'Raises Barrier For Indie Devs': Unity Receives Backlash For New Runtime Fee

Unity, the game engine by Unity Technologies, which powers games like Rust, Hollow Knight, and Pokémon Go has introduced a new fee for developers, through its blog. The fee is set to take effect next year, January 1 onwards. The Unity Runtime Fee is based on the number of users installing games built on the engine and will kick in after developers cross specific revenue and install thresholds. 

It has been revealed that for those on Unity Personal or Unity Plus plans, the fee will kick in after a project crosses $200,000 in revenue over 12 months and 200,000 total installs. For developers operating on the Unity Pro or Unity Enterprise licenses the fee will kick in after a game earns $1 million over the 12-month period and passes a million installs. 
 

Developers In India May Have To Pay Less Than Devs in Europe and North America

Unity Personal and Unity Plus devs will have to pay $.20 for every game installed. Unity Pro devs will have to pay between $.02 and $.15 for every install past theirs, and Unity Enterprise devs’ costs range from $.01 to $.125. However, developers in emerging markets will have lower costs per install past their threshold. Unity has taken into account the variability of game monetisation between first-world countries like North America and developing gaming regions such as India. Developers from emerging nations will have lower costs per install past their threshold.

"Yes, this is a price increase and it will only affect a small subset of current Unity Editor users," Unity in its statement. "Today, a large majority of Unity Editor users are currently not paying anything and will not be affected by this change. The Unity Runtime fee will not impact the majority of our developers."

"The developers who will be impacted are generally those who have successful games and are generating revenue way above the thresholds we outlined in our blog. This means that developers who are still building their business and growing the audience of their games will not pay a fee. The program was designed specifically this way to ensure developers could find success before the install fee takes effect."

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Unity's New Fee Leads To Outcry In The Gaming Community
 

However, the new fee has not been received well by the worldwide gaming community, especially the creators. Unity has not revealed its plans pertaining to pirated titles and excess installs that are carried out maliciously. Rust developer Garry Newman took to Twitter to share a list of concerns regarding Unity's fee. "Unity can just start charging us a tax per install? They can do this unilaterally? They can charge whatever they want? They can add install tracking to our game? We have to trust their tracking?" he wrote. 

Most users deem the fee to be harsh on indie developers and some have also blamed it for disrupting the gaming community. "Unity wants to charge developers up to 20 cents per install...If I switch to Unreal, how can I be sure that Epic won't implement a similar fee, positioning itself as a saviour of the indie gaming industry by charging 5 cents less?" tweeted someone from the team of settlement builder & resource management game The Settlings.

Unity had shared in the blog post about its decision to charge a flat fee for each install, including re-installs. However, Stephen Totilo, who's part of the gaming newsletter Axios shared on Twitter that Unity has re-thought its decision about the re-installation charges.  "I got a major update from Unity about their new fees - Unity "regrouped" and now says ONLY the initial installation of a game triggers a fee - Demos mostly won't trigger fees - Devs not on the hook for Game Pass," he wrote. 

Reports also emerged more recently that Unity has made certain tweaks to its policy to combat instal-bombing, which is a venting tactic that involves deleting and re-installing a game multiple times to invoke extra fees for the developers. Unity Create president Marc Whitten told Axios that Unity will now only charge for an initial installation. An extra fee, however, will be charged when a player installs a title on a second device. Moreover, developers who distribute their game through a subscription service would not have to pay the Runtime Fee. In the case of Xbox Game Pass, that fee would be charged to Microsoft.