Unity's controversial Runtime Fee policy was "rushed out", says report
A new report on Unity's recent fee changes claims the policy was «rushed out» and driven by Unity and IronSource's battle with rival tech company Applovin.
One major mobile game publisher is said to have met with Unity's John Riccitiello after the policy announcement and said: «Fuck you, we're not paying».
The report comes from MobileGamer.Biz, with anonymous sources from inside Unity providing fresh details.
Last month Unity updated its fee policy to charge developers per game install, which was met with fury from across the development community.
A report at the time from MobileGamer.Biz claimed Unity was offering a fee waiver if developers switched to its own mediation platform, instead of using rival AppLovin.
Unity later rolled back on some of its controversial plans, including dropping the fee for any developer using Unity Personal or Unity Plus, in addition to two thresholds: making $1m in gross revenue and hitting 1m installs.
According to this new report, the company's long-term profitability and falling share price were a deciding factor in the new Runtime Fee policy. And while there was resistance from within Unity, those concerns were ignored as many staff were unaware of the changes.
Sources said a large group of senior Unity managers met to discuss the proposed changes and «half of the people» in the meeting said the «model is too complicated» and wouldn't be well received. «It felt very rushed,» said a source. «We had this meeting and were told it was happening, but we were not told a date. And then before we knew it, it was out there.»
Another source discussed competition with Applovin. «Applovin is dominating and Unity tried to use this policy as a forcing agent to try and get back some market
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