So here's what Unity says the new pricing policy is, today (assuming it doesn't change again next week, like it did last week, and the week before).

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

Critical thoughts:

1. The fact that the new fees *only apply to 2024.1 and later* is the critical change here, and probably(?) avoids a lawsuit. This *will* have interesting ecosystem effects since many people will now want to stick on 2023.4 indefinitely. Possibly, libraries will latch to 2023.4 and never update.

2. The new policy is a bit confusing, though easier to understand than last week's. They now claim [over $1m revenue] they will charge *the lower of* 2.5% revshare, OR a charge per "number of new people engaging with your game" that they "calculate" based on your "self-reported data".

This "new installs" number is still untrustworthy gibberish. But now you can ignore it. The new "price" is 2.5% of revenue, possibly reduced arbitrarily.

Now the question is: Is this better or worse than Unreal?

(2, continued) Unity's new 2.5% revshare is lower than Unreal's 5%. But *Unreal doesn't charge a per-seat fee*.

A per-seat fee *plus* a revshare is sour tasting. Per-seat fees are really inconvenient for small operations where some or all of your devs may only use Unity part time. And those per-seat fees are (by my math) 5x higher than they were in 2021.

Overall, New Unity *probably* costs less than Unreal, *usually*. But awkwardly, any cases Unity costs more will be at the lower revenue end.

3. My gut is that if *this open letter's policies" were what Unity had announced to begin with, people would have been *annoyed*, as they were with the 2021 changes, but you wouldn't have seen a community collapse or mass exodus. However, I do not think this open letter will halt the mass exodus. The core problem is that *Unity can no longer be trusted*. You can consider the new 2024 prices acceptable. But now what you really have to worry about is how they will change in 2026.

(This thread has been edited to correct confusion about Unity's version numbering scheme, as corrected by Jonbro; 2023 LTS will be released in 2024 and therefore the new fees will apply.

Possibly, I will post a version of this thread on Cohost later, just so that I can actually sit down and make a two-dimensional graph of at what combinations of developer count and revenue Unity now costs more than Unreal. I bet it's going to be a *fascinatingly* baffling graph.)

@mcc more than that I think they lose the advantage of being the “low cost, no fuss” engine. Until this month, you paid them $X and you used their tools to make your game. Just like Maya or Photoshop.
It was ideal for a ten-person team hoping to hit it big in the mobile market, and that’s why all those teams used Unity. If there’s a bookkeeping requirement and a charge on the backend now, why wouldn’t the next generation of those teams switch to Unreal?

@charliet @mcc

I really don't get people switching to Unreal.

When there is a near monopoly in a market, and one of the main players do something uncool and survives, the other players tend to imitate. A recent example is the raising prices of streaming platforms. An timeless one is every time someone rises oil prices.

What makes they think Epic will not pull the same move or worse next year? Remember: they used to be very expensive, until they were forced to imitate Unity pricing schemes.

@jgg @charliet I trust Unreal will not do this next year for the same reason that last year I trusted Unity would not do it this year. Because the company has shown itself stable and attentive to market conditions.

Unreal's prices did used to be higher, but my interpretation is that they used to target a higher-end market segment and started making changes to move into Unity's. If they're trying to capture Unity's market, they probably won't mimic a Unity move that clearly damaged the company.

@jgg @charliet And if Unreal *DOES* do it next year? It will not affect me. Because I use https://lovr.org/ :P

@mcc @charliet

Who knows. Long term, they can try to devore Unity undercutting it, and once they are dead return to their old ways, or imitate them knowing they are not going to lose clients to them.

They getting bad in a month, a year or 2 years is more or less the same if you need 3 years to develop your game, anyway.

Lovr seems nice. I'd love (pardon the pun) to know how it works for you.