Unity News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

A new report released by engine maker Unity has revealed that 62% of surveyed game studios use AI in one way or another to aid in development. Unity's findings come after the gaming community has reacted unfavorably to the use of AI in recent months.

Unity has posted its first financial results for 2024, showing a loss of nearly $300 million for the first quarter.

Matthew Bromberg has been named as Unity's new CEO, the company announced today.

AI may seem like something of a dirty word at the moment, but 62 percent of studios are using AI at some point during game development.

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PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S owners will have to wait a little bit longer before they can play House Flipper 2, as the game's developer has announced that its upcoming console ports have just been delayed. The cozy building simulator was originally supposed to launch on Sony's and Microsoft's current generation systems this March.

Unity released its fourth quarter full-year financial earnings for 2023 yesterday, which saw a jump in revenue and decrease in net losses both in its Q4 and FY 2023 results.

The quest to appease the immortal share price continues as game engine provider Unity announce that they're laying off another 1,800 people, or around 25% of their current workforce, in a bid to "position" the company "for long-term and profitable growth".

Unity has announced another round of layoffs as part of its restructuring efforts, resulting in the loss of 1,800 jobs.

Unity has reportedly shed more jobs, as the company has laid off 265 workers today as part of a «company reset.» The move also terminates the partnership that Unity had been in with Weta FX, though crucially, Unity retains its ownership of the Weta Digital tools it purchased back in 2021.

Unity are chopping 265 jobs - around 3.8% of their global workforce - and ending an agreement with digital effects company Wētā FX as part of a company "reset", following an awful year for the game engine provider. Unity also plan to close offices in 14 locations, including Singapore and Berlin, and cut costs at offices in San Francisco and Bellevue, Washington.

Unity is making further cuts to its workforce as it ends an agreement with Weta FX.

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For developers just starting in the industry, the task of choosing the best game engine can be daunting. Here, we'll try to address many of the issues concerning one of the most popular game engines, Unity, so you can see if it's the right game engine for your project.

GameMaker, a series of cross-platform engines for game developers, has ditched its subscription model for non-commercial purposes, hobbyists and indie developers.

Unity has announced the next version of its engine will launch in 2024 and expand on its «responsibly sourced» AI tools.

Unity have said that they expect to lay off staff in the coming months, following the engine maker’s catastrophic rollout of their new pricing plan earlier this year and as they turn towards a more “focused” offering, including the likes of AI, for growth.

Unity has released its financial results for the three months ended September 30, 2023, announcing layoffs despite a significant growth in revenue and a drop in overall net loss.

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.

After a recent dev journal saying that Chronicles of Elyria/Kingdoms of Elyria dev Soulbound Studio was nearing some bright spots, there is a pause in plans due to the recent controversial pricing announcement by Unity. Soulbound has reportedly been on the verge of sealing a licensing deal that would provide some needed funding, but CEO Jeromy Walsh is now pausing as they sort out the Unity situation and potential new options.

«This comes as a big kick in the balls to both us and everybody else who was excited for this version of the game»

A Unity representative claims the company pulled its terms of service (ToS) from Github because "views were so low."

Controversy and upheaval around game engine Unity has forced the developer of a WipEout-style racer to cancel its planned Nintendo Switch port.

Indie developer Neognosis has announced that the Nintendo Switch port of its combat racing game, BallisticNG, has been canceled in light of the recent Unity engine controversy. This comes despite Unity’s apology and further policy amendments, which were announced last Friday (September 22). 

A planned Switch port of BallisticNG, a Wipeout-inspired racing game with “overwhelmingly positive” reviews on Steam, has been cancelled due to Unity’s recent policy changes.

On Friday (September 22), game engine Unity announced that it was making changes to its controversial upcoming Runtime Fee, and developers have been sharing their thoughts on the amended policy.

Unity have announced that they're making changes to their "runtime fee" in response to overwhelming negative feedback. The key changes are that the fees no longer apply to developers using Unity Personal, and will only apply to developers using Unity Pro or Unity Enterprise who upgrade the next version of Unity which ships in 2024.

Unity has officially walked back on controversial monetisation plans for its popular game engine.

After facing quite a bit of backlash and criticisms for its recent monetisation update, the company behind the ubiquitous Unity engine has released a new updated plan for monetisation going forward, along with an open letter to its community explaining the changes.

It's been a pretty rough week for Unity and all of the developers who build their games on the engine. After introducing a new Runtime Fee based on the amount of times a game is installed, developers lashed out at the potential changes and their capability of driving smaller indie studios into the ground, specifically ones that offer up their games on subscription services like Game Pass. Many devs threatened to delay projects to switch to different engines, and it was an all-round disaster for Unity's image.

