[UPDATED] Unity has now officially announced the new Runtime Fee terms, and they're even better than the originally reported rumor.
Firstly, the Unity Personal plan won't require the fee at all, and the annual revenue limit threshold for Unity Personal is being doubled from $100K to $200K. Moreover, users will even be allowed not to include the Made with Unity splash screen in their games.
For the Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise plans, users will choose between a 2.5% revenue share (provided that their game has earned more than a million dollars in a year) and a calculated amount based on the number of new people engaging with the game each month. Whichever is the lowest will be applied, and the numbers will be self-reported. Lastly, the Runtime Fee will only apply to games made with the LTS version due to release in 2024.
For even more details, check out the fireside chat hosted by Jason Weimann featuring Unity's Marc Whitten.
[ORIGINAL STORY] Unity is preparing to announce major changes to its controversial Runtime Fee install policy. Announced last week, it asked all developers who reached specific thresholds to pay a fee for the first game installation on any single device.
The policy sparked a major uproar in the Unity development community, forcing the company to reconsider. While the changes aren't official yet, Bloomberg got hold of a meeting recording where Unity executives outlined the new plan, which reportedly caps the Runtime Fee at 4% of the game's revenues over one million dollars. Developers will also be asked to report the installation figures themselves instead of being forced to deal with Unity's proprietary technology. Lastly, the installation threshold won't be retroactive, so only new installations made after the policy's announcement will count toward reaching the Runtime Fee thresholds.
In the meeting, Unity CEO John Riccitiello reportedly said:
I don't think there's any version of this that would have gone down a whole lot differently than what happened. It is a massively transformational change to our business model.
Whether these changes will be enough to win back the trust of the game development community remains to be seen. GamesIndustry.biz spoke to a few developers who don't really believe they can trust Unity going forward:
Ustwo Games chief creative officer Danny Gray: Even if everything was reverted now, the trust is lost, and it will be difficult for Unity to regain the faith of developers, particularly considering changes to the Terms of Service. Communication is important. Hopefully, this is an opportunity to begin a closer dialogue between everyone involved in making games across all studio sizes to find a solution and a way forward that works for everyone.
Tamara Alliot, CEO of Nerial: Even if they backtrack this time, who's to say they won't do something like this again in the future?
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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