The team behind the popular rogue-lite action game, Cult of the Lamb have threatened to delist the game on 1 January 2024 due to the ongoing controversy surrounding the Unity engine.
If you missed it, Unity recently announced a new royalty fee for all game developers who create projects using the platform. It would see developers fork out money for every download their game gets be it a free trial, demo or even a subscription service incentive.
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This so-called Unity Runtime Fee is scheduled to take effect on 1 January 2024 and has caused a lot of uproar in the video game development industry in the past few days. The new fee even caused Unity to publically address the outcry stating that the fee would only apply to the initial installation of a game and that the fee wouldn’t apply to subscription services such as Xbox Game Pass. However, Unity expects Microsoft to fit the bill for that fee instead.
As a result of all of this, many developers who created games in Unity went online to voice their concerns. One tweet from the Cult of The Lamb developer stated ” Buy Cult of the Lamb now, cause we’re deleting it on Jan 1st”.
Developer Digital, who publishes hundreds of indie games also tweeted saying “Definitely include what engine you’re using in game pitches. It’s important information”.
The Unity announcement has caused a lot of internal discussion for developers. Many of them are likely scrambling around to come up with an alternate plan for developing their game. Someone has to absorb this extra cost now and neither small indie teams nor large triple-A studios want to be responsible for it.
Unit is under a lot of pressure now to scrap the new policy completely. Whether that will happen isn’t clear yet.
