Unity, a company that makes a tool for creating video games, made an announcement recently that upset a lot of people in the gaming world. They said they would start charging game developers extra money if their games were really popular, starting in 2024. This upset people because it would make it harder for free games with in-game purchases to succeed, and some didn’t trust Unity’s promise to stop cheaters from inflating game install numbers.
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People thought this was a greedy move by Unity’s CEO, who used to work at a big game company called Electronic Arts and was known for similar money-making tactics. People were really mad, and Unity’s competitors like Epic’s Unreal Engine got some good attention.
Now, after a week of getting criticized and looking bad, Unity has said they will change their plans.
We have heard you. We apologize for the confusion and angst the runtime fee policy we announced on Tuesday caused. We are listening, talking to our team members, community, customers, and partners, and will be making changes to the policy. We will share an update in a couple of…
— Unity (@unity) September 17, 2023
The mention of “changes to the policy” sounds like a good sign, but we’ll have to wait a couple of days to know exactly what those changes will be. It’s unlikely that they will completely cancel the policy, but there might be some adjustments. Perhaps they will lower the fee or make it apply only after a game becomes even more popular. However, these changes may not satisfy the people who didn’t like the policy, and Unity may still have a tough time winning back their trust.
This situation is still developing, and Unity might change their stance completely in the future. But given that the CEO, Riccitiello, once suggested charging money every time someone reloads in a game like Battlefield, fans don’t have high expectations, and they’re still making fun of Unity on social media.
