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Unity, the tech company behind one of the most popular engines for creating video games, is scrambling to clarify how a price increase for its services will work, after its announcement Tuesday morning broadly infuriated the game development community.

Why it matters: The fees, which Unity said are essential for funding development of its tech, left many game makers wondering if having a hit game through Unity would cost them more money than they could make.

Developers spoke throughout the day of delaying their games to switch to rival Epic Games' Unreal Engine or other services on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

But by the evening, Unity exec Marc Whitten was updating Axios on the policies, potentially defusing some concerns raised by game creators.

Details: The new "Runtime Fee" announced Tuesday morning is tied to a player's installations of a game, an action that previously didn't cost developers anything.

With Unity's new plan, developers who use Unity's free tier of development services would owe Unity $0.20 per installation once their game hit thresholds of 200,000 downloads and earn $200,000 in revenue.

Developers paying over $2,000 a year for a Unity Pro plan would have to hit higher thresholds and would be charged with lower fees.

The newfee system will begin at the start of 2024.

Yes, but: Game developers, rallying on X, began fuming immediately that any game enjoying a spike in installations due to a big sale, inclusion in a charity bundle or even just by being included in a popular subscription service like Microsoft's Game Pass, would trigger back-breaking Unity fees.

"Stop it," development studio Innersloth, makers of the hit Among Us, tweeted Tuesday evening. "This would harm not only us, but fellow game studios of all budgets and sizes...."

Another studio, Aggro Crab, called on Unity to reverse its plans, saying that it feared that its next game, set for release to the 25 million subscribers on Game Pass, could incur fees that "threaten the stability of our business."

The intrigue: Unity has scrambled to clarify and in one key case alter what it has said about its policies around the fees.

Zoom in: After initially telling Axios earlier Tuesday that a player installing a game, deleting it and installing it again would result in multiple fees, Unity'sWhitten told Axios that the company would actually only charge for an initial installation. (A spokesperson told Axios that Unity had "regrouped" to discuss the issue.)

He hoped this would allay fears of "install-bombing," where an angry user could keep deleting and re-installing a game to rack up fees to punish a developer.

But an extra fee will be charged if a user installs a game on a second device, say a Steam Deck after installing a game on a PC.

Between the lines: Runtime fees will also not be charged for installations of game demos, Whitten said, unless the demo is part of a download that includes the full game (early access games would be charged for an installation, he noted).

Games offered for charity or included in charities will be exempt from the fees. Unity will provide a way for developers to inform Unity that their games are being offered that way, Whitten said.

As for Game Pass and other subscription services, Whitten said that developers like Aggro Crab would not be on the hook, as the fees are charged to distributors, which in the Game Pass example would be Microsoft.

Runtime fees will also not be charged for installations of game demos, Whitten said, unless the demo is part of a download that includes the full game (early access games would be charged for an installation, he noted).

Of note: Whitten estimates that only about 10% of Unity's developers will wind up having to pay any fees, given the thresholds games need to hit.

What they're saying: "Our core point with this is simply to make sure that we have the right value exchange so that we can continue to invest in our fundamental mission to make sure that we can deliver the best tools for people to make great games."

"It's not fun to get a bunch of angry feedback on any particular day. And I think that that is us needing to clarify some of these points.

"But we're we're listening and we will continue to make sure that we deliver the best that we can."

Go deeper... Unity CEO: Generative AI will make better games, but won't steal jobs

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[–] Aielman15 136 points 1 year ago (4 children)

As for Game Pass and other subscription services, Whitten said that developers like Aggro Crab would not be on the hook, as the fees are charged to distributors, which in the Game Pass example would be Microsoft.

In which case, Microsoft and other distributors will not release Unity games on their subscription services. This will harm game developers either way.

Geez, the internet and the tech industry as a whole is collapsing. Twitter, Reddit, Unity... What the fuck is going on in the last few years?

[–] AClassyGentleman 74 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Capitalism defines success as profits increasing at an ever-increasing rate. During the height of the pandemic, tech companies tended to fare better than other industries because they were better able to handle the switch to remote work (among other things). This wasn't lost on investors, who smelled money in the water, and went all in on tech. Like, seriously, colossal amounts of money, and they expect returns on those investments. Problem is, we've hit the point where the easy profit sources for these companies have more or less dried up, and now they're having to squeeze whatever they can out. This is why we've seen massive layoffs, quick money making schemes, and things like this that will be disastrous in the long run, but stand to make some short-term profits.

It's a boneheaded move, but when all you care about is pleasing the investors right now, it's the logical way to operate.

[–] bassomitron 41 points 1 year ago

This sums up every industry poisoned by big money parasites. Look around, over 30% of the inflation of the last few years is literally attributed to just straight greed. https://fortune.com/2023/04/05/end-of-capitalism-inflation-greedflation-societe-generale-corporate-profits/ for those who want to read about where I'm getting that figure from.

We're living in the Robber Baron Era: Volume 2. When governments fail to properly regulate massive corpos and protect consumers--mostly due to regulatory capture--this is what happens. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture if you want to read up on the topic and get angry about how pervasive regulatory capture is, especially in the US (like, really, really pervasive in the US...).

[–] BrudderAaron 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The INVESTORS showed up...

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

They showed up years ago. Now they want to get paid.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Greed.

[–] Fetus 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank caused a bit of a stir in the venture capital world. Things used to be able to be horrifically unprofitable for a reasonably long time before vulture capital would swoop down and tighten the thumbscrews.

