If you’re a regular reader at DroidGamers, or if you’ve been following practically any game-related outlets or social media you will have probably seen the absolute dumpster fire that is the Unity Runtime Fee. Well, Unity Technologies still has more surprises.
It Keeps Going
A new chapter in Unity’s story just emerged. John Riccitiello, Unity Technologies CEO, has stepped down from his post with immediate effect. The former Electronic Arts CEO held the post at Unity since 2014, and oversaw several major company changes, including Unity going public on the stock market.
Of course, the elephant in the room is that Riccitiello was at the helm when Unity hit the iceberg that was the Unity Runtime Fee and the developer revolt that resulted.
The whole wretched saga kicked off back in September, when the company responsible for Unity, a popular game engine, announced that it would be introducing a ‘runtime fee’ to its users who launch games made on the engine.
The Infamous Runtime Fee
This fee would charge the developer every time someone installed the game, with promises that Unity itself would determine the number of installations that developers should pay for.
The proposal received a notable de-fanging after the uproar. Unity announced that developers would self-report their installation numbers, and fees no longer applied to anyone making less than one million dollars in sales.
By this point though, the damage was already done. Many studios were already packing their bags to move to other engines.
So where does that leave Unity Technologies? According to Businesswire, the company appointed James Whitehurst, former President at IBM, to act as interim CEO
. He’s probably got his work cut out to recapture the trust of the Unity, or former-Unity development community. We’ll see how things shake down from here.
Interested in reading the previous events in the Unity Technologies story? Check out our pieces on the Unity Runtime Fee, the Unity developer revolt, and Unity’s fee changes.
