Unity to cancel the runtime fee

It’s almost a year to the day when Unity announced a hugely unpopular new pricing scheme. This would include a runtime fee for use of the Unity Runtime. You can read about it >here<. This news went down like a lead balloon, with many developers disowning Unity on social media. It only took 5 hours before the public outcry caused Unity to start posting in its defence. Clearing up some of the more ambiguous details, and stating they believed a flat fee was fairer than other pricing models. Today they released a statement detailing their plans to cancel the runtime fee.

A year after announcing the introduction of the runtime fee, Unity have backtracked and cancelled it with immediate effect. Instead they are going to return to a seat based licensing model with annual price increases. The revenue ceiling for the free Unity personal edition has been doubled to $200,000 per year, and $2.5 million for the Pro version. The news has been well received, but only time will tell if it can completely undo the damage from last year.

Unity announces it’s going to cancel the runtime fee

Today, Unity announced that it is going to cancel the runtime fee with immediate effect. They posted this in a message to the community which you can read >here<.

They stated that after consultation with the community of Unity developers and partners, they have decided to cancel the runtime fee. Reverting to the seat based licensing model they used previously instead.

The post talks about their core mission to build a world where great games could be built by anyone, for everyone. And that the introduction of the runtime fee had caused conflict between unity and it’s users.

The post then goes on to detail other changes being made at the same time. Before stating that from this point forwards, it’s their intention to continue to invest in improving game development for everyone.

Other changes they are making

Unity personal is going to remain free to use until your revenue hits a certain limit. This limit used to be $100,000 but has been increased to $200,000. The made with Unity splash screen will become optional when the new Unity 6 is released later this year.

If you do break the $200,000 limit, you must upgrade to Unity Pro which will cost you $2,200 per seat. This is an 8% increase over the previous subscription fee.

There is a third tier, Unity Enterprise. But that is only for games which earn more than $25 million per year. I won’t go into too much detail of that one however. I doubt any of us here reading this will ever reach this level of revenue for an indie game.

How developers have reacted.

It’s certainly been a turbulent year for Unity. Many users rather publicly distanced themselves from Unity after the introduction of the runtime fee, including big names like Brackeys.

Whether this change of heart can repair some of the damage done to Unity’s relationship with developers is something only time will tell. But it is definitely a step in the right direction. Already since the announcement, the Unity share price has risen almost 10%.

New Unity CEO, Matthew Bromberg, is hoping cancelling the fee will help restore trust in the engine. He said in a blog post “I’ve been able to connect with many of you over the last three months, and I’ve heard time and time again that you want a strong Unity, and understand that price increases are a necessary part of what enables us to invest in moving gaming forward. But those increases neednʼt come in a novel and controversial new form,”

Rami Ismail, the Business and Development guy with Vlambeer Studios, said “Not only was it a massive blow to people’s trust in the engine and Unity’s understanding of development realities affecting their userbase, but their communication also sent a signal that if the model didn’t go through, the continuity of Unity as an engine isn’t guaranteed – honestly, the one thing that developers need from an engine is for it to keep existing.”

Craig Moore, a designer from DR Studios, said that “If anything good came of it, it’s that Godot is now a much better more supported engine.”

Only time will tell however, if those who lambasted Unity last year, will return to the fold now they have announced their plan to cancel the runtime fee.

Conclusion

I was equally surprised about Unity’s announcement that they were cancelling the runtime fee, as I was when they announced it in the first place.

Although I think Unity did ok with the damage control last year. I can understand why developers felt so betrayed. Despite Unity’s clarification, the runtime fee pricing was at best a big mess, and at worse, completely unworkable.

I think their decision to revert to the more traditional seat based licensing method was the right one.

As I said in my previous post on the runtime fee, Unity is one of the largest game creation tools. I doubt very much that it would simply disappear due to one mistake. But it is reassuring that the new leadership have listened to their users. Even if it has taken a year for them to realise their mistake.