38 ms·

Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

• makomk 3y ago
  Much as I love open source and the Godot engine, this seems more like a wake-up call on the importance of corporations not being able to unilaterally, retroactively change contracts in ways that impose new charges and violate existing contractual commitments that others have relied on. If they can do that then open source doesn't offer much real protection.
  • TMM2K 3y ago
    Open source is that protection. There's no way for an open source project to change their terms that drastically. The whole hasicorp disaster is a prime example of that. Terraform is forked and continues on like normal, users are not impacted. For programming platforms (like game engines) this is even MORE of an advantage, as with something like terraform you could conceivably rewrite your stuff in a matter of weeks if you have reasonable testing. For a game that is not possible. Nobody can take away your rights under the MIT license, there's no legal mechanism to do that. You are protected, fully, from shit like this.
    • johncolanduoni 3y ago
      Nobody can take away your rights if the contract you sign with the engine developer doesn't allow it, as people have been pointing out is the case for other engines. IIRC Unreal's contract gives you access to a particular version of the engine in perpetuity, with source and the permission to make your own additions/changes to that source. It doesn't guarantee updates, but neither does the MIT license.
      • mattdesl 3y ago
        Apparently this is exactly what is happening with Unity[1], where the TOS previously said that you can continue using an old version, but now they are walking this back and trying to apply fees retroactively. Whether this is legal or not might be debatable, but unless users mount a legal challenge they are probably stuck paying or finding another engine. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37499731 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37499731
        • dmvdoug 3y ago
          Honestly, the first thing I thought when I heard the story was “sounds like a lawsuit.”
    • ahoka 3y ago
      “There's no way for an open source project to change their terms that drastically.” Like going from GPLv2 to GPLv3 or straight to AGPL, so now you are stuck with an old version forever? Yeah, that would never happen!
      • Takennickname 3y ago
        You're not stuck with an old version forever, that's very hyperbolic and you purposefully ignored OP's example of Hashicorp and Terraform and instead responded with sarcasm.
      • pxc 3y ago
        That's only a problem for you if you yourself have a business model that depends on curtailing the freedom of your users. Playing the victim when a license prevents you from victimizing your own customers and users in the way that has happened in this incident is pretty rich.
      • josephcsible 3y ago
        Contrast "you are stuck with an old version forever" with "you can't use the program at all anymore, not even old versions of it".
    • Spivak 3y ago
      > Terraform is forked and continues on like normal, users are not impacted. That's a massive overstatement of the current state of OpenTF right now. Plus they're still dependent on Hashicorp's hosting which also changed their license terms in response to the project. You're right that because it's OSS you can do this kind of thing where it wouldn't be possible at all in a proprietary system but "just fork" requires a community to organize around it. Without a bunch of backing orgs this wouldn't have happened.
  • simion314 3y ago
    The problem is today everything has ToS, you get a ToS update in the email and if you do not like it you have to stop using the product, and lot of software this days require an account , and has online features or requirements. I got burned by Steam, I have a super old laptop with some old games on it, Half Life, so one day I got the laptop out, Steam updates and f** itself, the old system is no longer supported but they had to f** things up s the games won't work. I agree, open source is not required, but we need to own our software not rent it.
    • Woodi 3y ago
      > I agree, open source is not required, but we need to own our software not rent it. That's just a start but also require freezing your OS and have lots of spare hardware or have rights to emulate it :) And same with data - buyed songs for example :) Big industry already is killing media you can own - cd, dvd, blueray depends on outdated cpu, pendrives decay before becoming usefull backup media... In the age of asholess open sources and resources are best. Let's bring more viral licenses then GPL !
  • isilofi 3y ago
    It is a wakeup-call also to do due dilligence and risk management when entering contracts. And yes, clicking "agreed" in the installer is very often a contract that you should run by your legal advisors. Or at least think very hard about. _Some_ kinds of Open Source might help there, since _some_ open source licenses are very easy to comply with and very business-friendly. On the other hand, all the game studios now complaining would also howl and whine when forced to be GPL-compliant and release their source code. And even with business-friendly take-what-you-want-and-never-give-back Open Source licenses, there is always the risk that the project you are using does what Hashicorp did with Terraform and stuff: Change the license for all future releases to something you won't like, cutting you off from your necessary updates and fixes. Maybe there will be a community maintaining a fork, maybe there won't.
