Unity unites the indie game industry against its new pricing model

Unity has been hit with another round of layoffs. This is according to posts on LinkedIn from recently laid off staff and confirmed by reporting from Game Developer and 80.lvl. According to reports, employees were notified via emails sent out at 5 AM local time, while the layoffs affect a number of different teams within the the game engine software company. According to a message posted in the Unity forums, one of the casualties in the layoffs was the entire Behavior department which built tools that assisted in NPC scripting. It’s not clear at this point how many employees were impacted.

Unity has been on shaky ground for the last two years, undergoing several rounds of layoffs amid other upheavals. In January 2024, Unity eliminated 25 percent of its workforce or around 1,800 employees. Before that in November 2023, Unity closed several office locations and cut 265 jobs.

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Unity hasn’t had the easiest go of things as of late, but as part of its efforts to get back in the good graces of game developers, the company has released Unity 6 globally. In addition to new features like tools that let developers to target mobile web, the game engine maker is also promising that it will dedicate “long-term” resources to “to enhance feature sets and deliver new functionality while maintaining ease of upgrade and continued stability,” according to a press release.

Unity is a widely-used game development engine powering games like Among Us, Hollow Knight, and many more, but the release of Unity 6 follows a turbulent period in the company’s history. Unity charges developers on a per-user basis, but in September 2023, the company announced a new pricing scheme that charged developers per install of their games after a certain threshold. The change could have potentially added significant costs for developers, and many expressed significant frustrations.

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One year to the day since Unity announced its runtime fee pricing model, the software developer is canceling that program effective immediately. “After extensive consultation with our games community and customers, we’ve decided to cancel the Runtime Fee,” said Unity CEO Matt Bromberg in the blog post announcing the news. Instead of the runtime fee, Unity will return to a per-seat subscription model.

Last year, Unity caused a stir within the game development community with a controversial update to its pricing model. Instead of charging developers a set monthly rate based on the number of users utilizing the software, it would implement a pay-per-download scheme that charged developers every time their game was downloaded. That meant instead of paying a flat, predictable rate to Unity, payouts could fluctuate, resulting in potentially higher fees.

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Larry Hryb, aka “Major Nelson,” has his next job. Following his departure from Microsoft last year, where he was a public face for the Xbox brand, Hryb will be joining Unity’s Community team, he announced on Monday.

At Microsoft, he, among other things, hosted the Official Xbox Podcast and posted about Xbox to his large following on X. On LinkedIn, he lists his new job title as “Director of Community,” and based on a LinkedIn post, it seems like he’ll still be a brand ambassador in some form.

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Unity is undergoing yet another layoff, and this time it’s going to affect about 25 percent of its entire workforce, or around 1,800 employees. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company, which makes the popular game engine Unity, said it’s making the cuts “as it restructures and refocuses on its core business, and to position itself for long-term and profitable growth.”

Unity has been through several rounds of layoffs within the past year, with the most recent one affecting 265 workers last November. However, it’s still not clear whether Unity is cutting 1,800 additional workers on top of the layoffs it announced last year. We’ve reached out to Unity for clarification.

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In its Q3 earnings report published Thursday, game development software company Unity announced that it will “likely” be implementing layoffs as part of broader cost saving measures.

In the report, the company says it is assessing its product portfolio “to focus on those products that are most valuable to our customers” and is “evaluating the right cost structure that aligns with the more focused portfolio.” It plans to make changes during the fourth quarter, and they will “likely include discontinuing certain product offerings, reducing our workforce, and reducing our office footprint.” The company expects to complete its changes before the end of Q1 2024.

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Unity, the company behind the game development engine of the same name, has just announced that its president, CEO, and chairman John Riccitiello “will retire” effective immediately.

“The Board will initiate a comprehensive search process, with the assistance of a leading executive search firm, to identify a permanent CEO,” reads the press release, adding that James Whitehurst will step in as interim CEO, president, and board member. “Mr. Riccitiello will continue to advise Unity to ensure a smooth transition.”

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Unity plans to change its forthcoming pay-per-install program following widespread criticism from game developers.

“We apologize for the confusion and angst the runtime fee policy we announced on Tuesday caused,” Unity posted on X (formerly Twitter). “We are listening, talking to our team members, community, customers, and partners, and will be making changes to the policy. We will share an update in a couple of days.”

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The game developers affected by Unity’s new pricing model are striking back. A collective of developers across 19 companies, mostly based in Europe and mostly developing mobile games, has put out an open letter urging Unity to reverse course on its recently announced pricing model changes. The letter contains some of the same sentiments expressed by other developers this week but with one big twist.

“As a course of immediate action, our collective of game development companies is forced to turn off all IronSource and Unity Ads monetization across our projects until these changes are reconsidered,” the letter read.

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Earlier this week, Unity, the company that makes the Unity video game engine popular with indie developers, announced that it was changing its pricing model. The changes included a pricing scheme that sought to charge developers on a per-install basis for games that met specific download and revenue thresholds.

Unity wanted to charge developers for game installs without seemingly taking into account the many reasons a game might be installed without being purchased. Unity’s new model could theoretically result in situations where developers would be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees without the revenue to pay for it.

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The Unity pricing debacle has taken an unfortunate, dangerous turn. In a new report from Bloomberg, the company has reportedly canceled a town hall meeting due to what the publication called credible death threats. According to Bloomberg, Unity CEO John Riccitiello was set to address employees Thursday morning, but the companywide meeting was canceled and two of Unity’s offices were closed because of the alleged threats.

Earlier this week, Unity, makers of a video game engine popular among indie developers, announced that it was making changes to its pricing model. In addition to charging yearly subscription fees, Unity is planning to implement a pay-per-install pricing scheme, charging developers each time a game is installed on a device once that game has met specific download and revenue thresholds.

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Popular video game engine Unity is making big changes to its pricing structure that’s causing confusion and anger among developers. On Tuesday, Unity announced that on January 1st, 2024, it would be implementing a pay-per-download pricing scheme that would charge developers a flat fee any time a game using Unity software is installed.

“We are introducing a Unity Runtime Fee that is based upon each time a qualifying game is downloaded by an end user,” the company shared on its blog. “We chose this because each time a game is downloaded, the Unity Runtime is also installed. Also we believe that an initial install-based fee allows creators to keep the ongoing financial gains from player engagement, unlike a revenue share.”

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