Unity has apologized for the “confusion and anxiety” its runtime pricing policy announced last week has caused, and said it will “make changes” to it.
What Unity did was Twitter/X shared the news and said it has spoken with many people inside and outside the company and plans to reverse course on the controversial policy. He didn’t provide details on what those changes would be, but promised another update would come in “a few days.”
We talked to you. We apologize for the confusion and anxiety caused by the runtime pricing policy announced on Tuesday. We are listening and talking to our team members, community, customers, and partners, and will be making changes to our policies. We will share the latest information in several parts…
— Unity (@unity) September 17, 2023
“I heard your voice,” Unity wrote. “We apologize for the confusion and anxiety caused by the runtime pricing policy we announced on Tuesday. We are listening and talking to our team members, community, customers, and partners, and we plan to change the policy. Updates I’ll share it with you. Please allow a few days. Thank you for your honest and critical feedback. ”
The Unity runtime pricing policy is scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2024, and games with more than 200,000 installs will be charged $0.20 per install. This obviously raised a lot of eyebrows, as the term installation is a little hard to understand in today’s day and age. For example, will developers be charged for multiple installs by people who install, uninstall, and reinstall their games? There will be no charge to the consumer after paying the monthly fee, but Xbox Do Game Pass or PlayStation Plus installs count?
Unity has tried to clarify its policy, and from January 1, it will only count “pure new installs” on a device, and will only count reinstalls, “unauthorized” installs via botnets etc., trials, web etc. He said developers will not pay for “unauthorized” installations. Streaming games, charity-related installations, etc. Unity also claimed that “his 90% of customers will not be affected by this change.”
The development community did not take kindly to these proposed changes and clarifications, and many teams around the world, including Rust 2 developer Facepunch Studios, said they would no longer create games in Unity. Companies such as Massive Monster have threatened to remove the Unity-made game Cult of the Lamb on January 1st if these changes are made.
Opposition became so intense that Unity offices in San Francisco and Austin had to be closed due to credible death threats.
Of course, we’ll continue to follow this story closely and share any new details Unity shares with us. Until then, check out why these new installation fees are causing a massive backlash among game developers, and exactly which Unity games are most likely to be affected by these controversial changes. please.
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @Adam Bankhurst And even more Twitchy.