At least with revenue share the amount you owe is bounded by the revenue you've realized from sales.

If we are being real, and not assuming abuse, at ~$5 or up, you are going to be better off at .20 install than 5% of revenue.

$0.20 is the minimum, you pay for every device they install on every time. Anytime they offload and reinstall, you pay again. Every additional device, upgrade, or replacement, you pay again. You’ll also pay then current rates, whatever Unity decides those are.

No abuse needed to lose money with this, I’ve probably installed the same games 20+ times over the years.

That's not what Unity is saying - they are saying reinstalls do not count. From their faq:

Does a reinstall of an app on the same device count towards the Unity Runtime Fee?

No, we are not going to charge a fee for reinstalls.

https://unity.com/pricing-updates

That's a change from what they said before for one, but there's also no real way to accurately measure "installs" anyway at a technical level.

They can probably track accurately enough to identify that 90% of games aren't worth billing. Then once they are working with the top 10%, they can negotiate something that makes sense, like submit your monthly sales number, and Unity will use that as a limit on install count.

I agree what they are saying isn't workable, but that idea of install based fee could work, and would be better than a royalty for many.

> on the same device

This is the issue.

The problem with install fees is that it's a potentially unlimited financial risk.

Not unless you are giving away your game for free. Otherwise your limit is some small multiple of sales. They have said demos don't count, webgl doesn't count, piracy doesn't count, etc..

It would be easier if Unity just said they won't charge for installs past the number of sales. But most of the nightmare scenarios people are coming up with are not real.

Unity has been very inconsistent about communicating what will and will not be counted. I've seen two different channels from Unity saying that demos will or won't be counted. And practically, Unity has no way to verify what is and isn't a fraudulent installation (or if they do, they're not telling us). Imagine the pain in the ass it's going to be too contest this bullshit. And the risk remains unlimited because installs on new machines count.

Ultimately the main issue is that people made business decisions about using Unity under the assumption that the license and payment structure they were using could not change. That is no longer true by demonstration. I'm sure there's a lot of devs who are simply unwilling to deal with a vendor who changes the terms like this.

IMO the problem is more the arbitrariness of the change than the specific fee structure. It applies to games that are already in development, it applies to games that already shipped. Even if it's strictly legal to pull that rug (I have my doubts), no one wants to build a business at another company's whim. Everyone is wondering if Unity just turned X% of their customers into sharecroppers, who's the next Y%? For indies that will be an especially acute concern since they have very little leverage.

Better fixes in no particular order: a grandfather clause, delay the new fees, fire the CEO.

Would it be any better of it there was retroactive revenue share? I agree it is shittily rolled out, but things like the retroactivity are the issue, and the ability to actually count install. Not the install fee itself. I am responding to the "it should have been rev share" mentality, which is totally grass is greener.

Right, I'm in agreement. I didn't downvote you.