on Sept. 17, Unity issued an apology and promised changes to the policy:"We have heard you. We apologize for the confusion and angst the runtime fee policy we announced on Tuesday caused. We are listening, talking to our team members, community, customers, and partners, and will be making changes to the policy. We will share an update in a couple of days. Thank you for your honest and critical feedback.
"I don't think there's any version of this that would have gone down a whole lot differently than what happened," Unity CEO John Riccitiello said in a meeting recording obtained byUnity's statements have alleviated some developers' fears about the burden of the new fee, but to developer Nick Kaman, the damage to Unity's reputation is done.
Kaman is the studio head and art director at Aggro Crab Games, which is using Unity Engine for their upcoming title, Another Crab's Treasure. He's worried he'll have to pivot to a new game engine and throw away 10 years of experience in Unity."A lot of us have kind of staked our lives on these platforms," he told NPR, adding:
"Every time we start a new game, right, we have to make this decision on what engine to use, and that's a three year commitment, at the very least for us ... In the next three years they could make a handful of other crazy decisions that totally throw us off course or harm our sustainability as a business.
Kaman says since COVID and Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, it's been difficult to build community in the indie game world. Kaman worries that a struggling indie scene will spell bad news for everyone:"I would say that indie games is where a lot of the innovation in the industry happens, and it's created a lot of games that people really love. It's just bad for everyone, whether you actually play indie games or not.