Unity scraps controversial Runtime Fee and will raise its subscription prices

by Danny Craig  · 
Unity scraps controversial Runtime Fee and will raise its subscription prices
Unity

A year after its initial announcement, Unity has officially abandoned its Runtime Fee, which would have required developers to pay a fee per game install, instead raising the price of its Pro and Enterprise subscriptions.

The details:

  • Unity announced in September 2023 that it would implement the Runtime Fee, which would require developers to pay up to $0.20 for each game installation. This sparked immediate backlash, forcing it to partially reverse the plan, instead limiting it to Pro and Enterprise users who released new games and not enforcing it per-install.

  • Unity president and CEO Matt Bromberg has now confirmed in a new blog post that the fee has been scrapped entirely for all of its gaming customers. “After deep consultation with our community, customers, and partners, we’ve made the decision to cancel the Runtime Fee for our games customers, effective immediately,” he wrote. “Over the last 20 years, we’ve partnered with brilliant designers and developers, artists and engineers, publishers and platforms, to build a world where great games could be built by anyone, for everyone. We called it ‘democratising game development’, and it remains our core mission today. However, we can’t pursue that mission in conflict with our customers – at its heart, it must be a partnership built on trust.”

  • Unity will revert to its previous seat-based subscription model, with some price adjustments. Unity Personal will remain free, but its revenue and funding limits have been raised from $100,000 to $200,000 USD, allowing smaller developers to continue using it for free. Pro and Enterprise tier subscribers will see price increases of 8% and 25%, respectively. These changes will come into effect for any customers that purchase, upgrade, or renew a subscription on or after January 1, 2025.

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