Unity has announced that the company’s CEO, president, chairman and member of the board of directors, John Riccitiello, is stepping down from his roles. The announcement comes in the wake of quite a bit of controversy courted by the company with its runtime fees announcement.
Terraria dev pledges $200,000 to Unity rivals amid fees controversy
20.09.2023 - 12:43 / pcgamesn.com
Terraria developer Re-Logic makes a show of support for open source engines Godot and FNA in response to the recent Unity runtime fee announcement. The team behind Terraria, one of the biggest and best indie games on Steam, slams Unity for its “destruction of trust” with the announcement of new fees that would see the most successful games using its service charged per individual download past a certain milestone, and commits $100,000 donations to two rival development engines with ongoing sponsorships.
Unity, the team behind the hugely popular Unity Engine used by many game developers, announced last week that it was introducing new policies that would see developers charged additional fees that could reach as high as 20 cents per install once games reach a certain revenue and lifetime install milestone. The engine is used for many big games, including Cities Skylines, Among Us, Hollow Knight, Cuphead, and Genshin Impact.
Since the announcement, many developers have come out publicly against the change, including the Metal Hellsinger developer telling players to get the game “while you can” as it considers its future, and the Slay the Spire developer making its first ever public statement to say it was considering changing the engine used for its next game, which is currently over two years into its development.
Terraria is not built on Unity, instead using a proprietary engine built in Microsoft’s XNA framework, although it uses some elements in its console and mobile versions. However, in a public statement shared via social media, the team says, “The loss of a formerly leading and user-friendly game engine to the darker forces that negatively impact so much of the gaming industry has left us dismayed to put it mildly. We feel like we cannot sit idly by as these predatory moves are made against studios everywhere.”
Re-Logic condemns the proposed changes “and the underhanded way they were rolled out,” in particular highlighting “That this move was wholly unnecessary pushes things into the tragedy category” and calling it “a cautionary tale the industry will not soon forget.” The team adds that “Even if Unity were to recant its policies and statements, the destruction of trust is not so easily repaired.”
To act as a counterbalance, Re-Logic says, “We strongly feel that it is now equally important to get behind some of the other up-and-coming open source game engines.” It announces donations of $100,000 to both Godot and FNA, two free, open source development tools. In addition to this, Re-Logic pledges $1,000 per month each moving forwards: “All we ask in return is that they remain good people and keep doing all that they can to make these engines powerful and approachable for developers
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