Unity Announces Runtime Fees Will No Longer Exceed 4% Of A Developer’s Revenue

Today, in an all-hands meeting with its staff, Unity Software Inc., the company behind the Unity Engine, announced it’s reversing the most major aspects of the controversial pricing scheme. The current plan is to limit the fees to a total of 4% of a developer’s revenue if they make more than $1 million. Unity also mentioned that it would not include installations of games made prior to this change going live in its threshold requirements. 

These amendments were made because the company came under fire last week. This was after it announced a massive change to its pricing scheme. Unity stated it’d charge customers a runtime fee that’d apply every time a player downloaded a game on their device. After a lot of backlash from game developers, Unity issued an apology. The company stated it’d take the feedback into consideration when making changes.

We have heard you. We apologize for the confusion and angst the runtime fee policy we announced on Tuesday caused. We are listening, talking to our team members, community, customers, and partners, and will be making changes to the policy. We will share an update in a couple of…

— Unity (@unity) September 17, 2023

As initially reported by Bloomberg, these changes have not yet been revealed publically. Marc Whitten, an executive at the company, mentioned that they’re still being run by partners. Unity wants to avoid last week’s communication mess, which led to them needing to clarify multiple times. This only added more fuel to the fire. There were still several concerns regarding the pricing policy, which was fairly disliked to begin with.

One major concern that video game developers had, was how Unity would collect the data to see if a game had reached the required threshold of installations and revenue. Initially, the company claimed it’d use its proprietary tools for this purpose. But this meant developers had no real way of ensuring the data Unity was receiving was correct. They simply had to go with whatever number the company gave.

Whitten has clarified to management that users of the engine would now self-report the data. CEO of Unity, John Riccitiello, also emphasized the point of the policy is to generate more revenue from the engine’s biggest customers. He added that more than 90% of Unity’s users won’t be affected by it. That’s because they simply don’t meet the thresholds put in place to even be eligible for the fees. The CEO also stated: 

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. But, I think we could have done a lot of things a lot better.”

Reportedly, several employees asked what measures Unity has in mind to bounce back from these changes.  At least in terms of user trust. As pointed out by many game developers, choosing an engine for a video game is a massive investment of both time and money. And for Unity to announce such sweeping changes that could drastically affect some studios, is a massive blow to the company’s relationship with its customers.

Related Content:

• Unity Issues An Apology For Its Recent Pricing Change
• Unity Says Distributors Like Microsoft Will Have To Cover New Runtime Costs
• Unity Executives Sell Thousands Of Shares Ahead Of The Highly Controversial Fees Announcement
  

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Executives are seemingly going with a “show, not tell” approach, and plan to choose their words in future communications more precisely. Even with its recent apology, Unity managed to get developers and community members riled up because of the poor wording.  So, it makes sense why they’d want to lay low until they’ve got something definitive to announce.