Unity finally does away with its Runtime Fee for game developers

In September 2023, the Unity game engine and development tool company announced a new pricing plan. It added a Unity Runtime Fee that would charge developers every time a person downloaded one of their Unity-based games on a PC, console, or mobile game after a certain amount of revenue and game installs were reached.

The announcement of the Runtime Fee caused a massive negative reaction from most game developers, who felt that such a fee would be an extra financial cost. Just a few days later, Unity backtracked and got rid of most of the Runtime Fees. However, the company still kept the fees if a game was being developed or was being upgraded to the "next LTS version of Unity shipping in 2024 and beyond."

Today, about a year after Unity first announced its Runtime Fees, the company's CEO, Matt Bromberg, announced in a blog post that it would get rid of these fees immediately. Bromberg added:

I’ve been able to connect with many of you over the last three months, and I’ve heard time and time again that you want a strong Unity, and understand that price increases are a necessary part of what enables us to invest in moving gaming forward. But those increases needn’t come in a novel and controversial new form. We want to deliver value at a fair price in the right way so that you will continue to feel comfortable building your business over the long term with Unity as your partner.

As the company announced in 2023, the Unity Personal development plan will remain free, and its development and revenue cap will be $200,000. Developers can still ditch the "Made with Unity" splash screen when the next version of the game engine, Unity 6, launches later in 2024.

However, prices for Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise will be going up. Developers with revenues and development fees over $200,000 will have to sign up for Unity Pro. Also, the per-seat annual fee will go up by 8 percent to $2,200 per year.

Unity Enterprise is for game developers with $25 million or more in annual development and revenue. Today, the company announced a 25 percent increase in its annual fees. Since this is the highest subscription tier, Unity will contact each user personally over the next several weeks to create a custom package. All of these new prices will go into effect on January 1, 2025.