Unity from now on?

 

[Buggy Loop]

There was no "confusion." Your message was loud and clear, cunts.

It’s not a good opening to say that the devs reacting like they did was because of confusion.

What’s the plan, they’ll lay out more clearly they want to fuck devs in the ass?

 

[Diseased Yak]

I was going to fire off a reasoned, cogent response, but really, this encapsulates everything better than I ever could.

 

[j0hnnix]

Should of never considered this. Company just put out a feeler to see if you could get away with it and now look like total asshats. Even worse trying to back track now.

 

[Mikado]

 

[RoboFu]

 

[MayauMiao]

Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony must be laughing at Unity for having the gall to force paying installation fee.

 

[Mikado]

"We're sorry you are confused and angst-ridden."
Love it

 

[ReBurn]

Bet they wish they would have just announced new tiers and seat license prices for developers instead of trying to do the thing they tried to do. It's fair to expect a cut of the success if the developer isn't paying up front for the tool, but to retcon like they tried to do was stupid.

 

[Murdok]

 

[lh032]

overhaul or not overhaul, apologize or not apologize , the initial pricing strategy definitely scares alot of customers (devs) away.

if im the devs that is currently making games using Unity, i would be scared as fuck.

 

[IAmRei]

And who will guarantee, if they wont do thing like this again in the future...

 

[SportsFan581]

Unity is f***ed.

They didn't attempt the change due to greed. They attempted the change due to survival. Walking back on the change means they're left with their original problem of being a sinking ship.

If that is indeed the situation, that will certainly be difficult to navigate for both Unity and the developers.

On the one hand, Devs obviously don't want to pay more, but on the other they likely have a lot of experience with the engine and would like to keep using it and for the engine to be updated with capabilities and features as time goes on. Same scenario for Unity, they want to net more money and loosing all your customers trying to drive the price sky high isn't going to reach that end.

Have no idea how this company runs though, are they smart with the money they've got or is it all craziness and yachts and parties for the execs?

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Are there a lot of easy to substitute game engines out there? If not, they'll all flock back to Unity. it's like Adobe. Surely uproars when years back they changed to $20-30/mth sub plans. Adobe is at record highs. For those out of you whp dont know, you cant buy copies of Photoshop anymore like the old days. You got to monthly sub to it.

 

[Jinzo Prime]

Trying to make Nintendo of all companies pay fees retroactively was an impressive display of self-immolation. Hell, trying to pass off other games fees to Nintendo as a platform holder was just as insane!

 

[Slayer-33]

What was the fee structure before this mess? lol

 

[Doomtrain]

What was the fee structure before this mess? lol

There wasn’t one. You’d sub to a monthly license and then that was it.

 

[Slayer-33]

There wasn’t one. You’d sub to a monthly license and then that was it.

Damn.

lol... No wonder there was a revolt.