The upcoming price changes, all of the stuff around that, and answering a lot of questions that are, some from me, and a lot from other people on YouTube, other influencers, game developers, and people on Twitter. First, I just wanna clarify right from the bat that we were planning on talking before. We were supposed to do a chat about AI stuff, but that got delayed obviously, because something much bigger came up. This is not, like, a sponsored thing or anything like that. I wanna make sure this is very clear.
This is just, an opportunity to ask Marc a bunch of questions and kinda get some inside feedback on, on what's actually been going on there, why all of the changes are happening, what the final results are gonna be, and hopefully clarifying things up quite a bit. So without further ado, I wanna bring out Marc and say thank you very much for coming out here and joining us, and, you know, clarifying all this stuff, telling us what's going on, and, giving us some insight into the future, and for taking what looked to be some extremely hard questions. Everybody in Slack. I'm in the Slack with a bunch of other insiders, and they asked some really hard, very strong questions, so we'll be getting into those in a minute. So anyway, thank you again, Marc.
I wanted to just start with letting you talk and, you know, say your piece first, and kinda go over what's going on, and get all of that out before we dive into the questions, if that's okay.
Yeah, awesome. Thank you. I really appreciate being on, Jason, and thank you everybody for joining. I'm not gonna go over all of the changes here. I'm sure we're gonna talk about them a lot. I hope people had a chance to see my letter earlier today, or to go through the FAQ and the other stuff there. But I did just wanna hit one part first that's really, really important, and that's just. I just wanna say I'm sorry. I know it's been a very tough week to hear a bunch of the very well-deserved feedback on the changes we made. It's very clear we did not take enough feedback, listen to enough feedback, before we rolled out the program.
I know that comes with you know, how hard it is to earn trust, and I know how easy it is to lose trust. So, super clear, we've got a lot of work to do. So I just, I really, really wanted to start with telling everybody here, and frankly, the game development community at large. Sorry. So, you know, with that, I'm happy to talk through any of the questions and just cover whatever you wanna talk about, Jason.
All right, great. That's good, 'cause, well, I've got a lot of questions. I mean, people, there, there's a lot of things that I think people aren't clear about, and a lot of things that people are just really confused about, like why, why some decisions were made, what those decisions are, and what's gonna happen in the future, too. So let's get started. I'm just gonna start diving into my giant list of questions. So the first one was: why, why did you go about doing this whole thing, the pricing plan change, putting this up, posting it out there, making a lot of people angry, of course, and then rolling it back a week later? Like, what was the point of doing all that if you're gonna kind of do this rollback afterwards?
Well, the most fundamental thing that we're trying to do is we're building a sustainable business for Unity. And for us, that means that we do need to have a model that includes some sort of balanced exchange, including shared success. That's really, really important for the long-term future of how we think about our business, how we think about the engine. And the main reason's really clear: it has to be a sustainable business. We wanna keep massively and deeply investing in the engine. We wanna make sure that we can build the best editor and runtime for everyone to build the games today and tomorrow. And that's the reason why we're working on it, very, very focused on that. It's very important for Unity.
Oh, that's fair. How much—real quickly, can we talk about just what. For the people who haven't seen the, the info, talk about what the just overview, the high level changes are for people who don't know. It's not completely removed, but there are changes that it's only going to apply to specific versions, and there were some other things. Can you just give a real quick overview of that for anybody—
Sure
Who's just catching up right now, and maybe hasn't-
Yeah
Seen the post?
Yeah, there's a long FAQ with a whole bunch more details-
Mm-hmm
But I think I would just really maybe hit four key areas. The first one, I'll just start by talking about Unity Personal. That's the version of Unity that's free to use. It's used by the majority of all of our game creators. It's not a part of the Runtime Fee program at all, and we made some other changes along with that. The first one is, we made sure that people had the option to remove the Unity splash screen, if they would like, when they're using that particular product. And we're also changing it so that. Before, the way that Unity Personal worked, is you could use it up to $100,000 of revenue for your company. Now, it's $200,000, so twice the size, so, it's easier to use for more people, covers more cases, and it's more flexible.
So that's, that's number one. Not a part of the program, totally free, majority of our users, and a lot more flexibility. And, and again, because we've announced some other changes around sunsetting Unity Plus, that means that you can use Unity Personal and not have to do the splash screen, which is a reason that some people were using Plus. The other, so then if we move on to the runtime program. So the runtime fee applies if for people who are over both, a million dollars in sort of trailing 12 months revenue, money they've made over the last year on kind of an ongoing basis, and, a million engagements with new users, essentially. And for those users, there are the following changes.
The first one is, this is with next year's, LTS, which would be, you know, what is 2023 LTS, shipping in 2024. So it doesn't impact any games that have currently shipped, and it doesn't impact, the games people may have already been working on for a very, very long period of time. One of the most, I think, really key pieces of feedback we heard, is that it was a really big business model, change that people didn't expect. And so it's, you know, it's very clear to us that having it start on a future version, where everybody can make the choice to use it, is, is really, really important. The second that we heard along with that.
Is that people need to know that they can rely on a set of terms when they start using a version of Unity, so we're gonna make sure that that's the case. You know, there are even some pieces about that, things like the GitHub repo, that by the way, I will just say, prior to last week, I did not know existed. And now I know a lot about, and we're making sure, I think it's already back up there, it has all of them in there. Obviously, our website will always have our, you know, legal terms and terms of service, and all of those sorts of things, but we're gonna make sure it's also on the GitHub so people can track that.
And then the last that I would talk about is when you are, you know, using this future version of Unity, you have a game that's over the million dollars, million engagements, that there's a choice between either a 2.5% revenue share, or measuring, based on this calculated amount of, you know, initial user engagements that you can do. And if you do both of those, you'll always be billed the lesser of whatever that calculation is, but it's also up to you. If you only wanted to do one of them, leave the box blank, whatever, and again, that's only for those games that were over those thresholds.
So it'd give them the option.
Oh, sorry. One more minute, you asked me. And then the other key part on that one is it's self-reported, so it's both numbers being self-reported, both on the revenue side and on the user engagements.
