Unity introducing new fee attached to game installs

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.

Starting in January 2024, the company will begin charging what it's calling a "Unity Runtime Fee" that is based on the number of users installing games built on the widely-used engine.

The Runtime Fee will kick in after developers cross specific revenue and install thresholds that scale with different subscription plans. For those on Unity Personal or Unity Plus licenses, the fee will kick in after a project crosses both $200,000 in revenue over 12 months and 200,000 total installs.

Up to $0.20 per install
 
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Can somebody explain this to me why Unity did this and will this benefit developers or consumers?

Cause my first reaction just looking at it is greed.
 
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It only kicks in after a revenue threshold. Seems fine and fair to me. As long as they're not collecting for multiple installs on the same machine.

Edit: Actually, I take it back. Why is this based off of installs (and not sales) in the first place?
 
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Can somebody explain this to me why Unity did this and will this benefit developers or consumers?

Cause my first reaction just looking at it is greed.
Greed? Idk they basically let you build and sell a game for free up to $200,000 in profits. While it's not a saintly gesture .. that's way better than before unity.
 
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Don't they already take a share of the revenue once you cross some threshold, like Epic? What is the point of this new thing?
 
Don't they already take a share of the revenue once you cross some threshold, like Epic? What is the point of this new thing?

I suspect Unity is still quite dominant in the mobile market while Unreal is possibly eating their lunch on the Desktop/Console scene.

In the mobile market, Installs vastly outnumbers sales, but it's a way for them* to get some money even from your Free Players, not just your Whales.

(* by them I mean Unity)
 
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My understanding is that this doesn't apply to free games, since you have to cross both the install and revenue thresholds (free games won't have the latter).

Depending how revenue is counted however, "free" games on mobile still make revenue, whether from a small set of users, or from all users in the form of ads. I rather suspect that will count (I know a lot of these Revenue Accounting schemes consider all sources, not just dollars-charged-per-sku)
 
Can this shit engine and shit company already disappear and go bankrupt? Unreal all the way or bust. Fuck Unity.
I quite like Unity. I dunno if there's an engine reason for it but I find the best 2D or sprite based games almost universally come from someone making a game in Unity.
 
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Unity is about to make bank with all those HoYoverse games!

This is scummy, but that's the way our world has been heading since like forever. Now it is just faster.
 
Can this shit engine and shit company already disappear and go bankrupt? Unreal all the way or bust. Fuck Unity.

I used to think that as well but then I played Subnautica and both Ori games. Very good games using Unity. I think the problem is that there's only a handful
of developers who have a really good handle on the engine and can give us great looking and performing games. Of course, you could say that with Unreal engine itself.

So perhaps it simply comes down to the actual developer using the engine?

Subnautica:

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Ori and the Blind Forest
Ori and the Will o the Wisps


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I used to think that as well but then I played Subnautica and both Ori games. Very good games using Unity. I think the problem is that there's only a handful
of developers who have a really good handle on the engine and can give us great looking and performing games. Of course, you could say that with Unreal engine itself.

So perhaps it simply comes down to the actual developer using the engine?

Subnautica:

YnW7go.gif

78tL.gif


Ori and the Blind Forest
Ori and the Will o the Wisps


99a91a1ff2683fc6a593358ef2bea148.gif

giphy.gif
There are always exceptions to the rules, but for the majority of games I've seen on Unity usually tend to look and play horrible. Unity is good for 2D games, not for 3D really.
 
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Depending how revenue is counted however, "free" games on mobile still make revenue, whether from a small set of users, or from all users in the form of ads. I rather suspect that will count (I know a lot of these Revenue Accounting schemes consider all sources, not just dollars-charged-per-sku)
You are only "immune" from this install cost cost on a F2P game IF you have installed unity's ad platform into your title.
 
Can somebody explain this to me why Unity did this and will this benefit developers or consumers?

Cause my first reaction just looking at it is greed.
Unity is having financial difficulties.

They also rolled out a new "Unity Industry" model which charges X2 (Double) for the cost of using Unity (with no additional features) to make a "non game" application.
 
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Can this shit engine and shit company already disappear and go bankrupt? Unreal all the way or bust. Fuck Unity.
If it wasn't for unity Unreal would never have been free for small game development. 🤷‍♂️

Also A bad performing game isn't really the engines fault as much of the dev releasing a bad performing game. That goes for any engine.
 
Yay, more stutters and crap performance in the near future.

Edit: Then again, if they were using unity it would probably still be crap. Eh, I can't decide what's worse.
 
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It only kicks in after a revenue threshold. Seems fine and fair to me. As long as they're not collecting for multiple installs on the same machine.

Edit: Actually, I take it back. Why is this based off of installs (and not sales) in the first place?
I'm in the same boat, if you sell a game for $30 almost $10 is for the store owner... $0.2 more for the engine owner is nothing and I think it's fair.

But this seems more aimed at mobile games for which unity is pretty popular. I don't see this playing well in their favor lol.

There's a threshold but does it mean devs have to pay for already existing installs or for new install after the threshold is surpassed? How will they know exactly?

If the amount must be paid for already existing installs, then it's completely unreasonable. Say a dev is so good at implementing F2P features that 20% of their users spend money the first month, so they get 1.5M installs and reach $200k minimum, that means they already own Unity $300k? How's that?
 
I think this is one of those overreaction-type threads...

This fee in question only kicks in after certain milestones are exceeded. And is also dependent on the membership plan the developer has.

And I really do not see the problem with that, so we want the devs to keep making money but the people that build the tools they use to build their games to not see their fortunes increase in step with that?
 
And I really do not see the problem with that, so we want the devs to keep making money but the people that build the tools they use to build their games to not see their fortunes increase in step with that?
No? Vast majority of SaaS tech companies do not tie the amount you pay them to financial results of their clients. In fact just last week I refused a prospect that wanted exactly that.
 
Nah, it's one of the best engines out there
Nah, you are smoking crack sir. Unity has been having financial problems for a while now, maybe if it was good they wouldn't have those issues to begin with. Engine is known for poor optimization and bugs.. It's obvious you've been living under a rock for quite a while.
 
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Without Unity all those Unreal lovers will wake up and find a very different Unreal (in a very bad way).
All proprietary engines can easily do the same crap as we see here especially without competition.
 
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