Is there a way to lose money inherent to unity's licencing?,Is there a way to end up losing money if a game's sucess drops off?
I am an individual considering using Unity -instead of unreal- to develop my game. I have no funding and no other resources. I know I don't have to upgrade to the pro licence until I make more than 100K, so it may not become an issue. However, if my game starts to earn enough that I would have to pay for a pro licence, and then once I agree to pay for that licence for a year, and then my profits drop off, am I not then stuck paying over a hundred dollars a month with no profit to cover that cost? This is something that would leave me in debt with no money for food.
I would also like to make a future update of the game an online version that allows cooperative play. It would be a disaster if I had to take the sever down because I'm not actively selling enough copies to cover the hundred+ dollars per month, That would -in part- defeat the entire purpose of me developing this. Would I have to keep paying for a licence so long as my server was running? Even If I'm not releasing new content? Would failing to do so mean that the game's version of the engine would no longer be up to date and no longer supported properly?
I understand how these things would work if I were a studio that could afford to risk losing 100+ dollars a month on one game title in favour of an overall successful studio, but I am a single individual with multiple physical disabilities and no other source of income, I need to make absolutely certain that whatever engine I decide to put years into developing my game in, will not screw me over or end up effectively extorting money from me that I don't have just because I tried to earn a living by making the game I want.
Similarly, do I have to pay for a licence while I am selling my game, or only while developing it and concurrently making profit? If I paid for Unity while developing a game, do I have to continue licensing it for as long as I am allowing people to download copies, or am running a server?
The information that I can find clearly states that once a licence is upgraded it cannot be downgraded and that makes me very nervous that there is a range/fluctuation of profits that would logically result in owing unity hundreds of dollars that I don't have. And I can't seem to get clear answers out of any of the available information.
Sorry about the duplicating the information, the site seems to have done that because I filled out the form before making a log-in and it presented me with the blank form after I had "logged on".
You may need more "site points" to do these things, but in general you can edit your own posts, and also add extra info as comments (I converted your "sorry for dup" answer into a comment, as well as removing the repeated part of your Q)
Answer by DaDonik · Nov 27, 2017 at 02:09 PM
If you make less than 100k/year, you don't have to pay Unity anything.
For less than 200k you can get Unity plus for ~400$ per year.
If you make more than 200k with your game/company you need pro which will cost you ~1500$ per year.
So if you ask me, it's pretty much impossible to make 100k and not being able to afford 400$.
Here in Germany you would end up with at least 35k profit out of your 100k annual revenue. That means you would have to pay unity less than 1% of your profit, which is much less than Unreal wants.("UE4 is free to use, with a 5% royalty on gross product revenue after the first $3,000 per game per calendar quarter from commercial products.")
If you make a multiplayer game, you have to take the server cost into account, but i can't say anything on that matter, since you haven't told us your server requirements.
I understand the pricing scheme, but the question breaks down to HOW they count it and implement it. Is it retroactive? Do you calculate it? Is it calculated tentatively by month based on some projection?
Say the first year you make 200k, does that mean you pay 400 at the end of the year? Or does it mean you are expected to pay 400 over the next year regardless of profit?
It's not about the profit v.s. the portion they expect to receive, it's about when/how it's calculated, when/how it's charged, and when/how it'd done.
If you pass the 100k mark is that -moment- when you have to buy the next licence? Because the $$anonymous$$imum term is one year, and you can't cancel, you still have to pay it. Say you've made 100k total over the past 7 months, you now have to upgrade the licence, but it's not like that 100k has been sitting around not being spent. I would have to fully support myself off of that money, because if I'm making that much my disability would be cut, for other's they may intend it to become their full time career. I pay at least 600$ in rent and utilities and my $$anonymous$$imum requirement for groceries to eat what I need to be healthy is 500$, that's not counting transportation or medication or supplements, or any other supplies or quality of life, or ANY COST OF BUSINESS at all, or other potential $$anonymous$$m members, or any investing, or whatever somebody might chose to front or spend on development or the renting of a studio, or a $$anonymous$$m, computers, servers [I have no idea what my requirement for that may be yet], maintenance, tech support, translators, what have you. It's not inconceivable that a budding business with a cost of living could spend 100$$anonymous$$ in under a year. A 10 to 20 person $$anonymous$$m could easily spend at least that -or even200k- as they make it.
