Unity, one of the most popular engines for creating video games, is struggling to clarify how its services will work after announcing on Tuesday morning that the game development community is broadly upset.
Why it matters unity
Fees, which Unity has said are necessary for the financial support of its technology development, have left many game developers wondering whether they will have to spend more money from their earnings when using Unity to maintain a hit game.
Developers spent all day Tuesday mulling over switching to rival Epic Games’ Unreal Engine or other services on Xbox, formerly known as Twitter.
But by Tuesday evening, Unity’s executive Mark Whitten was updating Axios on the company’s policies, potentially addressing some concerns raised by game developers.
Details: Tuesday morning’s announcement of a new “runtime fee” connected to a player’s game installation is an action that developers previously didn’t have to pay for.
With Unity’s new plan, developers using Unity’s free development services will have to pay Unity $0.20 per installation up to a limit of 200,000 downloads and $200,000 in revenue earned from their game.
Developers paying more than $2,000 per year for Unity Pro will have a higher limit and pay lower fees.
The new fee system will begin in 2024.
Yes, but: Game developers, rallying on Xbox, immediately began to be upset that any game, whether it’s a big seller, included in a charity bundle, or even because it’s part of a popular subscription service like Microsoft’s Game Pass, will incur extra charges for installations. Triggering a backbreaking Unity fee.
“Stop it,” Hit Among Us maker InnerSloth tweeted Tuesday night. “Not only will this affect us, but all budget and size friends game studios.”
Another studio, Aggro Crab, called on Unity to reconsider its plans, fearing that its next game, which is set to be released to 25 million customers on Game Pass, could be charged a fee that “could endanger our business’s viability.”
Plot: Unity has struggled to clarify its policies on fees and fought to change them in a major case.
Zoom in: After telling Axios on Tuesday morning that a player installing, uninstalling, and reinstalling a game would incur several fees, Unity’s Whitten told Axios that the company would only charge for the initial installation.
(Unity has told Axios that it has “collected” Unity for discussion on this issue.)
He hoped that this would eliminate concerns about “installation bombardment,” where an angry user could delete and reinstall a game to collect fees from a developer.
But if a user installs a game on another device, such as Steam Deck, after installing the game on a PC, additional charges will be applied.
Between the lines: Whitten estimates that only 10% of Unity’s developers will have to pay any fees, given the need to hit a game.
What they’re saying: “With this, our main point is just to make sure we have the right price exchange so we can continue to invest in our core mission to provide the best tools to make people great in games,” Whitten said.
“Getting a bunch of angry responses on a particular day isn’t fun. And I think we’ve got some points to clarify.”