Unity announced its updated Runtime Fee plan after receiving heavy criticism from the game development community after its initial announcement.
Unity revealed that the company has no plans to charge developers for using the Unity Personal plan and any games built on Unity Personal will not have a Runtime Fee. Games developed in Unity Personal will receive an increased revenue and funding cap to $200,000. Unity will also be removing the “Made with Unity” splash screen on games made in Unity Personal.
Unity also announced that games that make less than $1 million in trailing 12-month revenue will not be subject to the Runtime Fee.
Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise developers will be subject to the Runtime Fee if they are using the next Life Term Support (LTS) version of Unity releasing in 2024. Any games currently developed on the 2022 LTS version of Unity or earlier will not be subject to the Runtime Fee. Unity has promised that they will not change the terms for the Unity Engine developers are currently working with for as long as they use that version. Once developers update, they will be subject to the Runtime Fee.
For games that are subject to the Runtime Fee, they will be allowed to choose between two revenue share options: developers can give 2.5% of their revenue to Unity or the number can be calculated based on the number of new people engaging with the game each month. Both numbers are reportedly self-reported and developers will always be billed for the lesser amount.
More details about the Unity Runtime Fee can be found on Unity’s newest FAQ.
On September 12, 2023, Unity initially announced plans to implement a fee on every install for games made using Unity Engine. All developers would have had to pay the fee starting January 2024. It would have been a fixed fee for ever install, although the fee would have been decreased for developers using a Pro or Enterprise subscription, meaning that smaller developers would likely be paying more to Unity for game installations than larger developers. Unity released an FAQ to further explain details about its stance and future policies due to the confusing nature of the Runtime Fee’s implementation. The announcement of this planned Runtime Fee caused developers to protest its implementation.
On September 18, 2023, Unity announced on social media that due to all of the protests and feedback by developers and fans around the world, they would be making changes to the Runtime Fee plan.
Unity 2023 LTS version will release in 2024.
