Under the tentative new plan, Unity will limit fees to 4% of a game’s revenue for customers making over $1 million and said that installations counted toward reaching the threshold won’t be retroactive, according to recording of the meeting reviewed by Bloomberg. Last week, Chief Executive Officer John Riccitiello delayed an all-hands meeting on the pricing changes and closed two offices after the company received what it said was a credible death threat.
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One of the most controversial elements of the policy concerned how Unity would track installations of its software. Although the company first said it would use proprietary tools, Whitten said Monday management will rely on users to self-report the data.
They’re going after f2p mobile apps that get jillions of installs, but where they don’t get a cut of money unless they use unity’s ad service or a few other things. They look at those numbers and drool.
And install count is something they can actually get a rough idea on based on data provided by Apple and Google. I’m convinced this is mostly what their “proprietary algorithm” for counting installs is, at least for mobile. Assuming they really don’t have something in the runtime dialing home.
But this is mostly about mobile apps, which is where most of the money is. It’s most of the money in gaming. It’s most of their revenue, and they dominate (something like 60% of mobile games use Unity). Other platforms are mostly afterthoughts though obviously they want whatever money they can get.