Yeah, I think that's a big one. Well, I think there are a couple of questions about that that we'll get into, but I think the self-reporting and the mix-up around there is a big one that I think people will be pretty happy with. Let's go. There's a lot of questions, so I wanna go on to the next one, which reads kind of meanly, so I'm gonna read it really mean, too. "So did you even bother to talk to customers before you rolled out your version from last week?"
Right.
No, did you guys talk to customers? Can you talk a little bit about that?
We did. We talked to partners, large customers, small customers, lots of internal people. We didn't listen to enough of their feedback. Just wanna be clear, we should have listened to more of their feedback, and we need to do better. I can tell you, you know, as an example, on Sunday, I think it's been a long week, so the days merge together a little bit. On Sunday, I think we put up on X, a kind of a statement saying that, "We'll get back to you in a couple of days." The reason we didn't get back to you in a couple of days is 'cause as we were working through the plan, we were going back and talking to big customers, independent developers, partners, over and over again to get that feedback.
Because I think the most fundamental thing about talking to customers is it's kind of an ongoing iterative conversation-
Yeah
We didn't do that well enough and, you know, now I'm very, very convicted on this policy that we're doing that.
Yeah, I think that, in my opinion at least, the, the updates seem to kind of fix everybody's problems that I've talked to. Especially, we'll, we'll dive into the trust stuff later, but I think that, like, that's, that's the one part people are still a little iffy on, but I think that that's even probably gonna get mostly cleared up. So let's go on to the next question, which was: "Why didn't you just go with a rev share model from the get-go?" So why not just go, "Hey, we're 2.5% now, or, or half of Epic," or, or whatever? Why was there a whole install thing in the beginning anyway?
We think it's gonna be cheaper for a lot of games. So you know, listen, we're trying to build a model that we think is fair and sort of, you know, is a good sort of value exchange that works for games once they find a level of success. And we also wanna tie it to sort of this value that Unity brings, which is, you know, our runtime that's inside of the games themselves. And so it felt like a way where we could tie those two pieces together, and we think that in a pretty reasonable number of cases, that's actually a smaller number, and we think that's good.
Now, what we heard, we got a lot of really, really good feedback, is that there were cases where people, first off, couldn't plan, 'cause they're like, "Well, I don't know, maybe something's gonna go crazy," or, "I have this particular scenario, and that doesn't work." And so adding in the 2.5% revenue share as an option, you can only use that, or where you have the both, and so you can always plan for it and, you know, hopefully do better, definitely was... frankly, my opinion, makes the plan, better, based on what we were trying to do. So it was really good feedback.
Yeah. To be honest, I said this in the streams earlier, that the idea of having being forced on a rev share doesn't sound appealing to me, but I've come from the background of MMOs and, like, you know, $50, $60 AAA games, where a small install fee, we're looking at less than 1% or a 1% fee. So I like the option of both, but yeah, I haven't understood the argument of just forcing a rev share. So hopefully, that doesn't change, and we stay with both options. I assume that's the plan, though.
Oh, that's absolutely the plan. Our t he plan is that choice.
All right, so the next question is a pointed one: "Who is responsible for the policy and its decision to roll out?
Well, listen, this is my part of the business, and there's a lot of people, obviously, internally, that have worked on this. The executive team has worked on this, but I'm, you know, I'm responsible for what we're doing inside of Create. The entire executive team has been a part of this. But I'll also say, this is really important for Unity. You know, we have to focus on building a strong, sustainable business that allows us to continue to, you know, invest in the ways that we want, so we can build the best game engine that hopefully everybody wants to use to make great games.
Yep. I tend to agree there. Although, there was an idea on the last stream that you should just make your own Fortnite and make billions off of that to fund it, which would be nice. If you don't mind that idea. All right.
So yes, by the way, yeah, if it was easy as like, make your own Fortnite, I think that problem number one there is that's extremely impressive to do to Fortnite once.
Yes. No, I, I, I agree. I think it would be nice, but that's, it's definitely a good dream. This next question is one I have been wondering, and I don't know anything about, and they were wondering if it's legal to change the terms of service overnight. I don't know if it was necessarily overnight, but do you know... I don't know anything about the legal side of this stuff. All I've heard is random speculation from people who are also not lawyers. What do you. Can you just address this question, the legality of the terms of service change, and maybe the GitHub thing, too, you'd mentioned, you just kind of discovering that. I don't know anything about it really.
Well, I mean, I mean, I think at sort of one level, all companies change their terms over time, you know, frequently and constantly and consistently, you know, because frankly, the world changes. Gaming is a very dynamic world. The world we live in is dynamic, and there are obviously always new things that are being added or whatever. However, I wanna back up from that and say, you know, it kinda comes back to your trust point, which is, I think one thing that I heard a lot is people very, very deeply need to know what they're signing up for when they pick a version of Unity to build their game on, and that they can, you know, be sure that they can continue to use that. I think that feedback.
There's a lot of other things that come along with trust, so I just wanna be clear, but that feedback is really, really, really super clear, and that's one reason why, you know, and what I talked about today, we're gonna make sure that you can do that. I t also does come back to the GitHub thing. Again, I didn't know about that. It sort of was, you know, just, I didn't know about the repo. So, but, and from the Unity perspective, we've always put our terms on the webpage and make sure that they're including the new ones and, you know, so show the difference, the what's changed between those two. However, you know, we're a community.
You know, we're heavily used by a community of game developers, so another way that we can make sure that that's clear is to put it in the types of tools that they use, like repos and GitHub, so it's easy to track. So, to me, that was an obvious one that we should also put back.
Yeah, I, I... When it gets to the legal stuff, I really, I just try to avoid it, 'cause I don't, I barely understand it when it comes to the simple stuff. I really want to have a chat with a YouTube lawyer on game stuff. I think it would be a fun one. There's another question about getting updates on stuff. They're wondering when you're gonna share more details regarding all of the questions and concerns that people have had, and this is. You released a FAQ, but there wasn't a lot of detail in there. They're wondering, is there, like, a plan to roll out, you know, like, the exact full, like, whatever, the legal document version of the details, whatever that looks like, something that's a lot more detailed in the near future?
