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Yesterday Unity announced that starting next year, all games that use their engine will pay a tax per user install. The tax has a high-profit threshold before it kicks in, which I think they assumed would make it okay.

Over the last 24 hours there have been many reasons pointed out why this is a bad idea. Tracking installs is messy. Piracy, reinstalls, new computers, giveaways, bad actors. There are a lot of reasons why it isn't feasible.

It makes you wonder how they could think it's a good idea. And maybe it is a good idea if you think of Unity as a mobile game engine. If you view it through that lens maybe it makes sense to them.

Maybe they forgot about PC gaming. Again.

The Cost

Let me be clear.. the cost isn't a big issue to us. If everything worked out, the tracking was flawless and it was 10p per sale, no biggy really. If that's what it costs, then that's what it costs.

But that's not why we're furious. It hurts because we didn't agree to this. We used the engine because you pay up front and then ship your product. We weren't told this was going to happen. We weren't warned. We weren't consulted.

We have spent 10 years making Rust on Unity's engine. We've paid them every year. And now they changed the rules.

Broken Trust

Unity has shown its power. We can see what they can and are willing to do. You can't un-ring that bell.

If you'd have asked me last week whether it was in Unity's power to start charging us PER SALE of our games, I'd have said that was crazy and no.

Surely that's not possible.

That would be like Adobe charging all users of Photoshop per image view.. and trying to invent a system in which they can track and invoice you every month. And not only the new images, but all the images that you created over the last 20 years. Then automatically invoicing you every month.

But that's what happened. And now we know they can do that, and that they're willing to do that. Unity is the worst company to be in charge of the Unity Engine.

The trust is gone.

Retrospect

It's our fault. All of our faults. We sleepwalked into it. We had a ton of warnings. We should have been pressing the eject button when Unity IPO'd in 2020. Every single thing they've done since then has been the exact opposite of what was good for the engine.

We had 10 years to make our own engine and never did. I'm sure a lot of game companies are feeling the same today.

Let's not make the same mistake again, Rust 2 definitely won't be a Unity game.
question_answer
spr
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
wouldnt it be funny if rust 2 was made on source 2
teehee
Rod
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
Holy carp Rust 2?
George Barbour
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
This is truly sad that they are letting Unity burn like this.
If I wish for 1 thing its that they revert this change ASAP.
Luka tv
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
itch.io devs can still pirate unity and publish their games there, but doing it on Steam (or even EGS) would not be possible.
Either way godot is much better unity alternative (and open source)
Yuuki terumi
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
check this out: stride3d.net the api is very similar to unity and is free open source with MIT License. I hope you apreciate it ;)
Life Art Studios (Starkium)
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
is everyone going to start funding and working on Godot 4 now I wonder? Or will it be a move to unreal (highly doubt that) or is there some other open-source project out that there that as better legs?
Nox Box
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
Bought time we seriously look into moving to ue5 as the next engine. Far more pros then cons in the transition that I believe would be the best plan of action moving forward for any future titles. I personally would quit my job to work for Facepunch on this. At most I'd need is 39k a year salary with potential to increase if I earn it.
Id rather do what ever I can to see rust survive as long as possible as I believe in your game. Thanks to you I have made memories and made life long friendships that I would not trade for anything in the world. -Nox
EinfachNurToni
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
Let's fucking hope it's all just a elaborate marketing trick by Unity to get us talking about them... 🙏🏻 (please..)
Carson Kompon
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
I really hope you consider looking into the viability of s&box as a Game Engine. Experienced developers who have been using s&box for long enough now have always seen it as an engine, so now seems like a better time than ever to start exploring that avenue and supporting it early. I truly believe in s&box and would love to see it and it's community thrive.
Henri Rochefort
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
AFAIK this whole thing is targetted at removing their competitors, namely Applovin, from the Ad Mediation business for mobile, Applovin have the largest marketshare, and this pricing makes it so even Applovin's biggest Unity successes will make 0, once enabled.

They intend to do this by, (trust me as much as you like) the 'discount' for using their ad mediation service being 100%, so if you run ads with them, you have no runtime fee, anybody other mediation tool, you're fucked.

As much as you can dislike mobile business models or F2P it is their largest money maker, and this is just an insane corporate checkmate, that is wildly anti-competitor, disguised as revenue seeking.

We should have seen this coming as soon as they Merged with Ironsource.
Marek Mackulin
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
time to switch to s&box
Canberk Soner
Wednesday, September 13, 2023

Hello, there is some incorrect information in this post.
"The tax has a high-profit threshold before it kicks in"
The threshold is for revenue, not profit.

