After Unity's crisis, GameMaker replaces subscriptions with one-off fee for indies
"We have seen other platforms making awkward moves with their pricing and terms."
GameMaker, a series of cross-platform engines for game developers, has ditched its subscription model for non-commercial purposes, hobbyists and indie developers.
GameMaker will now be free for anyone using its software non-commercially on all non-console platforms. Creator and indie subscriptions have been replaced with a one-time fee of $100, meanwhile, which grants a commercial license and enables exports to desktop and mobile platforms.
The change appears to have been prompted by the recent and controversial changes Unity announced for its pricing model, which would introduce a fee for developers per game install. The plan was met with anger from indie developers, causing Unity to walk back significantly on its proposed changes.
"We have seen other platforms making awkward moves with their pricing and terms," GameMaker head Russell Kay wrote in the announcement of the pricing changes, "so we thought, what if we did the opposite, something that could actually be good for developers?" The changes for GameMaker went into effect yesterday, and the company teased plans for going open-source on X (née Twitter) with the account for Godot Engine.
Godot has been one of the engines indie developers have decided to explore since Unity's fee plans. Last month, Slay the Spire studio Mega Crit released Dancing Duelists, a free deck-builder and auto-battler which has a funky soundtrack and a cute cast of characters to play as. Unity meanwhile announced the next version of its engine with "responsibly sourced" AI tools which will launch in 2024.