For sure, and, you know, that's one of the key things. This was an announcement. It was an announcement, you know, a week ago. It's an announcement today of something that's coming in the future, and we're gonna be providing a lot more details around it, but I'd actually say something even more specifically. We don't have all the answers right now. That's one thing we heard very clearly over the last week, and so we're not putting out, like, "Here's this perfect thing right now," because we're actually engaging with our customers at every level, our customers and our developers, and listening, and we're gonna work on that. We're gonna work on it transparently, and yeah, there'll be a lot more details that are coming out over the next, you know, weeks and months for this program.
You know, I will also say those will be part of a conversation that we're having, so people understand how we're thinking, and we're getting the feedback from, you know, from our game development community.
Okay. I expected it was gonna take a while. I mean, yeah, I thought we would get some more, more stuff a little bit earlier, but, you know, I'm not surprised. It's a big company and big, big change, so I figure it, it. I can't say I'm too surprised that it's taking a while to kind of nail that all down. If you wanna get it perfect, you gotta talk to people. You can't just. I think that was the big lesson here. Like I said, there's a lot of questions, and I want, I wanna make sure that everybody's get, get asked. How will you track what version of Unity developers are using, or is that something you're even going to track?
You know what version of Unity that you're using, and, you know, you know, we're gonna make sure that you're clear, like, what terms are associated with that particular version. This is actually, frankly, the same as, actually Unity Personal. When we say that, you can use Unity Personal up to $200,000, we're also not tracking that. We're just telling you that we. You know, this is what the rights are associated with this version so that you know, and, you know, I think. T hen obviously, if we find out that you're doing it, we have a conversation, but, you know.
Yeah, there's not, like, an extra tracking or anything added in, which I kind of assumed. I figured it would be just like the current setup where you use Unity Free, and then eventually you upgrade to Pro, unless you don't like to follow the rules, and maybe if you get super huge or something, somebody at Unity might hit you up, but I don't expect anything outside of that. Speaking of huge, this is a question that I think has come up a lot, and I really don't know the answer to. I don't understand the solution for it, which was, who pays the runtime fee or rev share when your game is on, like, Microsoft's Game Pass? How does that actually work? I mean, did Microsoft already say, "Yeah, we're good with it," or is that.
Can you talk a little bit about what, what's going on there?
Yeah, well, this program is associated with our licenses for our developers and the publishers that are publishing those particular games, so that's where it is. But by the way, that was actually one of the most key pieces of feedback that we got over the last week was there's so many different kind of distribution channels where people are putting their games, and the rules are different on all of those, and in some of those, it might be hard to track something like engagements. And so that's why there are things like a choice for revenue share or engagements. And it's also why there are not 100% perfect details on exactly how you count all of those, because we're engaging with our community to make sure we come up with really good examples for information that you have.
That track the intent of what we're talking about, that's easy for you to self-report. Y ou know, we put some of that into the FAQ today, you can see some of the examples. Y ou know, we're listening there, and we'll be building even more sort of examples and sort of, documentation for everyone.
Can you... real quickly, can you just explain the engagement thing one more time for everybody who's unsure on what that is, too? 'Cause, I mean, it feel like it kind of ties in, like, is an engagement a, they got it on Xbox Game Pass, or they downloaded it on Steam, or how does that work? 'Cause I know there was a lot of, you know, stuff going on around installs, and downloads, and piracy, and all that. Yeah, I figure you've got the details.
Yeah, and I'm gonna say, like, sound like a little corporate-y here for a second while I use the words around it, but I'm just gonna use them and then try to explain them a little bit. And that's, you know, the goal is as simple as saying that it's a legitimate user of your software on a particular distribution channel. So, okay, what's a legitimate user? Well, a legitimate user would be an actual user, not your automated pr- not your automated use, not, you know, whether there was piracy, not someone that had bought it and instantly refunded it, but like a legitimate first time that someone was engaging with your free-to-play game or your paid game. What's a distribution channel? Well, an app store is a distribution channel.
So, if that user went to, like, a particular store and, you know, bought it, or downloaded it, or whatever, then you would start thinking of that as sort of doing it. Now, if they had multiple devices or they reinstalled it, you don't count those multiple times, right? Because I might have gotten the same thing in my library from a store that I can use on a couple of different devices. Great, that's one, not two. So, there's a bunch more examples that are around that in the FAQ, and we're very committed to making sure that we give more details around that.
But our intent is very simple, which is that, you know, the first time that your game, using our runtime, engages with a very legitimate user, on a distribution channel, like, use that as a count. And then again, we think that many times, that that will be much less than this 2.5% revenue share. And so you could pay less, or, less through that, or you just go to the revenue share if you didn't wanna track that.
Right. It makes sense. I, I think it's, most of the time, or at least, like I said, on the games that I've worked on, it would be less than 2.5%, but I, I can- I like that there's that option there. And just to real quick clarify one more time for everybody, on the counting of those, that's just... You're going in... Now, make sure I understand this right. I'm just going into, like, Steam and saying, "Hey, I sold this many," that, well, subtracting my refunds from that-
Yeah
Putting that in.
Subtract refunds, exactly. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah, that's kind of what I expected.
Yeah, those type of things. Yes.
Okay. Uh-
Yeah, the goal is self-reported based on data that you easily have available, not sort of like I have to track some sort of user behavior that's, you know, different than I've ever done or anything like that.
You don't have to go add in analytics or some tracking or anything-
Right
You just look at whatever your numbers are and then put those into the page. That's, that's kind of been what I expected from the start, but it was definitely... I'll be honest, it was very unclear because it said there was a proprietary algorithm in there. I feel like those two words made the, made the thing drastically more confusing and led to a lot of speculation, even for me. I was like, "Well, what? I don't know what that means." Like, what-
Yeah, you're right. And, we, we wanna be super clear that self-reporting, and, and by the way, on both, both the revenue side and on that, is really key. It's why this program is very important, but we're trying to make sure that this is, you know, easy for our game creators, as well.
Yeah. No, that's, that's good. I mean, that seems like data that at least I've always had. You know, if you sell games and have people download them, you, you've got the info on how many are downloading it or how much money you're making each month. So that seems relatively straightforward, and a lot better than, some built-in tracking spyware thing that I'd kept hearing about.
Yeah.
Right.
