The developers of Terraria, the pixelated open-world game on Steam, sharply criticize Unity’s controversial decision to introduce installation fees and subsequently donate more than 180,000 euros to the competition.
Recently, Unity announced a controversial policy called Unity Runtime Fee
, which is set to come into effect on January 1, 2024. This policy stipulates that developers of games that have more than 200,000 installations and have generated over $200,000 in revenue in the last 12 months must pay a fee of 20 cents per installation.
This announcement has caused confusion and criticism in the gaming industry. Among them are the developers of the Steam hit Among Us, who are going to the barricades and say that Unity is exploiting the engine operators.
The developers Re-Logic of Terraria, one of the most successful games on Steam with over 900,000 reviews (97% positive), have now spoken up.
Re-Logic condemns Unity’s decision and donates more than $200,000 (equivalent to 180,000 euros) to the competition. On X, they have expressed concern about the recent developments regarding Unity.
Terraria developers donate a bunch of money to the competition
What do the developers of Terraria say? Re-Logic not only promises to condemn the changes, but also to take action. They will donate $1,000 per month to the game engines Godot and FNA and an additional $100,000 each. Their conditions are that they continue to strive to remain good people
and do everything possible to ensure that these engines remain powerful
and accessible to all developers
.
They announced it all on X, here is the post:
In their statement on X, Re-Logic expressed their concern about the loss of Unity as a leading and user-friendly game engine and described the new fee changes as predatory
and sneaky
.
The reckless manner in which years of trust built by Unity has been sacrificed for another way to pressure publishers, studios, and players is the saddest part. That this step was entirely unnecessary pushes things into the category of tragedy – a cautionary tale for the industry.
Unity via X
Although they only use Unity to a limited extent in their projects, they feel obligated to stand against the “predatory” measures.
What does Unity plan now? Unity announced on X that they have taken note of the criticism. They apologize for the confusion and fears caused by the Unity Runtime Fee
. They promise to make changes.
In the coming days, more details about the changes are to be announced. It remains to be seen what specific adjustments will be made to the billing model.
After the price changes, Unity received threats: Unity angers everyone with price changes, even receives death threats, now has to backtrack
