Twitter, Reddit, and Unity have not been profitable. This was fine when money was cheap (near zero interest rates). The market was awash with capital trying to find something that could turn a profit. A business plan that was basically underpants gnomes (1. Gather underpants 2. ??? 3. Profit!) was acceptable. Twitter’s and Reddit’s 1. was “gather users”, Unity’s “gather projects”. Now money isn’t free anymore, and capital is demanding that these businesses fill in 2. with something. Twitter is doing whatever Musk thinks is good, Reddit is trying to monetize its API to make AIs pay and to serve real users ads through its first party app, and Unity is trying to monetize the projects it has gathered. All of them have been offering a product below cost, and users are understandably angry that the cost is going up. (And in many cases, finding that the product isn’t really worth anything.)
Blizzard is different. It operates in a creative field and has been very profitable. Games are art as much as they are products that are sold. As such, they’re fickle: you can’t assembly line manufacture games and make a hit after hit. Artists in music that turn out bangers decade after decade are rare, as are authors, directors, etc. Blizzard’s streak of awesome games was bound to end eventually. AAA games are also extremely expensive to make: if you make an AAA game, it must be a hit or you’ll lose money. Alternatively, you can use dark patterns to monetize it, then it doesn’t have to be as good to make loads of money. Banking on your creatives to keep beating the odds is risky; infesting a good enough game with scummy monetization is a safer bet.
You’re spot on. The changes we’re seeing are seen as “radical”, as users had previously utilized them on the cheap. Given the recent changes in the overall market, shareholders are making radical demands. So companies have to think of something to pivot.
When we look at video games, we’ve seen micro transactions creep up, a slow boil if you will, so consumers have adjusted to the increases in these “optional” purchases. Video games overall have been largely stagnant in terms of price per copy. Even accounting for inflation, we’ve really only seen a 20 dollar increase over the years for the raw “license” of a game. Then you add in premium packs and other “optional” nonsense and most have just accepted it.
I think where people get heartburn on these things is when you introduce such a whiplash of a change with such short notice. I think even if Unity changed the pricing to 2 cents an install starting 2024, then upped it to 5 cents in 2025 and kept it at an incremental increase, it would have been a better “slow boil.” By going outright with the 20 cents per install for the entry level, the market reacted just as radically as the proposed changes.
While I don’t personally agree with the changes, I can understand through your point why they’re trying it. Late stage capitalism and all that
I think where people get heartburn on these things is when you introduce such a whiplash of a change with such short notice. I think even if Unity changed the pricing to 2 cents an install starting 2024, then upped it to 5 cents in 2025 and kept it at an incremental increase, it would have been a better “slow boil.” By going outright with the 20 cents per install for the entry level, the market reacted just as radically as the proposed changes.
It’s not short notice, it’s negative notice. They’re potentially charging people who haven’t used Unity in years, and had agreed to a completely different set of terms when they did use it. If they’d just made their charges apply to new versions of the engine going forward then people might still have stopped using Unity since it no longer made sense from a business perspective, but there wouldn’t have been the outrage over it that we see now.
The problem is that Unity is trying to change their agreement with their past customers unilaterally to get more money. In that situation, one penny is too much.
You’re absolutely right regarding Unity. And yeah, going back to pilfer your clients piggy banks is horrible optics.
The only times I can think of when a company is justified in retroactively requisitioning cash from a client/business partner is when that client/business partner is either
A) They (client/business partner) failed to honor their end of the agreement
B) They lit your building on fire (i.e. damages)
Barring those two, not really anything else I can think of that warrants a company saying “oh you also owe us more money now based on your past sales.”
When I was thinking of short notice, however, I was thinking Reddit.
I’m still laughing at reddit and the ads thing. They pushed me more into blocking all their ads and tracking even harder, and to patch their official app when I had no choice but to go to reddit. Everything they’ve done has backfired as far as I’m concerned.
It varies from company to company, but when infinite growth becomes unrealistic they get desperate for new revenue and start doing shitty nickel and dime tactics.
More specifically for Reddit thoughts are they realized that these new AI tools had already pilfered all of “their” content and they did not see a cent from it and responded wildly.
Why is this a trend?
