SQYD.studio

A response to the cancellation of the runtime fee.

Unity recently canceled its controversial runtime fee. This is good news for us, but maybe not as good of news as many people think. I figure now is a good time to talk about my feelings towards Unity as a company and as a tool. To explain why– at least for WOFG!, and maybe beyond– we are committed to using the Unity engine, and more broadly sketch my feelings on complex technologies and the companies that manage them. 

First off, the runtime fee. In case you somehow missed it, back in September 2023, Unity blindsided everyone with a new runtime fee that would charge developers a flat fee each time the Unity installer was run. This fee only kicked in after certain thresholds of installs and revenue had been met– and it was obvious to me at the time, as someone deeply invested in the success of my own indie project, that the runtime fee wasn’t aimed at small studios creating premium games. If WOFG! released into a world where the runtime fee still existed and it got to a point where I was having to pay, I would consider this to be a very good problem to have. My game would have already been successful, and I wouldn’t necessarily begrudge Unity for rent seeking. My work would have been impossible without their tools (at least not without substantially more time and investment). This isn’t a defense, this is simply pointing out a fact that I feel got lost in the righteous outrage in the wake of the fee announcement. The target was clearly studios that have free-to-play games with a large user base that make most of their money milking whales.   

Make no mistake, the runtime fee was a disastrous policy. One imagines– and evidence seems to support this– that this decision was made by an overconfident executive. Someone so excited by discovering a new way to monetize that they forgot to check with anybody who actually uses Unity on a daily basis. Backlash was swift and fierce. Most discussions seemed focused on financial fears, as humans seem wont to do, but the most alarming specter in my eyes was the implication of spyware lurking in the Unity launcher (seems likely it still does, runtime walk back or not). Summarized: it was an unmitigated public relations clusterfunk.   

Perhaps in cowardice, I mostly sat it out. In retrospect it’s probably because of how enmeshed I am in Untiy as an engine. At the time I feel like I was just starting to get comfortable with the Unity workflow. There is a cohesive simplicity in how Unity’s hierarchy of game objects and components works. It took some getting used to. Now that I am used to it, I can’t really see my workflow any other way. Maybe I’m sipping from the cup of sunk costs, but I have to say: I love the Unity Game Engine. 

Which hurts me. This is cognitive dissonance. I love Unity (the game engine), and there was undoubtedly a massive breach of trust on the part of Unity (the company). Both these things are true. Developers who thought they understood the deal realized that the deal could be changed at any time. It was a breach of trust. It’s not just Unity though. This is an issue for all for-profit tech companies. They are incentivized to make money and with so many people hooked into their technologies one way they can do this is by changing the terms of the deal, a power they’ve always had because nobody reads the terms of service. What happened at Unity is happening all over- recently both Microsoft and Adobe have faced controversy due to changes to their terms of service that seem to allow them to harvest data to train large neural networks (I’ll leave the topic  of “AI” to another day, but oh boy do I have some thoughts.) It sucks that users of software are often stuck with these softwares, but in reality the user is stuck because these companies keep and maintain software that people want to use. The tools are good, the ones who own them want to maximize profits. It is a part of the warp and woof of our society.

At this point some reader, maybe even you, is screaming at the blog about open-source. I agree that open-source is a solution. I’m using open source software in my workflows wherever I can. Blender is awesome and, now that I’ve figured out more of the UX, GIMP seems like a decent alternative to photoshop. One thing the Unity runtime fee pushed me to is financially supporting the Godot Foundation. I like the mission. I’ve dabbled with the engine. I could become very proficient with the workflow with a bit of practice, but I don’t think I would accomplish the same things I can with Unity without substantially more effort. Unity has more built in tools, more accessible third-party assets, and the ability to build for multiple platforms built in. For a small team working on a commercial project of even modest complexity Unity is the way.   

The truth is that it just isn’t an alternative. At least not yet. 

So yes, for now I’ll have to consolidate my Love for Unity the Engine with my distrust for Unity the Company. I hope that isn’t the case for ever, and I’m glad they axed the runtime fee. I’m even excited by some of the stuff that’s been promised in Unity 6. It is hypocritical, but no less so than anybody creating anything with any major for-profit software. We live in a society, and sometimes we just have to deal with it.