Unity has been a major part of the news coming out of the gaming industry in the last couple of days, and for all the wrong reasons. So, in an effort to take control of the situation, the company behind the cross-platform game engine has made an official announcement to clarify exactly what it meant by the recent statement regarding its game engine charges. Of course, this was inevitable since developers all across the gaming landscape were enraged by Unity’s pricing update.
For context, it was planning to charge game creators fees for using its engine starting in 2024, but due to the massive backlash from its potential victims, the company decided to dial back on its initial plan for face-saving purposes.
Explaining the Drama Surrounding Unity and Its New Policy
The recent announcement regarding the new fee for game developers has been nothing short of controversial, with the tech company sharing the news in an official blog post. It said that the company is going to start charging developers a “runtime fee,” which means that game creators will have to pay a fixed account every time someone installs a game that was built using the Unity Engine.
Furthermore, the post clarified that this would only be applicable once a game made $200,000 in one year.
The main argument raised by the developers against the announcement was that there was always a possibility of malicious installations, meaning that some people may keep uninstalling and reinstalling a game numerous times, only to leave the developer with large sums to pay.
Additionally, many developers were also concerned about situations in which their games were part of subscription services like the Xbox Game Pass or charity bundles, which would hurt the developers even more. For example, Among Us developer Callum Underwood took to X to write that this “pricing change is going to kill charity bundles” due to the fear of “being charged by Unity.”
Also Read: Popular Game Engine Unity is No Longer Free and This Could Spell Disaster in 2024
Unity Has Finally Responded Regarding Its Pricing Update
Following the rapid backlash, Unity also took to X to clarify its latest stance, claiming that “a large majority of” people are using the game engine completely free of charge and that they “will not be affected by this change.” Continuing with its clarification, the company wrote that the “Unity Runtime fee” won’t affect the “majority of” its developers.
According to Unity, the only developers who will be charged are “generally those who have successful games and are generating revenue way above” the outlined limits in its blog.
Realizing that the X post wouldn’t really be enough, Unity then posted an extensive FAQ page on its official forum to address further queries and concerns. The company then rushed to explain itself during an interview with the popular tech news site Axios on Tuesday night.
In fact, Unity president for Create solutions, Marc Whitten, decided to give the interview himself, claiming that no developer will be charged for multiple malicious installations, taking a detour from the company’s initial statement.
According to him, only the installations carried out on different devices would be eligible for the new fee, directly contradicting what the company wrote on its official FAQ page, which said that developers “will need to pay for all future installs.” You can check out its official clarification announcement here.
Do you think the company is right to start charging developers for game installations? Let us know in the comments!
Source: X
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