I'll just cut to the chase, and I won't sugarcoat it: the Unity Runtime fee SUCKS.

In case you haven't already heard (which would be surprising since practically many indie devs have voiced their disapproval at the time of me writing this devlog), Unity is planning to implement an install-based fee for games made with the engine that pass certain install and revenue thresholds by January 2024.

I could rattle on about how this will have a negative effect on developers, both indie and AAA, who have existing games made with Unity that will be retroactively subjected to this fee, or about how reinstalls, piracy, and bot downloads could artificially raise the fee developers have to pay, but I just want to talk about how this could affect me on a personal level.

I know that the fee probably shouldn't concern me since this game doesn't have that many downloads or browser plays in the first place (many thanks to those who did download or play on browser, by the way), but what if this game somehow gains traction and I decide to monetize a full release of this game in the very distant future? Regardless of how much I would be willing to charge upfront for a hypothetical full release, I'm just not sure if I want to risk losing potential earnings due to the aforementioned concerns with unpaid installs that can't be reliably tracked.

I should also mention that this issue doesn't just concern this game in particular; it concerns all of the projects I've posted on this website as well as my entire gamedev learning experience. I've spent the last three years, going on four, learning how to make games with Unity: the first year was for one of my computer science technical electives in college, the second and third years were spent experimenting by making small (unreleased) games and trying my hand at game jams hosted on this very website to build up a portfolio, and most of the fourth year so far was spent making this game. In fact, it's almost been a year since I came up with the idea for this game and created the Unity project.

That being said, the fact that I even have to consider switching this game's engine to an alternative like GameMaker or Godot in case Unity goes through with this shoddy business tactic of the month makes me feel like the rug has been pulled from underneath me knowing that I'd potentially be throwing three years worth of Unity experience out the window and that all of my efforts put into this one game over the past year, despite it still being in it's early stages, would all be for nothing and I'd have to start from square one.

I haven't quite abandoned this ship just yet as I'm hoping that the backlash will cause Unity to back out of their plan, but considering how similar stuff has happened to sites like Twitter and Reddit earlier this year and how Unity has been responding so far, I'm not so sure...

So thanks a lot, Unity, your corporate greed has made me and Magli Draelyn have an existential crisis.

- Kaysun (JKSun22)