Unity has now formally apologized for the retroactive install fee it abruptly announced earlier this month to the shock of countless game developers, relaxing or removing several key rules but not eliminating the fee altogether. 

Ten days after Unity successfully enraged huge swathes of the development community by announcing sweeping, and wildly unpopular, changes to its Unity Engine business model, the company has said it's «sorry» and walked back on significant aspects of its new pricing plan.

Last week, just about everyone in the games business was mad at Unity over a new, retroactive per-install fee for games made with the engine. Unity developers raised troubling question after troubling question about the proposal: How would installs be counted? What if someone reinstalls a game over and over? What about cases where a developer could end up paying Unity more than they made from selling their game? After over a week of turmoil, Unity has announced that it's walking back the most objectionable aspects of the fee.

Next Up: Read Game Developer's interview with Unity Create President Marc Whitten , discussing the road to the changes below and what Unity has learned from the backlash surrounding the original Runtime Fee policy.

After two weeks of chaos, Unity Create president Marc Whitten has a message: “I’m sorry.”

Unity is the cross-platform engine used by many of my favorite developers to create everything from small indie gems to bigger, more well-known games. The company recently disclosed upcoming changes to its fee policy which would see developers pay per-install of their games. The out-of-the-blue announcement was controversial, prompting a variety of game devs to respond detailing why this would have a negative impact on their work, with some creators going as far as backing out of using the engine altogether.

It was only a matter of time before Unity offered something in the way of a concession for the controversial install fee it recently unveiled to the horror of game developers. And while the company has offered an unambiguous apology for the way it initially planned to implement the runtime fee, it isn't backpedaling entirely.

Unity has done a 180 on a controversial new pricing scheme that users of its cross-platform game engine almost unanimously disparaged. A new pricing policy is still incoming, but it’s far less fraught for independent developers, many of whom threatened to leave the engine and platform behind rather than pay.

We're thrilled to announce the return of GamesBeat Next, hosted in San Francisco this October, where we will explore the theme of «Playing the Edge.» Apply to speak here and learn more about sponsorship opportunities here. At the event, we will also announce 25 top game startups as the 2024 Game Changers. Apply or nominate today!

In an open letter to its community, Unity has revealed its reworked free structure and controversial runtime fee changes. Under the new structure, the Unity Personal edition will remain free and incur no runtime fee. The new cap before the fee starts has been increased from $100,000 to $200,000, and no game with under $1 million in trailing 12-month revenue will be subject to the fee. Interestingly, the new Runtime Fee will only apply to the next version of Unity that is shipping in 2024. Already shipped and current in-development projects will not be subject to the fee unless they upgrade to the 2024 version of Unity. In the post, Marc Whitten, leader of the Unity Create team apologized for what has transpired in recent weeks.

By Ash Parrish, a reporter who has covered the business, culture, and communities of video games for seven years. Previously, she worked at Kotaku.

Unity has unveiled its planned changes to the controversial Runtime Fee policy that would charge developers fees on a per-install basis.

Unity has proven to be a popular video game engine. This engine also has proven to be quite popular for newcomers to the video game industry. As a result, we have seen quite a few indie games launch through Unity. However, this month was quite rocky for the engine as a new pricing policy was being implemented. Called the Unity Runtime Fee, the outrage that came with the policy spread online with protests and calling out Unity developers to change their engines or even delist their games.

The president of Unity Create, Marc Whitten, has published an open letter responding to the backlash over the recent Unity Runtime Fee announcement, and has outlined a number of changes that are going to be made to the policy before it’s enforced in 2024.

Unity might be facing the ire that comes with a near-universal condemnation of a new policy change, but at least things are looking up for two open-source game engines.

Developers received a nasty surprise when Unity announced that those who use its game engine will be subject to a runtime fee, beginning next year. This runtime fee will be charged monthly on a per-installation basis.

The irony has been pointed out many times: When game engine Unity revealed its new per-install fee last week, game developers were possibly the most united they've ever been—in disgust. Even developers who don't use Unity expressed anger or criticized the unprecedented change of terms. 

Terraria makers Re-Logic have donated $100,000 to two open-source alternatives to game engine Unity, and vowed to donate to Godot and FNA every month from now on, after slamming Unity’s recent runtime fee plans.

Terraria developer Re-Logic has donated $100,000 to open-source engines Godot and FNA, and will continue to sponsor the companies with $1,000 a month.

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.

Terraria developer Re-Logic has responded to Unity's install-fee debacle by condemning the move and donating $100,000 to both Godot and FNA.

