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15.09.2023 - 10:35 / techradar.com
Unity Technologies, the company behind the popular Unity game engine, has had to close up some of its offices after it received threats to its employees' safety.
While the threats came soon after Unity announced a controversial new installation fee policy, which would charge developers per install after reaching a certain threshold, it's important to note that it hasn't been confirmed that the threats issued are in relation to the policy.
After receiving what it referred to as a credible death threat, Unity offices in Austin and San Francisco were temporarily closed, Bloomberg reports.
A Unity spokesperson provided further context in a statement to IGN, saying: «Today, we have been made aware of a potential threat to some of our offices. We have taken immediate and proactive measures to ensure the safety of our employees, which is our top priority. We are closing our offices today and tomorrow that could be potential targets for this threat, and are fully cooperating with law enforcement on the investigation.»
Unity's new policy has received much criticism in the days since its announcement, from developers and players alike. When enacted, the policy would see developers charged a fee of $0.20 per game install after a threshold of 200,000 installations has been passed. It will come into affect on January 1, 2024.
Titles like Among Us and Cult of the Lamb are just a few of the games that have claimed they'll be pulled from digital storefronts after the policy comes into affect. While Unity has acknowledged the «confusion and frustration» felt by developers, they've only muddied the waters by claiming they will no longer be charging for re-installations, trials, demos, web and streaming use and games that are sold as part of a charity bundles.
We want to acknowledge the confusion and frustration we heard after we announced our new runtime fee policy. We’d like to clarify some of your top questions and concerns:Who is impacted by this price increase: The price increase is very targeted. In fact, more than 90% of our…September 13, 2023
How it intends to actually work out which installations are trials or sold as charity bundles remains to be seen, however.
Unity is one of the most popular and accessible game engines for developers out there, and is largely used by both indie developers and AAA studios. Some popular titles running on the Unity engine that would be impacted by the fee include Genshin Impact, Fall Guys, Cuphead, Escape from Tarkovas well as anticipated upcoming games like Hollow Knight: Silksong.
Some indie developers are encouraging fans to purchase their titles now ahead of Unity's new policy coming into effect. You can browse our best indie games and best Steam games guides for top
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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.
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.
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.
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!
Unity Technologies will make changes to its wildly unpopular install-based fee policy, the company said Sunday in a post on the platform formerly known as Twitter. The update comes days after Unity announced plans for a new pricing structure, which would add a fee for developers after every install once a revenue and download threshold was met.
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Unity says it will be “making changes” to its controversial install fee plans, following huge backlash from game developers.
Unity has apologized for the "confusion and angst the runtime fee policy" it announced last week has caused and has revealed it will be "making changes" to it.