Unity’s pricing model will change sta,rting next year and it has caused an uproar in the gaming industry. Many game developers will be affected by the change, and the games that use the Unity engine might be delisted and become unavailable for download.
The new plan will charge $0.20 per install, but the charge can be smaller depending on the game’s revenue and install thresholds. Considering Unity is mainly used by small studios that develop indie and mobile games, it’s easy to see how the new pricing plan could break a small company.
Many indie developers already announced they will be dropping Unity and moving to another engine for games already in development while some announced they will be delisting games already released that used Unity engine.
We’ve compiled a list of the top games developed using Unity that developers might get affected by Unity’s change next year.
5) Rust
Rust is a survival indie game developed by Facepunch, the same studio that released Garry’s Mod in 2006. You are left naked and alone on a beach and have to survive against the weather, animals, and other players on an island where everything is against you.
The owner, Garry Newman, has already said the tax isn’t “feasible” and “the trust is gone” in Unity. The game sold 12.4 million units in 2021 according to Statista, three years after launch on PC, and became one of the most popular games on Twitch at that time.
4) Slay the Spire
Slay the Spire brings together card and roguelike elements in the same game. It was released by Mega Crit Games in 2019, and was a huge success. You get to build your deck and experiment in a different way each time you start your journey again.
It’s hard to find the exact numbers, but it has sold more than 4 million units according to SteamDB and more than 100 thousand downloads on Google Play. Mega Crit announced that if Unity doesn’t revert the changes, they will migrate their new game in development to another engine.
3) Among Us
The online multiplayer game took over during the pandemic as many used the game as a form os socializing when everyone was stuck at home. Among Us is full of moments of betrayal among friends while you have to survive against an imposter sabotaging your spaceship and killing your crew.
Among Us hit 500 million lifetime downloads just on mobile in March of 2023 and will definitely be affected by Unity’s new policy. Innersloth, Among Us‘ developer, released a statement against the pricing change and in solidarity with other small game studios.
2) Return of the Obra Dinn
Return of the Obra Dinn was developed by Lucas Pope, the same creator of Papers, Please, and released in 2018 with massive positive reviews. It’s a first-person mystery game with little to no color and 3D graphics where you have to figure out what happened with the Obra Dinn ship, lost at sea five years earlier before mysteriously reappearing back in London.
The developer posted on Twitter hoping Unity would back down from the pricing changes, but will “take a look” at the Godot engine. Godot is an open-source 2D and 3D game engine that has received a lot of attention after Unity’s scandal.
1) Cult of the Lamb
Cult of the Lamb allows players to organize a cult, as the name suggests, with a playful and cute aesthetic. But you are not the only cult in the world, and you need to end all non-believers while increasing your flock’s number.
Massive Monster is the only studio by the time of writing that explicitly threatened to delist the game, and has been vocal about Unity’s Runtime Fee. “The demo we made for Steam Next Fest had over a million downloads – which would have put us over the install threshold before our game even launched,” said Massive Monster in an interview for GamesRadar+.
Special mention – Hollow Knight: Silksong
Hollow Knight: Silksong is Team Cherry’s sequel to Hollow Knight. It follows Hornet, one of the characters from the previous game, in a different world but still dangerous and full of secrets.
The game was already delayed at the start of 2023 and still has no release date confirmed. It is developed with Unity, so the new pricing method might interfere with the release of the game, causing a further release delay.
More games developed using Unity
Pokémon Go and Genshin Impact are also made with Unity, but considering the size of each game’s studios, it’s likely they won’t be affected as much by Unity’s Runtime Fee.
Unity is one of the most popular engines used in the gaming industry. There are countless games from indie studios to students, hobbyists, and mobile game studios. Here are some of the games developed using Unity:
Big company games
- Pokémon Go
- Genshin Impact
- Cities: Skylines
- Hearthstone
- Mario Kart Tour
- Marvel Strike Force
- Marvel Snap
Indie games
- Kentucky Route Zero
- Firewatch
- Hollow Knight
- Overcooked and Overcooked 2
- Outer Wilds
- Oxenfree
- Bendy and the Ink Machine
- Escape from Tarkov
- Life is Strange: Before the Storm
- Night in the Woods
- Gris
- Tunic
- Sable
- Pathfinder: Kingmaker
- Subnautica
- Human: Fall Flat
- Pikuniku
- Untitled Goose Game
- Ori and the Blind Forest & Ori and the Will of the Wisps
- Cozy Grove
- Coffee Talk
- Cuphead
- My Friend Pedro
- Florence
- Citizen Sleeper
- Slime Ranchers 2
Mobile games
- Raid: Shadow Legends
- Fallout Shelter
- PewDiePie: Legend of the Brofist
- Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp
- Garena Free Fire
- Gwent: The Witcher Card Game
- Angry Birds 2
- Be Funny Now!
- Monument Valley
VR games
- Superhot
- VRChat
- Aim Lab VR
- Beat Saber
