This might actually lead to that, depending on what kind of lawsuits arise from this change. Which could mean there will be pressure from others who don’t have a stake in the “unity install fee” game but do have one in the “wants to change terms at a whim” game.
Or maybe it will threaten the “by continuing to use this, you agree” clause instead and open up a path to continue using a previous license agreement if you don’t like a new one.
If that’s the case then they could simply up the charge next year to $10 to get even more money for doing absolutely nothing. And then to $20 the next year and so forth. There’s no sane court anywhere in the world who would say “Yeah, that sounds reasonable!” and even the less sane ones would think that’s bonkers.
It used to be illegal. Part of anti-trust was forcing IP owners to license their technology to everyone at a reasonable price. That means that reddit’s API price gouging would also have been illegal and tesla and apple would have had to license their FSD and OS to other hardware manufacturers. This ability to control other companies through abusive pricing and licensing lock-in is classic monopoly violation that the govt has stopped policing.
This makes sense to me, it looks like it’s $0.20 for each install, only if
you have passed a threshold of installs
you yourself are charging for your game
Which, I know Lemmy has issues with proprietary software, but if you are charging for your software and it’s built off this, I don’t think $0.20 is too much to pay them. Unreal takes a percentage I believe, sounds like this is a “keep the lights on” charge.
Is that really how it works? That seems like a pretty egregious oversight if so, couldn’t groups of people bankrupt devs, especially small ones with small file size games that are easy to reinstall over and over?
Nah, it's per device install. So unless you modify your PC enough to generate a different hardware fingerprint or go install a game on a fleet of laptops or something, most people won't be running up that counter too much.
After Unity's clarifications, I'm honestly kind of expecting the old "null-route the web address in the HOSTS file" to be a valid method to prevent their installer from phoning home to increment the counter. It's gonna be incredible if people start trying that just to frick with Unity.
The fact that we can even have this discussion should be proof enough to Unity that it's a complete non-starter of an idea to let user behavior influence the developer bottom-line.
I wonder if distributors could get away with doing that automatically. My gut instinct tells me that Unity isn’t stupid enough for that to be feasible long term, but… like you say, the C-suite bozos clearly aren’t listening to the engineers.
How many reinstalls? Because I have games I have bought 4 PCs/laptops ago, not counting some few more when I installed them in family members' computers to play with them. What about OS updates? Windows keeps insisting to move to 11.
Frankly, this doesn't sound reasonable at all. It's not even like Unity is doing any of the hosting to justify squeezing devs like this.
edit: Now it has been confirmed it's not measured on an unique hardware basis, any reinstall counts. It's just madness.
I saw that a short while ago and actually laughed out loud. The only thing left is to get the popcorn ready I guess because this is going to be hilarious.
especially small ones with small file size games that are easy to reinstall over and over?
Wouldn’t even need a small game technically. I’m pretty sure the only way to properly calculate would be running a postinstall script and someone could presumably just keep running that script
Hearthstone runs on Unity. I’m ok setting up a little something to let people constantly install and uninstall Hearthstone to bleed Blizzard dry… hell, once it’s discovered how your installs are tracked, I could see that leading to insane exploitation.
It is exactly what Unity means; they have doubled down on the clarifications. The precise point is to charge the developer for any install a user makes once they earn a (paltry) $200K.
It’s not rocket science to see that this is a very bad, very abusive idea and its targeted to hurt indie developers the most (as larger studios like EA would be on the enterprise plan and therefore on the hook for only 1/20th of the same usage).
Some simple math says that you would have to uninstall and reinstall a $5 game 20 times to completely nullify the earnings from your purchase.
It’s surprisingly easy to rack up installs; between multiple devices, uninstalls for bug fixing / addressing, the OS breaking it, modded installs having to be reset, making space for other games, refreshing a device… and so on. And that’s not even accounting for bad actors actively trying to damage a company.
Clearly without consulting anyone with a modicum of common sense.
It’s also possible its a move to deliberately piss of the customer base, so they can “back off” and implement a solution that still satisfies them, but looks like they let the “customer” (mostly) win.
For example: “We will charge $.20 for over 200K installs!” Backpedal: “We will charge $.05 for only the initial install after 500K installs!”
Pretty sure there are many documented instances of exactly this occurring, especially in the game dev industry unfortunately. (The goal was never the first offer, but rather to overshadow the real goal.)
But they already changed it from $0 to 0.2, how do you know it won’t be 10 dollars next year after you’ve already spent 5 years making your game?
What if you only were charging a dollar for your game and people like it so much they install it 5 times over the year? Easy to do with multiple devices or reinstalling OS’s
The problem is unity is forcing this on people who may have spent years and lots of money entering into a different kind of business agreement.
There are a lot of cases where this might suck if you’re a full time Unity dev. Getting on Gamepass was already a bit dicey as it cannibalizes sales, but now you got an extra Unity tax on that. (And you may get a LOT of installs on Gamepass)
Give a bunch of keys to a charity auction? Guess you’re paying extra. Got a demo that’s doing wonders on Steam NextFest? Those are installs. Is your game being pirated? Those look like installs, gotta pay up.
I don’t think this will bankrupt any dev, but all those above decisions will hurt.
I’m not a lawyer who can properly interpret the legalese but I don’t think this is the case.