    • TMM2K 3y ago
      Godot is MIT licensed though, there's very little we can do to screw our users if we wanted to, which we do not :)
      • nhinck 3y ago
        You could change the license for future versions and charge for said updates, for the market that godot targets that would be more a little screwing to them. How long would it take for someone to take over the project (if ever).
        • jehb 3y ago
          And it's at exactly this moment the community would fork the project and development of a free version would continue. This is not a real risk for a community-driven project, only for corporate-driven projects where a single entity owns copyright on the on all or close to all of the codebase.
          • isilofi 3y ago
            The important distinction isn't who owns copyright. It is rather that there needs to be a community opposed to the license change and able and willing to do the work. One could even imagine scenarios like an originally MIT-licensed software splitting into a commercial company offering commercial paid licenses, plus a community (or even the company itself) offering a GPL-licensed fork. Of course one could then still maintain an additional MIT-licensed fork, but if the rest of the community is happy with GPL and all the development just happens there, your MIT fork will "starve"...
  • nhinck 3y ago
    They don't though, if any developer had the means to take it to court it is incredibly likely that Unity would lose. While TOS are rarely worth the toilet paper they could be printed on, I'm curious about whether arguments could be made about whether existing subscribers from 2019 could now sue for breach of contract and costs associated with (re)development.
    • isaiahg 3y ago
      Do you have the money to fight it because I sure don’t
      • mcv 3y ago
        That's the big issue. This is going to hurt smaller developers more because they can't afford to fight it. The big question is: to what extent to Unity games need to be able to talk to Unity's servers? If they're looking at number of installs (and apparently that includes pirated copies even?), serve ads, and probably provide other services, that sounds like the games need a connection to the server. In which case they may be able to disable your game if you don't pay. And then even if you could sue them, the real damage is already done.
      • zulban 3y ago
        That's what class actions are for.
  • jcarrano 3y ago
    Did they make a commitment in the first place? It is up to the developers using the engine to make due diligence and inspect the terms of the contracts and licenses of the software they use. I would feel very uneasy if my product was based on a framework, where the provider makes no commitment and reserves the right to change the licensing terms at any time.
    • makomk 3y ago
      Unity made a specific committment in their terms that if those terms changed in a way that disavantaged existing developers, those developers could carry on using the existing annual release under the old terms, and also that they would notify developers of changes to their terms. They then sneakily removed that committment and almost immediately imposed this licensing fee for use of the runtime, when one of the specific advantages of Unity they promoted was not having any such fees, and retroactively applied this to new installks of all existing games. It was shameless and some company offering open source software could jsut as easily retroactively decide it wasn't open source at all.
      • jcarrano 3y ago
        Thanks for the info. I'm not into game dev and did not know that. That was a pretty nasty move and they should't be trusted anymore. The last part I do not agree: a license cannot be changed retroactively if there is no provision in the original license for doing so, and no open source license have that. Even if "revoking" licenses for all prior releases were allowed, it could only work if all copyright holders agreed, which is not practical for most projects.
  • marcosdumay 3y ago
    Copyright laws are all completely out of balance and stupid. As a rule, corporations can not retroactively change contracts. If this one is legal (I wouldn't try to guess), it will be because of the EULA rules.
    • bigfishrunning 3y ago
      I am absolutely sure that the EULA stated they reserve the right to make this sort of pricing change. Every EULA does.
• NotGMan 3y ago
  >> While Unreal engine currently does not have terms like Unity’s, there’s nothing stopping them from doing something similar. In fact if Unity manages to get away with this it seems likely they will follow suit. Unreal has licenses which allow you to use one version of their engine FOREVER and they cannot revoke that license. So the author didn't fully research this. It is true that for NEWER version Epic can change this. Tim Sweeney explicitly mentioned this often + the fact that they are trying to break the Gplay/Apply monopoly shows that the Epic games leadership are not corporate piranhas like Unity's. But what about Godot? He says as if "it's open source so no issue". Yeah but what if the devs stop supporting it? This "community will continue to work on it" is BS: in reality it's usually one or two guys who actually do the actual work. So if Godot devs stop working on it you're stuck with a project with zero support. Good luck developing it further instead of focusing on your game. The same goes for his very own product.
