Next build? Coming soon! Less than 24 hours. In the meantime, though…
There is a certain topic that I’ve been asked about dozens of times over the past few days, so I figure that I should probably write out all of my thoughts in one place, so that I can simply link people to this post whenever they ask me about the subject.
Click “Continue Reading” for a very, very long blog post.
You can skip the first three sections if you already know the basics about the situation.
Summary
Yandere Simulator runs on the Unity game engine. Recently, Unity Technologies – the company that develops Unity – announced a change to their business model: starting on January 1st, they will instate a “runtime fee” – in short, Unity is going to start charging developers $0.20 every time a customer installs the developer’s game (if the developer sells enough copies of their game).
Immediately after this announcement was made, everyone who heard it immediately identified countless problems with the concept:
- How does Unity know when a game has been installed on a machine? From Jan 1st onward, will each Unity game contain “spyware” that is “phoning home” to Unity’s servers? Does this spyware already exist? If so, what other types of data has it been collecting?
- What if a user uninstalls and re-installs a game dozens of times? Is each re-installation a $0.20 charge? Can someone bankrupt a developer by perpetually running a script that re-installs a game repeatedly?
- What if a developer’s game is included in a charity bundle, where all of the profits are meant to go to charity? Will the developer lose money on each install, since they’re not keeping any of the profit from the charity sale?
These are only a few of the extremely obvious flaws that were immediately identified within seconds of the announcement going live; if I were to list out all of the other completely sensible and valid objections that people have made about this new business model, this blog post would double in size.
The announcement of this deeply flawed business model led to immediate and extremely widespread outrage from the entire game industry; everyone from players to developers to journalists instantly recognized the obvious and severe problems with this new pricing plan – and they voiced their disapproval loudly. With just one announcement, Unity immediately became the punching bag of the entire game industry.
Additional Controversy
The CEO of Unity sold 2,000 shares of the company’s stock before this controversial announcement was dropped. It’s almost as though he fully anticipated the negative reaction to the announcement, and wanted to dump his own company’s stock before it became worthless. Numerous people have expressed the opinion that this appears to be an instance of “insider trading.”
Unity’s previous Terms of Service stated that developers would only have to obey the ToS that they agreed to when their game was released, and that they wouldn’t be obligated to obey a newer ToS introduced after their game had already been shipped. Earlier this year, Unity removed that clause from their ToS, essentially preventing any Unity developer from being exempt to the latest ToS.
Developer Reactions
Over the past 2 days, a tremendous number of game developers have made public statements condemning Unity’s decision. Some developers merely implored Unity to reconsider, while other developers went as far as to cancel their game projects and announce that they will never utilize the Unity game engine again, because their ability to trust the company to make sound business decisions has been completely vaporized.
Some statements were quite verbose:
While others were much more succinct:
I was planning to include a list of my favorites here, but…well, there are just too many:
The reason why I haven’t made any kind of official public announcement about the situation is because I feel that there’s nothing I could possibly say that dozens of other developers haven’t already said. Everyone unanimously feels the same way about Unity’s plan: it’s stupid. It’s impossible to enforce, it’s susceptible to abuse, and it’s greedy as hell. If I were to tweet out my thoughts, I would just be yet another voice echoing the exact same sentiment as anyone else. There is no need for me to jump on the bandwagon or join the dog pile.
…with that said…
…gosh, it looks so fun to do the graphic design work for a public statement. I want to give it a try!!
Hehe! That was fun! Okay, break time’s over, back to work…
Will this affect the development of Yandere Simulator?
After the industry-wide backlash that Unity is facing for this decision, I strongly believe that Unity is going to reverse their decision. Within the next few days, they’re going to make a follow-up announcement: “Sorry guys, we didn’t think that one through. We’re canceling our plans to instate runtime fees. We’ll decide on a different business model that more feasible and less susceptible to abuse, and gather feedback from developers before announcing it.”
And that will be the end of it.
“Yeah, but what if they don’t do that, though?”
They’re definitely going to do that. Every gamer, developer, and news outlet is raking Unity over the coals right now. They are absolutely going to backpedal and reverse their decision.
“Yeah, but what if they don’t do that, though?”
…you serious? People who have worked for Unity for 7 years have already resigned because of this blunder. Unity is hemorrhaging employees and rapidly losing the trust of the entire gaming industry. There is no way they’re not going to walk this one back. They are going to cancel their plans, make a public apology, and they are going to do it soon.
“Yeah, but what if they don’t do that, though?”
If Unity actually goes through with this plan…dude, they’re going to get sued. You can’t just alter your terms of service to say, “Now you owe us millions of dollars!” long after someone has agreed to a previous version of the terms of service. That’s ridiculously illegal.
