The company behind the Unity Engine, one of the major game development tools used by independent studios, has announced a controversial new fee. Starting from 1 January, Unity will charge developers each time a game using the engine is downloaded.
The charge will begin when sales reach a threshold of $200,000 in revenue over 12 months and 200,000 total installs. Charges will vary depending on the license the developer has with Unity, but will be as high as $0.20 per install.
The fee has been met with anger and incredulity within the game development community. Garry Newman, creator of the hugely successful Garry’s Mod, tweeted, “Unity can just start charging us a tax per install? They can do this unilaterally? They can charge whatever they want? We have to trust their tracking?!” Indie developer Tony Gowland responded, “We pay for our Pro licenses up-front knowing that any revenue then is ours. That after 2 years of dev they can just add this back-end tax if our game happens to be successful? Nah.”
Unity announced the new charge on its website, referring to it as the Unity Runtime Fee, a reference to the Unity Runtime code that executes each game on player devices, and which until now has not been monetised. “An install-based fee allows creators to keep the ongoing financial gains from player engagement,” the company stated in its blogpost. Speaking to the industry news site Game Developer, Unity Create’s president, Marc Whitten, said the company was aiming to “better balance the value exchange” between itself and developers. Later in the interview Whitten stated, “We want to make more money so that we can continue to invest in the engine.”
Several developers have pointed out logistical problems with the charge. Will developers be charged each time a player re-installs the game on a new piece of hardware? And how will this affect developers whose game ends up on a subscriptions service such as Xbox Game Pass or charity games collection such as Humble Bundle, where they will suddenly be liable for many thousands of downloads? As veteran game developer and consultant Rami Ismail put it on X, “If you’re a Unity developing studio, good luck if you ever piss off your userbase. Instead of tanking your Metacritic with a mass review campaign they can now straight-up tank you financially by organising a mass install campaign.”
Originally launched in 2005, Unity is a cross-platform game engine, designed to be affordable and flexible. It was widely adopted by the burgeoning independent game design community and used to build acclaimed titles such as Cuphead, Rust and Pokémon GO. The company recently launched Unity Muse and Unity Sentis, two AI tools designed to aid in the development of AI-driven games and experiences.
But Unity has cut staff in recent years, citing the slowing economy. In May, Unity laid off 600 staff, equating to 8% of its workforce. This followed 300 layoffs in January. At that time, Unity’s CEO, John Riccitiello, stated in a letter to employees, “We reassessed our objectives, strategies, goals and priorities in light of the current economic conditions. While we remain focused on the same vision, we decided that we need to be more selective in our investments to come out stronger as a company.” In August the company reported revenue of $533m for the second quarter of 2023, but net losses of $193m.
For game developers, the ramifications of an ongoing per-install charge are profound and many have taken to social media to ask for more details on how the company will track downloads and protect studios whose games end up in bundles or on subscription services or adopt new business models such as free-to-play later in their lifecycle. Commenting on X, Ismail stated, “There is no way Unity talked to a single developer before launching this.”
• This article was amended on 13 September 2023 to clarify that game developers will be charged for using the Unity Engine when sales reach a threshold of $200,000 in revenue over 12 months and (not or) there have been 200,000 total installs.
