Over the past week, the team behind the game development engine Unity has been subject to a torrent of negative feedback over plans to introduce a new "Runtime Fee", and now a decision has been made to integrate some "changes".
Earlier today, the official Unity account on Twitter posted that it had heard the feedback, and apologised for the "confusion and angst" that had been caused by the new Runtime Fee policy. Here's the full message:
"We have heard you. 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. We will share an update in a couple of days. Thank you for your honest and critical feedback."
As we mentioned last Wednesday here at Pure Xbox, this new Runtime Fee planned to charge developers when they reached a certain minimum revenue threshold in the past 12 months and a minimum lifetime install count. When a game surpassed this threshold, the cost would be anywhere from $0.01 to $0.20 per-install.
In the case of Xbox Game Pass titles, which are obviously downloaded in their millions in some cases, it was suggested that Microsoft would have to foot the bill - which surely wouldn't have gone down well with Phil Spencer and his team!
It remains to be seen what changes Unity will be making, but we should find out very soon. Based on the comments, it appears some developers will only be happy if the entire policy is reverted, although we think that's pretty unlikely.