The overhauled Runtime Fee policy plan being considered by Unity Technologies will cap the fee to 4% of the game’s revenues over $1 million.
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While the changes aren’t official yet, Bloomberg got hold of a meeting recording where Unity executives outlined the new plan, which reportedly caps the Runtime Fee at 4% of the game’s revenues over one million dollars. Developers will also be asked to report the installation figures themselves instead of being forced to deal with Unity’s proprietary technology. Lastly, the installation threshold won’t be retroactive, so only new installations made after the policy’s announcement will count toward reaching the Runtime Fee thresholds.
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Still trying to shoehorn in a “runtime fee”. That’s not going to work and with this model it’s pointless anyway. Just make it a 4% revenue for sales after $1 million. Same end results (actually potentially more in fees) without all the runtime issues. Make it apply only to a specific version and later and after a certain date and then you also don’t have the retroactive problem and the massive blowback.
They’re trying to monetize the free-to-play mobile market, which is much more lucrative than a percentage of the sales. Cunning bastards.
It works for that market too even without install fees, you just make it a percentage of revenue generated from microtransactions. It’s still tied to the game.
For every paying customer, there are one thousand installations. A quick maths will tell you why they are trying so much to be paid for runtime.