In addition, I got the impression that you understand Unity is charging the fee per sale, which is false. They have written directly in official FAQ that the fee is per install, including reinstalls.
flouONEs
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
Unity can get fucked...
Dan Clipca
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
Hi Garry!

As many of you know, the Unity Engine is in fact two substantial software components โ€“ the Unity Editor and the Unity Runtime. The Unity Runtime is code that executes on player devices and makes Made with Unity games work at scale, with billions of monthly downloads.

Please delete this post or we will be forced to proceed in court. Thanks for understanding.


Dan Bugglin
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
Fortunately this doesn't impact me personally. My personal projects are all free. My professional projects are all custom made for specific customers so install counts could never possibly approach the numbers indicated.

that said I can't wait for S&box 1.0 public release. I might even try to port some of my Unity projects to it, maybe make some helper tools to make porting easier.

I wonder if it would be possibl eto cheese th enew rules. Like, if I distribute a free version of my game (a demo) with the Unity Runtime, I have no fees. But the full version I wouldn't bundle the Unity Runtime (would this get me out of fees?) and the user must provide their own copy (which conveniently they can get from the demo). Not sure if this is actually technically in compliance with the new rules though.
Trashcan
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
To Dan Bugglin:
This could still affect Unity free/offline games if they could be forced to have an internet connection to notify unity of an install. Also fee per install is just an insane idea on its own.

To Dan Clipca: Are you joking? Are you AI generated?
Extreme difficulty
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
stay strong garry
Dan Clipca
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtcObUrbZzo
Barnaba Turek
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
As a linux gamer: lol.

"Are we going to inconvenience 99% of our users (gamers) or 0.1% of our users (devs)?" - some idiot on the unity team, probably.

I hope windows decides to do the same one day.
DY357LX
Wednesday, September 13, 2023

@garry have you spoke to the Unknown Worlds guys about creating an engine from scratch? They did that for Natural Selection 2 (Spark engine I think it was called?) and it seemed to have more negatives than positives.
I Subnautica, its sequel; Below Zero and Moon Breaker have all been on Unity?
Might be worth speaking to Charlie & Max. (Worth make for a good podcast too!)
Diêgo Damohill Castro Lemos
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
Others have already talked about it, but I really hope Godot gets more attention, it got incredible progress latelly.
Schipunov
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
Godspeed.
Miguel Alejandria
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
You should try Unigine if you want a solid c# game engine with better features
Donovan
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
Or they can just use their source 2 fork
Ic Zero
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
I have a request: please kindly write Rust 2 in The Rust Programming Language. It will not be confusing at all. It will be great.
Spaceturd 64
Thursday, September 14, 2023
Rust 2 on Unreal 2?
Spaceturd 64
Thursday, September 14, 2023
Damn, I meant Unreal 5
Noah
Thursday, September 14, 2023
what a waste
Plinio (PlinioJRM)
Thursday, September 14, 2023
What i want to know is: Will Rust be still online after 2024?
Jaime Pescht
Thursday, September 14, 2023
If they are ever gonna make a Rust 2, it will probably be Source 2, because they have their very own fork of it, or it will be Unreal, but that's unlikely, I think?
K0ah
Thursday, September 14, 2023
rust 2 ? shiettttttt
Chris Horvath
Thursday, September 14, 2023

So, Garry...how do we figure out a class action lawsuit for the devaluing this will do to all the skins we currently own and trade on the open market?

Help us to help you.
Retruns
Thursday, September 14, 2023
Estoy seguro que Rust 2 será un éxito si escalan con un Motor bueno y puedan mejorar su rendimiento para todos agregando lo que ya tenían.
Fahad AH
Thursday, September 14, 2023
I dont know if "Rust 2" is a joke or not
Daniel McNamara
Thursday, September 14, 2023
Hey @Dan Clipa = get absolutely fucked.
Daves Reality
Thursday, September 14, 2023
Rust 2 ? damn that escalated hella quick! As long as my 2 grand is skins is transferable to rust 2 I say go for Garry Rust 2 will be awesome!!
Alex Guest
Thursday, September 14, 2023
You're a legend, thanks for making the post. Really sums up my thoughts about this whole ordeal.
ManeGunner6
Thursday, September 14, 2023
Oh hey, Unity's living up to their name;
they've United game devs against them and their shitty greedy corporate bullshit!
John C
Thursday, September 14, 2023

Rust 2 on Unreal Engine 5.3, which was just released last week 😁
https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/unreal-engine-5-3-is-now-available