And again, I'm sorry that I had to use the corporate jargon, but the truth is, there's just a lot of different scenarios in games, and so, like, you know, some people might say, "Why isn't it sales?" But, like, sales doesn't work if it's a free-to-play game, and so we're just. You know, we're trying to make sure that we can clearly define that in a way that works for a bunch of different ways that Unity is used.
Yeah. It makes sense. It's just that now the, we're going away from the word installs, I think was the number one thing, 'cause install has a reinstall, and that, yeah, goes overboard. So this next question is a big one. I'm curious, I don't know if you're gonna know the answer to this, but how many customers have you lost, and how many more are you expecting to lose over this? I mean, I've seen a lot of people just say they're up and changing different engines, or at least start looking into different options, people talking about changing their future games. Is this... Have you guys tracked that or been keeping an eye on that?
Listen, we, we've seen all of the critical feedback, and it really hurts to read those types of things. Y ou know, it's based on, what we said, and not getting the feedback, so I think those are, you know, real reactions that people had, and it's tough to see. My job, our job at Unity is to make sure that we build the best product, the best, you know, platform that we can, so that you can build great games. And we're gonna focus on that and hope to give people a great option, so that they use it. But I, you know, people definitely have options, and, if we don't do a good job, and if, you know, if they don't want to.
You know, if we don't continue to invest in the way that we want to, then yeah, we know that they'll go somewhere else, and that's why that's our focus.
Okay. I think that with the changes, a lot of the people that were considering changing will probably reconsider that, especially and get into the terms of service type stuff, which we'll get into those questions in a few minutes, I think. Let's go on, though. It's just tons, and I'm running out of time. We have a hard stop at 2:00, so I gotta go quick. So now you'll be charging a revenue share and a seat license cost. How is that benefiting your users? And talk about why they both still exist.
Yeah, well, listen, our goal is to build a sustainable business so that we can continue to invest, but the key thing I would say is, the majority of our users pay neither. Majority of our users are using Unity Personal, which is free to use, and we wanna continue to deeply invest in making that a great platform for building games. Then, you know, there are a variety of options where we're gonna continue to add value into, whether it's Unity Pro or Unity Enterprise, or those sorts of things for you to use it. And then for a subset of games that passes those really high thresholds, there'd be the runtime program as well.
We feel like it's a balanced program that allows us to invest in the way that we want and be able to deeply deliver the features that will make it great for people building the amazing games that get built on Unity, both today and tomorrow.
Real quick, I wanna go back. That last question, there's a couple people complaining that you didn't tell them how many people you've already lost. I'm curious, is that, like, a number you actually know? Like, do you know that there's been a dip in users, or is that something that you're gonna have to wait a little while to see?
I mean, listen, I see all of it on, like, any channel where we get feedback.
Okay.
Obviously, we see all of the, the, the feedback. I haven't seen anything in our, like, actual numbers that would show that. Not saying that that means it's not happening. I will just say that it's my job to make sure that we build the best product, so that people don't want to do that, and that they want to stay on Unity and build great games.
All right. Yeah, yeah, that's kind of what I figured. I figured if, if you'd seen a big, giant drop, you would've mentioned it, but yeah.
I mean, yeah.
Let's see. Here was one of the questions that I. This was one of my own questions, finally. If you could go back in time and redo this from the start, I'm wondering how you would've done this differently. Like, if you went back to, you know, January or whenever the, the idea for this started coming up, what, what would you have done different?
Yeah, listen, I- we were gonna do a business model transition that is, is new and it's different, and there's a lot to work through there. I would've, probably engaged in the conversation earlier, listened more, been more consistent and clear with some of the information we put out there. A good example is, you know, we have a calc- estimator that we put out today with it. Which we didn't before, which meant everybody was going to their own sheets and all that kind of stuff. We created an information vacuum that made it even harder on its own, so we would do a better job there. The actual fundamental thing is, we didn't listen to enough feedback.
The plan today is a great plan for Unity, and I think it's a really strong plan for creators, and that's because we got better feedback, and it made us build a better plan. You know, candidly, what I would do if I went back is I would get that feedback.
Yeah, I like that. The reason that I wanted to ask that question, too, is 'cause, like, I think a lot of people are concerned about what happens with future pricing changes. If stuff needs to change in the future, how is that going to be addressed? If, you know, this doesn't work out or something else totally drastically changes in the economy or the gaming scene, what's gonna happen? I was kinda curious, like, it seems getting out there and having this be a conversation with questions from the beginning would've been a whole lot easier, a lot less painful at least. All right, let's go on to the next one. Is Unity in a bad place financially?
Listen, we're very focused on building a really strong company. You can go back and look at our financials. We had a really, you know, reasonable second quarter, and we're optimistic about the path that we're on. But we're also really focused on making sure that we have the sustainable ability to make sure that we continue to invest in where we're going. I mean, I feel like I'm saying the same thing over and over again. I don't really mean to be, like, doing, like, that sort of repeated thing, but it's the truth. This is about making sure that this massive investment that we put into our engine and tools is one that we can keep doing, 'cause for us, that's the focus, making sure that we can build the very best platform that we can.
I'm curious, a little follow-up on that. According to, like, your internal projections, is this gonna be enough to just keep things stable, or do you feel like you're gonna need to reevaluate in another year or two?
Well, listen, you know, when we make a shift that says that it doesn't start until next year, obviously, that means that games that are-
That's true
Participating in the Runtime Fee are gonna come later.
Yeah.
So, like, there's a shift on sort of where some of that comes, but this is about a business model transition.
Hmm.
This isn't about, hey, we need to do something for the next three months, or something like that. This is about setting up the foundation of the company. This, this program is critical for us, for the foundation of the company to be able to continue to invest for a very, very long period of time. So if the shape kind of is like this, you know, like a little shape that goes like this, versus being earlier, that's less relevant than making sure that we have a right program that works for our creators. That's why I believe that this is a better program, because I think we got great feedback to make it a better program, and works for Unity.
Yeah. Well, hopefully it works for everybody going forward, too. I think it seems viable, and it seems a lot better than the previous one, so that... I'm good with it so far. Let's go over, I got. I want to get into these trust questions soon, so let's get into the next one. Has the stagnation over the engine over the last several years been in part due to low revenue, and will this price change fix that? Has that been, like, an internal thing, where you just don't have the money to invest in whatever the new thing is that you're working on or get it done, or is that not an issue? I have no idea what the answer is here.
