Unity has been embroiled in controversy all week ever since it announced drastic, sweeping changes to its entire business model that had the potential to completely kill any shot at profitability and success for developers using its previously beloved open-source game engine, particularly smaller-scale indie developers.
In light of this, Unity has issued a statement and made changes to its much-derided policy. Chief among these changes is that the threshold required before fees are incurred has been doubled to $200,000, and no game with revenue below $1 million in a 12-month span will be subject to the fee.
Importantly, the fee will now only apply to new versions of Unity, beginning with the one that will be shipped next year, rather than being retroactively applied to all past game releases and projects already in development. It is worth noting, however, that Unity still retains the right to change this policy at any time.
Is Unity Already Too Far Gone?
If you missed the news, in the changes made to the engine’s terms of use, any download for a game past a certain amount and past a certain income threshold would incur a fee to Unity. Unfortunately, this change could have a lot of negative consequences, with developers worried about the potential for download campaigns that kill their revenue, pirated copies counting as downloads and thus incurring fees without income, and overly high fees that could outpace any potential revenue for free-to-play games.
Many developers were not only upset by the changes but felt betrayed by the announcement that they would be implemented so suddenly and after the fact. While Unity has scaled back its plans to a degree, it remains to be seen whether this will be enough to earn back the trust that was lost by such a sudden and drastic change.
Also read: Cult of the Lamb Developers Draw Attention to Unity Debacle by Fooling Fans and Media
In an attempt to curtail this damage to a degree, Marc Whitten, the leader of the team for Unity Create, has issued an apology for the debacle. You can read the statement he issued below:
We should have spoken with more of you and we should have incorporated more of your feedback before announcing our new Runtime Fee policy. Our goal with this policy is to ensure we can continue to support you today and tomorrow, and keep deeply investing in our game engine.
We have heard your concerns, and we are making changes in the policy we announced to address them.
It was also mentioned that Unity Personal will remain free and that runtime fees will not be incurred at all for users using that version of the software. The cap, as stated above, has been doubled from $100,000 to $200,000, and the requirement of a “Made with Unity” splash screen will also be removed.
Related: Popular Game Engine Unity is No Longer Free and This Could Spell Disaster in 2024
The open letter reads:
We will make sure that you can stay on the terms applicable for the version of Unity editor you are using – as long as you keep using that version
To follow this, it is stated that developers who do incur the runtime fees will have the choice of either a flat 2.5% revenue-share plan or a number calculated “based on the number of new people engaging with [their] game each month.”
Both numbers will be self-reported based on data developers already have access to, and Unity has stated that the company will always bill whichever amount is lower, depending on the circumstances of the software in question.
How do you feel about these changes to Unity’s new policies? Do you feel the company has made up for its mistake or that the damage it has done to developer trust will be permanent? Let us know in the comments and on our social media feeds!
Source: Unity Open Letter
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