If your sales suddenly drop off you are locked into paying that licence for at least a year, and then the only out is to cancel, so that assumes you would have put away 400$ or even 1500$ [The forum just seems to have deleted half of my answer??] I'm not saying it's not possible or reasonable, I'm saying some people may want to know if they need to make sure they keep 1500$ on hand just in case they suddenly do much better than they expected, and then sales drop off.
You can either pay monthly for a period of 12 months, or you can pay all at once for the next 12 months. So you would need to put the money for that on the side, as soon as you reach 100k or 200k. I still think Unity is a much better deal than Unreal, not only from a 'one man dev $$anonymous$$m' standpoint, but also financially.
Regarding the servers: If you need dedicated servers for you game, as in having a server application that runs on your server, i would suggest you take a look at AWS (Amazon Web Services). Their smallest server is free and would suit you well for testing/preparing for release. After that you can add any amount of servers that can be paid hourly. So that would not cost you anything if you don't need it anymore. $$anonymous$$ay it be due to declining player numbers or other reasons. Without the neccessary knowledge on networking, servers and whatever comes with it, i would suggest taking a look at UNET or the different offers from photonengine.
Your first post implied that you would be working alone...just keep in $$anonymous$$d that every $$anonymous$$m member would need a Unity license, so that price will increase for larger $$anonymous$$ms.
In any case, it might be worth calling up your local Unity representative and check if you can get a different offer, due to your disabilities.
I'm sorry if I'm not understanding correctly but... It's really starting to sound like the straight/simple answer to my initial question is "Oh hell's yes there is."
To clarify, I personally will be working alone, but the reason I am asking is more general. People who read what I write about my process and the choices I make may in fact have a small $$anonymous$$m. I'm not just trying to decide between engines, I'm also strongly considering making one, and I am blogging about my entire process. I want to understand the way the pricing works well enough to not mislead people in a similar situation to me who may be working in a small group.
$$anonymous$$ostly what I am getting at is that it seems you do indeed need to make sure you keep 1500$ tucked aside just in case.... [now per person on the $$anonymous$$m if I'm understanding correctly]
The point you bring up about other $$anonymous$$m members is interesting/concerning though. If each $$anonymous$$m member needs a licence for the same game, does that not mean needing to pay as much as 1500$ PER PERSON.... A flat rate that can multiply like that and isn't constrained to a percentage could very easily land small groups in huge debt if what you are saying is accurate and I'm understanding it correctly.
That also means that if a $$anonymous$$m has 250 members they would make exactly 0$ to keep upon hitting the 100k mark, and would end up in debt, to unity and everyone else, from their other costs. In fact any small studio would likely be screwed sideways by this pricing scheme. I understand a scalable flat rate.. I REALLY don't understand it being per person. That doesn't seem quite logical, are you sure about that?
I'm sure you can see how needing to keep 1500$/$$anonymous$$m member available as a float would potentially be prohibitive to a lot of people. In fact, whether that money eventually went back into the business or not... that effectively adds 1500$ per $$anonymous$$m member to anyone's start-up cost...
Again, forgive me if I'm not understanding, but it really seems like there is something highly problematic and troubling with this.
No need to be sorry. It's an important question that needs to be clarified.
Every $$anonymous$$m member that works with the Unity editor needs a license and thus has to pay for it. That means that not everyone on the $$anonymous$$m would need Unity. An artist or sound designer that works with other software doesn't need a license as far as i know. I would bet that any larger $$anonymous$$m would get another offer when they contact Unity directly, but i don't know for sure. Since you are writing about it, you really should contact Unity directly and ask for information. I don't want to be held responsible for possibly inaccurate information =)
I'm sorry, but i can't give you a better answer.