"Take for example genshin impact: it's made in unity, has a high production value, is f2p with a in-game currency that can be purchased, and meets the threshold for the change requirements. The same company has several other similarly modeled games released across multiple platforms (PC and PlayStation)."
From what I can tell, if you were to sell a $5 game made with Unity and made $200,000 per year, the total charge would be $8,000. But that charge would be $40k if your game was only $1 and $800 if your game sold for $50. For Unity Pro if you made $10 million selling 1 million copies you would be charged $60,000. That same studio making $10 million on a game written with Unreal Engine would be charged $500,000 in royalties. That is far more than $60k for Unity. It still appears that Unity is the budget option, it just isn't quite as cheap as it used to be.
Considering Unity has a negative operating margin of around 50%, it seems clear they need to start making more money. Customer acquisition and R&D costs have been growing much faster than revenue so they need to start making more money somewhere. R&D costs have risen by 275% over the past 3 years, and sales/marketing costs have increased 175%. Revenue has only increased 150% over the same period.
The problem isn't that Unity is changing their pricing model, it's that without warning they have changed their terms to a highly volatile pricing model that is holding game developers hostage.
Also that they hired thousands of people based on the assumption that they’d be selling tons of ads. That 50% unprofitability was a choice made by their management.
"Take for example genshin impact: it's made in unity, has a high production value, is f2p with a in-game currency that can be purchased, and meets the threshold for the change requirements. The same company has several other similarly modeled games released across multiple platforms (PC and PlayStation)."
From what I can tell, if you were to sell a $5 game made with Unity and made $200,000 per year, the total charge would be $8,000. But that charge would be $40k if your game was only $1 and $800 if your game sold for $50. For Unity Pro if you made $10 million selling 1 million copies you would be charged $60,000. That same studio making $10 million on a game written with Unreal Engine would be charged $500,000 in royalties. That is far more than $60k for Unity. It still appears that Unity is the budget option, it just isn't quite as cheap as it used to be.
Considering Unity has a negative operating margin of around 50%, it seems clear they need to start making more money. Customer acquisition and R&D costs have been growing much faster than revenue so they need to start making more money somewhere. R&D costs have risen by 275% over the past 3 years, and sales/marketing costs have increased 175%. Revenue has only increased 150% over the same period.