Unity makes changes to controversial runtime fees after “hearing concerns”
Marc Whitten, the president of Unity Create, has apologised for the oversights regarding the game engine’s new runtime fee and announced the changes that will be put in place.
“I want to start with this: I am sorry,” said Whitten in a post to the company’s official blog. He stated that there was a lack of feedback in the new pricing plan before its announcement and that the next task is to listen to its customers and restore trust again.
“You are what makes Unity great… We have heard your concerns, and we are making changes in the policy we announced to address them,” continued Whitten.
These changes are that those on the Unity Personal or Plus plans will not be affected by the runtime fee policy. Ergo, only those on Unity Pro and Enterprise will be included.
Installs of existing games will not charge the creator and the new pricing plan will only come into effect for games “created with or upgraded to the Long Term Support (LTS) version releasing in 2024 (or later), currently referred to as the 2023 LTS”.
If a game fulfils those two criteria, the runtime fee will be activated once the product has surpassed $1million in gross revenue as well as one million “initial engagements”.
“For games that are subject to the runtime fee, we are giving you a choice of either a 2.5 per cent revenue share or the calculated amount based on the number of new people engaging with your game each month,” explained Whitten. “Both of these numbers are self-reported from data you already have available. You will always be billed the lesser amount.”
In response to the pricing plan, Unity received a death threat from one of its own employees.
After the closure of two of its offices in the interest of safety, the San Francisco Police Department said that the “reporting party informed [them] that an employee made a threat towards his employer using social media”.
In other gaming news, the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority provisionally approved the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, citing “residual concerns”.
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Imogen Donovan
NME
