Unity planning on charging developers *by individual installation* in the near future.

[FramFramson]

6 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

Note that the most severe reactions come from developers with millions of free-to-play smartphone installs where the bussiness model is to give out the game to the whole world and let a small percentage of players pay. A fee per installation is poison for such a model and it is no surprise that those developers have immediately launched every available ICBM 😉.

 

Other developers are just not hit that hard that they would enter a state of panic.

 

 

 

 

 

We don't know that. The BIGGEST players using the Unity engine are ones with huge legal departments - Disney's law firm for example is actually an entire subsidiary company which may be larger than Unity's entire business.

 

Just because we haven't heard any public comments from Disney, Nintendo, etc. doesn't mean their lawyers haven't been sending strongly-worded (and strongly-backed) letters and inquiries to Unity.

 

6 hours ago, Tom Stephens said:

 

Maybe not "unreliable", maybe actually untrustworthy.  

 

The install fees in some form are understandable, from a certain point of view.  And maybe there were smarter ways to raise revenue.  But surreptitiously back-editing away past promises in their TOS indicates they knew they were doing something of dubious character, because the back-editing itself is of such character.  And I still have to learn more about their association with advertising and gambling (avarice and vice?).

 

The other thing I've seen attend such behavior in my 60 years is collapse.  When companies (especially smaller ones, but not just) are close to failing, they do some odd things.  Sometimes prosecutable things.

 

One thing that's on my mind is how this will affect modding the game.  I notice some use Unity assets.  I also notice mods can double the life of a game.  What wins out here?

 

Exactly. Never fall into the trap of thinking that just because someone has a senior position at a large business that they're particularly intelligent much less that they would do the seemingly-"sensible" thing to do in a given situation. People of all stations and walks of life can do incredibly stupid and deranged things as much as anyone else can.

 

*waves arms in general direction of second richest man in the world, formerly richest man in the entire world*

 

Edited September 18, 2023 by FramFramson (see edit history)

[Tom Stephens]

1 hour ago, YourMirror said:

 

 

You can store your torches and hayforks again.

Uh, so my bet (and I'll give even money) is the new billing is going to go out in the first second of 2024, more or less exactly as it's already been laid out.

 

My bet is the very point of this backpedal is to buy time by appearing to relieve pressure.  Kinda like "escalate to de-escalate".

[meganoth]

1 hour ago, FramFramson said:

We don't know that. The BIGGEST players using the Unity engine are ones with huge legal departments - Disney's law firm for example is actually an entire subsidiary company which may be larger than Unity's entire business.

 

Just because we haven't heard any public comments from Disney, Nintendo, etc. doesn't mean their lawyers haven't been sending strongly-worded (and strongly-backed) letters and inquiries to Unity.

 

And exactly because they have such large law firms I am pretty sure they did not enter a state of panic. They just let loose some lawyers to deal with that.

 

And if there were any dubious language in Unity's contracts that would allow changing costs for already published games they would not have used Unity in the first place because they have the manpower to check every contract they sign. So I am pretty sure Disneys lawyers think they would win in court if Unity tries to get money from them for old games.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 18, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[FramFramson]

42 minutes ago, meganoth said:

 

And exactly because they have such large law firms I am pretty sure they did not enter a state of panic. They just let loose some lawyers to deal with that.

 

And if there were any dubious language in Unity's contracts that would allow changing costs for already published games they would not have used Unity in the first place because they have the manpower to check every contract they sign. So I am pretty sure Disneys lawyers think they would win in court if Unity tries to get money from them for old games.

 

 

Well I completely agree with all of that, but my opinion isn't the question here, it's what this guy was thinking:

 

[FramFramson]

Latest update from Bloomberg.

The tl;dr is
- Fees will no longer be retroactive
- Unity will allow devs to self-report their installation numbers rather than imposing any sort of monitoring
- Fees will be capped at 4% of a given dev's revenue

 

We'll see if they stick to this, but it sure looks like they blinked.

 

[Roland]

3 hours ago, FramFramson said:

Latest update from Bloomberg.

The tl;dr is
- Fees will no longer be retroactive
- Unity will allow devs to self-report their installation numbers rather than imposing any sort of monitoring
- Fees will be capped at 4% of a given dev's revenue

 

We'll see if they stick to this, but it sure looks like they blinked.

 

 

Or it is the gradual heating up of the soup water all the frogs are swimming in....

[meganoth]

Better now. One thing that is still very problematic is that they still want to get payed per installation. And the mention of monitoring means that Unity actually wants their library to phone home. Problem number one.

 

Developers who don't want their players tracked could theoretically self-report, but how can they find out the numbers without tracking themselves ? Would Unity accept unsubstantiated estimates taken from the number of sales? Does Unity expect the developers also to pay for pirated game installations? 

 

And we will never find out if this retraction from the original scheme was planned all along so developers would accept the current rules more readily.

[Gamida]

9 hours ago, FramFramson said:

Latest update from Bloomberg.

The tl;dr is
- Fees will no longer be retroactive
- Unity will allow devs to self-report their installation numbers rather than imposing any sort of monitoring
- Fees will be capped at 4% of a given dev's revenue

 

We'll see if they stick to this, but it sure looks like they blinked.

 

 

Did they say for every install or just the initial install when game is first bought? If every install imagine how much it would have cost the fun pimps over the years just for me.