"5% royalty only kicks in if and when your title earns over $1 million USD."
David LeMay
Thursday, September 14, 2023
I know these are troublesome times for the company (regarding direction), and this concern is far from a priority within the company, but please don't be like COD and nerf/disallow skin transfers to the next game. Skins are a big part of what makes the game unique and enjoyable; many of us have invested a decent amount of money into skins and would love to continue supporting the company and its development. This is just something to consider while planning how to move forward.
Vincent “Crimento” Vice
Thursday, September 14, 2023
Time to redevelop Rust on, well... Rust!
https://github.com/bevyengine/bevy

John Riccitiello, Tim Sweeney and all other greedy fucks will reap what they sow.
michael name
Thursday, September 14, 2023
garry are u and facepunch panicking right now or are u ok and what is facpunches plan if unity goes ahead with the plans and does not do a u-turn
Garry Newman
Thursday, September 14, 2023
If they don't u-turn we'll just pay it, no big deal. End result is the same - never using Unity for another project.
Wesley Pyburn
Thursday, September 14, 2023
This is insane and, honestly a HUGE turning point for gaming. Unity has been the baseline easy-to-use and pick-up game engine for small passion projects. It's been a starting point for so many people and game developers. Such a large change in pricing is not it. This is going to chase so many people to Godot and UE. Building an engine from scratch is possible for some but definitely not for all. This is a turning point and no amount of back-pedaling is going to undo this.
J B
Thursday, September 14, 2023

Big respect for the choice to never use them again, I'm looking forward to them going bankrupt in the near future hopefully.
Michael Harmon
Thursday, September 14, 2023
@Dan Clipca you can get fucked too! :) You are also misleading in your comments in that you are preying on developer ignorance in Unity's press release, and Notice of intent to change procedure documentation. Threatening legal action in this blog is quite laughable on multiple levels, and the sudden change Unity has implemented invites a class action lawsuit that is making my salivate and giddy with excitement. I hope to be part of it! Rarely do I get to have so much fun for people like you! God's be willing, I will be part of the legal team ramrodding a stake up Unitys ass. Which they can then twirl on.

Sincerely,
Vincent Van-Go Fuckyourself
Sergey Starozhuk
Thursday, September 14, 2023
They did some funny shit ;)
Let's take as an example my mobile games that are created on Unity:
At the moment there are already 1.2 million installations and I do not have a Unity Pro subscription.
I earned a little over 200k dollars, that is, I fall under these criteria.
But letโ€™s not exactly calculate how much gross I received for one installation: $0.16
At the moment the game is in the charts in poorer countries and now I have even less income, but at the same time I have already crossed the threshold for paying for installations)))
That is, I already need to pay more than I earn....
If we assume my statistics for the future, I will have about 100k installations per month, I will buy a Unity Pro subscription and pay $0.15 per installation, and even with this situation I will become bankrupt after half a year (since I still need to pay for the backend server and server multiplayer).
I hope they reconsider their policy especially for f2p
But at the moment I am freezing absolutely all my Unity projects.
Henri Rochefort
Thursday, September 14, 2023
https://mobilegamer.biz/unity-is-offering-a-runtime-fee-waiver-if-you-switch-to-levelplay-as-it-tries-to-kill-applovin/

And there you go, a little evidence to back up my prior comment that this was the case. Believe me as much as you like. This is all just a corporate checkmate, that the average dev is caught in - as usual.

Fuck Unity. Shortsighted greedy scumbags.
TheyNamedMePlayer
Friday, September 15, 2023
Big oops.
James Milburn
Friday, September 15, 2023

@Garry,

Rust is my favorite game! You and the team are the best! I grabbed it bundled with Garry's Mod (I think, I forget, I do have the gmod gun and frog boots...) because Half-Life 1 then 2 were the most innovative games of their times. When I saw someone sandboxing up HL-2 engine, I went crazy! While Garry's Mod was a shit ton of fun, Rust is my favorite game and as others above have mentioned, in my ~2400 hrs I have made some very close online friends. Especially since I am pretty much locked into one server full of nerds.

I am on Linux. Shoutout to Jim Deadlock! I know you guys get a lot of shit from the community. It is unfortunate how people toxic towards you guys. There are so many people that know even less than me about coding that say "to enable EAC, just flip one bit" and stuff like that. I am pretty sure you guys would have done that if it was that simple. I thought Steam Deck would be the game changer that finally got us EAC. You guys are smarter than me, so it must be more than just a switch to flip to make it work. I am sure you wouldn't choose to miss out on market share, even if it is only a few %.

As I get older, my fanboyism is really fading and the hate towards you guys looks pretty nasty. Whether it be recoil, cheaters, Linux, DLC's, blah blah, whatever, etc... Even the loudmouths are still playing the damn game. We have no EAC where I play, I just want to express my appreciation for you allowing us to go do our thing in a tiny corner of the internet.

