Game engine Unity promises policy change after developer outcry over pricing model changes

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In response to heavy criticism for the recently announced pricing change for Unity game developers, the company has now backtracked on their plans and announced that they will be reviewing the policy. As per the official announcement further updates will be shared in a few days.

“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,” the company said as quoted by PC Gamer.

Amidst all the criticism, the company also reportedly received threats that are believed to be one of the reasons for them to cancel a CEO meeting and temporarily close two of its offices.

The new pricing plans that started the whole controversy charge the game developers for each time a game made in Unity engine is installed after a certain revenue and install thresholds are reached. Several indie studios raised their voice and threatened to shift to a new game engine if the changes were not completely reverted.

The new pricing system can theoretically bankrupt game developers if someone downloads the same games again and again. This can hurt indie developers as their games are usually small in size and can be installed multiple times in a short amount of time. The worse part is that the policy would still apply to already released games.

While the company might have finally understood what they did wrong, the trust between them and game developers seems to have been broken. There will now always be an uncertainty in the minds of new and existing developers which can drive them away from using Unity for future games.

Here’s how some prominent gamers reacted to Unity’s pricing decision –

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