On September 12, 2023, the popular Unity engine announced a major pricing change that will have massive consequences on game developers. Downloading games that run off of Unity’s runtime will now have a fee for the developers: 20 cents. That may not seem like much, but when you do the math, it’s damaging. This condition only applies to games that meet these thresholds: if $200,000 USD was made in the last 12 months and if the game has at least 200,000 lifetime game installs. This pricing change will be set on January 1st, 2024.
Because of the conditions, it won’t have an effect on unpopular games or AAA titles, but what about popular indie games? Popular indie games that had smaller funding but have passed the thresholds are now at a major disadvantage due to the new pricing model. Many indie game developers have made statements about the pricing change, and it’s not good: Cult of the Lamb advised that users ”buy Cult of the Lamb now, cause we’re deleting it on Jan 1st.” The developers of Slay the Spire, MegaCrit, also wrote their first personal statement ever after the announcement, and it was wildly surprising, as it included an f-bomb.
Many other game developers have also been creating statements about how they can’t see the future of Unity due to the loss of trust (as it also removed its GitHub repository). Because of this, many developers are planning on shifting away from Unity altogether, because there is simply no way to survive with that pricing change. Free to play games may be hit the hardest, even if they are popular. If users can download a game for free, there’s no guarantee that the player will end up spending money on the game. So, the developers are being charged despite people potentially not generating any revenue for the game. Game communities of free to play games on Reddit and Twitter are in an outrage about the changes, as they worry about the future of their games. Many solo developers are also in a panic because some of them have only developed their games on Unity, meaning switching is a difficult option due to inexperience in other engines.
So with these changes, what’s the future for these game developers? Many people speculate that Unity will revert the changes, but many others doubt it. Either way, many developers have lost their trust in Unity, and don’t plan on returning to its engine.
