Unity has eliminated its controversial runtime fee

One year to the day since Unity announced its runtime fee pricing model, the software developer is canceling that program effective immediately. “After extensive consultation with our games community and customers, we’ve decided to cancel the Runtime Fee,” said Unity CEO Matt Bromberg in the blog post announcing the news. Instead of the runtime fee, Unity will return to a per-seat subscription model.

Last year, Unity caused a stir within the game development community with a controversial update to its pricing model. Instead of charging developers a set monthly rate based on the number of users utilizing the software, it would implement a pay-per-download scheme that charged developers every time their game was downloaded. That meant instead of paying a flat, predictable rate to Unity, payouts could fluctuate, resulting in potentially higher fees.

This news caused a massive uproar in the game development community with developers voicing their frustration on social media. Developers argued that the pricing model was implemented without adequate warning, forcing them to either pay the new fees that can’t be adequately budgeted for or make a costly and time-consuming switch to new software. They also claimed the per-download model could be exploited by malicious actors to run up fees on developers they don’t like.

This new pricing model returns Unity to a per-seat subscription model, but there’s a catch; starting on January 1st, 2025, pricing will go up for Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise tiers. You can check out the specifics here.