Unity, the popular open-source game engine has been surrounded by controversy for the past week after it announced drastic changes to its pricing model. This new model, the Runtime Fee policy was met with huge criticism from the developers and Unity community as it had no scope for profitability or success.
Unity has now backpedaled on its announcement and has brought a revamped pricing structure with several adjustments. These changes were announced by Marc Whitten, head of Unity Create via a letter on the official blog of the company.
Unity Changes Previously Announced Pricing Model After Backlash
In light of the backlash, Unity announced numerous adjustments to its pricing model across its different subscription plans, that is Personal, Pro, and Enterprise. Marc Whitten, the head of Unity Create has issued a statement and apologized to the creators and admitted that the company should have talked to the creators and developers before they went on to announce the policy. The letter began,
“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.”
The letter continued,
“You are what makes Unity great, and we know we need to listen and work hard to earn your trust. We have heard your concerns, and we are making changes in the policy we announced to address them.”
Unity announced that the Personal plan will now be available for free. No fee will be charged for the games built on it. The cap for the use of the Personal plan is also increased from $100,000 to $200,000 along with it, the requirement to use the Made with Unity splash screen is also removed. Other than that, games with less than one million in twelve months of revenue will not be charged any fees.
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Many changes were also announced for the developers on Pro and Enterprise subscription plans. Previously it was announced that the fee would apply to both released games and ones in development that met the required download and revenue thresholds. However, the company has now said that it will only apply to games that will be developed using the next LTS version of the game engine that might launch in 2024.
The company also addressed the criticism it faced from developers as they will not be able to use the TOS that would correspond to their respective version of the game engine. The company had removed the TOS website and changed the terms that applied the fees to developers even before the fees were announced. The announcement read,
“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.”
The company also said that the games subject to runtime fees will have the option of a 2.5% revenue-share plan or amount calculated according to how many new people engaged with the game every month, hence the developers will always be subject to lesser fees. The letter concluded,
“We want to continue to build the best engine for creators. We truly love this industry and you are the reason why.”
This announcement and backtracking on the previously announced Runtime fees seem to have almost all the answers to the developer’s concerns, however, the company may have already gone so far that no announcement or apology could fix the damage done.
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What are your thoughts about these changes? Do you think Unity has already messed up much? Drop your thoughts in the comments!
Source: Unity Blog
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