A few days ago Unity announced price changes. They would be charging devs every time their game was installed.
Now the devs behind Slay the Spire say they will change course on a 2+ year project.
Pretty crazy decision when Epic has a great engine and pricing structure.
Devolver Digital now wants to know what engine people are using in game pitches.
https://twitter.com/devolverdigital/status/1701685282129539485
Interesting, I wonder how this would affect the AEC domain where I work within. I believe we have some products that make use of Unity.
Edit: I imagine the same would apply as it seems to be based on runtime.
Just thinking of it now, if this goes through and you end up with a disgruntled community, all the users can just install/uninstall the developer’s game in a perpetual cycle as a means to “get back at them.”
Also, why anyone would stay with, or now even adopt Unity is beyond me. This is so egregious and shocking.
This decision is being driven by the new Unity CEO John Riccitiello, who was the EA CEO who once proposed a model where players in online multiplayer shooters (such as Battlefield) who ran out of ammo could make an easy instant real money payment - $1 was suggested - for an immediate ammo reload.
The change to their pricing structure has been met with utter amazement disgust and derision by the game development community.
This is such an abysmally catastrophic decision
The gaming developer community reacted to the announcement about as positively as you’d expect. “If you buy our Unity game, please don’t install it,” Newfangled Games designer Henry Hoffman quipped on X (formerly Twitter). “This is such an abysmally catastrophic decision that it really will either (likely) be u-turned, or the engine is completely done for on all scales of the indie industry,” posted gaming industry worker Ryan T. Brown on X.
Of particular note is the fact that Unity is assessing these fees based on the number of installs a game has without seeming to account for the many reasons, legal or illegal, a game might have multiple installs without multiple purchases. After a game meets the revenue threshold, if its downloads far outstrip its revenue generation, a developer will be on the hook to pay. Pirated games, demos, games downloaded across multiple devices, and games offered on subscription services like Game Pass are all potentially affected by these new fees.
And as @Beo suggests…
Additionally, there’s the concern that malicious actors could use this information to run up charges by continuously downloading and redownloading games as a form of protest or griefing.
This is one of the dumbest decisions ever. If they have to be so greedy why not charge for additional sales over a certain threshold?
I swear if this causes Hollowknight: Silksong to be even more delayed… 
I’ve been following this on Reddit the past couple of days. Apparently it’s tied to hardware (like UEFI of sorts), so repeat installs count as a single install. But when you upgrade a component on your PC, it will count as a new install. Also, the verdict is still out on installing inside VM’s…
Cities Skylines 2 releasing on its current engine while Colosal Order evaluates what the future impact is.
https://twitter.com/ColossalOrder/status/1702638723697955327
Guess I’m buying this sooner. Blady Unity, pulling a Reddit here(but worse).
Still a free personal version and the install fee only applicable from the next LTS release.
Byeeeee!
I mean this won’t be the first time for him. What will next opfok be?
