One of the really fun details about this fiasco is a few years back, after they had made a big PR fuck up like this, Unity stated they would make their Terms of Service version-bound. If you had Unity 2019 and continued to use it forever, you would only have to abide by the ToS for that version. Put simply, they could not retroactively apply new changes to you.
...Guess which segment got quietly removed last year!
I would think their public statements would significantly hurt the ability to do this, even if developers "agreed" to the terms without that clause.
I straight up don't think they could legally do it either way. But if they made public statements specifically addressing this particular thing, it has to significantly weaken their case.
That's the part I don't get. If I bought it in 2020 or whenever that was in the license, how can they decide to violate the license on the software you bought?
It's one thing of you go into the agreement knowing about the fees, but enforcing them retroactively against your own license agreement sounds like you're asking for a lawsuit.
Put simply, they could not retroactively apply new changes to you.
Sounds like they could though?
Jokes aside, this is another in a recent string of "let's pretend our ToS are legally binding documents as fool-proof as the law" actions by major companies because ... well, who's stopping them?
your customers retroactively owe you money just because you unilaterally said so?
John Riccitiello is Unity's CEO, you may remember him from being EA's CEO or for being the guy who said the devs who don't monetize (you know adding microtransactions, loot boxes and all that greedy stuff) their videogames are "fucking idiots". I think that explains all
Only monetized games have to pay. If they stop selling the game, they shouldn't be affected anymore.
Also
Does the Unity Runtime Fee apply to pirated copies of games?
We are happy to work with any developer who has been the victim of piracy so that they are not unfairly hurt by unwanted installs. (source)
As far as I understand (someone correct me if I'm wrong) games that are free / non-commercial and have zero revenue are not affected at all by this, they still don't have to pay anything regardless of the number of installs.
If the game is no longer being sold (and thus no longer commercial / having revenue), then I expect that even under those new rules Unity would also not charge the dev.
“Will games made with Unity phone-home to track installs?
We will refine how we collect install data over time with a goal of accurately understanding the number of times the Unity runtime is distributed. Any install data will be collected in accordance with our Privacy Policy and applicable privacy laws.”
Sounds like they’re gonna add tracking data to the game, so probably pirated installs won’t count
“Will games made with Unity phone-home to track installs?
We will refine how we collect install data over time with a goal of accurately understanding the number of times the Unity runtime is distributed. Any install data will be collected in accordance with our Privacy Policy and applicable privacy laws.” They already do, and fuck you for asking.
Because a lot of mobile games are made in Unity, and mobile has a higher rate of people who install and then uninstall without really playing the game. People also install things by mistake on mobile, thinking they’re something else.
So by charging based on installs, they’re able to squeeze developers a lot more (especially mobile game developers). Competitor engines like Unreal don’t run very well on mobile.
Member since 24 July 2004 here. Doesn’t feel like 20 years, but it’s also hard to imagine having ~5Tb of installed games across multiple launchers just… available. Plus emulators and other resources. Steam was a pain in the arse at first, but they made it work, and they saw beyond the limitations of dialup tech. I was all for it at the time because I had one of the few Coax connections (NTL at the time, later taken over by Virgin Media) which at that point I believe was 10Mbit… Of course, nowadays we have Gigabit FTTP rolling out throughout the UK, so this seems really quaint, but it’s pleasing to see how far we’ve come.
The US coverage still sucks. Sort your shit out guys, you’re 20 years behind the UK, and we’re a good 10 behind Norway, Hong Kong and others thanks to Twatcher.
I’m always shocked at how behind the US is in some areas of tech despite having so many of the big tech companies located there. Like you say their internet coverage and terms of packages, like still having data limits in 2023. Also the fact that they still sign for card payments in shops, when we’ve been though both chip and pin and contactless since that method was common.
Yeah - I don’t even cary cards with me any more, it’s all on my phone. Including many store cards (Coop, Texaco, Shell, McDonalds…) which automatically pick up without me doing much - I scan, it works.
The only thing I can think is that the US is such a fractured environment with Federal, State and Local government, each with different jurisdictions, rules and taxation, that trying to get it to work would be beurocratically difficult. But at the same time, it’s so ruled by corporations that surely they’d want to push the easiest way - flip your phone out and wave it to pay, easy and secure, so make it happen :D
i have a couple Unity games that are close to shipping, i think i’ll hold off on that and rewrite in Godot instead. I was already considering it since working with Godot is a thousand times more pleasant than Unity anyway.
To be fair, while unreal isn’t FOSS, it’s source code is at least openly viewable so devs would find it easier to make easily transferable alternatives
Also if theirs a engine bug you can crack it open and fix it yourself, handy if you’re not a AAA studio who has epic Devs on speed dial. Though I believe you do have to share any code alterations with epic if it’s hosted on a private repo
I can see why you would think that, but there’s alot of stuff unreal just isn’t that good at, things like 2d games are a massive struggle to work with in unreal, so it’ll gain more popularity, but mainly from devs making 3d games with a focus on high graphics
ign.com
Gorące