3 communication lessons to learn from Unity's Runtime Fee

The video game software developer Unity has recently experienced a tumultuous month. After announcing significant changes to its pricing model - changes that had the potential to financially strain a significant portion of its user base - Unity witnessed an approximate 8% decrease in its stock price (as of writing). Subsequently, they issued an apology, reversed some of the alterations, and left many customers feeling cautious and skeptical.

Without delving into excessive detail (as the situation may evolve), these changes would see developers pay a flat fee every time players installed a game made in Unity. Some immediate problems that game developers noted were that many free-to-play games would become unsustainable, as only a small portion of their installs translate to revenue.

Furthermore, developers would become susceptible to "install-bombing" attacks, where malicious users could buy their games and install them over and over to increase their bills.

This pricing model seems problematic. But I'm not a game developer and don't work at Unity, so I can't say for sure. Some may say these changes were necessary for the company. Others might argue that nothing could justify this. What I can say without a doubt is that Unity could have communicated this new pricing model much better.

Specifically, I think their announcement had three serious problems that every company should avoid when talking directly to their customers, especially when communicating decisions that could have profound impacts on their businesses. First, it seems not to know who its audience is. Second, it isn't sufficiently informative. And third, it makes no effort to build trust. I want to go over each of these points separately.

1) Know who you're talking to

Before you start communicating anything, you need to know who you're communicating with. Not knowing that is like walking in the woods in pitch-black darkness: you're bound to trip and hurt yourself.

The fact that Unity seemed not to realize the impact that this pricing model could have on many of their users suggests that they don't know who their users are.

It could also mean that Unity doesn't care about who they are. They know that the costs of porting projects to other platforms are too high, and so users are mostly "locked in" to their software, so they don't need to account for how these changes could impact them. But I don't want to assume that's the case.

Given that the new pricing could put many of Unity's customers out of business, it should have been communicated in a much more delicate and considerate way. For many developers, Unity's changes would mean canceling projects, pivoting to new workflows, and radically altering their routines. This kind of news necessitates a unique approach. Not some generic "exciting-changes-are-coming" style of writing.

2) Be as informative as your customers demand you to be

Unity's introduction of the Runtime Fee was oddly vague, especially given the magnitude of the change. This left many developers uncertain about how the new pricing model would impact them.

Would it be necessary to add any code to their project to allow Unity to track the number of installations? If so, would they need an end-user license agreement, since the software will send data from the user's device to an external server? Was their business model still viable? If they were years into the development of a project in Unity, should they switch to a different platform? Unity's announcement didn't allow them to answer those questions.

When a company makes such a profound shift in its business model, it must anticipate and address the concerns of its existing customers. Unity's announcement should have cleared up some of these questions, preferably through a comprehensive FAQ document and a dedicated channel for clarifying anxieties about the new model.

Without any of those, the changes come off as absolutely unilateral. They seem not to account for their customers' need for information. They also leave users no choice but to take their questions to the company's social media channels, making their confusion more public than it needs to be.

The fact that Unity responded to their community's outcry is commendable, but it doesn't solve the problem. If anything, rolling back part of the pricing model can make the changes even harder to understand.

3) Make every possible effort to build trust

Game development is often a lengthy process, involving years of planning, creation, coding, and testing. This journey is frequently undertaken under precarious financial circumstances. If you've spent the last two years making a game, and Unity's new pricing model makes your game unsustainable, then your two years of work have been thrown away.

One common reason why people choose a tool for their job is that they trust the tool. If the software you rely on starts crashing all the time, that trust starts to crack. The same thing goes for Unity's radical changes to their pricing model.

Even if Unity did roll back the changes completely, it wouldn't fully mend the situation; trust has already been shattered. Developers will think twice about starting a new project with Unity. They may even consider porting existing projects to other platforms, just to be safe from other sudden, game-changing new policies.

Can Unity build that trust back? Yes, but it won't be easy. It would have been much easier to consider this aspect when communicating these changes. For one, their initial announcement could have acknowledged that these were big changes that could heavily impact some of their users. It would have been a decent first step.

An even better approach would have been to avoid making these changes have retroactive effect. This would limit their impact to projects initiated after the announcement, allowing customers to make more informed decisions going forward.

Even if they insisted on making the changes have a retroactive effect, it would have been nice if Unity gave users alternatives. They could have offered other payment options for smaller studios or even a trial period to test how the new pricing would work out for them. Unity did none of that.

TL;DR

When implementing significant changes to your pricing model, effective communication is vital. It's crucial to understand your customers and how these changes may impact them. Questions will inevitably arise and you need to be able to respond to them quickly, clearly, and individually, if possible.

More importantly, always remember that your customers' trust is one of your business's most valuable assets, and you should strive to preserve it as much as possible.