Unity Announced Changes in Business Model; Developers are in Outrage

Unity engine is one of the most popular engines in the gaming industry, with millions of developers and thousands of companies using it to create their games. Today, Unity Technologies, the company that makes the engine, announced changes to the business and monetization models of Unity. Their release reads:

“Today we announced a change to our business model which includes new additions to our subscription plans, and the introduction of a Runtime fee. We wanted to provide clarifying answers to the top questions most of you are asking.

Yes, this is a price increase and it will only affect a small subset of current Unity Editor users. 

Today, a large majority of Unity Editor users are currently not paying anything and will not be affected by this change. The Unity Runtime fee will not impact the majority of our developers. 

The developers who will be impacted are generally those who have successful games and are generating revenue way above the thresholds we outlined in our blog. This means that developers who are still building their business and growing the audience of their games will not pay a fee. The program was designed specifically this way to ensure developers could find success before the install fee takes effect.

We want to be clear that the counter for Unity Runtime fee installs starts on January 1, 2024 - it is not retroactive or perpetual. We will charge once for a new install; not an ongoing perpetual license royalty, like revenue share.

We looked for ways to lessen the impact on developers, and provide ways to bring the Runtime fee to zero. If you’re using any of our ad products, Unity Gaming Services or cloud services, etc. please contact us to discuss discounts.

We are actively listening to and following your questions closely. Please review our FAQ (https://on.unity.com/3PAiqHH) on today’s announcement. We also invite you to continue to discuss these changes with us on our forums: https://on.unity.com/3RmyLRx.”

Many people pointed out the vagueness of how the installs will be tracked and that the pirated copies could influence this number, to which Unity replied with a copy-pasted statement:

Another worrisome point for many developers was that this system would apply retroactively to previously released games.

There are several fighting games developed on Unity, like Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid, Punch Planet, and Fantasy Strike, and it’s yet unclear how this new monetization system will affect these games.

As of writing, Unity has not responded to the community backlash yet.