Unity's self-combustion engine | This Week in Business

15.09.2023 - 15:25 / gamesindustry.biz

This Week in Business is our weekly recap column, a collection of stats and quotes from recent stories presented with a dash of opinion (sometimes more than a dash) and intended to shed light on various trends. Check back every Friday for a new entry.

Unity had a pretty bad week.

I'm actually writing this lead on Tuesday afternoon, but feeling pretty confident that whatever happens from here on out, this much will be true.

(Friday morning update: Yup.)

Tuesday morning, Unity decided to introduce its new Runtime Fee, which Unity developers of a certain size will have to pay every time their game is installed on a new device after January 1, 2024.

STAT | $0.20 – The fee per install for small developers (Unity Personal subscribers) whose games brought in $200,000 in the past year and have 200,000 lifetime installs to date.

STAT | $0.01 – The fee per install for large developers (Unity Enterprise clients) whose games brought in $1 million in the past year and have lifetime sales of one million or more.

It doesn't sound like a lot, and if a developer just had to pay the fee each time they sold a $60 game, it wouldn't be. But there are problems because these charges are based on game installs, not sales, and Unity has not done a great job communicating what's going on here.

QUOTE | "An install is defined as the installation and initialization of a project on an end user's device." – Unity's initial FAQ on the new fee.

We asked Unity if that would include demos, since those are distinct projects that get installed on end user devices and certainly seem to count.

QUOTE | "No, demos, trials, game bundles and giveaways - like the Humble Bundle - do not count as installs." – A Unity spokesperson, in an email response to use on Tuesday afternoon.

Oh, phew! That could have been bad, but thankfully Unity was quick to dispel—

QUOTE | "If it's early access, Beta, or a demo of the full game then yes [it will result in a Runtime Fee]. If you can get from the demo to a full game then yes. If it's not, like a single level that can't upgrade, then no." – A Unity representative in the company's official forums in a thread edited Tuesday night.

What.

How about games included in streaming services? They aren't really installed on an end user's device, so they shouldn't count, right?

QUOTE | "Subscription services, like Game Pass, do count as an install." – Unity's spokesperson responds to our inquiry about how streaming games would be counted for the Runtime Fee.

Bummer, but at least we got an answer I suppose, and now we know developers will be on the hook for—

QUOTE | "As for Game Pass and other subscription services, [Unity Create GM Marc] Whitten said that developers… would not be on the hook, as the