Twitter, Reddit, and Unity have not been profitable. This was fine when money was cheap (near zero interest rates). The market was awash with capital trying to find something that could turn a profit. A business plan that was basically underpants gnomes (1. Gather underpants 2. ??? 3. Profit!) was acceptable. Twitter’s and Reddit’s 1. was “gather users”, Unity’s “gather projects”. Now money isn’t free anymore, and capital is demanding that these businesses fill in 2. with something. Twitter is doing whatever Musk thinks is good, Reddit is trying to monetize its API to make AIs pay and to serve real users ads through its first party app, and Unity is trying to monetize the projects it has gathered. All of them have been offering a product below cost, and users are understandably angry that the cost is going up. (And in many cases, finding that the product isn’t really worth anything.)
Blizzard is different. It operates in a creative field and has been very profitable. Games are art as much as they are products that are sold. As such, they’re fickle: you can’t assembly line manufacture games and make a hit after hit. Artists in music that turn out bangers decade after decade are rare, as are authors, directors, etc. Blizzard’s streak of awesome games was bound to end eventually. AAA games are also extremely expensive to make: if you make an AAA game, it must be a hit or you’ll lose money. Alternatively, you can use dark patterns to monetize it, then it doesn’t have to be as good to make loads of money. Banking on your creatives to keep beating the odds is risky; infesting a good enough game with scummy monetization is a safer bet.
You’re spot on. The changes we’re seeing are seen as “radical”, as users had previously utilized them on the cheap. Given the recent changes in the overall market, shareholders are making radical demands. So companies have to think of something to pivot.
When we look at video games, we’ve seen micro transactions creep up, a slow boil if you will, so consumers have adjusted to the increases in these “optional” purchases. Video games overall have been largely stagnant in terms of price per copy. Even accounting for inflation, we’ve really only seen a 20 dollar increase over the years for the raw “license” of a game. Then you add in premium packs and other “optional” nonsense and most have just accepted it.
I think where people get heartburn on these things is when you introduce such a whiplash of a change with such short notice. I think even if Unity changed the pricing to 2 cents an install starting 2024, then upped it to 5 cents in 2025 and kept it at an incremental increase, it would have been a better “slow boil.” By going outright with the 20 cents per install for the entry level, the market reacted just as radically as the proposed changes.
While I don’t personally agree with the changes, I can understand through your point why they’re trying it. Late stage capitalism and all that
It’s not short notice, it’s negative notice. They’re potentially charging people who haven’t used Unity in years, and had agreed to a completely different set of terms when they did use it. If they’d just made their charges apply to new versions of the engine going forward then people might still have stopped using Unity since it no longer made sense from a business perspective, but there wouldn’t have been the outrage over it that we see now.
The problem is that Unity is trying to change their agreement with their past customers unilaterally to get more money. In that situation, one penny is too much.
You’re absolutely right regarding Unity. And yeah, going back to pilfer your clients piggy banks is horrible optics.
The only times I can think of when a company is justified in retroactively requisitioning cash from a client/business partner is when that client/business partner is either A) They (client/business partner) failed to honor their end of the agreement B) They lit your building on fire (i.e. damages)
Barring those two, not really anything else I can think of that warrants a company saying “oh you also owe us more money now based on your past sales.”
When I was thinking of short notice, however, I was thinking Reddit.
TL;DR quantitative tightening
I’m still laughing at reddit and the ads thing. They pushed me more into blocking all their ads and tracking even harder, and to patch their official app when I had no choice but to go to reddit. Everything they’ve done has backfired as far as I’m concerned.
So, you’re saying that Twitter would’ve gone the same way without Musk?
I don’t think it would’ve gone the exact same route, but they would’ve become more aggressive about gaining revenue.
It varies from company to company, but when infinite growth becomes unrealistic they get desperate for new revenue and start doing shitty nickel and dime tactics.
More specifically for Reddit thoughts are they realized that these new AI tools had already pilfered all of “their” content and they did not see a cent from it and responded wildly.
The AI training is one thing, but they are also looking to drive all traffic into their own mobile app and site with their own ads.
All these guys talk to each other, they don’t really have unique ideas
They’re all Disrupters
if everyone is disrupting then no one is disrupting.
Who will disrupt the disruptors?
Disruption to settle into a new norm.