On September 12, Unity Technologies–the company behind the popular cross-platform game engine Unity–announced it was rolling out a new business model. In the hours to follow, frustration, fear, and confusion from game developers spread like wildfire across social media–and for good reason.
In a Unity blog post, the company laid out a new monetization plan that now includes a Runtime Fee. This fee, Unity explained, is based on the number of times a game built with the Unity engine is installed. Games developed using the lower-cost plan will face charges once they hit $200,000 in revenue in a year and 200,000 lifetime installations, while Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise accounts have a threshold of $1 million in revenue in a year and 1 million lifetime installations before they are charged.
Once developers using the Unity engine surpass these thresholds, those using the lower-tier plans will have to pay the company $.20 per game installation while those on the higher-tier plans will pay anywhere from $.01 to $.15 per installation. The plan is slated to start on January 1, 2024, and will ultimately impact a number of popular games, such as Among Us, Genshin Impact, Cuphead, Hollow Knight, Firewatch, Outer Wilds, Cult of the Lamb, Pokemon Go, and countless others.