Unity Runtime fee abolished after shitstorm

Unity is doing away with the runtime fee. The “runtime fee” with which the provider of a frequently used cross-platform game engine wanted to be paid for each installation of a game is now finally obsolete. The games industry should be happy about this. Unity

Unity returns to the old model

After “in-depth consultation with the user community, customers and partners,” the company decided to abandon the runtime fee introduced last September. The fee, which the former Electronic Arts boss John Riccietello, hated by game fans, introduced in September 2023 during a brief stint as the new Unity boss, had triggered a real “shitstorm” at the time.

The concept of the runtime fee, in which game developers had to pay a fee for each installation for the period of use incurred after a certain number of installations of their games developed with Unity, ultimately contradicted the company’s core mission. After all, the goal was to “democratize game development,” explained Matt Bromberg, who is now the new CEO of Unity, in a Blog post.

Prices for developer slots are rising

Unity will have to raise prices, which the community has also understood, Bromberg said in a statement. But this does not have to take the form of a controversial new fee. Unity is therefore returning to its old approach with immediate effect, in which developers pay the engine supplier in different stages based on the number of users of their games.

There is now a free Unity Personal license for all developers who earn a maximum of $200,000 per year with their game. Previously, the limit was $100,000. The other variants, Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise, will also have new annual revenue limits, but the prices will increase by eight and 25 percent respectively. The original plans for the runtime fee envisaged charging 20 US cents for each installation of a game by end users. Instead, Unity is now relying on a so-called “seat-based” calculation of its prices, whereby users of the engine are to pay a monthly or annual fee for each developer seat within the framework of the levels mentioned above.