Do you know who has used Unity to develop games? Nintendo and Disney. Yeah. Two of the richest and most litigious entities in existence. Nintendo and Disney have way more than enough money to hire the most elite lawyers in the world to skullfuck Unity to death sue Unity into oblivion if they try this shit.
“Yeah, but what if Unity gets away with it, though?”
…ugh.
We are going deep into hypothetical territory here, since I strong doubt it will ever come to this, but, sure, okay, let’s try out this thought experiment.
In order to owe Unity any money, I have to meet two criteria: I have to make $200,000 in revenue over a period of 12 months, and my game has to be installed over 200,000 times over a period of 12 months.
So, how does Unity define “Revenue?” They were kind enough to spell it out on their website:
A game or app’s “total revenue” includes all revenue generated (without limitation) from retail sales, in-app purchases, subscription fees, web payments, offline payments, ads-based revenue, etc. Total revenue is calculated without deduction, including any relevant digital store fees.
Well, here’s the thing: Yandere Simulator is freeware. Over the course of 9 years, I have made $0 in revenue from the game.
Yandere Simulator is not retailed through any store, it does not contain in-app purchases, it doesn’t provide any type of subscription, it doesn’t contain any ads, etc.
I survive thanks to the generosity of people donating to me through Patreon – and even then, I am making less than minimum wage every month. I don’t come anywhere close to meeting Unity’s criteria. So, no, this doesn’t affect me, and because Yandere Simulator will remain freeware for at least another 6 months, it probably won’t begin to affect me for a long time.
“Wait, what? Yandere Simulator won’t be free forever?”
Yeah! Didn’t you know that? I feel like I’ve already talked about this a million times. Okay, let me spell it out for you…
Yandere Simulator has been free for the past 9 years. However, after Amai is implemented, the game will have so much content that I will no longer feel comfortable giving it away for free. After Amai is complete, I will put the game on Steam and start charging $5 for it. After all 10 rivals are in the game, the price will change to $20. Anyone who bought it when it was $5 won’t have to re-buy it when the price changes later. (This is the current plan, but these exact numbers might change in the future.)
“So, what happens if you put the game on Steam, sell 200,000 copies, and earn $200,000?“
Oh, geez. Fine, let’s crunch the numbers.
Let’s imagine that I sell Yandere Simulator on Steam for $5 and sell 200,000 copies, earning $1,000,000 in revenue and passing the $200,000 threshold for Unity’s runtime fee to kick in.
A year later, Unity will send me a bill for 200,000 times $0.20, which is $40,000. Owch, that would kinda sting…but, let’s think about it for a second.
A number like 40,000 sounds huge, but it would only be 4% of the revenue that I made from Yandere Simulator in this hypothetical situation. I can’t speak for other game developers, but, personally, if I made $1,000,000 in annual revenue from a game, I would actually be okay with paying a $40,000 fee to the developers of the game engine that I used.
“But what if someone uninstalls and re-installs the game a million times?”
Oh, for the love of…okay, fine. As long as we’re here, we may as well go ahead and consider the worst-case scenario.
Let’s imagine that a single person writes a script that creates a virtual machine, installs Yandere Simulator, closes the virtual machine, and repeats the sequence in an endless loop. They do this 5,000,000 times.
A year later, Unity will send me a bill for $1,000,000 and say, “Your game was installed 5 million times! Pay up!”
I will simply respond by showing them my Steam analytics page and saying, “Nope. I am not paying that bill. I only sold 200,000 copies, not 5 million. Here is the proof.”
After this, Unity will recognize that 96% of those 5,000,000 installs were fraudulent, and will lower the bill to a much more reasonable number.
“But what if they don’t listen, and they try to bill you for 5,000,000 nonexistent installs?”
Uh, no. They won’t do that.
“But what if they do?”
They won’t.
“But what if they do?”
Dude, seriously, they won’t. They said that they’re not going to charge a fee for fraudulent installs:
If I get a bill for 5,000,000 installs, I’m just going to dispute the bill and work together with Unity to make sure they bill me the proper amount.
“But what if they don’t listen to you?”
That’s not going to happen. If you’re a waiter in a restaurant, and you’re bringing a bill to a table, and you realize that the bill says $1,000,000, you’re not going to tell the customer to pay that bill; you’re going to go tell your boss that somebody fucked up at the cash register, and the customer’s bill needs to be re-calculated. Seriously, it’s not going to happen.
“Yeah, but what if it DOES happen?”
You’re asking me what’s going to happen if Unity demands that I pay them $1,000,000 when I should only owe them $40,000, and they refuse to acknowledge any of the evidence that disproves their claims?
“Yeah.”
I guess I just wouldn’t pay the bill.
“Wouldn’t they, like, sue you or something?”
Unity has not explained what they plan to do about developers who refuse to pay. That information wasn’t in their announcement. But, seriously, dude, this scenario isn’t going to happen.
“But what if it does?”
