The Unity Engine came out in 2005 and has been a great cross-platform game engine used by many, many indie game developers to create their dream projects. The Ori series, Hollow Knight, Cuphead, Beat Saber, Monument Valley: you know an indie game, Unity’s probably powering it.

The company behind the engine, Unity, are shaking things up with its new fee, but arguably not in a good way. Starting 1st January 2024, Unity will charge developers each time a game using the engine is downloaded; this is what the company is calling a “Runtime fee”. The charge will begin once a game’s sales number reaches a threshold of US$200,000 in revenue over 12 months, or at 200,000 total installs. Charges will be as high as US$0.20 per install. Developers paying over US$2,000 a year for Unity Pro plans will have to hit higher thresholds and will be charged with lower fees.

The chief reason this is happening? Unity said that it wanted to make more money so it could continue to invest in the engine.

“An install-based fee allows creators to keep the ongoing financial gains from player engagement.”

Naturally, developers are angry at this. Here are a few words from Garry Newman, the man behind Garry’s Mod, along with a couple more.

I was wrong. This is how the fees are working out for Rust:

Lifetime we'd have paid them about $410k more. About $40k a year. Last month it would have cost us $2,517.

While this isn't much, here's some stuff I don't like:

– Unity can just start charging us a tax per install?
-…

— garry (@garrynewman) September 12, 2023

Yep, this is the thing to me. We pay for our Pro licenses up-front knowing that any revenue then is ours. That after 2 years of dev they can just add this back-end tax if our game happens to be successful? Nah. pic.twitter.com/AVMU2sBxav

— Tony Gowland – Wishlist Dungeon Golf! (@Tony_Gowland) September 12, 2023

There is no way Unity talked to a single developer before launching this: developing in Unity is now straight-up a financial risk for:

– subscription services
– charity bundles
– piracy
– being f2p/going f2p
– malicious installs
– giveaways

— Rami Ismail (????) (@tha_rami) September 12, 2023

If you're a Unity developing studio, good luck if you ever piss off your userbase. Instead of tanking your Metacritic with a mass review-campaign they can now straight-up tank you financially by organizing a mass install-campaign.

— Rami Ismail (????) (@tha_rami) September 12, 2023

https://t.co/qg6yjZzL1d pic.twitter.com/5IJG9Hzgoc

— Innersloth ? (@InnerslothDevs) September 12, 2023

Heard from inside Unity that the blog post was reviewed for weeks and internal concerns about poor / confusing messaging, Game Pass, etc, were all ignored. It's resignation time for some folks.

Hopefully we will see a walk back. I fear for Unity.#gamedev #IndieGameDev #unity3d

— George Broussard (@georgebsocial) September 12, 2023

As someone who's only developed in Unity, this is bad.
As someone who helps run a publisher with upcoming game pass titles, this is very bad.
As someone who reviews thousands of pitches a year (95% in Unity), this is extremely bad. https://t.co/v3nkKcFtXF

— Brian Wilson (@BlanketsWilson) September 12, 2023

A good number of Southeast Asian developers have voiced their concerns as well, like Toge Productions’ Kris Antoni (Coffee Talk series, Kriegsfront Tactics ). We also got a few Kakuchopurei exclusive quotes from the makers of Kabaret and Gigabash.

Goddamnit Unity!
Your new pricing model is just pure extortion.

And you want it retroactively enforced on past games?! What the hell?

This is a big F-U to all game developers.
We’ll be moving to other game engine alternatives for our future games. Bye Unity

— Kris Antoni – Toge Productions (@kerissakti) September 13, 2023

Check this out. Nice move, Unity. You are killing your own users. What a great business model!

Link to original reddit post in the comment so that twitter algorithm doesn't flag it pic.twitter.com/puRIn3WqBE

— Kris Antoni – Toge Productions (@kerissakti) September 14, 2023

 

“Feels like it’s going to be painful for a lot of indies out there. I’m not sure if Unity will be the best engine for indies moving forward.” – Saqina Latif, producer & co-founder of Persona Theory Games.

 

“I can’t understand the logic behind this. It truly feels like this is a strange decision, led by greed and made at the expense of game developers everywhere. Deeply saddened.” – Sophie Azlan, The Game Awards Future Class 2022 (design, production, journalist)

In spite of all this, there is a shred of hope. According to Unity executive Marc Whitten via Axios, Unity has “regrouped” and said that the initial installation of the game triggers a fee; a one-time charge in other words for one platform. Demos and Game Pass downloads (Xbox, PC) will not trigger the fees. Games offered for charity or included in charity bundles will not trigger the fees. However, Early Access games will be charged for an installation. Given the threshold the games need to hit, only 10% off Unity’s developers will have to pay any fees.

NEW – I got a major update from Unity about their new fees
– Unity "regrouped" and now says ONLY the initial installation of a game triggers a fee
– Demos mostly won't trigger fees
– Devs not on the hook for Game Pass

More here:https://t.co/GCKjEeFtYR

— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) September 13, 2023

Still, the thought of whether having a hit game through Unity Engine would cost them more than they’re earning would be on everybody’s mind. Then again, there is no such thing as a free lunch, as an engine maker will need to find ways to recuperate potential lost costs to keep it afloat.

Is it also a mere coincidence that Unity is currently run by ex-EA CEO and president John Riccitiello, the man who led EA to a more-than-usual money-grubbing path?

John Riccitiello (and apparently other execs) selling shares just before dropping the bomb about new fees that will unilaterally fuck all if not most devs, is one hell of an insider trading dick move

— Anisa Sanusi (on hiatus) (@studioanisa) September 12, 2023

Unity is under extreme pressure to finally become profitable.

Stock dropped from the peak at US$196 in Nov 2021 to to US$39 today.

Meanwhile CEO John Riccitiello, being no fool, has kept selling his company shares and made over US$420 million doing that in the last 3 years. https://t.co/BWqOPw2sqS

— Dr. Serkan Toto / Kantan Games Inc. (@serkantoto) September 13, 2023

Unity wants 108% of our gross revenue
byu/No_Storm7311 inUnity3D