For those of you somehow not in the loop, Unity has introduced a new so-called "Runtime Fee" that goes into effect starting in 2024. If you're on the Personal or Plus plan of Unity like most indies, then this is how it works.
If your game earned $200'000 or more in 12 months AND had at least 200,000 lifetime game installs, you would need to pay Unity a fee of $0.20 per install.
Look closely at how it's phrased. Not $0.20 per SALE, but $0.20 per INSTALL.
They have specified that this means "initial install" meaning that multiple installs on the same platform/device and install-bombing are hopefully ignored. And they've mentioned now that developers of standalone demos, downloads from charity bundles like Humble Bundle, and subscription services like Xbox Game Pass are exempt from charges (not the distributors though), which is... an improvement, I guess.
Still... I'm not happy about it.
The reason why I and many other indies chose Unity was because of the flat fee. At worst, you had to pay a license fee to Unity every year per seat, and that's that.
Now, not only do you have to pay the flat fee, BUT you also need to pay Unity a fee for every INSTALL. That costs a LOT of money to those who are required to pay, especially when no one planned for this.
It's not even the fee that makes me angry, really. First, I don't meet either threshold. And second, I can at least now plan for it economically.
What gets me is the fact that this came out of Thin. Fucking. Air.
We never agreed to this. We were never told until now that this was going to happen. The trust they've built with the community who loved the company because of their flat and relatively kind pricing is now in tatters.
But hey, maybe we should've expected this to happen since Unity, the company, went public in 2020. Seeing how the CEO and the shareholders have treated the engine since then makes me think that they believe that they have to "maximize shareholder value" rather than "do what is best for the company."
Good job, Unity. You broke everyone's trust in you.👏
If you wanna read more about the whole ordeal and what both Unity and other developers have said, The Guardian has a pretty good report about it.
If you wanna watch me casually vent about this topic, here's a YT short for you!
I have to agree, this is a bizarre decision. If they did want to charge more, what persuaded them to choose installs of all metrics to measure a fee?
I think a purley revenue based fee is definitely the most appealing and fair.
I'd honestly prefer they take a cut from my sales rather than use an install-based metric as well. At least. Shouldn't have done this in the first place, but I wouldn't have minded that much.
Essentially destroying their own platform, their competitors will be watching and seeing how the backlash plays out
Godot and Gamemaker are already making swift power moves and hella memes on Twitter XD
I have a second unannounced project that I am currently porting to Godot. Both because of this scheisse, but also to provide me some actual incentive to learn Godot which I've wanted to do in a while!
For some reason, I stopped wanting to end Randy & Manilla (Well, I will just finish with a few pending things), because it's made also with Unity.
At least in the case of the merger with Ironsource, I understood that it would be my last game made in Unity, but with the installation fees or not being able to access Unity for 3 days without Internet, it is for cancel it.
Definitely a global attack on the video game industry.
I already lost my trust on Unity when they decided to remove Javascript completely from the engine, out of the thin air without any warning. All my old projects are now broken because of this.
That sucks. I get why they got rid of it, since fewer and fewer users were using it and therefore, it felt like it made very little sense to keep supporting it. But I also get that it sucks if you worked hard on something for it to not be supported anymore.