One Year Later, Unity Completely Reverses the Maligned Runtime Fee

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A year ago, Unity Technologies created a huge problem for itself and the developers who operate its game engine: it introduced a nearly universally hated fresh fee tied to installs of a developer’s games. While Unity claimed that the fee change would only affect developers with “successful games” that brought in a lot of revenue, Unity users didn’t see it that way — for those developers, it was a huge risk that could result in financial ruin. The company ultimately rolled back the runtime portion of the fee change by September 22 — which was a petite improvement for some developers.

Now, Unity is completely and immediately removing the maligned fee, the company posted on its website on Thursday“I’ve had the opportunity to engage with many of you over the past three months and have heard time and again that you want a strong Unity and that you understand that price increases are a necessary part of what allows us to invest in game development,” the fresh CEO Matthew Bromberg wrote“But these increases don’t have to take a new, controversial form.”

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Bromberg took over from interim CEO Jim Whitehurst, who took over after previous CEO John Riccitiello resigned weeks after the lead-time fee disaster.

Unity will now operate a “site-based subscription model” for all of its gaming customers, it said, including companies that operate Unity 6. Unity 6 is the latest version of the engine to still have a per-runtime fee. Site-based subscription models typically calculate their price based on the number of people in a company who operate them. Here’s Unity’s plan, straight from a press release.

Unity has announced that it will be making changes to its subscription plans. in 2025, including pricing. (Unity also said it will review pricing annually.)

On social media, developers praised Unity for finally and completely adjusting its pricing model. “Finally” InnerSloth Co-Founder Forest Willard wrote on X. “For the record, Innersloth has already ported our next games from Unity. We found a lot of speed and power in a custom platform on a minimal engine. That said, Among us no longer has to worry about upgrading to next-gen consoles. Thanks for that, Unity.”

Many others have expressed similar sentiments, including the creator of Godot Juan Linietsky“I’m happy that many Unity users no longer have to feel pressured to move to Godot because of this,” he wrote. “I hope that if they do move, it’s because they truly enjoy our work and mission.” Still, many developers—including those who support the move—lament how long it took Unity to make this decision.

In the wake of this disaster, several game engines were created to meet the demand for new options, including the open-source Godot engine, which reportedly “doubled its user base” after Unity’s switch forced developers to look elsewhere. according to the game file. Another engine, GameMaker, has made its engine free for all non-commercial use; it has also adjusted its commercial PC license to a one-time fee. Godot, in particular, has recently received an injection of investment — $15 million in December 2023 — to raise the scale of the engine.

Meanwhile, Unity celebrated 2023 by laying off more than 1,100 people over the course of the year, closing several offices and terminating a contract with Peter Jackson’s Wētā FX. In January, Unity carried out another round of cuts, laying off more than 1,800 people as part of a so-called “corporate reset.” In 2023, Unity hits $2.1 billion in revenuebut was not profitable, posting a net loss of $826.3 million, which was lower than in previous years. The company has never made a profit, but former interim CEO Whitehurst told Game Developer in April that “growing the company to such a size that we will be proud of the profits we make.”

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