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Unity apologizes and updates their infamous Runtime Fee (blog.unity.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 66 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

"Updated", not removed.

This is still completely unacceptable. They just changed the threshold so as to not charge devs whose games don't sell at all. It does nothing to address any of the other concerns.

Our Unity Personal plan will remain free and there will be no Runtime Fee for games built on Unity Personal. We will be increasing the cap from $100,000 to $200,000 and we will remove the requirement to use the Made with Unity splash screen.

No game with less than $1 million in trailing 12-month revenue will be subject to the fee.

Okay, fine, we won't bankrupt you if your game doesn't sell.

The Runtime Fee policy will only apply beginning with the next LTS version of Unity shipping in 2024 and beyond. Your games that are currently shipped and the projects you are currently working on will not be included – unless you choose to upgrade them to this new version of Unity.

Okay fine, you won't retroactively bill us. But you still never answered how we can trust the install numbers that your tool supposedly collects, whether we will be billed for people pirating the game, whether botnets can immediately spike up our costs out of spite, how this affects Game Pass/PS+/donated licenses, etc.

And where are the assurances that you won't randomly decide to update the policy again in the future? I also can't imagine they'll let people keep using the version of Unity without runtime fees in perpetuity.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

So, I still don't trust Unity, and wouldn't in good faith advise its use moving forward given that there's no way to know they wont try to pull this again in the future (especially given that John "Pay a Dollar to Reload" Riccitiello hasn't resigned in disgrace as CEO). However, I feel there's a part of the letter that you've left conspicuously out of this response.

But you still never answered how we can trust the install numbers that your tool supposedly collects

They addressed this, see this copied paragraph, emphasis mine:

For games that are subject to the runtime fee, we are giving you a choice of either a 2.5% revenue share or the calculated amount based on the number of new people engaging with your game each month. Both of these numbers are self-reported from data you already have available. You will always be billed the lesser amount.

This also addresses two your immediate followup concerns, piracy and install-bombs -- always being billed the lesser amount would act as a safety valve against unprofitable install spikes, on top of the fact that using licensee-reported numbers allows for agency on the part of the licensee to screen for malicious activity before being billed.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Self-reports:

Yeah, it’s strange. Our game has ballooned in popularity on stores - but as far as our reporting tools are showing, not a single person has installed it, ever.