Unity Pricing Changes & Runtime Fee Cancellation | Unity (2024)

FAQs

Did Unity remove the runtime fee? ›

If you're on a Unity Personal or Unity Plus plan, the Runtime Fee does not apply. Games created with currently supported Unity versions will not be impacted by the fee. The Runtime Fee is only relevant to games created with, or upgraded to, Unity 6, the next Long Term Support (LTS) version to be released in 2024.

2.5% of your game's monthly gross revenue. The Runtime Fee based on monthly unique initial engagements.

The Runtime Fee – a per-install fee on games created with the Unity game engine – was due to begin with the release of Unity 6 later this year, but remained unpopular with game developers.

Unity Personal: As announced last year, Unity Personal will remain free, and we'll be doubling the current revenue and funding ceiling from $100,000 to $200,000 USD. This means more of you can use Unity at no cost.

Developers around the world who use Unity — including those behind hit games like Among Us and Slay the Spire — have threatened to leave the platform, saying the new pricing model could effectively kill their businesses if their games grow too popular. There was talk of a class-action lawsuit.

On September 12, Unity announced that beginning January 1, 2024, its pricing for developers would include a “Runtime Fee,” a new 20-cent charge to be levied every time a player installed a game after the title reached 200,000 downloads and $200,000 in revenue.

Unity, a company that makes a suite of video game development tools, has recently sparked a major controversy in the industry after announcing changes to its pricing model. Under the new model, Unity plans to charge developers on a per-install basis after certain revenue and game download thresholds are met.

Unity currently charges game developers a flat yearly rate to use the engine. But last week, the company announced a new pricing model that would charge developers a fee every time someone downloaded their game. The change was initially announced to roll out Jan. 1, 2024.

The Runtime Fee only applies to games created with or upgraded to the Long Term Support (LTS) version releasing in 2024, currently referred to as Unity 6. The Unity Runtime Fee Estimator does not collect user inputs.

Runtime costs limits overall complexity of the code that can be executed. For example, negating a boolean value is less complex than calculating SHA512 hash, therefore (not false) will consume less runtime costs than (sha512 "hello world") . This category is also affected by contract size.

What are the benefits of runtime? ›

The runtime environment includes not only accessible state values, but also active entities with which the program can interact during execution. For example, environment variables are features of many operating systems, and are part of the runtime environment; a running program can access them via the runtime system.

You pay for Premiere, you own the videos. You pay for a pencil, you own the drawing. With this pricing, unity is saying THEY own the games made in unity, and they bill you however they feel they want to when you use THEIR software. You don't have the freedom to distribute it or play around with it.

The company's revenue grew about 69% year over year, mainly thanks to the $2.9 billion acquisition of mobile advertising company ironSource, according to a regulatory filing. The $124.1 million net loss narrowed from $250.0 million in the year-ago quarter.

That was a reference to the announcement of the Runtime Fee in September 2023. Customers with billions of installs — as well as many small devs — revolted and vowed to boycott Unity.

If your Total Finances exceed US $100,000 you may not use Unity Personal at all, even for internal projects or prototyping. The Financial Threshold for Unity Plus is US $200,000 for the most recent twelve (12) month period. To be Tier Eligible to use Unity Plus, your Total Finances may not exceed US $200,000.

Starting January 1, 2024, the company will charge developers using Unity Personal or Plus up to $0.20 for every install once a game passes $200,000 in revenue per year and 200,000 installs.

Start creating today with the free version of Unity. Eligibility: Unity Personal is for individuals and small organizations with less than $100K USD of revenue and funds raised in the last 12 months. The Runtime Fee is canceled.

Unity (U -3.23%), a software company best known for developing the Unity game engine, is in a tough spot. Its current business model isn't sustainable, and a recent pricing change was so poorly communicated that the company was forced to largely roll it back.