Unity reveals plans to charge per game install, drawing criticism from development community

Unity has announced dramatic changes to its Unity Engine business model which will see its introduce a monthly fee per new game install beginning on 1st January next year - a move that has drawn criticism from the development community.

Unity - the engine behind countless acclaimed games including Tunic, Cuphead, Hollow Knight, Citizen Sleeper, RimWorld, Outer Wilds, Fall Guys, Ori and the Blind Forest, and Cities: Skylines - was previously licenced to developers using a royalty free model built around subscriptions tiers. Anyone whose revenue or funding was less than $100k over the course of the year (and who didn't want access to features such as the ability to remove the Unity splash screen) could stick to the free Unity Personal license, while a Unity Plus subscription was required up to $200,000 in revenue, and a Unity Pro or above subscription was needed for more.

As of 1st January, 2024, however, developers will be expected to pay an additional monthly Unity Runtime Fee per new game install - seemingly including re-installs and installs across multiple devices - on top of their existing licence subscription, with those fees kicking in for titles that have made $200,000 or more in the last 12 months and have at least 200,000 lifetime game installs. Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise subscribers, meanwhile, will see the fees applied after passing the $1m revenue and 1m lifetime installs threshold.

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