  • TMM2K 3y ago
    You're contradicting your own points. If it is not a problem that Unreal can change their license for next versions because you can use the old one (which is now unsupported and not worked on) that is fine. For Godot, if we were to stop developing it (and I'd like to note that Godot is one of the most active projects on Github right now) you would still have the version you have now. What is the difference between Epic not working on a game engine you use or an open source project not working on a game engine you use? Except that with Godot at least you could work on it yourself if you wanted to.
    • chii 3y ago
      > Except that with Godot at least you could work on it yourself if you wanted to. let me play the devil's advocate - unreal's source is available (despite it not being actual opensource licensed). This means if Epic ever abandons unreal, you could theoretically also just make the changes you need to support whatever your project required - as long as you didn't distribute those changes (except perhaps the run-time? Not quite sure how unreal engine and the runtime are licensed).
      • 3y ago
• raincole 3y ago
  Just became a Bevy sponsor. I'll try to convince our studio to donate a % of profit to open source project. No mater how slim the chance Bevy actually becoming a mainstream engine is.
• kypro 3y ago
  I kinda feel bad for Unity. The company is in a bad place finacially. They're burning almost $1 billion a year and they have no good solutions to this. Either they try to increase pricing and piss off their customers, or they cut costs (which they've been doing with mass layoffs) and risk losing ground to other game engineers like Unreal. For years the only thing really holding the company a float was their valuation. So long as investors were willing to give them money for growth and future profits they could continue to fund their loses. But now their growth is slowing and investors are less willing to pay up for growth generally what does Unity do? I've felt for a while that they'd be a likely victim of this most recent tech rut and that seems to be playing out. They have no moat, slowing growth and are burning huge amounts of cash. Unless the macro changes in their favour it's hard to how they get out of this and stay on top.
  • raincole 3y ago
    > They're burning almost $1 billion a year and they have no good solutions to this. Unity acquired Weta at 1.6B. The solution is not to do this.
    • pilchard123 3y ago
      Not even all of Weta - only the digital VFX bit.
    • nick__m 3y ago
      Not Weta FX but Digital’s Tools, Pipeline, and Engineering. "Weta Digital’s Academy Award-Winning VFX teams will continue as a standalone entity known as WetaFX under majority ownership by Sir Peter Jackson and helmed by CEO Prem Akkaraju."¹ 1- https://investors.unity.com/news/news-details/2021/Unity-Completes-Acquisition-of-Weta-Digitals-Tools-Pipeline-and-Engineering-Talent/default.aspx https://investors.unity.com/news/news-details/2021/Unity-Com...
  • 0xDEF 3y ago
    I don't understand their refusal to make games that will make them money and showcase Unity's capabilities. The only reason Unreal engine has so favorable license conditions is because Epic Games earn billions from Fortnite and Epic Games Store.
• pelasaco 3y ago
  As Game developer myself, and unity user, I was concerned about the new pricing model, however, actually reading the actual changes[1], you see that 99% of the developers are not affected, and in some cases, for those affected, still cheaper to go with Unity than with Unreal: There is a video explaining it well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENoVL68z9PU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENoVL68z9PU For sure an open source solution would be more than welcome, but sounds like impossible, because either those out there are half-backed, or are just finding a way to monetize it too.. [1] https://unity.com/pricing-updates https://unity.com/pricing-updates
  • pelasaco 3y ago
    To downvote and not discuss, it typical from the new generation...
• Kiro 3y ago
  I've been watching a few gamedev streamers port their games to Godot and it's clear that it's not there yet in terms of feature parity. The good thing is that the Godot devs are in the chats, posting (unreviewed) PRs that could be used as workarounds but some major things (profiling?) are miles off still.
