Unity, a well-known game engine developer, announced that it would charge Unity developers according to the number of times players install games, which caused dissatisfaction among developers. Unity issued an official statement today to apologize, saying that it will make changes to the new policy, and Unity’s competitor Unreal Engine (Unreal Engine) may be the winner of this new charging system chaos.
(Recap:Impact on the chain gaming ecology?Game engine Unity changes its charging method. Developers are furious. The office has been shut down after receiving death threats.)
(Background supplement:The game engine Unity provides “decentralized development tools” for free, giving birth to the next Sandbox, Decentraland…)
travelGame engine developer Unity announced on the 13th that starting from January 1 next year, it will introduce a new charging model for Unity Runtime fees. Unity developers will be charged according to the number of times players install the game. This triggered the anger of the game development team. Unity even complained about charging Death threats resulted in the emergency closure of offices in both locations.
In response to the dissatisfaction of the majority of developers, Unity issued an official statement today to apologize:
We hear everyone’s voices, and we deeply apologize for the confusion and anxiety caused to you by the Runtime charging policy announced last Tuesday. The team is listening to the opinions of team members, communities, customers, and partners and is reviewing the policy. Modifications, we will share an update in a few days, thank you for your honest and critical feedback.
According to previous announcements, after the game reaches 200,000 downloads and annual revenue of $200,000, users of the Unity Personal and Unity Plus plans will have to pay $0.20 each time a user installs the game.
Users of the Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise plans, after the game has been downloaded 1 million times and the annual revenue reaches 1 million US dollars, should pay a price ranging from 0.01 to 0.15 US dollars each time the user installs the game, depending on the installation Decreasing quantity.
Unity tweeted on the 14thhttps://twitter.com/unity/status/1702077049425596900this new charging model is targeted, and more than 90% of users will not be affected. The company will only charge for the initial installation of individual devices, and will not charge for reinstallation, fraudulent installation, trial play, web and streaming games, charity Developers will not be charged for related services, etc., but this statement has not yet calmed the anger of developers.
Unity employee Jono Forbes recentlyhttps://twitter.com/jonoforbes/status/1702075391958204502before Unity announced the new charging system, most employees expressed their opposition. Unexpectedly, Unity finally issued an announcement without warning, so he decided to leave, and more employees will leave Unity.
Unreal Engine good news?
Many game developers havehttps://twitter.com/IronDawn_Game/status/1701937856519066052Switching to the use of Unreal Engine (Unreal Engine) developed by Unity’s main competitor, Epic Games, and some people dug out the 2019 speech of Epic Games CEO and Unreal Engine founder.
him for his foresight, he mentioned in this tweet:This highlights a point: In the ecosystem like Unreal, Unity or Godot, companies live and die by the ground rules that are established. Devs have put years of their lives into building something, and nothing is worse than changing the rules and confiscating their investments.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) January 10, 2019
In an ecosystem like Unreal, Unity or Godot, where companies live or die by established ground rules, and developers have spent years building some games, there’s nothing worse than having the rules changed and their investment forfeited.
According to the Unreal Engine official website, games developed using Unreal Engine will only need to pay a 5% profit sharing fee if the revenue during the product life cycle exceeds US$1 million. If the revenue does not exceed US$1 million, the profit sharing fee will be exempted.
