Unity is removing its controversial “runtime fees” immediately, returning to the “seat-based subscription model” that previously funded the game creation tool.
“After deep consultation with our community, customers, and partners, we have made the decision to cancel Runtime Fees for our gaming customers, effective immediately. Non-gaming customers will not be impacted by this change,” Unity CEO Matt Bromberg announced.
“I've been able to connect with many of you over the last three months and have heard time and time again that you want a strong Unity and that you understand that price increases are a necessary part of what allows us to invest to move the gaming industry forward. But these increases don't have to come in some new and controversial form. We want to deliver value at a fair price in the right way so that you feel comfortable building your business with Unity as your partner for the long term.”
Runtime fees are being waived immediately, while other changes will come later this year with the release of Unity 6. Unity Personal will remain free, after which the revenue threshold at which it must be paid will increase from $100,000 to $200,000, and the “Made With Unity” splash screen will be optional in Unity 6. Unity Pro and Enterprise subscription pricing and revenue thresholds will change on January 1, 2025.
Unity’s runtime fees would charge developers money every time their games were installed — typically around $0.20 — and would be applied retroactively to all games that used the engine. This meant that if you published a game using Unity five years ago, you would suddenly start paying costs every time a player installed the game. Tracking install numbers would also be guesswork, and the ability to detect “fraudulent” installs would be limited.
The change immediately sparked controversy, with several developers, like Among Us creators Innersloth, planning to leave the platform. Nobody liked the fees, nobody liked the potential abuses, and nobody liked that Unity could retroactively change its terms—so if you took on the multi-year project of developing the game using the toolset, there was no guarantee that you wouldn't end up paying a lot more than you expected because Unity had changed the rules in the meantime.
Unity quickly began to retract or clarify the changes, excluding Unity Personal from the fees and allowing developers using older versions of Unity to stay on their current terms. These changes did little to address developers' concerns.
Not long after, Unity CEO (and former EA CEO) John Riccitiello retired with immediate effect. Matt Bromberg was appointed as Unity's new CEO in May of this year.
Speaking to Game Developer , Bromberg called the changes part of a plan to “become a fundamentally different company. Whether that's enough to win back developer trust, I don't know. I wouldn't stake my job on it.”