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"Fuck you, we're not paying": inside Unity’s Runtime Fee fiasco
(mobilegamer.biz)
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this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2023
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of all the games released on Steam in 2022, only 70 have hit the million dollars threshold. I think it is misleading to bundle all "indies" in one big basket. Those 70 games can afford to pay or negociate. Don't get me wrong, total dick and amateurish move from Unity, but the amount of people around social media who believe game devs can just hit the threshold by accident and become unprofitable is ridiculous. Current gamedev here and ex Unity employee. It is worth denouncing Unity and fighting for our indies, but understand that this affect the 0.01%, literally. 70 games out of 6000 released games on Steam in 2022. Sure most games are shit and w/e, but you get the point.
The "1 million dollar threshold" came out as a backpedal after the runtime fee backlash. Unity's fee chnage was initially pitched as retroactive to all unity games, a per device install, and per reinstall for those devices. It did create a way to harrass and "install bomb" devs with insane fees, along with gouging smaller devs for money in perpetuity that could cost them more in fees long term then they made in profits because it was such a stupid structure.
The fact that they have backpedaled to a 1mil threshold and a "come on guys, this barely affects any of you" is purely because people did react to a very ugly, very tone deaf, and very damaging fee scheme that did affect everyone.
70 out of 6000 is more than 1%, not 0.01%