No, Cult of the Lamb isn’t getting deleted over Unity fees

Don’t worry, Cult of the Lamb isn’t getting deleted. Massive Monster, which developed the game, jokingly posted to X last week that it’s taking the game offline on Jan. 1, when Unity’s new, wildly unpopular install-based fees are set to launch. Even Unity itself was seemingly concerned: It replied on X that it was “working to clarify specifics.”

Soon after, Massive Monster reassured Cult of the Lamb fans that the post was a joke — Cult of the Lamb is safe. “It was a joke on Twitter — I mean X — that the media sensationalized, like a lot,” the developer said. “I read in one article that we’d already deleted the game, which is news to me.”

The thing is, Massive Monster is not joking about Unity’s new fees, which are said to be tweaked in the next few days, and how they impact video game development. Studios have spoken out about the strain this will put on studios, financial and otherwise. Originally, Unity intended to bill developers for each player install once the studio has passed a certain revenue and download number. On Sunday, however, Unity announced that it’s revising the change and will say more in the coming days. A Bloomberg report Monday said the new plan could limit fees to 4% of game revenue for customers that make more than $1 million.

Unity also reportedly said that studios will “self-report” that data. How this information was to be collected with a big sticking point for a lot of developers: Unity was never really clear how that data would be tracked, saying only that it would use proprietary tools. It brought up a lot of problems, including privacy concerns.

Massive Monster is one of the studios that vowed to move off Unity should these changes happen. It said on X — and again in the aforementioned TikTok — that the team would experience delays for its projects that were intended to be built on Unity, because the team would have to learn how to build games with a new engine.

At the end of the TikTok, Massive Monster clarified that a Cult of the Lamb update is still in the works. It shared a little peek at what’s to come: a little green frog... um... straining at its stools. That tidbit was also attached to the developer’s message to Unity: Quit being stinky.