Unity U-turns on controversial runtime fee and begs forgiveness

techcrunch.com:

Unity has done a 180 on a controversial new pricing scheme that users of its cross-platform game engine almost unanimously disparaged. A new pricing policy is still incoming, but it’s far less fraught for independent developers, many of whom threatened to leave the engine and platform behind rather than pay.

The changes were announced only last week, and immediately attracted the ire of nearly everyone in the gaming community, prompting a panicked “clarification” soft-pedaling of the “runtime fee” that would be owed with every install of a game past a certain level of revenue. The plan was intensely unpopular, as apart the increased costs many would incur under it, it suggested that the people running the show at Unity were completely disconnected from the community.

Less than two weeks from its debut, however, the runtime fee policy has been almost completely reversed and its architects are abasing themselves before their customers. Unity Create head Marc Whitten posted an apologetic note detailing the changes.

I want to start with this: I am sorry.

We should have spoken with more of you and we should have incorporated more of your feedback before announcing our new Runtime Fee policy.

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.

Under the revised terms, there is no runtime fee whatever for any game developed with a current version of Unity, only for those developers that adopt the latest version in 2024. The free Unity Personal will stay free, and the revenue ceiling above which users must upgrade to the next tier has been raised to $200,000. And above $1 million, users will