Selling your game to a publisher or a third party to distribute it counts as the developer making revenue off the game.
Edit: Actually I may be incorrect - The apparent wording of the license says the publisher or distributor would pay the per install fee. I’m not sure how that would work, unless they’re planning to send a bill to Steam/Microsoft/EA/etc. I will have to reread the terms.
Charging "per install" as opposed to "per sale" will be goddamn awful. At best it might lead to DRM where you'll have a limited number of installs before you lose the game you bought.
as already confirmed by others, it is per install, not per sale. Meaning that if you uninstall your game and mhen reinstall it, the dev has to pay twice. You buy the game and install it on your pc, and your steam deck so you can play it whenever you want? developer pays twice.
Consider how it affects $60 AAA games vs close to free $1 games, it’s wildly disproportional and somehow the $1 game dev starts paying significantly earlier. Now consider how it affects games that make far less than a dollar per user, this is true of many free-with-in-game-purchase mobile games.
Then consider demos, refunds, piracy, and advisarial attacks.
It would have been simpler, more balanced approach, and have none of the pitfalls if they had just gone with a profit share scheme.
Gaming journalism is in a sorry state. I am thankful that we live in an age where I can just watch someone play something for a while. Seeing how they react and how the game flows can be a far better gauge of quality than a published review.
Of course, it also makes you run the risk of spoilers, which sucks. There are a few YouTubers out there making what I would say are fair reviews, but that could change in an instant.
The IATSE discussing unionization is good, actually unionizing is even better. Although, I'm not sure how much unionization would actually do to curb crunch culture. It will obviously help on some level, but with the idea of crunching so ingrained in the industry, I feel like it will take a while for anything to change.
I think if the union negotiated no more overtime exempt positions and strict limits on the amount of allowed OT, that would go a long way. Places like DigiPen also need to stop teaching crunch culture
I could understand putting this kind of time in for a passion project of your own, but for like, a job for somebody else? Worse, a salaried job? That’s way too much.
This article is talking about how Sony’s service is “only a year old”?? What are they talking about? I thought this was about PS plus, which I’m pretty sure I had bought many years ago, not 1 year ago.
I’m not buying digital versions (although I have netflix) of the movies I love, so I’m not gonna start buying digital versions of the games I love.
I have a ps plus basic subscription, but I’ll not subscribe anymore if it gets more expensive. I haven’t received any email about a price hike for now though…
But how long will this last? I am not so sure that the next generation they could not get away with just digital versions not taking discs (or equivalent). The no discs versions of this generation, not just are for having a cheaper version is also a test to see how feasible could be in the future.
I mean that already is a thing on PC, although there are other reasons for it like the low adoption of bluray / DRMs / etc. Physical is non-existent except some really rare case. Even when some games are sold DRM free on GoG they aren’t sold in discs or USBs or similar.
I’m sorry, but free for online multiplayer is only a thing for consoles if the game itself is f2p
So you can play apex or ow2 multiplayer on your console for “free” but any other game that isn’t explicitly f2p, you will need an online subscription like ps plus/ Xbox live etc
My subscription expired months ago and I play all sorts of games, even some that I downloaded free before my subscription ended that arent in the store anymore. Are those all free to play? If so, what is an example of a non f2p game?
Can you give examples of the games you’re talking about?
So free to play games are things like Fortnite, halo infinite, overwatch, etc. Usually multiplayer based games. Even on console, you can play online multiplayer for those games without an xbox live or ps plus subscription.
Most games don’t follow this model. Take FIFA for example. You can buy the game and play it on console. But if you want to play online multiplayer, you will need to have an Xbox live/pls plus subscription for that.
Obviously there is nothing like this for pc games. Except for mmos or something like that, online multiplayer doesn’t require a subscription.
Sure, here is a list of some games that are still playable and accessible online even though I no longer pay for any subscription:
-Master Hunter World -Wolfenstein II -Grand Theft Auto V -Watch Dogs Legion -Resident Evil VII -Last of Us -God of War
There are a few more, but some I assume fall into that category, like COD. I do get a frequent notice encouraging me to subscribe or I may not be able to access some features or games but I have yet to run into that with existing stuff.
Update, it still doesn’t make sense but now I have no access. The moment I signed into the store and bought Baldurs Gate 3, I lost access to all my games offline or on. How I was able to previously play unsigned in is beyond me. Probably accepted some update when signing in and was previously grandfathered into really old terms would be my only guess.
Yeah none of those give me free online access after I cancelled my subscription. You sure you aren’t still enrolled through the remainder of your subscription period? If you cancel renewal, you still have access till the end date is up on your previous purchase.
I am not sure what’s going on to be honest, I guess I should count myself lucky and hope Sony doesn’t catch on. I have no payment linked, so it’s not auto-pay and the subscription ended like 2 months ago. I checked my wife’s account and she has no subscription linked either. I can’t access any new games or content needed with a subscription obviously, but current stuff mysteriously still works… I wish I had downloaded more games, I thought that they would have been inaccessible after the sub ended.
So update! I just had to sign in to buy Balders Gate. Now none of my games work that I previously downloaded, offline or on. So weird. Wish I played through a few of those before connecting.
Subscription plans don’t make much sense to me unless it’s dirt cheap. I don’t have much time to play games so when I do, I’d like to work on games I like instead of some random games.
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