Then I’ll grow wings and fly to Unity HQ and use the Geass in my left eye to mind-control the CEO of Unity and make him stop this madness.
“Uh…”
Since you’re asking me about a hypothetical scenario that will never happen, I’m answering with a hypothetical scenario that will never happen. There. I hope we’re done discussing it.
None of this matters, since Unity is absolutely going to backpedal and cancel their runtime fee plans within the next few days. I’m just going to continue working on the game like nothing ever happened.
“You still want to use the Unity engine, even after Unity has proven themselves to make business decisions that are horribly unethical?”
Honestly? No, I don’t. Making a game in Unity feels lame and uncool and cringe right now. But, I’m too invested in this project to stop because of one company’s stupid blunder.
“Why don’t you just port Yandere Simulator to another engine?”
You have absolutely no idea how difficult and time-consuming that would be. It would double the game’s development time. I’ve been developing Yandere Simulator for 9 years. I want to release the final version of the game within the next 2 years. So, no; I will not make a decision that will prolong development for another decade.
“Why has Yandere Simulator been in development for so long?”
Oh, Christ, we’re still on that shit? For the millionth time…
Some games are made available while in an incomplete state, and then regularly updated with new content for a long time. That is the type of game that Yandere Simulator became. It is now the kind of project that periodically receives new features, new activities, new characters, new weapons, quality-of-life improvements, etc. Some games are supported long-term with updates and new content. To be honest, I don’t see anything wrong with that. I feel that a continuously-expanding game is far more meaningful than a game where you just stab 10 girls and then you’re done.
By the way – there is a mode within Yandere Simulator where you can eliminate 10 rivals and see the credits roll. A complete story mode with a proper beginning/middle/end. If that’s your criteria for a “finished” game, then Yandere Simulator is already “finished” in that sense.
Actually, I’ve written 7,000 words about this exact subject: https://yanderedev.wordpress.com/2023/03/31/the-9th-anniversary-of-yandere-simulators-development/
With all of that said, I’m ready to wrap it up and bring the project to a conclusion. Updating a game with new content for 9 years was fun, but I’d like to put a bow on it, call it “finished,” and move on. I’m almost ready to move to the phase of the game where I implement Ayano’s rivals. There are just a few things I have to do first.
“Specifically what remains until you begin working on Ayano’s rivals?”
I wrote an entire blog post about it, dude. Please just go read it.
Man, how did we get so off-track? Time to wrap things up…
I’ll be releasing a new build soon, sometime within the next 24 hours. I hope that you’ll look forward to it!
9/22/2023 EDIT:
Hey, look! I was right!
Yandere Simulator Development Blog 
I remember when Pokémon Uranium got taken down, a free, non-profit, fangame. Unity would be screwed if they took money from from a company like that.
Yea. Nintendo always wins EVERY LAST LAWSUIT. No exceptions.
Yanderedev,I think it’s actually OKAY to sell more than 5 dollars when the game is already.Because I’m in china,The Network Ban prevents a lot of fans’ funding,and we are eager for supporting your masterpiece.So maybe it’s a great idea to sell it on Steam so that I can buy it as donating your project.THANK YOU for hard developing,we will continue supporting you in CN..(AND to post a reply costs me some energy,but I’m glad that it finally works…)
I agree
Now I kinda wanna see Nintendo sue Unity lol
Just this about Mihoyo and all the games like Genshin Impact lmao
Same. When Nintendo DOES sue, which will likely be before the new TOS is in effect, Nintendo will certainly win and sue for damages and also force Unity to change the TOS back to its former state, or else…
All we gotta do is wait.
Given how Unity has always been greedy ever since its new ceo took over (e.g. laying off tons of employees), im sorry but i honestly think that Unity WILL NOT reverse their decision.
Ahh typical a great company gets a new CEO only to screw things over for anyone else. Unity better fix this greedy move otherwise they would loose way more than $0.20 a download. Big developers like Nintendo can shrug this off however smaller indie devs will have a massive pain trying to pay the fees. Time to get my pitchfork.
What things of the cheklist are taking long time?
Probably the functionality of the new rooms, replacing old animations and stuff like that
When you’ll release Yandere on Steam. You can charge it for 10$ minimum honestly, the game is huge with alot of content, 2 story mode. If theres more voice actor. I wont mind to pay 30$ for the game. I think 5$ is too low for the game it is.
“Who is this dude that asks THESE questions? He’s SO annoying!” /sarcasm off
Seriously, I’m glad YandereDev didn’t say something like “Unity’s gone to hell, I’ll see you in 10 years when I port the game to Unreal engine”.
Speaking of new technologies – I’ve heard about new AI-based tools that can create 3D animations based on anything: 2D animation, a couple of keyframes, and even based on movements from a movie. Is there any chance YanSim could get cool animations with something like this?
Mayyyyybe. I’ll check it out when it becomes available to me.
