this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2023
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There is zero rationality behind the decision, especially given that it’s retroactive and there’s no language in their decision that handles unique user versus multiple users versus multiple accounts.
I’ve had two gaming PCs over the last ten years. On my last one, I replaced the hard drive twice, and I’m on my second hard drive on the newest one. With each hard drive replacement, I’ve had to reinstall all my games. I’m not paying for all of them again with each install but just getting the same files off Steam and installing again. According to this decision, the devs of these games would have had to pay Unity four extra times just due to my hardware upgrades. How is that on the developer at all, and Lord help us if Unity tries to run some BS where players have to pay for each new installation.
The entire gaming industry, even from the “disc era”, doesn’t work with a cost per install model.
Someone claims here that if you use Unity's internal Ad API then you will make that money back, giving people who put ads in their games a free pass.
If true, Unity is trying to force indie devs to enshittify their products.
That's exactly what they're trying to do because their CEO is a nut job crazy man who's grasp of business economics is embarrassing even when compared to my cats.
Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse…
The problem with that is that it relies on the idea that people are able/willing to pay and aren't willing to try something else. Game devs are naturally technical people who are okay with trying new things if their current solution stops being an option. Then there are indie devs who must work cheaply or they will not make anything off their games.
Its a bold strategy cotton, let's see how it plays out for them.
Unity is, after all, an advertising company.
It's where they get their money.
How can be retroactive?
I mean legally. The devs agreed to a contract, it can't be changed with different economic terms later
If someone published an Unity game 4 years ago, has now abandoned the project, doesn't release any update, why needs to pay a per install fee "for supporting the runtime"? The version is now ancient. I could understand if it was "from version xx.yy"
I also asked the question, and got an answer. The hypothesis is that they'll release new versions under a different license, also meaning that if the devs never agree to the new license, they'd avoid the fee. Of course, that would mean that any engine level bugs in their game would become unfixable. This also means that large developers would be exempt, as they likely have contracts in place that supersede the license agreement.
Could also be. I'm not sure about how the legal situation works exactly. My understanding is that you can't change a contract, such as a license agreement without the other party's consent. Maybe they have a clause in it allowing them to revoke the existing licenses, meaning the developers would be forced to agree to the new license or be without a license.
Im trying to think like a money hungry, out of touch POS CEO here.
Unity uses a subscription model right? Where each year you have to renew it and agree to new ToS. Well if they just put in their new ToS that companies have to pay retroactive fees and that company "agrees" to those ToS, then that means it's not illegal since they technically "agreed" to it...
Hope to he'll it doesn't hold up in court but if Unity goes through with this who knows.
They actually explicitly stated as such:
Doesn't steam let you download games you purchased that have since been removed? Will they try to bill developers still in this case?
Yeah. You theoretically can financially DDOS a developer.
Curious if they would charge once install was completed or once install commences.
If I try to install a game and for whatever reason it fails, and I have to try again, would they charge for two installs?
Probally an api call that goes out to Unity once you start a game and the engine comes online.
Im sure they would love to charge devs the instant we click a download link though.
An API call that could be faked. Easily.
Imagine a bot network that screws over a developer because of fake installer API calls.
Imagine that bot only targets games developed in house and fucks the assholes back.
Who knew software development involved so much anal sex?
One hour before that Q&A went live:
Not to mention that it's such a sudden announcement. I mean, sure, they gave people 3 months notice in advance, but when you consider the scale of many games probably take longer than 3 months to make the decision AND actually make the switch (or make up for the switch), it's cause for quite a bit of harm.
Granted, the majority of people may not be affected by it due to needing to meet a requirement of like earning $200,000 and 200,000 installs at a minimum, but I feel like the once you reach that, it's just downhill from there.
In addition to your example of costing the devs for reinstalling the game, you now have to consider the possibility of a user (or group of users) maliciously reinstalling their games to financially damage the developer. Sure, Unity says they'll have fraud detection for stuff like that, but then it's literally up to the people you owe money to decide whether you should pay more or less money to them.
This feels so wrong to me that I feel like they must be going against some law, or they need to be sued to set precedent. I'm not a lawyer, I just think this smells completely like a giant corporation scamming people.