Hey everybody! It's been quite a while since I last posted anything on Itch.io. I am busy making a project that is larger than previous ones on my page, so a lot of my time is taken up on that. If I make game jam / smaller games in between that time, I should post them on here.

However, I have recently taken down a couple of my projects recently. Well, made them into Drafts, so just made them have limited access. The reason is due to a recent decision made by Unity Technologies.

For context, I am quite familiar with the Unity engine, and have used it for a long time. I have used it since I was young, and have learned a lot about game development from it. When I went to college, I mostly used Unity. Since then, many of my projects have been in Unity. Over the years, however, I have felt that Unity was stagnating in development, and I grew frustrated in some of the hurdles I had to go through. I wanted something that fit my needs more than what Unity was providing, and something that would work well on Linux. So, I looked into Godot, and after a year or two, fully switched to that (with exception to Far From the Tree).

I planned on keeping the games I had made in Unity on my Itch.io page, while showing off new projects on here as well. However, Unity has made a decision that has affected developers all over. They have begun charging per install for their "Unity Runtime", which is part of the game installation / download.

At the moment, I do not fit the criteria required to have these fees applied. It currently requires the developer to have made $200k USD in a year and have over 200k downloads in a lifetime. I have met neither of these conditions, and I do not plan to with my Unity projects. None of my Unity projects are monetized. However, I still have several problems with this change:

• It affects developers who met these conditions before the changes were made.
• They made these changes without the consent of these developers.
• There is a lot of ambiguity over what scenarios these changes can apply.
• How will Unity determine what is a legitimate install, without intruding on users?
• Unity can make decisions like this fairly easily, which can be detrimental to small developers.

This situation does seem to be developing rapidly. With much uncertainty over how such a drastic and destructive change can play out, I am worried for the future of developers who use Unity. So even though I do not meet the criteria for these fees to apply, I have made a decision I did not want to make. I am putting the following games into "Draft" mode, effectively making them private:

• Grid System Race
  
• Heartbreak
  

Additionally, I am looking into making Far from the Tree into a Draft as well. That will require discussions with people I have worked with. UPDATE (Sept. 16, 2023): I have contacted the team that I worked with, and we came to a unanimous decision to take down Far from the Tree as well.

If the outcome of this situation is a firm stand on the pricing model Unity Technologies has made (or one that is even worse), then I will take down the projects instead. Even if I and 90% of developers do not meet the criteria for their fees, it is wrong ignore the deals that were previously made, and to pull the rug with this. I do hope that Unity Technologies makes the right decision and goes back on this. Until then, we must see how this plays out. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause on players and developers alike.

Hopefully the next post I make will have some more positive news. Maybe something regarding my game projects! Godot (and maybe other) projects will still continue as planned. You can check out my Mastodon for posts I make. Take care!

-Alex Stewart