Unity's idiocy; charging developers every time a player installs a game

[NovaSaber]

I'll just let this speak for itself:

Under the new charging plan, developers that use the free tier of Unity’s development services are required to pay a fee of $0.20 every time a player installs their games, once those games have received over 200,000 downloads and generated more than $200,000 in revenue. Developers using the Unity Pro tier will be charged a lower fee per download and not have to pay until their games have reached higher download and revenue thresholds. The changes are set to be introduced at the start of 2024.

Many popular games are built using Unity software, including city-building game Cities Skylines, survival game Rust, and dozens of others such as Subnautica, Kerbal Space Program, and Genshin Impact. Cult of the Lamb is also developed using Unity, and Massive Monster says that changes to the charging policy will impact other, upcoming projects.

It's obvious why it's bad for developers, and it's not going to be good for players either.

Cult of the Lamb dev says it will delete the game on January 1

Cult of the Lamb dev Massive Monster says it will delete the roguelike on January 1 following Unity’s plan to charge game-makers per player download.

www.pcgamesn.com

Landfall Games, developer of Clustertruck and Knightfall, also discusses the new Unity policies, saying it is “questioning its continued use of the engine.” “We made our game about genetics free for schools,” Stray Fawn, creator of Wandering Village, says. “Now we will be charged for each student installing the game.”

 

[Pocket]

I got an email today from Humble Bundle offering dev courses on Godot. I can't believe I'm saying this in 2023, but well played, Humble Bundle.

 

[Pocket]

Also, with Counter-Strike 2 on track to release later this year, this would be a great time for Valve to announce that Source 2 is finally getting a public release, with the same generous licensing terms they were planning to offer a zillion years ago.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

I would be using Source 2 right now if I could. I've had so many moments where I feel crazy because tools don't work how I imagine they should, but then it turns out that Source does work that way. It's like it was made for me. But they don't want me using it.

I love your tools, Valve. LET ME USE THEM.

 

[Fero McPigletron]

This bites cuz I'm working on a puzzle game concept wise and the client is to use Unity. If they decide not to push thru with the project, there goes my dream of making a puzzle game series, dang it