Well, I'm not going to accept the word stagnation, 'cause we are extremely focused and have been for years, in a huge amount of things that we're putting into the engine. And by the way, I know that we get a lot of feedback where the engine isn't the editor doesn't work in the ways that people want, where there are things that we could do better, so I'm not trying to say that. But we are focused in every one of our releases on putting out a bunch of new stuff, like the 22 LTS, I believe, was a really great LTS. We made a ton of progress on things like DOTS 1.0, multiplayer, and other features.
There's way more for us to do, but we invest across an extraordinary number of platforms to make sure that Unity remains performant, that it's easy to build games across those platforms, and we're focused on continually adding features and functionality to make games better. There's more for us to do, and I wanna invest deeply in it. But I don't believe we've stagnated. I believe every one of those has been better, and I believe, you know, the feedback we get where things aren't are always what pushes us to do better.
Okay. Well, on the multiplayer side, at least, I've seen some really good improvements, so I tend to-
There's more to do. There's more to do, but the, you know, Unity is so used across such a large variety of use cases that, it like, there are lots of- like, in any one of them, 2D, 3D, multiplayer, there's- I'm proud of work that we've done, and I would say that there's a lot more for us still to do.
Yeah. No, like I said, Unity is still my favorite engine, and it still does the most stuff that I need to do, so I'm happy with it. I haven't had a whole lot of complaints personally. I know a lot of people have specific complaints about different systems, and just some very valid ones, but overall, it's been, I think, pretty good. Can you talk about. This is okay, here. This is a big one. Can you talk about the stock distribution and selling complaints? 'Cause I expect you probably can't talk too much about it, 'cause I don't know anything about stock laws and all that stuff.
But, I've seen all kinds of conspiracy theories posted about how, you know, people want Microsoft to buy the company, and they're selling all their stock and all kinds of different things, and I have no idea how much of it is based in any kind of fact or rumor or just totally made up or what, so. S ome of it's about like, I know there were some complaints about JR selling some stock, which I assume he does regularly, though, and I don't really know. So can you talk about this and just explain that situation there, or is it something you can't talk about at all?
Yeah. No, I'm happy to, I'm happy to answer it. I mean, the simple truth is that all of the, like, key senior executives like, have extraordinary rules, like legal rules on when they can trade stock, because they have material non-public information or whatever the term is. And so for almost all of us, they're on this plan, 10b5-1 plan, that you sort of have to commit the stock here, and then it sells on a certain number of times, and you have no control over it. Because the only way that you can actually trade the stock is to make sure that it trades in a way that you have no control.
So that stuff happens, and every time it happens, anything else that's happening, someone says, "Aha, they did this thing," when typically it's either, you know, that automated plan or that it was being... You know, some shares were granted, and then that was the taxes that were being sold or whatever. So that's the general... I don't know about a specific, but I will tell you that I do see that a lot. That particular one comes up every time anybody, any one of those gets reported, 'cause they all have to be reported, publicly, but they're all on, like, automated plans.
That's kind of, yeah, what I... I assumed that you don't get to make those decisions, and that you probably wouldn't want to, 'cause it's just too risky anyway. The amounts of stock that I s- I mean, there may be some other ones that are different, but the thing that I'd seen, seen was a relatively low amount of stock and money for JR that people were talking about, so I wasn't sure what was- wh- why that was a big deal. Maybe there's more to it, and I don't know. Yeah, I assume, like I said, it was all kind of automated, too, especially after talking to a couple of people who explained it. David Helgason posted on, I said that wrong. I lost my words. David posted on Facebook that he thought you .
Did you not consult your board before you decided to roll out this policy?" I like the way that that's posted.
Yeah, he's on my Facebook—he's one of my Facebook friends, so I definitely saw the post.
Yeah.
But I think the most important part there is it's not actually correct. He said, David, number one, is on the board, number two, bleeds Unity, number three, is super connected to the game developer community in and out. He has, you know, I think his pulse on what people are saying, and people are talking to him all the time, and, you know, he's saying that, you know, we should have listened to more feedback, and, you know, he's right.
But he was... He's on the board, so I assume the whole board has been in on this thing.
That's totally my point. I'm just, he said, "We," not-
Yeah.
"They." You know, I think he would put himself, you know, he's on the board, board was in it, all of those sorts of things. But, yeah, and, you know, he doesn't like disappointing our creators any more than any of us do.
Yeah, nobody does. It's totally understandable. Okay. I would assume the whole board has some insight and visibility and say on this kind of stuff. All right, now it's time for the big question, one that everybody keeps asking about in chat, and I think everybody is really, really curious to know. They wanna know... Yeah, that's a good time for water, too. I'll take one. All right.
Double water drink. I'm now really worried-
Yeah.
About this question, if I have to drink and you drink.
Double it up. Yeah, this is a big one. So how is Unity planning to regain the trust of its users after you changed the terms of service on them overnight?
Yeah.
This is the biggest concern I think everybody has.
It's a great question, and there's only one way to answer that, and that's, it's actions, not words. So the first thing I'll tell you is, I'm committed to making sure that we continue to work as hard as we can to earn your trust. That said, actions show that, not words. Now, here's a couple of actions that we're taking today. Number one is what I said about the terms of service, to make sure that it's in there, so that you can see action that's around that and see it inside of the actual terms. Number two is, that's why we are doing things like putting the GitHub repo back up, because we wanna make sure that there's also visibility.
That's another way that we can make sure that there's visibility into our actions and that people see it. But, I totally get, you know, trust is easy to lose, and it's hard to earn, and we have to show it, and then people will judge us based on that. And so my job, our job, is to make sure that we build the right tools, go about it the right way, and that people see that, and then it's up to them to make their own determination about trust. I can't tell you that you should trust me. You have to decide that on your own.