The image of Dev sprouting wings and flying to Unity HQ needs some fanart.
Several game engines do the “You owe us a percentage of your income after you make $X amount of profit from your game. Until that happens you can use our engine/SDK/assets/etc. for free all you want.”
Unreal does something similar. A 5% royalty once your income exceeds 1 million buckazoids. A few others do something similar, too. The percentage and threshold varies by engine, but that kind of deal is pretty industry standard. Yeah, Unity sucks for changing their TOS retroactively, and $0.20 per install rather than a percentage of income seems greedy and intrusive, but it’s not an unreasonable business model in itself.
Personally, I use FOSS such as Eclipse, Blender, Godot, Kdenlive, Krita, and Audacity. I’m not suggesting you change to any of these — as you said, that would be a major pain and delay your game — I’m just mentioning what I like.
Oh, and thank you for working on a great game for the love of gaming!
You deserve to become a millionaire when your game goes live on Steam!
I’ve bought tons of indie games on Steam over the years for anywhere from $1 to $50.
I don’t begrudge that at all.
hi yandere dev, I would like to ask promise to write a personal storyline for other students at akademi. For example, Amai, for that entire week while Ayano is planning to kill her you will get to see ” drawings ” & reading about Amai Everday life until the end of her life. To drawings of her talking to her friends about her crush ” senpai ” to her discussing ideas for the bakery with her parents. To the day of the bake sale. and finally with all other rivals seeing her end her life. At the end of a rival’s life, I will write a closing statement for them.
I would like to write about other students at akademi how that affect them. If they were a friend with that rival, then it will be drawing with them talking about her death. it my drawings & writing it will affect the school for that entire week until it is over.
in my drawings you might see Ayano in the background holding a mop, running among the hallways. The students will never see her, but you will. I just want to make students feel more alive at the school. giving none rivals more personality and more touch. I will story focusing on this after the game is finished so I can get a more knowing approach on how I want to write such outcomes.
Thank you for taking to time to read my reply. Take your time to finish the game and take some time for yourself.
When you’ll release Yandere on Steam. You can charge it for 10$ minimum honestly, the game is huge with alot of content, 2 story mode. If theres more voice actor. I wont mind to pay 30$ for the game. I think 5$ is too low for the game. It deserve more
People who don’t think the game should cost money are absolutely insane!!! Even with the progress now, the game is so good, and for you to be generous to make it free for so long is something people can’t wrap their heads around. This game deserves tons and I can’t wait for it to be finished. It truly deserves everything.
Thank you very much for your kind words…
Personally I think you should charge a little more for the finished yandere simulator when you put it on steam
Keep up the awesome work, YanDev! I really hope Unity will realize how stupid all of this is.
when is the next build out?
Hey yandere dev ;-; ,
IDK if you will ever even read my comment but… Please can you at least make the game free till the 5th rival? I know , I know sorry for asking but.. I live in Iran , how am I gonna pay for it ?! I’m making content from your game! Everything here is filterd and it needs VPN , I mean right now I’m using a VPN to come on your website… I won’t be able to pay for it… Not even if I had the money. I can’t even sign up in steam wether I would have to pay for it too.
He’s had the game for free for years now. I understand your situation, and it sucks for people who can’t afford to pay for Yandere Simulator, but it has been out for so long for free when it absolutely deserves pay. Let’s keep in mind the amount of achievements and eliminations, endless challenges and missions you can do, the side minigames and tasks you do for each individual student, etc. This game deserves some pay. He said he wanted to make it for pay by the 2nd rival. We have so much content already and it’s only the first rival. This doesn’t include all the other builds and things added as the game goes on. So, it’s highly unrealistic why he wouldn’t charge for the game till the 5th rival. He needs funds for the game, plus he deserves all this money for the endless work he’s put into the game.
Oh, I just hope that when the game is finished, the Dollar course in Russia will be stable… for the last year, $5 for us is like $15 for you guys
🤦♂️ Uh don’t make claims that the game will be completed in the next 2 years.
If it doesn’t happen people will make YouTube videos talking crap about you again
Never made a “claim.”
Just stated what I would *like* to have happen.
Hey thanks for actually answering the ‘what if Unity doesn’t backpedal’ question, because while it’s likely they will (hopefully), it’s foolish to just believe that a greedy conglomerate will definitely 100% make the right decision. It’s best to prepare for the worst, but hope for the best.
I HOPE Nintendo and Disney ravage Unity for bullshit like this.
I hope you like news because it’s good
Good news everyone
https://unity.com/pricing-updates
I think Yandere Simulator will be safe. Still I would not stick in Unity for Yandere Simulator 2 (or Kudere Simulator 4)
Phew! What a relief!
https://www.geekwire.com/2023/unity-exec-marc-whitten-shares-apology-letter-following-backlash-to-controversial-licensing-policies/
Just like he said