  • mnau 3y ago
    Some hints where? YT's got nothing useful.
• thenerdhead 3y ago
  > By using an open source engine you can be sure that whatever that “next thing” is, the engine won’t keep you from taking advantage of it. Nor would the engine be able to dictate your monetization strategy for you. We really ought to separate the fact that "open" does not always mean "free" here. Especially given that it is fairly straight-forward to change licenses on a whim. Imagine you wake up one day and suddenly the company/OSS maintainers put out a dual-license on the project. You now have to pay $0.20 per install after your app has made $200,000 over the past year. Now you're still using open source, but still legally held to the terms of that license. Licenses tend to be permissive enough that if such thing were to happen or other factors(discontinued development/support/etc), community forks can be created(which has its own set of problems).
  • TMM2K 3y ago
    That's not possible with something that is open source. If it has a "dual license" that means you can pick which license to apply. You just pick the one that doesn't make you pay.
    • thenerdhead 3y ago
      There are a number of projects doing this today with dual-license models(Permissive/Commercial). I'm not a lawyer and have no idea if they hold up in court/can be enforced but it absolutely is a thing today. https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/5599/any-successful-dual-license-oss-project-i-can-use-as-template https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/5599/any-succ...
      • TMM2K 3y ago
        These are a little different. So these "dual licensed" products work like this: You get a GPL version of the code, which is free and nobody can charge you for, ever. If you want to use the software in a way that is not GPL compatible you can opt for the other, paid for, license. This works in some cases, but in the case of Godot (assuming we were to do something like this) is the MIT license, which already gives you the rights to do whatever you want. And even in the GPL case, if the other license terms became too odious you could simply switch to the GPL version, and not pay.
• unsigner 3y ago
  Unity was a dream, or a lie, the lie that you can make games without a somewhat competent software team. Now TFA gives hope to another dream, or a lie, the dream that magical open source fairies can let you keep getting away without a competent software team. It won't. Find those programmers, build a team, build a company where this team has a place, adjust your business model (i.e. raise your prices) to where you can afford to pay them.
  • zulban 3y ago
    Thousands of game studios have collectively made billions of dollars using Unity over the past decade. Strange comment, friend.
  • translucyd 3y ago
    Excellent take. People think that making good games is cheap and anyone can do. Making games, maybe. Good ones? I don’t think so.
  • marcosdumay 3y ago
    Eh... You aren't supposed to have a competent software team to use Unity? That's news.
• ThinkBeat 3y ago
  This is written based on my quite poor understanding of the game business. I am sincerely wanting to learn more about how it works and how the new license structure impact developers. My questions below might be idiotic. (but not intentionally so) I have no idea how many apps reach above 200.000 installs total or $200.000 income per year. How common is it for apps to meet the minimum requirements when the fees kick in? I would guess that if you base the application on a subscription model that this will not be a major problem? Also doesn't Apple App Store or Google Pay charge far more than this on income?
  • Hamcha 3y ago
    The problem here is that most platform tax your income, not your userbase size. If you think of big free to play Unity games like Genshin Impact (or even smaller stuff like VRChat) the amount of paying user is probably in the single digit percentage, yet with Unity terms you are on the hook for everyone who installs your game.
  • progx 3y ago
    Look at the millions of free to play games in the App-Stores. Normally you have 98% of free playing users paying nothing, 2% pay. Imagine now you have 1 million installs. 2% (20.000) pay you 200.000 / year. 980.000 players pay nothing. Now Unity want 1.000.000 x 20 Cent = 200.000, you made ZERO with your game... crazy. That is an uncalculatable risk for a small company.
    • JCharante 3y ago
      So maybe it’ll force companies to stop making freemium trash that only targets the 2% whales and actually make good games?
      • alpaca128 3y ago
        No, it will make companies switch to Godot (where they have to pay nothing, ever) or Unreal (where they pay 5% for payments above a $1M threshold). For many developers it is now cheaper to switch the engine than to pay for Unity.
• phkahler 3y ago
  Why not charge $1 for your game? Problem solved. If you're making a game with a fancy commercial engine I would hope what you're offering is worth a buck. Let's get some quality in this world.
