There are a few notable game engines that are popular with studios both big and small. One of the engines that gained some fanfare, especially with the indie scene, is Unity. It provided a free engine for indie developers to get started on their fun and unique creations. However, last year, the company made some rather controversial changes to its pricing structure. That ultimately led to a downward spiral from the reception of the company and its uncertain future.
If you don’t recall, Unity was rolling out a new pricing policy called the Unity Runtime Fee. This was essentially a means to gain more income from games that were making more than a million dollars in trailing yearly revenue. By doing so, the company was able to earn some money to further build up its engine. However, it was proven to be very unpopular with game developers, who would be subjected to paying out big.
A year later, a new blog post was released on the official game engine website, alerting followers that they would no longer follow this policy. The blog post comes from the president and CEO of Unity, Matt Bromberg. Matt noted that after hearing feedback on the new policy, they felt that they couldn’t continue on with their mission, which would be in conflict with their customers.
As a result, the company is reverting to its existing seat-based subscription model for gaming customers. It’s noted that Unity Personal will remain free, and they will be doubling the current revenue and funding ceiling from $100,000 to $200,000 USD. Meanwhile, the Unity Pro and Enterprise models will find their subscription pricing and qualifying annual revenue thresholds effective on January 1, 2025. The breakdowns for both, as listed on the official Unity blog, can be found below.
Unity Pro & Enterprise Changes
- Unity Pro: An 8% subscription price increase to $2,200 USD annually per seat will apply to Unity Pro. Unity Pro will be required for customers with more than $200,000 USD of total annual revenue and funding.
- Unity Enterprise: A 25% subscription price increase will apply to Unity Enterprise. Unity Enterprise will be required for customers with more than $25 million USD of total annual revenue and funding. A minimum subscription requirement may also apply. Because this set of our largest customers have unique needs and use many of our products and services, we’ll be contacting everyone in the days ahead to discuss customized packages.
Overall, Unity is canceling the Runtime Fee for games, and with these new price changes, they feel they are in a good spot to continue investing in game development. That should be a relief for developers who were fond of using Unity but turned away due to the Runtime Fee policy.