That, that's fair. I think in the, on the terms of service thing, one of the questions that came up earlier that I think is related to this is, if you're locking them with a specific version, so like 2019 is in the 2019 terms of service or whatever, is there anything that stops you from just changing that in the future? Or is there like a legal thing in that terms of service that says, "We're not gonna change this, and we, we won't be changing this in the future"? Or is there, like, people are worried that, you know, you could say that now, and then three years from now, just change it again? I mean, three years from now, 2019 and 2020 will be pretty old, but yeah.
Well, I mean, we're not going to. You know, I wrote that letter, and I wouldn't put it in the letter if I wasn't, didn't think that the company was gonna stand up for it. And so we're not going to, but that's why we're putting it in the terms. It's words in the terms, not just words in my letter. You know, someone told me that bold text is not legal. I said, "Okay, yes," putting it in terms, it's not just that we're putting something bold in an email. And that's why we're gonna make sure, like, diff the repo.
Yeah
Yyou know, and we'll make sure that we keep putting it on the website, including what changed. We'll make sure there are clearer systems there, but that's how we're showing it. You know, I don't know what other actions I can take other than that, but that's what we're gonna try to do as a company to make sure.
Yeah, and is it just gonna take some time, probably? So in the meanwhile, the next question was, why should users keep choosing Unity in the future? Seems like a very soft question.
Yeah.
I'm sure they meant it as a very mean question, and
I think-
A hard question, but,
I think, people have a lot of choice. There's a lot of really, you know, really good game engine and game engine technology out there. Our job is to make sure that ours is a great way you can make great games across a lot of platforms. The thing that makes Unity the best, and I know this is where a lot of the sort of anger that we've justly received this week is from our community. Part of why you know, part of why I would say that you should pick Unity is because we have an extraordinary community, builds extraordinary resources, it makes it easy for people to, you know, work with each other and learn things from each other.
We're gonna try to continue to make sure that we build tools that make that continue to be there, and, you know, be there with you. Then, again, you definitely have choices, and it's our job to make sure that you feel like ours is the best choice.
Yeah, I feel like every game developer should experiment with all engines and try them all out, and then see kind of what, what works best for them. And in my case, it's been Unity for everything, or for most of the things recently. And yeah, I feel like you've got to try them all out, and then see... You get in there, and you get the experience with them, and you see what works well for you. And Unity's got, I think, a lot of good stuff. I don't, I don't wanna just, like, try to promote it or anything, but yeah, it's got a lot of cool stuff, and there's a lot of reasons that I'm not switching, personally. But there was-
I'm not switching either.
Go, go ahead.
Oh, I was just saying, I'm not switching either. I really love it. I'm biased, though.
Yeah, there was something in the chat that I wanted to just quickly bring up. So you'd mentioned Plus going away, and one of the questions that nobody had an answer to was: What happens with the splash screen if you're in 2020 and you no longer have Plus? Are you now forced to put the splash s creen on or upgrade to 2023, or do you have to go, or upgrade to Pro, I guess?
Yeah.
Or is there a way to keep the splash screen off without Plus on the old versions, or is that something that's not worked out yet?
Well, first off, you know, for those that are on Plus, which is, by the way, there's not a ton of our users that are on Plus, but for those who do, there's a reasonable, you know. Like, it doesn't completely go away for, like, another year. So-
Yeah
You know, we wanna make sure that we give people time to sunset, and there's details on it. If I get the dates, I might get the dates a little wrong on that, but if you can go look, you can see what the plan is around sunsetting it. That also includes, by the way, there's gonna be an offer for people if they wanted to get a special offer to go to Pro or, you know, go to, go down to Personal Edition, so we'll make that the case. But the... You know, we'll make sure that going forward, that if you're on Personal Edition, that you can, you know, like on 2023 and beyond, you can not use the splash screen.
Okay. I think, yeah, I feel like the splash screen should still be like a, a fancy, like a Pro-only thing in, in the new versions, and like a fancy cool one that,
Yes
People get excited about.
By the way, I mean, I gotta say, yes. It's crazy.
Yeah.
Like, I wanna make sure that, like, everybody's like, "Ah, I wanna use this Unity splash screen." So like, I know that a lot of people like that feature as a feature that you can decide to optionally use, but I would like to, at least over time, turn that around and say, "Ah, I'm putting the Unity splash screen in." We got a ways to go for that, so we'll go after that.
Yeah, I think in the future. So this question, I'm sure, came from someone in the insider group, and they asked: How you plan to better utilize feedback from trusted users, given you've obviously failed to do so over the years?
Yeah, I think. We have, like, there's what am I gonna do? There's what the, what does the company do? Like, how is it a process, not me individually, but.
Yeah, I feel like it's gotta be process-wise.
It is. Exactly.
It's too big to just be one person.
I agree. And so, we engage a lot across the company with developers everywhere of all types. I think the thing the last week has really shown is there's, you know, there's talking, and then there's listening, and then there's doing it iteratively, back and forth in a conversation. And I think the part that I'm very focused on is how do we make sure that we're in an ongoing conversation so that we're making things better over time?
And now, what I wanna do is make sure that as we think about our planning for our, you know, features and all that kind of stuff, how that sort of conversational part, we get a lot of information from a lot of people, but are there other ways that we can make that a deep part of the planning, you know, that we do? I tell you, inside Unity, the Unity employees, you know, individuals in Unity talk to their friends in game development all the time and are constantly getting feedback from them. But I wanna make sure that that also represents, you know, or and is represented in our plans.
Okay. Well, hopefully you guys got some, like, set plans for how to kinda lay that out internally to make sure that all the things are getting to where they need to get to. There's a question over here I wanted to ask, not on here, about Unity being a mobile game-first company. 'Cause it seems like a lot of the focus on revenue here is from mobile games. Is that how does Unity see itself as, like, a mobile-first company, or is it just kind of... But how do you guys picture that?
'Cause I know, like, for me, just to give a little background, I started with Unity because they were first to mobile, and I was like, "Oh, I need to make something for iPhone," and it was the only option, and it's kind of what pushed me into it. But... And I know that's where a lot of this, revenue and the new pricing model would be coming from. So is that, how you guys picture the company, or can you talk a little bit about that?