On the topic of cheaters, it seems an active admin is key in any fps game these days. Watching streamers and content creators, I see just as many, if not more cheaters in other servers with a lower admin to player ratio... People don't realize that for a smooth experience how many things have to be client side. I was playing World of Tanks for a long time, and it was great knowing that if I can't see a tank that is because my PC, as a client, doesn't know it is there. If the average gamer understood why having more latency on a game like that is acceptable because tanks move slower than people, there would be way less drama about this kind of thing.

Player-base vs Devs feels so yucky, especially in this case where you are no CD Projekt Red. Tiny in comparison by team size, but massive by the quality you produceโ€ฆ The internet in general is pretty yucky, I suppose. Please don't ever let it impact your decisions, you guys are doing great!

This is my first time seeing smaller game devs vs Apple/Google/(insert huge monopoly here)-like engine devs. I would not mind playing an unpolished game if it meant you guys have full control in the future. I have been here to see the game evolve and trust the work you guys do.

Not sure exactly why I wrote you a book or if you will read it, but thank god for you and your team! If you guys can keep the game (the possible sequel! Holy shit!) playable for us few Linux nerds I promise to door camp, grief, landmine, raid and terrorize any player I see shitting on FP! I am not even asking for EAC for Linux, that would be great, but I would still spend most of my time on Deadlock as long as it exists.
Thom Porter
Friday, September 15, 2023
Love this. Feel your pain, what a crock of shit!
On another note, as a developer myself, I would love to hear that face punch was building a game engine in Rust to power Rust! 😎
linovi
Friday, September 15, 2023
what about Godot? Open source, and it uses C# (also C++). https://godotengine.org/
Gameboy420
Saturday, September 16, 2023
were all with you on this one garry
D4KiR
Saturday, September 16, 2023
would be nice to have RUST in UNREAL :D Nanite would help a lot in this game
a t
Saturday, September 16, 2023
The fact that there is a 90-100% revenue death zone on the graph says something. I think this for F2P mobile devs and they might enforce it on them the most, which is probably illegal. The install count could only be estimated from those closed ecosystems. What an absolute disaster
a
Saturday, September 16, 2023
The irony I feel as a rust player who sees that the shafting unity has done to facepunch is the exact same as the shafting facepunch has done to rust players like myself is what makes this situation so hilarious to me. Greedy company finally gets a taste of their own medicine and I love it
Idk Idk
Saturday, September 16, 2023
lol
Peluche-Nerv
Sunday, September 17, 2023
Well... Source 2 it is! ¯\_(ใƒ„)_/¯
Mickey
Monday, September 18, 2023
Hopefully we all realize the bigger picture, this is a monopoly move. It isn't about the runtime fee.
Meaning it will bankrupt the developers and allow the filthy rich to buy up their titles. Thats the behind the curtain part you might be missing. ;)
Gonzalo Albito Méndez Rey
Monday, September 18, 2023
10p per sale is not too much... but that's not this way, isn't it?
I mean, Unity wants to charge per install, which is not fair because an install is not a sale, and will screw up any low cost project.
I have 2 desktops (office and livingroom),1 laptop, and the steam deck. That's 4 computers. I format these in a regular basis (once per year, but this year I'd formatted these twice because I upgraded ALL system drives, including SD). Then after formatting these I install my favourite games, which I replay. I have some games that cost me like 2 or 3 bucks, like Vampire Survivor, that I've installed eight times in the last year, so my cost for the developers will be a mortgage for these if they need to pay the unity fee... I'm generating a net cost of about 0,80cent anually for games that had generated less than a dollar of revenue for their developers after steam's 30% and taxes... So next year I would be generating loses to that developer. Is that sustainable?
Drew Gilkey
Monday, September 18, 2023
Unreal Engine is the way to go IMO. They have done so much to handle "open world" games and push the level of performance and detail. Not a huge fan of everything sort of being left in one basket for the industry since Unity decided to basically do the corporate equivalent of "unaliving" themselves.
Josh M
Thursday, September 21, 2023
Yo Garry, for Rust 2 please consider adding VR!
Dan Clipca
Thursday, September 21, 2023
Are you guys retarded? That was sarcasm lol
Nick Davison
Wednesday, November 8, 2023
Imagine Rust II on Unreal 5, maybe this cloud will have a silver lining...
Jayden Stevens
Wednesday, January 3, 2024
So its ok for facepunch to completely change the rules of gunplay and confiscate their loyal players investments but if another company does it to them its not ok.

To not even give us the option of playing old recoil servers with old music and gun sounds shows how little they care about their loyal players.

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