  • Archipelagia 3y ago
    The difference in conversions between free and $1 is not a matter of price. The hard part is getting someone to pay in the first place. That's why a model of free game with paid addons/extras/pay-to-win/etc. works so well – once someone already tried your game and gets invested in it, they're more likely to spend anything.
    • Archipelagia 3y ago
      And in mobile gaming there's also the matter of looking for "whales". Basically, while majority of people will never spend anything, there's a minority willing to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars. Then, the difficulty comes from showing your game to enough people to find whales. (Whether that model is ethical in the first place is a whole different matter. I don't think it is, so maybe eliminating it will be a net positive in the world.)
  • alpaca128 3y ago
    With $1 paid to the developer the player only needs to (re)install the game 6 times on their computer to cost the developer more than they earned. This pricing is per install, not per player. Installations are an unrestricted functionality which can be abused. If you care about quality games: this pricing causes the opposite.
    • hcks 3y ago
      They literally stated it would not affect reinstalls.
      • PM_me_your_math 3y ago
        There is what they say, which is often not exactly what they do. And even if the intentions are good, behavior or scenarios not conceived may emerge.
• popmatrix 3y ago
  The author seems to misunderstand the new pricing model (as did many others; this is Unity's fault) [1] The $0.20 is not retroactive, nor do you need to hope your users see 10 and impressions to cover a cost to the game developer -- you need to earn $200,000 _and_ have 200,000 installs. A free game would not be charged, and if you don't believe you can muster 10 ad impressions per user (to cover the unity install cost of $0.20), the base cost of the game can be increased by < $0.01 across your 200,000+ sales starting next year when the policy takes effect on new installs. [1] https://twitter.com/unity/status/1702077049425596900 https://twitter.com/unity/status/1702077049425596900
  • Daedren 3y ago
    I think when most people are, in this context, talking about the "retroactive" part, it's about if it will affect existing games. The pricing structure will be applicable to everyone starting next year. The other issue is how they measure "installs", as it has been a constant problem in the mobile community for years on end (a problem especially affecting the ad industry as you may imagine). I personally don't see how they will accurately measure the cases mentioned in the tweet without forcing everyone to have some authentication.
  • TMM2K 3y ago
    It is retroactive, games that are already made today and already exist today on the various app-stores will be impacted. 10 ad impressions per user might not sound like much, but you're going to get a lot of people installing your app, not liking it, and uninstalling it. The way the mobile game business works the "install count" means almost nothing, you need many, many, many installs to start making any money at all because so few people 'stick around' to actually make you any money. Regardless of how they spin it, this model is very bad for the FtP games, which is the vast majority of games now.
    • rhtgrg 3y ago
      Looks like you know a lot about F2P games, can you help me understand this fee in the context of other variables such as cost of customer acquisition? Is that usually a much lower amount than 20 cents? What about 2 cents, which would be the cost on a pro license, which most successful F2P devs would assuredly be able to afford? I’m hoping you can answer these with concrete data. If that’s not possible, could you share your references?
• bionhoward 3y ago
  I was crowing to my game dev buddy about how he (a Unity C-sharp developer) ought to check out Bevy and Rust because the Rust type system is friggin’ awesome! Code examples: https://bevyengine.org/learn/book/getting-started/ecs/ https://bevyengine.org/learn/book/getting-started/ecs/ License is Apache 2.0 OR MIT: Apache 2.0: https://github.com/bevyengine/bevy/blob/main/LICENSE-APACHE https://github.com/bevyengine/bevy/blob/main/LICENSE-APACHE MIT: https://github.com/bevyengine/bevy/blob/main/LICENSE-MIT https://github.com/bevyengine/bevy/blob/main/LICENSE-MIT
• ireallywantthat 3y ago
  switch to godot(http://godotengine.org/ http://godotengine.org/), gamedevs. you reap what you sow. it's better to support open source projects like godot instead of unity whose control lies with the company whose actions probably might not lie with you/your companies' interest. There are hundreds of instances in the past where open source projects replaced corporate projects(ex: blender, git). so, better use godot imo.
