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Freeman [soylentnews.org] writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/09/unity-is-dropping-its-unpopular-per-install-runtime-fee/ [arstechnica.com]

Unity, maker of a popular cross-platform engine and toolkit, will not pursue a broadly unpopular Runtime Fee that would have charged developers based on game installs rather than per-seat licenses. The move comes exactly one year after the fee's initial announcement.

In a blog post attributed to President and CEO Matt Bromberg, the CEO writes that the company cannot continue "democratizing game development" without "a partnership built on trust." Bromberg states that customers understand the necessity of price increases, but not in "a novel and controversial new form." So game developers will not be charged per installation, but they will be sorted into Personal, Pro, and Enterprise tiers by level of revenue or funding.
[...]
Unity's announcement of a new "Runtime Fee that's based on game installs" in mid-September 2023 (Wayback archive [archive.org]), while joined by cloud storage and "AI at runtime," would have been costly for smaller developers who found success.
[...]
The move led to almost immediate backlash from many developers [arstechnica.com]. Unity, whose then-CEO John Riccitiello had described in 2015 [gamesindustry.biz] as having "no royalties, no [f-ing] around," was "quite simply not a company to be trusted," wrote Necrosoft Games' Brandon Sheffield [insertcredit.com]. Developers said they would hold off updates or switch engines rather than absorb the fee, which would have retroactively counted installs before January 2024 toward its calculations.
[...]
A massive wave of layoffs [arstechnica.com] throughout the winter of 2023 and 2024 showed that Unity's financial position was precarious, partly due to acquisitions during Riccitiello's term. The Runtime Fee would have minimal impact in 2024, the company said in filings, but would "ramp from there as customers adopt our new releases."

Instead of ramping from there, the Runtime Fee is now gone, and Unity has made other changes to its pricing structure:

• Unity Personal remains free, and its revenue/funding ceiling increases from $100,000 to $200,000
• Unity Pro, for customers over the Personal limit, sees an 8 percent price increase to $2,200 per seat
• Unity Enterprise, with customized packages for those over $25 million in revenue or funding, sees a 25 percent increase.

Previously on SoylentNews:
Why Unity Felt the Need to “Rush Out” its Controversial Install-Fee Program [soylentnews.org] - 20231027
Unity CEO John Riccitiello is Retiring, Effective Immediately [soylentnews.org] - 20231011
Kerbal Space Program 2 Has a Big Pre-Launch Issue: Windows Registry Stuffing [soylentnews.org] - 20231003
Unity Dev Group Dissolves After 13 Years Over “Completely Eroded” Company Trust [soylentnews.org] - 20230927
Unity Makes Major Changes to Controversial Install-Fee Program [soylentnews.org] - 20230925
EU Game Devs Ask Regulators to Look at Unity's “Anti-Competitive” Bundling [soylentnews.org] - 20230923
Unity Promises “Changes” to Install Fee Plans as Developer Fallout Continues [soylentnews.org] - 20230918
Developer Dis-Unity [soylentnews.org] - 20230915

Related news elsewhere:
Unity lays off an additional 25 percent of its staffers [arstechnica.com] - 20240109
2024 Unity Gaming Report indicates 62 percent of devs are currently using AI tools [gamedeveloper.com] - 20240318
Here’s Why Unity Software (U) Stock Hit All-Time Lows [yahoo.com] - 20240910

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