Unity Technologies has made a major change to how it charges developers for using its engine. Starting January 1, 2024, Unity will begin charging a fee for every time a game is installed, with fees dependent on which subscription to Unity a developer has. Once a game has surpassed a threshold of $200,000 in revenue and 200,000 installs and are in either the Unity Personal or Unity Plus subscription tier, a "Unity Runtime Fee" will be applied to the development team. Those subscribed to Unity Pro, which is a tier that Unity will soon be retiring, or Unity Enterprise, will instead be charged fees once a game has made $1,000,000 and has been installed 1,000,000 times.

Depending on which tier a creator is a part of, these new changes could see developers charged as much as $0.20 every single time a game is installed by a user after the threshold is surpassed. It has been confirmed that if an owner of a game were to install a game, delete it, and redownload it, it would cost the developer money, if they were already past the limit. This will also retroactively apply to already released games as well.

Smaller developers have expressed their concerns over these changes, with some concerned about how pirated game installs will cost them, the impact it will have on free to play titles, or that Xbox Game Pass installs will also count, and have the potential to see smaller companies put at risk because of it.

SIGH pic.twitter.com/YgJEKGVQEI

— AGGRO CRAB (@AggroCrabGames) September 12, 2023

Additionally, Unity's own CEO, John Riccitiello, sold 2,000 shares of the company stock just prior to the announcement of the new Unity Runtime Fees.

 

[SkittleDash]

That's absolutely ridiculous. Unity can go fuck themselves. Indie devs in particular have enough on their plate as it is.

 

[Kitocco]

Really cool seeing the mob-boss, military-cooperative arc Unity's on lately

"WE gave you OUR engine and we're gonna fucking GET our dues one way or another"

 

[Dark_Ansem]

Who exactly comes with these stupid ideas at unity hq? And how much analytics spyware is packaged with no opt out?

 

[wiired24]

It’s either Godot or Unreal Engine for me going forward. I’m done with Unity. Install fee… Yeah big nope for me lol

 

[x65943]

I wish there were more options so devs could fight this

But they know they will get their money

 

[porkiewpyne]

*sigh* And this is why we can never have nice things :\

 

[Chary]

This is the first time where the "pirated game installs take away money from innocent devs" argument could work...

 

[SS4]

RIP unity . . .
It might take out some devs while it crash and burns sadly . . .

 

[NinStar]

This is what you get when you decide to use proprietary software to develope your games.

 

[N10A]

I could see this being used to harass devs, imagine if all the people who review bomb games decided to just download a game over and over again. Instead of just getting a bad reputation for a month at most, people could actually get laid off if the effect is big enough. I don't think basically handing direct control of a companies finances over to the internet is a good idea.

Edit: I wonder if this is an attempt to force devs to monetize their games more and effectively take a cut of said revenue? That one quote by the CEO or whoever comes to mind. Now you really would be kind of an idiot not to add micro transactions.

 

[DarkCoffe64]

I remember when that motherfucker Riccitiello once said like "If you don't fill your game to the brim with monetization and such, you're an idiot" or something along those lines.
Well, guess that guy and unity can both go fuck themselves now, good job ruining everything for everyone.

 

[Lazyboss]

Unity did it, then other gaming engines companies will follow, developers can't get fucked alone so they will increase the games price even more, and who's going to eat all that shit alone? Us the consumers.

 

[Guacaholey]

It’s either Godot or Unreal Engine for me going forward. I’m done with Unity. Install fee… Yeah big nope for me lol

Yeah Godot is great. The lack of console support is a shame, but you can always just port your game over the old fasioned way.

 

[AlexMCS]

This is what you get when you decide to use proprietary software to develope your games.

Sadly, this.
If you don't develop your own engine, get ready to be charged for it eventually.

Use FOSS with the correct license, (like MIT - Godot FTW) if you must, never closed source arcane stuff.

 

[antiNT]

This news deeply saddens me.

 

[GunzOfNavarone]

That seems ridiculous and it also seems that the price of unity developed games would have to increase to the consumer. Either that or devs stop using Unity and games production suddenly takes a slump.

 

[Ryab]

View attachment 393553​

Unity Technologies has made a major change to how it charges developers for using its engine. Starting January 1, 2024, Unity will begin charging a fee for every time a game is installed, with fees dependent on which subscription to Unity a developer has. Once a game has surpassed a threshold of $200,000 in revenue and 200,000 installs and are in either the Unity Personal or Unity Plus subscription tier, a "Unity Runtime Fee" will be applied to the development team. Those subscribed to Unity Pro, which is a tier that Unity will soon be retiring, or Unity Enterprise, will instead be charged fees once a game has made $1,000,000 and has been installed 1,000,000 times.

Depending on which tier a creator is a part of, these new changes could see developers charged as much as $0.20 every single time a game is installed by a user after the threshold is surpassed. It has been confirmed that if an owner of a game were to install a game, delete it, and redownload it, it would cost the developer money, if they were already past the limit. This will also retroactively apply to already released games as well.

Smaller developers have expressed their concerns over these changes, with some concerned about how pirated game installs will cost them, the impact it will have on free to play titles, or that Xbox Game Pass installs will also count, and have the potential to see smaller companies put at risk because of it.

https://twitter.com/AggroCrabGames/status/1701691036832309260

Additionally, Unity's own CEO, John Riccitiello, sold 2,000 shares of the company stock just prior to the announcement of the new Unity Runtime Fees.

Shit like this is why I was never a fan of Unity. They just keep making changes that piss people off. Doesnt help that every god damn engine update breaks my projects.

Post automatically merged: Sep 13, 2023

Yeah Godot is great. The lack of console support is a shame, but you can always just port your game over the old fasioned way.

That is more due to the console SDKs not working with the model that Godot uses. Open source stuff does not mix well.

EDIT: apparently they are working on console support.

 

[Marc_LFD]

Mob boss gotta get his commission.

 

[chrisrlink]

how good of games can godot do? then again isn't it under that license where you can't profit since it's open source and free?