  • _chu1 3y ago
    Is Godot capable of making 3D FPS games?
    • ZekeSulastin 3y ago
      I know Cruelty Squad was made in Godot, but I’m not sure it’s quite the best game to showcase general 3D FPS viability ;)
    • grumple 3y ago
      Looks like a yes, but it was hard to find this example: https://www.blendernation.com/2020/10/23/behind-the-scenes-fps-game-made-with-blender-and-godot/ https://www.blendernation.com/2020/10/23/behind-the-scenes-f... All other 3d games I found made with Godot look like they came from the 90s. 2d capabilities look great though. There's probably also some selection bias, it's probably not the first choice for most who want to make a 3d fps.
    • raytopia 3y ago
      Yes. Truth be told for any engine you'll be more limited by the size of your art team then anything else.
• koolala 3y ago
  If you don't own your engine then you don't own your game. Games are unique like that - music and other art is interoperable - software isn't.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • hcks 3y ago
    Companies also have to pay for Microsoft Excel. Does it mean they don’t own their businesses?
    • SanderNL 3y ago
      Say MS decided to lock down your access to Excel and all your business is nicely tucked away in those beautifully handcrafted sheets. It's not a binary thing and we can argue semantics, but MS is definitely holding some keys here.
    • esskay 3y ago
      not quite an apples to apples comparison when your document can be open and read by other spreadsheet applications. You cant take a unity game and run it on unreal.
      • RobotToaster 3y ago
        Not if you're making use of VBA.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
• supermatt 3y ago
  Is Godot feature comparable with unity? Why would someone choose unity over godot?
  • RugnirViking 3y ago
    unity ecosystem is enormous. so many resource packs, assets, tutorials, extensions, etc etc etc. Big network effects
  • Havoc 3y ago
    I think the art asset library is a big part of the difference
  • dgb23 3y ago
    Unity has a large asset and plugin ecosystem.
  • wccrawford 3y ago
    Until recently, Godot was practically unusable for 3D. They're still actively adding features that other engines already have. It also exports for consoles, where Godot doesn't. Having said that, I've been looking at it recently and it looks like it has everything I need. I'm definitely going to try it out before deciding between it and UE5.
• codeulike 3y ago
  Seems to me, the bit where all these game frameworks get a bit tricky is when you want to target iOS. Apple keeps moving the goalposts (you must use some version of Xcode, or you must target some version of iOS) and so the open-source frameworks have to constantly faff about to support the latest apple things. A few years ago I was building using LibGDX which used RoboVM to target iOS but then Xamarin bought RoboVM and shut it down and etc etc etc... What Unity offers is a solid way to build cross platform and target iOS. They're able to offer that because they have the resources to keep up with iOS. Open-source alternatives understandably struggle to keep on the iOS treadmill.
  • jarsin 3y ago
    Yup, in fact just 2.5 years ago everyone was switching from Unreal to Unity. The reason? Apple threatened to revoke Epics dev accounts that it needed in order to support ongoing upgrades for ios. Epic released statements through their attorney's that they would consider the public version of Unreal a dead product if they lost the ability to maintain ios.
  • _chu1 3y ago
    I would have never thought in a million years iOS was considered a large gaming platform.
    • saltymug76 3y ago
      Millions of kids and their sticky iPads would like a word.
      • _chu1 3y ago
        My mindset is stuck in 2008 so you're probably right
    • danjoredd 3y ago
      please tell me you have never had a kid come up to you like this https://i.imgflip.com/5aw95n.jpg https://i.imgflip.com/5aw95n.jpg
• gdsdfe 3y ago
  How can they do that retroactively tho ?!? Is that even legal?
• jarsin 3y ago
  Wall St. Analyst are coming out with positive notes and upgrades on this pricing change. $U upgraded to Buy from Neutral @ BofA; PT raised to $56
  • Havoc 3y ago
    Doesn’t matter what your pricing is if you no longer have clients
    • hcks 3y ago
      Absolutely. Remember last summer when everyone fled Reddit because of the API price hike and they shutdown?
