Unity’s New Fees Creates Overnight Uproar Among Game Developers

gameranx.com:

Unity has announced changes to their pricing model, which has led to furor among developers. Is it possible that some of these concerns stem from confusion, or are there valid points that they have to consider too?

In their initial blog, Unity explains the main shift in pricing. Instead of charging developers who use their engine based on how much money they make, they will get charged based on how many installs they get. The new fee is called the Unity Runtime Fee, and is based on the cost of maintaining Unity Runtime. Unity Runtime is the part of the engine that allows their games to work at scale. So, it’s the reason Unity games can be downloaded in the billions monthly. Unity Create president Marc Whitten explained to Game Developer that Unity Runtime is actually expensive to maintain. The company needs more revenue, for the particular purpose of investing back into Runtime.

Thus far, Unity has not charged rates to developers to use their engine like Epic has for Unreal Engine. Instead, they offer services connected to the Unity engine, such as LevelPlay, their built in ad platform. Developers don’t have to use LevelPlay with Unity, but they get a unified system to work on them if they do, and that’s the case with Unity’s other services.

Now, many developers immediately expressed their concerns to the changed. Both Aggro Crab Games, who are developing Another Crab’s Treasure, and Innersloth, who make Among Us, shared their fears that these changes could make it unfeasible for them to stay in business.

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It should be stated that there may be some confusion on how the fee is actually applied. Unity has had to clarify multiple times, including their blog and forum, that