Unity Apologizes and Revamps Proposed Game Engine Fees

Unless you're a game developer, you probably never thought about the Unity game engine beyond seeing the brand on startup splash screens—at least until last week. That's when the previously respected company drew the ire of everyone in the gaming community by announcing a new per-install fee for developers. The backlash was swift and severe, but Unity has now backtracked, posting an apology and new pricing policy on its website.

According to Unity's Marc Whitten, the company made a grievous error by not incorporating developer feedback into its new Runtime Fee policy. The statement goes on to explain that Unity has revamped the upcoming fees to exempt more developers and ensure that those paying fees won't have to pay as much. Whitten also hosted a life Q&A session where he elaborated further on the incident.

Unity's new plan is to leave people using the free Unity Personal plan alone. These folks will be able to continue using the free version of the engine until they make $200,000, doubling the previous cutoff. They won't have to include the Unity splash screen on startup, either. There is still going to be a Runtime Fee for games built using Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise, but only games that have earned at least $1 million in the preceding 12 months will be affected.

The fee won't apply to the current version of Unity at any point. Developers who have already built games can continue normally unless they opt to upgrade to the next version of Unity, which will ship in 2024.

There's one more important change: Devs that do trigger the new fee structure could be billed in two different ways, either a flat cut of revenue or a per-user fee based on monthly usage numbers. The revenue share will be locked at 2.5%, and both sets of numbers are self-reported. So, you could technically lie to Unity, but the company will bill in whichever way is cheaper. Unity also promises to be clear about the terms of each version of the Unity editor upfront.

Previously, Unity planned to charge the flat rate fee for most games based on install numbers, regardless of whether those installs were connected to sales. So, discounted games, giveaways, and piracy would have a real monetary impact on a developer. Most developers balked at the abrupt pricing change, pledging to stop using Unity. Even with the changes, some will probably still steer their future efforts in other directions. The general consensus seems to be positive, but there's no getting back the goodwill that was squandered by Unity's hamfisted first attempt.