Last week, nearly everyone in the games business was outraged about the new fee Unity. Developers have raised many questions about this toll proposal. And after a little over a week, Unity announced that they would adjust re the most unpleasant aspects of the fee.
In “open letter” was just announced on September 23, Unity CEO Marc Whitten apologized for the company’s mistakes and outlined a plan for correction. The plan content will include:
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New installation fee (Runtime Fee) will not apply to games developed with Unity Personal or Unity Plus, but only to Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise.
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The free Unity Personal software was previously only available to studios earning less than $100,000 USD in a 12-month period. This threshold has been increased to $200,000 USD.
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Runtime Fee will not apply to games developed on current or earlier versions of Unity, unless the developer migrates the games to a new version released within the next year or future versions.
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Games subject to Runtime Fees (games that have earned $1 million within 12 months and have more than 1 million installs) can opt for a 2.5% revenue share and will always be charged at a low rate more.
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Developers can self-report installs instead of being forced to use Unity’s proprietary data model.
The above changes address the biggest complaints about Runtime Fees. They are no longer retroactive if developers do not port their existing Unity games to the new version of the engine. The revenue sharing option means that developers with free or low-cost games can’t find themselves in a situation where Unity charges them more than their revenue.
Unity has lost the trust of developers. While the above changes make the fee proposition more reasonable, Unity’s surprise announcement last week has put developers on high alert.
