Uh oh, it seems like Unity has realised they made a pretty big mistake by suddenly springing its latest runtime fees on their 1.5 million monthly creators (as of 2020).
In a Tweet (or an Xeet?) made at around 1 AM this morning, Unity announced that they are “listening” to the community based around Unity and will be making changes to the policy. Updates should be coming out in a “couple of days”.
We have heard you. We apologize for the confusion and angst the runtime fee policy we announced on Tuesday caused. We are listening, talking to our team members, community, customers, and partners, and will be making changes to the policy. We will share an update in a couple of…
— Unity (@unity) September 17, 2023
This could be too little too late, though. Even though it’s been less than a week since the runtime fee announcement, many developers have already made plans to jump ship onto other game engines. If Unity thinks that a complete rollback of the runtime fees will do the trick, I also have a feeling they’d be wrong there. They have already broken the trust of the many that use their engine, and what’s to stop them from locking you in for another few months or years only to announce the fees again at a later date?
All eyes will be on Unity over the next few days as they attempt to save face as best they can, although everyone seems to think it will just be a re-wording of the new policy to keep the runtime fees but make it sound less impactful than it really is.