Now that "normal" banks are the ones dealing with the finance side of VC, they seem to care about profits, and that if you're not squeezing every cent you can out of your investment, then it's a failure.

Or, like, whatever. Just kinda how I feel about it...

[–] echo64 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This isn't it. The svb run was a symptom, not a cause. You'll note this is not something limited to the tech world.

Markets, in general, are risk adverse because of the whole global economic shutdown thing. Executives are driving shareholder growth, not through investment like a giant ponzi scheme, or through competition, but through whatever hairbrained scheme they can come up with that will raise stock prices in the short term.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

it's just capitalism being the abhorrent shit it always was.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

It's global warming. All the natural disasters, insurance and repairs are extreme and accelerating, and those funds need/want more money and are collecting in every way they can.

I can't believe it either - our inability to prepare for global warming has caused Unity to charge per install.

[–] [email protected] 68 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There is nothing to "clarify" - Unity is a toxic, predatory company with toxic, predatory leadership and developers and investors need to get out as quickly as possible.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I'm a little out of the loop. How so? Have they always been said way? Edit: I'm an aspiring dev and want to know as much as I can, and if they're shitty, I wanna know.

[–] Deestan 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

They are popular because they were permissive and dead easy to use in... 2008 or so. Indie studios adopted Unity, many went on to great success, and it is now a product with a huge userbase, tons of tutorials, and an industry full of experienced Unity developers.

Unity is successful, entrenched, known, and makes money.

And this is the worst possible situation for a product to be in. The term is "enshittification" and basically means the owners are incentivized to sell out, while new owners are more incentivized to add new ways to extract value than to improve the product meaningfully. This is a death spiral that no products recover from.

It'll just get worse until in several years all that is left are some patents bought by a patent troll who sues the everliving shit out of anyone still using Unity.

Anyway: Look up Godot. It's a modern version of what Unity was when it was young and pretty.

[–] Asifall 4 points 1 year ago

Unity has been rent seeking for awhile. In my mind, a big issue is the unity asset store, which apparently is where they actually make most of their money. Unity collects a 30% cut of all sales and imposes pretty restrictive licensing terms. This is annoying, but not a huge deal for things like art assets, but it creates a huge perverse incentive when you look at plugins and tools.

The best way for unity to make money in the business model they’ve created is to add a bunch of seemingly simple but not very comprehensive systems to the engine. Then, rather than refine these features they can wait for 3rd party developers to fill in the gaps with plugins that must be sold on the unity asset store. This allows unity to scoop up a bigger revenue stream on top of the licensing income without having to do any additional work.

I don’t see this being sustainable

[–] MolochAlter 48 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Former CEO of EA does EA things, color me shocked.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Apparently he was CEO in mid-2004 when EA bought Renderware and basically killed it.

COINCIDENCE???

[–] Mirshe 11 points 1 year ago

He was also CEO of EA when a private equity firm (that he founded and sat on the board of) bought Bioware and then sold it to EA.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago

Who woulda thunk things would go this way when they hired an ex EA exec ...

[–] NocturnalMorning 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They'll either do a complete reversal of the policy once they see the amount of games pulled from store fronts, or implode burying their head in the sand.

[–] scutiger 8 points 1 year ago

They're going to get sued by all the developers who already put out games with the existing license that Unity is trying to unilaterally change the terms of. They're trying to charge money for installs on games that are already published and already sold.

[–] colonial 14 points 1 year ago

But an extra fee will be charged if a user installs a game on a second device, say a Steam Deck after installing a game on a PC.

Actually asinine.

[–] Kachilde 14 points 1 year ago

What in the Wizards-of-the-Coast is this shit?

I actually cannot figure out where the logic is on this sort of thing (apart from CEOs having big cartoon dollar signs for eyes). You create a product, give it out for free, then get salty when people use your free product and demand payment in retrospect? And not just a ‘commercial licence’ payment, but a cut off the top of every game sold.

I can’t wait for visual effects software companies to start charging James Cameron $0.20 on every ticket sold for Avatar 3.

Or Tesla to start charging their drivers a fee anytime they use their car as a rideshare vehicle… actually I wouldn’t put that one past Emerald Boy.

[–] pivot_root 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hey now, there's plenty of good to come out of this: Gamers now have a way to punish asset flips and crypto scam games.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

First of all, punishing devs you don't like is a slippery slope that opens a lot of people to abuse they don't deserve. Second of all, I would be very surprised if any of those asset flip games are going to be making $200k. Third, they specifically state in the article you won't be able to install bomb a dev just because you don't like them.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's so weird to see Unity as the MVP on Unreal's team.

Like, blah blah Unity efficiency aside, this is... not going to go over well.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When you're making tim sweeny look like a good person you know you've fucked up big time.

[–] pivot_root 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I give about a year until Unreal does the same, except that they'll at least have the good graces to waive the fee if games are sold on Epic ~~Contractually Timed Exclusive~~ Games Store.

Looking forward to Godot finally getting the love and recognition it deserves after this, at least.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I think it's pretty likely that the only reason Unreals terms are sustainable at all at this point is that they are funded by vertical integration using Epics infinite Fortnite coffers. Unity has no such safety harness, and has to squeeze everyone for as much money as possible to be profitable. The moment all of Epics deranged fake consumer rights activist PR starts working and devs and customers actually get locked into their ecosystem at scale they will start tightening the screws on everyone.