I can say, unequivocally, if you’re starting a new game project, do not use Unity. If you started a project 4 months ago, it’s worth switching to something else. Unity is quite simply not a company to be trusted.
It’s on developers to sort through these two types of costs, meaning Unity has added a bunch of admin work for us, while making it extremely costly for games like Vampire Survivor to sell their game at the price they do. Vampire Survivor’s edge was their price, now doing something like that is completely unfeasible. Imagine releasing a game for 99 cents under the personal plan, where Steam takes 30% off the top for their platform fee, and then unity takes 20 cents per install, and now you’re making a maximum of 46 cents on the dollar. As a developer who starts a game under the personal plan, because you’re not sure how well it’ll do, you’re punished, astoundingly so, for being a breakout success. Not to mention that sales will now be more costly for developers since Unity is not asking for a percentage, but a flat fee. If I reduce the price of my game, the price unity asks for doesn’t decrease.
If I were running a Unity project, I’d be tempted to just jump to Unreal. No matter what promises Unity makes you don’t have any actual guarantee that they’ll keep them while Unreal has the “non-retroactive” clause directly in their contract. However painful the switch is, you’ll only have to do it once.
I also wonder how Unity‘s approach will work in countries where that is the legal default. I have a feeling that we will be seeing quite a few lawsuits next year, if they actually go ahead with their plans.