LogInEffective immediately.
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Matt Bromberg, the President and CEO of Unity Technologies, who stepped to the plate following the resignation of John Riccitiello, continues the company's Redemption Arc by announcing that the universally hated Runtime Fee policy, introduced exactly a year ago to the day, has been canceled, effective immediately.
"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," Bromberg said in the statement. "Non-gaming industry customers are not impacted by this modification."
According to the CEO, the ongoing conflict with game developers contradicts Unity's mission of "democratizing game development," and as a result, the company is reverting to its established seat-based subscription model for all gaming customers. Bromberg further emphasized that while price increases are sometimes inevitable, introducing them through contentious methods like the Runtime Fee is not the right approach, noting that scrapping the unpopular policy will enable Unity to improve its game development tools and strengthen its partnership with the gamedev community.
"From this point forward, it's our intention to revert to a more traditional cycle of considering any potential price increases only on an annual basis. Our commitment remains that if we change the Editor software terms in ways that impact you, you may continue using your current version of the software under the previously agreed terms as long as you keep using that version."
As for the pricing, Unity Personal will remain free, with the revenue and funding ceiling doubled from $100,000 to $200,000. Prices for Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise, on the other hand, will increase starting January 1, 2025. Unity Pro will see an 8% subscription price increase to $2,200 annually per seat, while Unity Enterprise, required for customers with total annual revenue and funding exceeding $25 million, is set for a 25% subscription price hike.
While the company's decision to reconcile with the community and make the Runtime Fees a thing of the past may come as a surprise to some, it was previously hinted at by Design Architect Will Goldstone, who provided an update on the state of things at Unity back in June, revealing that the studio was addressing years of "cultural degradation".
At the time, Goldstone mentioned that the company had entered a positive period of change, thanks to the transparency of its new CEO regarding what was and wasn't working for Unity. With that in mind, it's not impossible that the scrapping of the Runtime Fee policy may just be the beginning, and we might see further positive developments from Unity in the near future.
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