I think we're a game developer-first company. And I'm not trying to cop out of that question, 'cause I'm gonna come back to it, but, like, our job is to listen to our game developers where they're trying to build games, and then go support those platforms as well as we can. And what I think-
Mm
Is awesome about Unity is Unity works to make it easy for you to build a game and ship it across the platforms that matter to you. And so we're focused on, you know, dozens of platforms that we actually focus on, and frankly, on those platforms, Unity tends to have the highest share of all. So I don't actually think we're mobile-focused at all, but mobile is an incredibly important platform for many of our creators, and obviously, we're gonna continue to invest in that, just like the PC, just like consoles, just like, you know, VR devices or new devices or whatever the next thing is that comes out. Like, because if developers are going there, then that's where we wanna make sure that we support it well.
Okay. I mean, for me, like I said, the access to the devices was the kind of pushing point, and it's one of the things that also I think keeps a lot of people in Unity, because Unity's got this wide access to, you know, deploying out to whatever the hell you wanna deploy to, and it, for the most part, just works and is pretty straightforward. Got 15 minutes left. I wanna see if I can get through a bunch more of these questions. This one, we've kind of talked about it a little bit already, but how is Unity going to legally ensure that they can't retroactively change the TOS again? Is there any- I mean, you kind of answered this earlier, but I don't know if there's any more you wanna say about it.
Yeah, we're gonna. To me, there's two things we can do. I'll just call it trust and verify, I guess. Trust, do, and verify. So, we're saying it very clearly, we're gonna put it in our terms, and then we're gonna make it clear and easy to track by making sure it's in our GitHub, so that you can check to see whether there's something that's changed in any of those terms of service. You know, that's the way we're addressing, like, how we do it, but yeah, I think that's the answer.
Okay. Let me get through, as I'm reading through all, all of my questions. There's a lot of, lot of good stuff here. Oh, yeah, I wanna, I wanna take this one because it's one that's, I think interesting and controversial, and you've talked a little bit about this before. They wanted to know if they can get a deep technical explanation of how the install-based tracking will work with the exceptions circling right now. And I, I when I was talking to Dave earlier on this, on the stream, saying, "Hey, I would really love it if Unity had some magic piracy tracker thing that tells me all of my valid installs and tells me all of the pirated ones." Can you just briefly answer that one?
Well, our focus is on self-reported, and our focus is on... First off, I'm not the deep technical expert to give a deep technical answer on anything. Just, you know, I wouldn't try to pretend to be, 'cause then I would really get picked apart. But the answer is, it's self-reporting, and our focus is gonna making sure that we're clear on data that works, that's easily accessible, that you have, like store reports and things like that. I f you don't want to do that, that you have a choice, and that you can just do the 2.5% revenue share.
Then, by the way, we are gonna enter into, like, "Hey, like, yeah, let's have a conversation with our deep technical experts and your deep technical experts, and we'll continue to build, you know, more ways to make sure that we're all clear there.
Okay. Yeah, I feel like the self-reporting is, like, the key thing here that people didn't know about, and I mean, I didn't know about either, and, you know, really made it kind of a big mess. So I wanna go on to another question that just popped up about, they're wondering if you still believe the runtime fee policy works, given all this backlash. Do you think it's still a good idea? I get the sense that you do, but-
I think this is a really important critical program for Unity. I think what we announced last week, and, you know, we have some changes for today, it's critical foundation for the company. I think the choice is a good thing. I personally believe that when people do it, that you should try the calculator, try it in with your numbers, see whether it works for you or not. They might find that they're gonna just pay less if they do, like, based on, initial engagements versus the revenue share, and that's awesome. That's actually why we wanted to build it that way. We think that it actually tracks well to a shared success model and, you know, gives a way for people to not have to pay as much.
So yeah, I really do believe it's gonna be a strong program.
Yeah, I feel like for the majority of developers, it's probably going to be pretty good. Like, it's a lot better than a big revenue cut or than a lot of big revenue cuts, especially if you're doing, like, a $20, or $50, or $60 game. And when you guys were thinking this through, like, what, I guess, was that kind of the rationale? The rationale was just, like, if you're building a $20 game, this is a nothing fee to you, and if you're building a massive, you know, massive game where you're not charging very much, but you're making millions and millions, you're still paying something? And I guess I'm also curious, why was the, like, rev cap not initially considered in there?
Was it just thought that it wasn't even needed, that it was never gonna go that high, or was it just planned, like, "Hey, we wanna take 200%," were not realistic. I mean, obviously, I know that the ideas that, like, "Hey, we wanna take 200%," were not realistic. And I assumed that you always probably wanted to be under Unreal's percentage; that was my kinda guess. But why was that not kind of in there from the beginning? Is there a reason that it was kinda left out?
Well, listen, this is a transformative business model change, something that we're really, really focused on. When we were working on our models, we, we expected that the vast majority of people would pay, you know, 2%-3% and often less.
Mm-hmm.
So one of the things we heard when we put it out there is that, yes, even, even if that was the case, it was hard to plan for it because there were these outlier situations that maybe you couldn't control. And for some cases, where we were like, well, if there's a case that's, that that doesn't work, and we should've, we should've just communicated this better, and we should've planned for this better, we're... It's not our intent to charge someone, you know, like, a, a crazy percentage or anything. We're not gonna do that. But, you know, we needed to fix it so that people can plan and have this 2.5% revenue share or do this particular one so that they have choice.
But, you know, the real fundamental idea, we always thought that this was gonna be somewhere around 2%-3%. So, like, you know, we're frankly just building on this transformative business model.
Yeah, it felt to me like one of those things that was probably thought internally and just never put down on paper. Everybody just kind of assumed that it would be that. Like I say, I saw the posts and the calculations and stuff and saw the numbers, and it's my default reaction was like, watching MythBusters and like, that just doesn't seem plausible. Like, if they did that, everybody would leave, and you wouldn't have any games so it wouldn't make any sense at all. So-
But by the way, we didn't help either, right?
No, no, it was better.
If we'd had the calculator, like, 'cause because as soon as we didn't have the calculator, everybody else had to implement it themselves. Maybe they didn't, you know, and we didn't communicate the details well enough, so then the answers themselves, you know, the way they calculated it didn't match what we were trying to do. We didn't provide any other information. That's on us. We didn't do a good enough job building out the information to make it clear. But even beyond that, the plan that I think we have now is a better plan because it gives people predictability, and it gives them choice.
