Unity Create boss Marc Whitten tackled some difficult questions from the development community during a ‘fireside chat’ on Friday.
The hour-long stream followed the announcement of some revised pricing policies on Friday. Developer Jason Weimann quizzed Whitten on whether Unity actually spoke to developers before announcing the policies, how it can rebuild trust and if it’s even legal to roll out sudden pricing changes on this scale.
Whitten also responded to questions about what Unity would have done differently in hindsight, whether the company is in financial trouble and if, in the words of founder David Helgason, the company had “fucked up” (It had, said Whitten).
We’ve digested and edited down the hour-long conversation below for clarity and readability.
Weimann: Did you even bother to talk to customers before you rolled out your version of this from last week?
Whitten: We did. We talked to partners, large customers, small customers, lots of internal people. We didn’t listen to enough of their feedback. We should have listened more of their feedback, and we need to do better. And I can tell you as an example on Sunday, we put out 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 because as we were working through the plan we were going back and talking to big customers, independent developers and partners over and over again to get that feedback. Because I think the most fundamental thing about talking to customers is it’s an ongoing, iterative conversation. And we didn’t do that well enough.
Why didn’t you just go with a rev share model?
We think it’s going to be cheaper for a lot of games. We’re trying to build a model that we think is fair, and is a good value exchange that works for games once they find a level of success. And we also want to tie it to the value that Unity brings.
And so it felt like a way where we can 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, and we got a lot of really, really good feedback, is that there were cases where people couldn’t plan… and so adding in the 2.5% revenue share as an option definitely in my opinion makes the plan better, based on what we were trying to do. So it was really good feedback.
Who is responsible for the policy and its decision to roll out?
This is my part of the business and there’s a lot of people internally that have worked on this. The executive team has worked on this…but I’m responsible for what we’re doing inside of Create and the entire executive team has been a part of this.
But I’ll also say this is really important for Unity. We have to focus on building a strong, sustainable business that allows us to continue to invest in the ways that we want, so we can build the best game engine.
Is it legal to change the terms of service overnight?
All companies change their terms over time, you know, frequently and constantly and consistently, because frankly, the world changes. Gaming is a very dynamic world, the world we live in is dynamic, and there are always new things that are being added or whatever.
However, I want to back up from that and say 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 be sure that they can continue to use that.
That feedback is really, really, really clear. And that’s one reason why we’re gonna make sure that you can do that.
When are you going to share more details regarding all of the questions and concerns that people have?
We’re going to be providing a lot more details. 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 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 coming out over the next weeks and months for this programme. But I will also say those will be part of a conversation that we’re having so people understand how we’re thinking.
How will you track what version of Unity developers are using? Is that something you’re even going to track?
You’ll know what version of Unity that you’re using and we’re going to make sure that you’re clear what terms are associated with that particular version. 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 this is what the rights are associated with this version so that you know. And then obviously if we find out that you’re doing [more than $200k revenue] then we have a conversation.
If you could go back in time and redo this from the start, how you would have done this differently?
Listen, we’re gonna do a business model transition that is new, and it’s different and there’s a lot to work through there. So obviously, I would have 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 we have an estimator that we put out today, which we didn’t before. We created an information vacuum that made it even harder and we should do a better job there.
But the actual fundamental thing is, we didn’t listen to enough feedback. And the plan today is a great plan for Unity. 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. So, you know, candidly, what I would do if I went back is I would get that feedback.
Is Unity in a bad place financially?
We’re very focused on building a really strong company. You can go back to our financials, we had a really 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.
This is about making sure that this massive investment that we put into our engine and tools is one that we can keep doing because for us that’s the focus, making sure that we can build the very best platform that we can.
Has the stagnation in the engine over the last several years been in part due to low revenue? And will this price change fix that?
Well, I’m not going to accept the word stagnation because we are extremely focused and have been for years on a huge amount of things that we’re putting into the engine.
I know that we get a lot of feedback where the engine or the editor doesn’t work in the ways people want and where there are things we can do better. 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 and so it’s easy to build games across all those platforms. And we’re focused on continually adding features and functionality and make games better.
There’s more for us to do and I want to invest deeply in it but I don’t believe we’ve stagnated. The feedback is always what pushes us to do better.
You know, Unity is so used across such a large variety of use cases…I’m proud of the work that we’ve done. And I would say that there’s a lot more for us still to do.
David [Helgason] posted on Facebook that he thought you fucked up…did you not consult your board before you decided to roll out this policy?
I think the most important part there is that it’s not actually correct because its “we fucked up”…David is on the board, bleeds Unity and is super connected to the game developer community.
He’s got a pulse on what people are saying and people are talking to him all the time. And, you know, he’s saying that we should have listened to more feedback and you know, he’s right. He doesn’t like disappointing our creators any more than any of us here do.
How is unity planning to regain the trust of its users after you change the terms of service on them overnight?
There’s only one way to answer that, and that’s with 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. Actions show that, not words.
Now, here’s a couple of actions that that we’re taking today: number one is what I said about the terms of service. Number two is that’s why we are doing things like putting the GitHub repo back up because we want to make sure that there’s visibility into our actions.
But I totally get that trust is easy to lose, and it’s hard to earn, and we have to show that 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 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.
