Unity revises its controversial Runtime Fee Policy amid backlash from the gaming community
Unity has revised its recent controversial Runtime Fee policy in response to backlash from the gaming community. Under the new model, Unity Personal plan subscribers are exempt from the new fee. The company has also raised the revenue cap for games developed under the Unity Personal plan to $200,000, with games earning less than $1 million annually also being exempt from the fee. The requirement to use the 'Made with Unity' splash screen has also been removed.
For Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise plan subscribers, the updated pricing model (Runtime Fee policy) will only apply to games developed with the upcoming Long Term Support (LTS) version of Unity, due to release in 2024, so already launched games won't be affected by the new policy, unless creators choose to upgrade them to this new version of Unity.
Developers who must pay the runtime fee can choose between a 2.5 percent revenue share or a fee based on new player engagement monthly, effective from 2024. Unity will also allow users to follow the terms of service that correspond to their Unity version, restoring a previously promised but later withdrawn feature. The company is actively working to rebuild trust within the game development community, although many developers seem to be taking this event as an opportunity to start considering more open alternatives like Godot Engine in light of the uncertainty that has arisen.
- Game Development Tool
- Freemium
- Proprietary
Related news
External links
- An open letter to our communityUnity Blog • Official source
- Unity makes major changes to controversial install-fee programArs Technica
- Bowing to pressure, Unity announces the terms of its surrenderEngadget
- Unity May Never Win Back the Developers It Lost in Its Fee DebacleWIRED
- Unity announces its revamped pricing modelThe Verge
Comments
They deserved this backlash 100%. Even after backtracking their plans, the damage to Unity's reputation will remain. It's like they were inspired by Twitter & Reddit's API changes and wanted to try a highly unpopular themselves to see how people would react.
Removal of 'Made with Unity' splash screen requirement is a strange move. Seems to be out of desperation as, out of all the complaints & proposed resolution, this isn't one of them; at least on a notable scale. I don't think that many would mind giving them a little exposure (among other things) for free access to a professional tool.
Also could be to let themselves fade into the background. If most gamers do not know what Unity is, with only devs knowing about it, it'd be harder to ignite a large-scale backlash like this since more effort is going to be wasted explaining Unity's role as a game engine to gamers.
For the backlash to be strong both game developers & gamers need to work together, like we've seen so far.
Or maybe they're thinking about removing this requirement for some time to distance themselves from poorly made low-budget shovelwares. (As good productions can afford the paid version that removes the Unity branding.) Then this backlash came, and they implement this already-planned change as a bargaining chip and make their "sorry" look larger.
On an unrelated note: Even before this debacle, Unity already has bad reputation among gamers as the engine used by poorly optimized shovelware games, especially against Unreal's skyrocketing reputation as a graphics powerhouse. One would think it's not smart at all to tank their own reputation even further. It'd be smart if they do an Intel move and give a little discount to Pro users if they allow the Unity branding to be shown. This way they could associate themselves with well-made game and fix this existing reputation. Well, they got one more reputation now, and it's not a good one either.