Ten days after announcing one of the most controversial policies in gaming, Unity has backtracked and changed its new developer policies.
The lead of Unity Create wrote an “open letter” on the company’s website clarifying some of the changes. He wrote in part: “I want to start with this: I am sorry. We should have spoken with more of you and we should have incorporated more of your feedback before announcing our new Runtime Fee policy.”
Based on the feedback from gamers and developers, Whitten says there will be several changes to Unity’s pricing model:
For Unity Personal:
- Users will not need to change plans until they earn $200,000. That’s up from the previous $100,000
- there will also be no requirement to use the “Made with Unity” splash page on their games
For Unity Pro and Enterprise:
- No Runtime Fee will be implemented until they upgrade to a Long Term Support version that launches next year
- current projects using older versions of Unity will not be charged the fee
- Those who qualify for the Runtime Fee will shell over either a 2.5% cut of revenue or “the calculated amount based on unique initial engagements”
In addition, Unity says that no game with less than a $ 1 million revenue will be subject to this charge.
Here’s a graphic they provided on the FAQ section of their website:
A fireside chat was streamed Friday afternoon, with Whitten sitting down to clarify some questions.
In it, Whitten addressed the backlash of Unity’s announcement earlier this month and their latest response, saying in part, “There’s talking, there’s listening, and then there’s doing it iteratively, back and forth in a conversation. I think the part I’m focused on is ‘how do we make sure that we’re in an ongoing conversation so that we’re making things better over time.”
When asked by Jason Weimann about why the company decided to go with their initial planning and announcement and if they consulted with customers and developers, Whitten said, “We talked to partners… lots of internal people. We didn’t listen to enough of their feedback. I want to be clear.”
