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Unity Claims PlayStation, Xbox & Nintendo Will Pay Its New Runtime Fee On Behalf Of Devs

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
Unity Technologies has stated that PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo will pay the company’s new runtime fee on behalf of game developers.

A new FAQ has been shared by Unity Technologies, which answers questions regarding the company’s recent change in pricing plan for its game development engine.
unity playstation xbox nintendo


According to the FAQ, the Unity runtime fee will be charged to the entity that distributes the runtime, implying that digital store owners, such as PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo, will be liable to pay the company’s new runtime fee on behalf of game developers who sell titles developed using the game engine. It’s unclear if Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are aware of this particular change in policy, and whether they’d be willing to comply with Unity Technologies.

Indie game publisher Top Hat Studios pointed out that Unity has used specific language, now repeated by executives, that the company will bill “the entity that distributes the runtime”. It sought clarification on whether Unity is planning to bill Nintendo for every install on Switch, and Sony for every install on PlayStation. As of writing, the game engine maker has yet to offer clarification on the matter.

Game developers from across the globe have raised concern regarding the aforementioned pricing changes made by Unity Technologies. The game engine maker had announced that it will soon be taking a fee from developers for every copy of a Unity game installed over a certain threshold, regardless of how that copy was obtained.

Indie game studio Aggro Crab has stated that its game, Another Crab’s Treasure, will be coming to Xbox Game Pass in 2024, which means that it will be free to install for the 25 million Game Pass subscribers. If a fraction of those users download the game, Unity could take a fee that puts an enormous dent in the developer’s income and threatens the sustainability of its business. Similarly, Colorgrave Games has expressed its shock over Unity’s new pricing plan, stating that it dramatically and negatively impacts the community of smaller developers that it helped support, including itself.

Innersloth, the studio behind the popular social deduction game, Among Us, stated that the pricing change made by Unity would not only bring harm to its developers, but fellow game studios of all budgets and sizes. Meanwhile, indie game developer Studio Kumiho also raised concern in its statement, stating that the pricing change from Unity could put many careers in an uncertain position.

 

RoboFu

One of the green rats
I don’t get it … are they are trying to combat subscription services with account sharing?
 

Three

Member
MS, Sony and Nintendo right now:

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MS would love this shit I would think. It's a way of bleeding their competitors without really making a dent to them. They already have a partnership with Unity and Azure. Marc Whitten an ex-xbox VP is there. If the fee becomes detrimental they would just buy Unity as had been rumoured several times before with the excuse that it's for efficiencies. Then they can start milking Sony and Nintendo for third party games even.
 
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Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Streaming and service offerings have really upended the economics of gaming. Certainly the business model for middleware providers like Unity has to have been affected, so I'm not entirely without sympathy for them... But damn! Have they made an ungodly mess of this situation!
 
I guess as a customer I don't know (and don't need to) what engine makers or also platform and asset makers have as their prizes and fees.
It could be a fixed price and unlimited use after, or a fee that is depending on the revenue, rather flexible, which seems fairer to small companies, taking less upfront but once it takes off you have to share your pie.
No idea if those cent values are actually making it risky or if they are still cheaper in some or many cases. Unreal was free already for anything barely making a profit, and only takes their part above whatever sum and Unity was still used.

The outcry might be louder than the actual problem? Some tweets or whatnot isn't much, especially if maybe the hot potato is now at the platforms and the actual dev cost portion might rise only subsequently when that is settled.
 
Live company suicide is always fun to watch. No way in hell any storefront will pay for that on "developers' behalf", especially PlayStation.

Goodbye Unity, it was nice knowing you, I guess.
 

wolffy66

Member
At this a point might as well get Google and Apple in there. Isnt the biggest issue F2P mobile games which basically aren't paing Jack since they are all whale hunting.
I don't see how. Any client that is under 100k in sales get to use the unity license for free. If there's too many clients under 100k they would just lower the threshold to 75k$ or whatever.

This is more of an attempt at a new revenue stream.

How does unity make money? Subscriptions to its software.(basically)

Why do they feel that isn't sufficient now? Less subscribers or the fear of it.

Why less subs? Basically instead of tons of game devs companies buying, they fear a huge gaming consolidation wave coming, where they are selling subs to only a handful of corporations.

That's my best guess anyway.
 
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