Unity Wrote Open Apology Letter Announcing New Less Strict Conditions
A representative of Unity spoke on the new fees for its engine and introduced the relaxed rules under which the technology is to be made available to game developers.
Unity has finally addressed specifically the recent controversies surrounding the popular engine. Marc Whitten, who represents the company, signed an open letter that apologized to the gamedev community for the confusion, and detailed the new rules, on which the company's earnings strategy is to be based.
Recall that there had already been unconfirmed reports online about changes in the price list that Unity decided on after the overwhelming criticism. Among other things, information about a clearer billing system was confirmed.
- The open letter reveals that the Unity Personal plan will remain free and there will be no charge for installing a game created using it.
- Previously, Unity wanted to charge games that reached at least $100,000 in revenue, this threshold will increase to $200,000. In addition, it will no longer be required to show a screen that says "Made with Unity."
- Developers of a game that has not reached $1 million in the last 12 months will not have to pay for using Unity.
- For the Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise plans, the company's new policy will apply only to the LTS version of the engine, which will be released in 2024. The company has dropped its demand for fees for games already released or currently under development that use older versions.
- Developers of games powered by the engine covered by the new policy will settle with Unity in two ways. They will pay either 2.5% of the total revenue, or an amount calculated based on the monthly number of new users playing with a given title - whichever is more favorable to the developer. Importantly, the fees will be determined based on data provided by the developers themselves. Previously, Unity wanted to use its own, vague system for calculating costs.
More details on Unity's new, relaxed policy are provided here. Marc Whitten also invited to a stream where he will answer all questions. The broadcast will take place today at 10 p.m. CEST on Jason Weimann's YouTube channel.
