When is it possible to discontinue the Unity 3D paid license?

Question

Lets assume we have created and published in some stores (Steam, Epic, etc) a game made with Unity paid license.

Case 1. The game was soo dull and tedious that we sold less than a thousand copies during a sufficient period (like a year). Our revenue is not even close to the $100K revenue threshold (when at least Unity Plus is required).

Case 2. The game was quite well and reached $100K+ revenue in the past but now we allmost have no sales.

After what term may we downgrade to Personal?

Should we remove our game from stores, leave it as it is or rebuild it using the free engine version and republish?

I'm not trying to fool. The questions are more about situation when you want to quit gamedev hobby or it is too small to pay even $25 monthly for years.

Answer 1

First of all you don't need to unpublish a game, i.e. If you have used a paid Unity license, say "Plus", to build and publish a game, and didn't earn at least 100K+ in the past year, you don't need to unpublish it in order to downgrade to "Personal".

However, if you downgrade to "Personal" and make any modifications to the game that was published using "Plus", the next build will be with the "Personal" license, and the corresponding update published will be a "Personal" version, i.e. with the Unity Splash Screen (no customization), as well as all other "Plus" features removed.

Please refer to Terms of Service:

Article "4.2 Your Content" (you own the content you create, hence you cannot be forced to unpublish something you own)

and

Article "5.3 Subscription Terms" (subscriptions can be cancelled after commitment period). Therefore, if you cancel, you still own the content.

and

Article "6. Compliance" (Unity or its representatives can inspect your systems at your facilities or remotely, so Unity can verify if your revenue/funding corresponds to your active license. Therefore, your active/current license must correspond to your revenue/funding in the last 12 months, in order to comply with the TOS). For more detailed description of the 12 months period see also Tier Eligibility in the Unity Software Additional Terms: "Tier Eligibility is measured for the most recent twelve (12) month period, etc."

Also please refer to the FAQ:

"Do I own the content I create with my subscription? => Yes, you fully own the content you create with a Unity subscription, also if you stop subscribing to Unity."

and

"Will my subscription automatically renew? => .... ... If you do not wish to continue on a flex plan, you can choose expire your subscription after its commitment period. If you choose to expire your plan, your version of Unity will switch to Personal.".

You can always contact Unity Sales to ask them any question directly, they are very helpful: https://unity3d.com/contact/get-in-touch

Answer 2

I'm not a lawyer, I know nothing about what I'm talking about, standard disclaimer. But there's a pretty simple answer to your question:

Assuming that you do not need the Unity 3D paid license for anything else, and that this is your own project:

if you are an individual using the Unity Software, but not providing services to a third party, your Total Finances are the amount generated in connection with your use of the Unity Software. In this case, your Total Finances would not include amounts you generate from other work (for example, if your day job is as a zookeeper). – Terms of Service

This means that you can discontinue the Unity 3D paid license if there's no chance of it giving you that much revenue, e.g. if you make the game gratis (free). If you're not making any money, you don't need to give Unity a share, regardless of how many people have the game! If you don't think you're going to get many more sales on the games, I don't see why you shouldn't make them free (except possibly if it'd make people wait for the game to be free and not buy games from you any more) but I also don't see the point, since if you're not going over the limit anyway you aren't making enough money anyway... but it's the safest route.

Of course, you could go the sadder route and stop selling the game entirely. But isn't the whole point of the 'net that you don't have to do that?