What Does The Unity Runtime Fee Apocalypse Mean For Android Gaming?

droidgamers.com:

The biggest story in the gaming world this week is developers reacting with fury to the announcement of the Unity Runtime Fee. Many well-respected developers, including Garry Newman (the Garry of Garry’s Mod), and Slay The Spire Developers <a href=«https://twitter.com/MegaCrit/status/1702077576209207611?ref_src=» https:>Mega Crit

, have voiced their strong objections to the changes in the popular game engine’s pricing structure.

We’re here to speculate on where it leaves us in the Android gaming community.

So, what’s all the fuss about with Unity? Well, the recent uproar comes from a recent change in its pricing structure, called the ‘Unity Runtime Fee’.

Up until this point, the Unity Engine’s pricing structure has been relatively straightforward. Up to $100K in sales or funding and it’s free to use, between $100K and $200K requires Unity Plus, and beyond that requires at least a Unity Pro license, which costs around $2000 a year.

The change would make the personal edition available to anyone, regardless of the sales, but there’s a catch. After a certain threshold of earnings, and installations of the game, the Unity Runtime Fee kicks in.

Once the Unity Runtime Fee is… running, the developer has to pay Unity every time someone installs the game, whether the game was purchased for money or not.

As an Android site, we’re of course asking the question… how could this affect Android games? Now, if you’re someone who knows much about the current trends of mobile gaming, you can probably see why a system that charges per installation might hit a lot of mobile devs hard.

The free-to-play model is quite a huge one on our beloved platform, and many developers, particularly gacha developers, release games aware that many players