Unity may have taken a step back from their controversial policy change with a statement on Sept. 17, but developers think it’s still not enough and are taking a stance by boycotting Unity ads “until new conditions are reviewed.”
On Sept. 19, countless developers signed a collective letter where they promised to turn off all of Unity’s ad monetization services, as well as IronSource SDK, to negotiate new conditions on the flat tax that’s supposed to launch in 2024, Games Industry reported.
The letter is now locked, but it had over 500 signatures last night before public access was removed. According to Games Industry, developers that signed include mobile games specialists Tap Nation, People Fun, Belka Games, and more.
“The Runtime Fee is an unacceptable shift in our partnership with Unity that needs to be immediately canceled,” the letter read. Developers urged others to initiate the same boycott and make a common front in hopes of pushing Unity to backtrack on their flat tax.
The original policy, supposed to launch on January 1, 2024, would charge developers that surpass a revenue cap for every download of their games built on the Unity engine, starting at the 200,000 downloads mark. Developers would have to pay this flat tax in addition to the monthly subscription for using the game engine.
After the letter was published, Unity reportedly planned to add a maximum fee cap of four percent of the game’s revenue over $1M, as well as the deletion of retroactive effect. In addition, it would charge fees based on the numbers the developers will give rather than counting downloads itself.
More information will likely be revealed on that matter in the coming days, as more and more developers voice their discontent with the changes. On Sept. 19, Terraria developer Re-Logic donated $200,000 to Unity competitors to show their condemnation of the game engine’s sudden changes.