Yeah. I think that the... It gives them a lower rate on... Well, at least it gives the guys that I know a lower rate because they're working on, on these, high-end PC games and stuff. It makes it much lower. Now, there was another question, which I think is a pretty important one, about going forward, how you plan to kind of work with the community on big decisions. Maybe not just on big pricing ones, but other big decisions in the future, like, are you going to start reaching out for... I, I, 'cause honestly, I feel like from the beginning, it would've been great if there was some public polling just reaching out to all Unity developers.
Maybe even a little thing that pops up in the Unity Hub that says, "Hey, go fill out this form. How do you feel about this thing? Give us your feedback." I thought something like that would be good. Do you guys have plans to do anything, like, going forward with the community to figure out these new, you know, new decisions, especially when they're big ones that are gonna piss off a lot of people?
Well, listen, I've been really focused over the last week on getting this particular, plans, updated and make sure we could get back out. I think, by the way, the idea that you just gave is a really great idea. I think polling, putting it in the editor, and sort of finding other ways to connect is awesome. But yes, we will do it. I don't have any other kind of key things to talk about there, except for one, which I also, I'm really excited about. Like, this is our first real in-person Unite back this year. I think one of the best way that these things happen are in, at GDC and DICE and Gamescom, and certainly at Unite, where we're together having time to talk specifically about where Unity is and where Unity is going.
We'll be back at Unite in Amsterdam, first time since, I think, 2019, that we've... we did a kind of a hybrid one last year, but the first real one of being back in person. And I think we miss having that, like, just as a, and, you know, beyond, you know, the, like, "Hey, let me pitch that Unite is coming up," the actual thing itself of not having as much of that, where devs themselves are all together and all with Unity together, and we're talking about where we're going, I'm glad we're getting back to that, because I think it's really important.
Yeah, I'm excited for Unite, too, especially now that I think things are mostly better and that most of the issues that, at least, at least the issues that I had and a lot of the people that I talked to personally had are pretty much addressed. I mean, there's still people talk about trust in the company and stuff, but I think we had a discussion about this earlier, that, like, trusting companies is a strange thing anyway. Like, I... You want to trust that a company is not gonna do bad stuff, but, yeah, it's not what I—I don't base any of my personal feelings or emotions on trust on a company, 'cause I feel like every company is a, it's a company.
Like, they change, they morph, they merge, and, you know, they sell, and all kinds of random stuff happens, and yeah. It's a tough one, but hopefully you're able to kinda rebuild some of that. I think it'll probably happen with a lot of these changes, especially the retroactive removal thing. I think that's gonna... That kind of alleviates most people. At least, like I said, most people I know's concerns. Obviously, not everybody in chat... and obviously not all of the Unity developers. By the way, yes, we are live for the couple of people who seem to be confused about it.
Well, I know we have a hard stop in, like, four minutes, 'cause you've got, I'm sure, a ton of other stuff to do today, but I wanted to just give you a chance to say any, like, last words and stuff for people. I think I've gone through all the questions that I had on. If you've got any final words or, you know, parting things that you wanna tell people before we go.
Yeah, I really appreciate the feedback. Listen, it's really tough feedback this week, deserved feedback. I really appreciate it, it makes us better. And frankly, Unity is what it is because of this extraordinary community of game creators building extraordinary games. If there's anything that the last week shows, if you pull Unity out of it, is that the extraordinary passion that everybody here has for what they do, their livelihood, their games, it's... I mean, it is inspiring. It's inspiring. So I know we have work to do. I know that, you know, this announcement, while I feel very, very strong about the set of changes that we announced, I feel very passionate about this transformative business model.
We have work to do to continue to earn your trust every day, to make sure that we build the best version of Unity we can. So thank you for the feedback.
Cool. Yeah, and hopefully everybody keeps just sending their feedback, post on Twitter, let everybody know what you think about the new changes, and hopefully everybody is mostly happy with stuff. I mean, like I said, I am, but I'm a happy dude, and it pisses people off, so I totally understand. I don't mean to be too happy and make too many people angry, but it's hard for me not to. Anyway, thanks again, Marc. I appreciate it. This was helpful, and thank you especially for well, listening to everybody's feedback and not just doubling down and saying, "Hey, we're sticking with this. Screw you all," you know, whatever. Like, you... I like that you guys actually made the changes that I think address most of the people's problems.
Thanks again for that, and thanks for coming on in and answering these questions. I really appreciate it.
All right, thanks. I really appreciate the time, Jason, and thank you, everybody, for being here.
Oh, all right. Thank you, Marc. Yeah. All right, well, I'm gonna wrap this up in just a second. Just real quickly wanted to watch chat and say thank you to everybody, or to most people. I could not read through all of the chat while we were live. It was just nearly impossible trying to pay... I can't pay attention and read chat at the same time. So I'm sure there were lots of great comments, and if you had anything super awesome, leave it in the comments below, and I'll try to reply to all the comments afterwards on this thing. Again, I wanted to say thanks to Marc, 'cause this was, I think, helpful, I think clarified some things, and clarified some things that were not on the FAQ for me.
So at the very least, it was helpful for me and hopefully clarified everything up for all of you. Anyway, if you wanna find out more about this stuff, I'll probably stream some more later on this week or this weekend. I got a birthday party tomorrow, so I'll be working on that. But I'll be doing that later this week. And if you're interested, still wanna learn more Unity stuff, make sure that you're subscribed. I'll be doing lots of videos on Unity's multiplayer stuff coming up. I got into it and been having a lot of fun with it. While everybody else has been doing videos about this stuff, I've just been coding and making multiplayer stuff, 'cause it's kind of my passion. I really like it. Anyway, thanks again. Hopefully it helped.
If there were questions that were not answered, that you wanna know the answer to, drop them in the comments. I will see if I can forward them on and get answers for them. Again, all these questions, except for, like, one of them, were from other people on YouTube, a lot of the people who've been very critical about what's going on, and from other people on, on Twitter. So it's, it's not been my questions. I feel like everybody else has much harder questions than I do. So anyway, thanks again. We'll see you in the, next stream. Make sure you're subscribed and all that, and, hope, I think I'm out of words-