Details
Unity software is distributed on a subscription model with pricing plans that determine the payment terms. Unity Personal and Unity Plus subscribers will pay $0.20 for each download if their projects have been downloaded at least 200,000 times in a year and have earned at least 200,000 US dollars over the same period. For Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise subscribers, the fee will be $0.15 and $0.125 respectively, once reaching 1 million downloads and revenue of at least 1 million US dollars.
Following this announcement, players and developers had questions regarding how exactly these calculations would be performed. Company representatives issued a statement attempting to provide more clarity — according to them, 90% of developers will not be affected at all: “the program is intended only for those who have achieved significant success.” They also clarified the details of the fee calculation:
- Payment will be a one-time fee for each unique device — if a user installs the same game on the same computer several times. However, if one user installs a single game on several different computers, the fee will have to be paid multiple times;
- pirated installs are not counted;
- browser games, automatic installs, trial and demo versions are not counted;
- charity installs are not counted;
- game installs via Xbox/PC Game Pass and PS Plus subscriptions are paid for by Microsoft and Sony respectively.
Total mess
Such an explanation only caused further bewilderment. According to developers, it is impossible to track all aspects of installations — separating legal installs from pirated ones, for example. In response, Unity stated that they have proprietary systems and databases that allow them to do so. They refused to provide more details, which only fueled suspicions.
Online, many users unleashed a storm of criticism against the company and its CEO — John Riccitiello. People recalled his past achievements and statements — it was under Riccitiello's leadership that loot boxes were introduced to the FIFA series, and he had also proposed charging players $1 to reload weapons in Battlefield. It is Riccitiello's tyranny that people associate with Unity's dubious venture. Once before, his antics led Electronic Arts' financial situation into a sorry state. Now history is repeating itself.
Information surfaced regarding the company's shares — the head of Unity had been “dumping” them over the past few months, and then cheaply bought options to buy them back. Riccitiello could face prison time for this. This led many to believe that this entire Unity Runtime initiative is nothing more than a scam.
This was reinforced by rumors that Unity would agree to waive the fee if game developers agreed to use the Unity LevelPlay Mediation in-game ad platform.
Amid these changes, many company employees decided to leave. Former employee Jono Forbes claims that many at Unity opposed this business model, but the company's management did not listen to them.
However, it did not end with criticism alone — Unity management began receiving death threats. This forced them to temporarily close two of their offices. A few days later, the police concluded that these threats were sent from inside the company by one of its employees — the investigation is ongoing.
Less than a week later, Unity walked back its words — as early as September 18, they stated the following: “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 days. Thank you for your honest and critical feedback.” As a result of an emergency meeting held, Unity shared the updated terms:
- The company will cap the fee at 4% of a game's revenue for clients generating more than one million dollars;
- To determine thresholds, the company will only count installs made from January 1, 2024 onwards. This means that developers will not have to pay large sums if their games previously exceeded the threshold;
- Developers will self-report installation data to Unity. Previously, the company planned to collect this information independently using proprietary tools.
What additional terms they will come up with remains anyone's guess.
Impact on the industry
At the moment, the engine created by Unity is one of the most widely used in the industry — thousands of developers, large and small, build their projects on it. For instance, the wildly popular Genshin Impact or the game Gedonia, created by a solo Russian developer. If the gamble succeeds, the gaming industry is in for changes for the worse — it won't be long before other companies follow suit, even though many of them initially promoted their engines against the backdrop of the fallout.
In that case, a widespread increase in game prices should be expected — ordinary users are always the ones footing the bill for such a banquet. Free-to-play projects will also suffer — developers complain that with a high number of installs they have low profit margins, making it impossible to pay the fee without plunging deeply into the red. And the way out of this predicament will once again be higher prices for players — in this case, on in-game items.
Letters from studios that refused to work with Unity (source)
The indie segment will also suffer significant damage — everyday developers will face difficulties finding accessible software. Furthermore, the very process of migrating to a new engine causes difficulties — there are few specialists on the market well-versed in less popular software.
No matter how the situation resolves, avoiding changes entirely won't be possible. Due to experienced employees leaving Unity, the quality of services provided by the company will noticeably decline. Developers are already switching to other engines — Godot, for example — and their numbers will only grow in the future — despite all the challenges associated with the need to retrain. Other studios are preparing a class-action lawsuit against Unity.
Conclusion
Unity leadership made perhaps one of the most foolish decisions in industry history — absolutely everyone will suffer from this initiative: players, developers, publishers, and the company itself. The initiative raised too many questions that the company was unable to clearly answer, while the rumors surrounding stock dumps and the advertising platform dealt an even harder blow to what remained of its reputation. As a result, in less than a week, the company began to backtrack, but it does not appear set on canceling the initiative altogether.
John Riccitiello shot Unity in the foot and possibly put himself at risk of criminal charges. Due to the CEO's overconfidence or tyranny, developers may abandon Unity — leading to the death of the game engine. After all, there is no shortage of competitors on the market.