• In a post on X, Unity says it will “be making changes” to its newly announced Runtime Fee.
• The game engine developer angered many indie studios, who were to be charged for each new game install under the new policy.
• It is unclear at the time of writing what will replace the divisive Runtime Fee.

Game engine creator Unity got on everyone’s bad side last week by announcing a Runtime Fee that would charge developers every time one of their games was installed, which severely threatened the way that indie studios operate.

Since the announcement, Unity doubled down and tried to explain the reasoning behind the Runtime Fee, which backfired and only angered people more, but now it looks like sanity has prevailed following this latest update.

To that end, Unity took to its X profile (formerly Twitter) to apologise for the drastic policy changes, and confirm that new changes are on the way.

“We have heard you. We apologize for the confusion and angst the runtime fee policy we announced on Tuesday caused,” the company posted.

“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,” it added.

At the time of writing, it remains to be seen when said changes will be outlined and shared with the public. There is then a slim chance that Unity could fluff things again, especially if the company is looking to garner more revenue in the wake of major layoffs announced last year and a steeply dropping stock price.

As Axios reported, however, with some developers looking to a class action lawsuit if Unity continued down its Runtime Fee path, the game engine designer needs to tread carefully moving forward.

“Please, either a total revert, or a standard revenue share. Forget about any other kind of convoluted scheme. Also, respect the TOS of each version, and don’t try ever again any shady manoeuvre to conceal changes. Just be honest, upfront, reliable. We need stability. Thank you,” warned Tim Soret, founder of OddsTale Games in reply to Unity’s most recent post.

Having burned several developers over a seeming money grab, it will be interesting to see how Unity goes about winning back their trust and loyalty.