Unity unveils tweaks to its controversial new payment model

After a lot of criticism about the new payment model proposed by Unity, the company has now revealed the modifications. The company still wants to launch a new payment model, but its concrete implementation will have less impact on junior developers in the latest version.

The main change is that Pay Per Install no longer applies to those using Unity Personal or Unity Plus. Those with Unity Pro or Unity Enterprise still have to pay, but the bar is being raised. For example, payment should only be made if the game in question has generated at least $1 million in the last 12 months and if 1 million “initial engagements” have been achieved. The latter probably means a million installs. Furthermore, Unity will rely on the numbers provided by the developers themselves.

Also important is that the new payment model will only apply to games developed with the next version of Unity, which won’t be released until 2024. So developers who developed their game with an older version will only end up in this new system if they switch to The latest version of the Unity engine.

Some other tweaks include dropping the requirement to provide a Unity startup screen for Unity Personal games, as well as the ability for developers to choose to pay based on “initial engagement” numbers, or based on monthly income. In the latter case, 2.5% must be paid to Unity. In any case, the developer’s cheapest option will always be chosen.

The unit therefore appears to be taking clear steps to respond to community concerns, although it remains to be seen whether this is enough. Aside from the tangible impact, it also appears that a breach of trust has occurred, which of course is not easy to fix. Only time will tell how far the union has succeeded in beating itself up here.