Unity’s Controversial Business Model Changes: Developers Express Anger and Concern

2023-09-13 05:09:02
The authors of the Unity game engine recently announced changes to the business model, causing anger among developers. Starting January 1, 2024, game creators will need to pay a Unity Runtime Fee commission, which will be relevant for all projects created on the engine. The commission will appear after the authors earn a certain amount and exceed a specific number of installations. For Unity Personal and Unity Plus subscriptions, we are talking about earnings of 200 thousand dollars per year and at least 200 thousand installations. For Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise – $1 million per year and at least 1 million installations. After this, the commission will need to be paid for each new installation of the game, and this also applies to reinstallations of a particular project – as well as installations of the same creations on different devices. All this affects the installation of demo versions and free games. The size of the commission will depend on the tariff plan that a particular developer has chosen. This entire program is supposedly aimed at the development of Unity. Unity representatives tried to clarify the situation, saying that the program was primarily designed for large authors with earnings levels exceeding the thresholds indicated in the table – but this did not stop the wave of indignation in the industry. The developers noted that the increase in installations may be due to discounts on the game or adding it to a subscription like Game Pass, and not the initial success – and it turns out that for the new Unity system this difference will not be taken into account anyway. In this case, a small team creating a game in Unity can quickly go bankrupt. There is also a danger that the system will take into account pirated installations of projects. In particular, the authors of Among Us from Innersloth expressed their disapproval of the program. According to the developers, the initiative will harm not only themselves, but also many other colleagues. The developers from the Aggro Crab studio, whose project Another Crab’s Treasure will appear in the Xbox Game Pass subscription in 2024, also spoke about potential problems. The authors call on Unity to reconsider the changes, but the company has not yet changed its position. It’s possible that the growing outrage among game developers will eventually force her to change her mind.
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