At 20¢ a pop it might have cost them more than I paid for the game the amount of times I have installed the game since 2015 when I bought it.

[meganoth]

12 minutes ago, Gamida said:

 

Did they say for every install or just the initial install when game is first bought? If every install imagine how much it would have cost the fun pimps over the years just for me.

At 20¢ a pop it might have cost them more than I paid for the game the amount of times I have installed the game since 2015 when I bought it.

 

Initially they wanted to be payed for reinstalls, but this was the first thing they dropped (or adapted) when the protests started. A lot of details are also missing, I think they just announced a general plan and wanted to see what they can get away with and work out the details later.

 

 

 

Edited September 19, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Tom Stephens]

10 hours ago, Roland said:

 

Or it is the gradual heating up of the soup water all the frogs are swimming in....

That's right.  But if you pre-heat the water, let the frogs scream, then lower the temp and promise to never raise it, the frogs will jump back in.  A form of "escalate to de-escalate".

[FramFramson]

While that's possible, I would avoid giving them that much credit for planning ahead unless we have some other indicators that they have this capability.

 

The bad press they've received has done massive long-term harm to Unity, as devs will now be looking at other engines out of fear of Unity. This isn't theoretical either, it's already a fact that many devs have stated they will not use Unity for future projects as all trust between devs and the company has been destroyed. 

[Krougal]

On 9/19/2023 at 7:29 AM, meganoth said:

Better now. One thing that is still very problematic is that they still want to get payed per installation. And the mention of monitoring means that Unity actually wants their library to phone home. Problem number one.

 

Developers who don't want their players tracked could theoretically self-report, but how can they find out the numbers without tracking themselves ? Would Unity accept unsubstantiated estimates taken from the number of sales? Does Unity expect the developers also to pay for pirated game installations? 

 

And we will never find out if this retraction from the original scheme was planned all along so developers would accept the current rules more readily.

Thank you! I was beginning to think this was the @%$#house lawyer room instead of a bunch of gamers.

THIS is the issue we should be focused on. I'm sure all the devs and Unity have professional lawyers to worry about those details and they will figure it out without you meatheads.

 

[Tom Stephens]

2 hours ago, Krougal said:

Thank you! I was beginning to think this was the @%$#house lawyer room instead of a bunch of gamers.

THIS is the issue we should be focused on. I'm sure all the devs and Unity have professional lawyers to worry about those details and they will figure it out without you meatheads.

 

 

Well now, some of us gamers follow these things because it can mean the existence or not of their favorite games.  The wary and intelligent gamer will invest the time to not just follow, but try to understand these things a little if for no other reason than to avoid projects based on the promises of people that align themselves with adverts and gambling.  We don't get to be islands (unless one likes being prey), and this fiasco should underline that in heavy strokes.

Edited September 20, 2023 by Tom Stephens
Edit for grammar (see edit history)

[YourMirror]

 

31 minutes ago, Tom Stephens said:

 

Well now, some of us gamers follow these things because it can mean the existence or not of their favorite games.  The wary and intelligent gamer will invest the time to not just follow, but try to understand these things a little if for no other reason than to avoid projects based on the promises of people that align themselves with adverts and gambling.  We don't get to be islands (unless one likes being prey), and this fiasco should underline that in heavy strokes.

Dude, its a game. Your life is not depending on it. Even if it so happens you can't play one that you used to before, nothing will happen. You are strongly overreacting.

[Tom Stephens]

20 minutes ago, YourMirror said:

 

Dude, its a game. Your life is not depending on it. Even if it so happens you can't play one that you used to before, nothing will happen. You are strongly overreacting.

 

We are permitted to state what is or is not important to us, and that will stand on its own so long as it's not imposed on anyone who doesn't share it.

 

In my view, if it's worth doing at all it's worth putting a little effort into it.  That goes for a dev studio, a modder or a gamer.  I buy games because I wanna dig around a little in the interior, edit things a little.  It's what I look for and then pay for.

[Syphon583]

3 hours ago, YourMirror said:

 

Dude, its a game. Your life is not depending on it. Even if it so happens you can't play one that you used to before, nothing will happen. You are strongly overreacting.

At what point did they say their life depended on it? Gaming is a hobby and, just like any other type of hobby, people who are passionate about it care about things that could potentially impact their ability to enjoy it in the future.

[FramFramson]

New update: even more walkbacks, further fee reductions and exemptions.

 

- No fees for Personal tier or old/current projects using current versions of Unity

- Only projects that upgrade to a new "Long Term Support" (LTS) version of Unity starting in 2024 will pay installation charges

- Revenue-based fee cap lowered even further to 2.5% of game revenue.

- Threshold for remaining on Unity Personal edition to be raised to $200k (currently $100k) and Personal tier projects will no longer be required to put a "Made with Unity" splash screen at the start of play (lolol)

 

IANAL, but I think this finally gets them under the threshold for being sued under exiting agreements, or at least making a lawsuit a lot less of an obvious decision. This does not mean they have regained any goodwill and I suspect developers will continue to look at alternative engines for future games - as TFP have done.

 

No word about sending bills to Microsoft or Sony for games which use streaming versus installs, but lol, I guess that's more of a big player problem than a bit player problem.

 

Meanwhile, Terraria dev Re-Logic, has announced substantial and ongoing financial support for Godot and FNA, the fully open-source alternatives to Unity.