Indie devs threaten to pull game after Unity announces controversial new fees

Indie devs behind Cult of the Lamb have threatened to pull their game after Unity’s announcement of a controversial Runtime Fee.

The company behind the widely industry-used game engine, Unity Engine, has announced a new controversial Runtime Fee. On September 12, Unity revealed starting in January 2024, they will charge devs each time a game is downloaded. 

The charge rate depends on which Unity plan a dev is on, but when a dev reaches $200,000 in revenue over 12 months, devs could be subject to charges as much as $0.20 per install, depending on their plan.

This means potential thousands of dollars, even millions for certain devs, would have to be given to Unity if their game were released with these charges. And indie devs are making their opinions clear, with one threatening to pull their game. 

Buy Cult of the Lamb now, cause we're deleting it on Jan 1st. 😘 https://t.co/nSWg9DP0sh

— Cult of the Lamb (@cultofthelamb) September 12, 2023

Massive Monster, devs of the roguelike game Cult of the Lamb tweeted, “Buy Cult of the Lamb now, cause we’re deleting it on January 1.” And when a commenter jokingly said it was time to pirate the game, the devs reminded that it “also counts as a Unity download.” 

Other devs have voiced their concerns, with Garry Newman, the creator of Garry’s Mod, questioning the charges, “Unity can just charge us a tax per install? They can do this unilaterally? They can charge whatever they want? They can add install tracking to our game? We have to trust their tracking?”

Dani, the dev behind Muck and Crab Game pointed out that if his games were to be released with these plans, he would have owed Unity $5,600,000. Although he most likely would avoid the charge since the games were released for free. 

The new planned Runtime Fees also question how some of the world’s biggest game devs will be affected by it, such as HoYoverse whose biggest games, Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and more are made with Unity. 

Some other notable games developed with Unity Engine are Pokemon Go, Cuphead, Hearthstone, Beat Saber, Firewatch, Kerbal Space Program, CoD: Mobile, and more.