Re-Logic, the indie game developer and publisher behind the 2D sandbox title Terraria, has condemned the newly announced Unity Runtime Fee, and has announced that it is donating a substantial sum of money to two different open-source game engines, to help keep them “powerful and approachable for developers everywhere”. 

Terraria developer Re-Logic is donating $100k to two open source engines in the wake of Unity's recent policy changes.

Even though Terraria developer Re-Logic mostly doesn’t use Unity, it’s made a strong statement of condemnation in regards to the engine’s recently announced, controversial install fee policy – and it’s putting its money where its mouth is.

In protest of controversial changes to the fees associated with the Unity game engine, Terraria developer Re-Logic plans to donate $100,000 each to two open source alternatives, with further monthly donations to follow "going forward."

Controversy at Unity seems to be the story that never ends at the moment. Though today it appears that the owners of the popular game engine may be about to concede, at least a little, on the Unity Runtime Fee announcement that set the developer world on fire last week.

More than 500 developers have joined the protest against Unity's Runtime Fee policy by switching off monetization.

Ever since Unity first announced its plans for a new runtime install fee, it’s been trying to put flex tape over it with clarifications and responses. Now, it looks like there may be some backpedaling on the horizon. To some extent, at least.

The developer of an upcoming Sims-like has had to scrap its free-to-play release plans and instead charge players due to Unity's recently announced fee changes.

More companies and developers have joined a protest against Unity by switching off ads and monetisation.

Unity is preparing to announce major changes to its controversial Runtime Fee install policy. Announced last week, it asked all developers who reached specific thresholds to pay a fee for the first game installation on any single device.

After the recent slate of indie developers speaking out against Unity’s recently-announced plans to revise how it makes money off games developed using the engine, the company has taken to social media platform X to release a new statement.

Update: Polygon reports that a «reporting party» told responding San Francisco police «an employee made a threat towards his employer using social media.” According to the police, the employee who allegedly made the threats works in an office outside of California.

After a week of intense criticism and backlash, Unity has apologised for the «confusion and angst» caused by the announcement of its unpopular Runtime fee policy. In a post to social media, the company has promised to make changes following the strong reaction from the development community.

Unity Technology's decision to announce a controversial new install fee policy went over with the video game development community about as well as you might imagine. And while the company has released the inevitable mea culpa, which does «acknowledge the confusion and frustration» the announcement caused, it's a far cry from the complete backtrack one might have expected.

Unity Technologies, developer of the cross-platform game engine Unity, today announced a policy that will sting developers with a fee based on truly wild things like how many times a game has been installed. This one's likely to develop quickly, but we'll catch you up on the story so far.

Don’t worry, Cult of the Lamb isn’t getting deleted. Massive Monster, which developed the game, jokingly posted to X last week that it’s taking the game offline on Jan. 1, when Unity’s new, wildly unpopular install-based fees are set to launch. Even Unity itself was seemingly concerned: It replied on X that it was “working to clarify specifics.”

By Ash Parrish, a reporter who has covered the business, culture, and communities of video games for seven years. Previously, she worked at Kotaku.

Unity, the popular cross-platform game and media development engine, is on the defensive after receiving intense backlash over a controversial new fee structure, which developers using the platform decried as destructive and unfair. Now the company is reportedly looking to walk back the announcement, at least in part.

Unity has pledged to change its controversial Runtime Fee policy after facing a seismic backlash from the development community.

A week after announcing its upcoming Runtime Fee policy, and hours after promising tweaks were to come, Unity is said to be backtracking from the "major aspects" of its plan. 

A week after Unity announced dramatic changes to its Unity Engine business model — drawing immediate and widespread condemnation from the development community — the company has reportedly told staff it'll be making adjustments to the controversial new pricing plan.

There was quite a bit of attention on the Unity engine last week. However, this attention was nothing pleasant for developers alongside the Unity company. If you recall, Unity announced it would change how it handles developers using its engine. Essentially, developers would be responsible for paying a fee to Unity if their games prove to be a success and result in widespread installations. However, since this proved to be incredibly disheartening for developers and has since caused a backlash, it looks like there are changes inbound.

Unity has apologised to developers for “confusion and angst” caused by its proposed new pricing structure that sought to charge game creators a fee every time their game was installed, promising that changes will be made - but without suggesting that it would pull away completely from implementing the much-criticised plans.

Unity executives informed staff today about some of the planned revisions to the controversial Runtime Fee policy it announced last week, according to Bloomberg.

Last week, Unity announced it would be charging developers a per-install fee for using its game engine. Amidst backlash, however, Unity has apologized and promised "changes to the policy."

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«We have heard you,» stated the game engine company on Twitter/X.