Unity releases official statement to damage control developer backlash over new pricing policy

Recently, Unity shocked game developers around the globe after a bizarre pricing policy that charges game creators on a per-install basis. After immense backlash, the engine software company has released an official statement to clear up any potential confusion. This concerns who will be charged, how re-installs will be handled, and more.

Unfortunately, it does not seem to be a good enough response for studios, as many questions remain unanswered.

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Unity's official clarification about the bizarre pricing policy does not stir confidence among game developers

For the huge wall of text put forth by the company in its own defense, much of it leaves consumers and industry veterans alike confused. The first portion itself is self-damning. Here is what they said:

"Who is impacted by this price increase: The price increase is very targeted. In fact, more than 90% of our customers will not be affected by this change. Customers who will be impacted are generally those who have found a substantial scale in downloads and revenue and have reached both our install and revenue thresholds. This means a low (or no) fee for creators who have not found scale success yet and a modest one-time fee for those who have."

Even if Unity claims most studios are not affected, that 10% still includes many major indie studios. It still does not make this okay as they have to pay a fee per unique hardware install, which is nothing short of ridiculous compared to a sensible revenue-based share. Unfortunately, this just goes downhill from there onwards.

Their explanation of how developers will pay "only once per install" is incredibly tone-deaf. Users are not just able to buy multiple copies of a game across various platforms but are also free to install them across multiple instances of the same platform (such as Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S), so this is very unreasonable.

The fact that developers will not be charged for re-installs, web browser games, charities, and demos may be the only sensible sections in their response. Then again, that should tell how bad the rest of the situation is. Users are particularly confused by how Unity plans to tackle fraudulent installs. To quote their response:

"Fraudulent installs charges: We are not going to charge a fee for fraudulent installs. We will work directly with you on cases where fraud or botnets are suspected of malicious intent."

How do they determine whether a game install is fraudulent (i.e. pirated) or not? No clarity on this matter or even a hint was offered. Plus, the fact that they intend to sit down with developers to tackle potential pirated copies is a waste of everyone's time. In a nutshell, they are creating a problem and selling a solution to that same issue.

Several game makers have pointed out these issues in addition to questions that remain unanswered:

If anything, this non-answer response from Unity has infuriated developers even more. It is pretty clear developers will shift to other game engines like Unreal Engine 5 and Godot Engine for future projects.

It remains to be seen if Unity will make a comeback from this disaster, but the chances seem extremely slim given they have already burned many bridges with this move.