Unity buckles to the gaming community's overwhelming criticism over recent decisions and is making changes to parts of a plan to charge developers that use the 3D game engine. Read on to find out what those changes are.
Unity Walks Back on Parts of Controversial Pricing Plan
Runtime Fee To Be for Future Unity Versions Only, No Fee for Small-Time Users
Unity has walked back on changes it planned to implement when it came to charging game developers who used the engine for their services. In a letter penned by Unity Create president Marc Whitten, Unity will only implement a modified version of its planned "runtime fee."
"I want to start with this: I am sorry," Whitten said in a post on the Unity blog, on Saturday. "We should have spoken with more of you and we should have incorporated more of your feedback before announcing our new Runtime Fee policy."
Instead of Unity's original plan for the runtime fee, where users would be charged every time their game was installed, there will be no runtime fees for anyone using the free Unity Personal plan. Those using Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise, meanwhile, will only be charged the runtime fee if they use the Long-Term Support or LTS version of Unity that's coming out in 2024 and beyond.
Even then, they will only be charged either per user or a 2.5% percent revenue share - whichever is cheaper. The calculations will be based on data submitted by the clients themselves.
Revenue Cap for Unity Personal Raised, No More Unity Splash Screen
On top of these changes to the Runtime Fee plan, the revenue caps for those using Unity Personal have also been doubled. Developers will now have to have a revenue of $200,000, up from the originally proposed $100,000, before having to upgrade to one of the paid versions.
Say goodbye to those familiar "Made With Unity" splash screens that are seen in almost every indie game as well. Whitten said those using the Unity Personal plan no longer need to include those in their game.
In addition, no game with less than $1 million in revenue over 12 months will be subject to the fee.
Announcement Follows Backlash Over Controversial "Runtime Fee"
The announcement comes after Unity received backlash over its initial plan to implement its runtime fee, especially from developers who had been using the game engine for years. They raised concerns over how the fee would be calculated, and what this meant for those who released demos of their games, as well as those who made free-to-play games with Unity.
Several indie game developers, most notably Innersloth of Among Us fame and Slay the Spire developer Mega Crit, announced they would be migrating to other game engines for their titles. With trust in the game engine broken once already, we have yet to see whether or not these concessions from Unity will be enough for them and other companies to continue using the engine.