      • Havoc 3y ago
        The users aren’t the ones paying and the apps do seem to be gone Apollo, Sync for Reddit, BaconReader etc
      • grumple 3y ago
        That was this summer, not last summer. It's seems that there's a lot of discussion even today about usage going down: https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/16icvv2/1_month_of_disaster_a_survey_response/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/16icvv2/1_month... . I have noticed a continuing decrease in quality on reddit for many years (as it attracts more people), like all sites that grow and depend on ad revenue, and activity seems to have gone down substantially lately in the few subreddits I still watch. Developers / professionals are more judicious in where they spend their time / money / effort than most people. When I select a technology for professional use, I look at the long term prospects for the company. Open source is always a positive, as I don't have to worry about a company raising rates and trying to extract more money from us. Feature completeness can be a concern, as is ease of use, but we really only need our needs met and a path to meet our future needs.
• hcks 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • aabbccddee22 3y ago
    [dead]
• hnthrowaway0315 3y ago
  Eventually Godot will need to find a way to finance its development if it gets enough popularity. I'm in general sketchy about OSS revenue generation if the devs don't collect $$ proactively but rely on goodwill.
• nerdjon 3y ago
  For the record, I am not a game developer but I don't think that changes my opinion on open source technology. Open Source software is great, but that also comes at the cost of support when you are running into a problem. Particularly if you are on a critical timeline, especially if trying to fix a bug after something is released. You are at the mercy of the community being able to help (and most likely only being able to give them a limited amount of information) vs the possibility of the company you are licensing from sending you engineers to actually help you fix the problem. For business critical this is an important thing that needs to be looked at, and from what I can tell there is not anything like this for GoDot (I don't see an enterprise option similar to redhat). This is not in any way shape or form defending Unity, what they are doing is horrible and will likely (hopefully) cause a migration to Unreal. But just saying open source is not a cut and dry option either. Especially not for something as critical as the engine.
  • grotorea 3y ago
    Not really in a position to say anything conclusively either but I don't think you are at the mercy of the community. First, it's open source, so your company can look and fix the code themselves. If it's restaurant software this is likely complicated but for gamedev it is much more likely the company already has the expertise to do that. Second, Godot doesn't have a formalized process but one of the developers can be willing to offer paid support. > While we don't have a formal structure for offering commercial support, many Godot developers can already help you, work per hour, or relocate to your company. For such inquiries, contact support@godotengine.org. Let us know about your needs and we'll try to find the right person for you.
  • mijoharas 3y ago
    > vs the possibility of the company you are licensing from sending you engineers to actually help you fix the problem. How often do you think that happens for unity? _Maybe_ for some massive developers, but I don't think this would be very common for most customers.
    • cableshaft 3y ago
      Not sending engineers, but when I worked for a smaller dev studio we did need to contact Unity and get support a couple times when we got stuck on something. I think we ended up paying for access to the source code and the development manager ended up making a couple of changes in the source code to get something working better as well (I don't remember the specifics, I was working in Unity but on a different game at the time). This was like 10 years ago though. That guy worked on multiple arcade games in Assembly back in the day too (you've likely played games he worked on if you've played more than a handful of popular arcade games), he was no slouch.
• seaourfreed 3y ago
  We need nVidia and AMD to help godot engine to get the high end things in Unreal engine. I'd love academics working on 3D to submit things that can roll into godot.
• aabbccddee22 3y ago
  [dead]
• _chu1 3y ago
  Valve needs to capitalize off this and get Source 2 out
  • esskay 3y ago
    Not only get it out but actively promote it as an opensource project instead of proprietary and make revenue through an asset store. Theres so few games that use source that theres no way its commercially viable on its own.
    • _chu1 3y ago
      Valve doesn't do it that way. Instead of some crummy asset store with generic and terrible looking assets they literally just let you use the assets from their games. See Garry's Mod, Sven Co-op and Insurgency for an example of this.
      • esskay 3y ago
        Yeah I meant in addition to their own assets, hence the revenue stream. A standard setup like Unity has for their asset store. Using unity as the example there are some crummy assets, but there's also some incredibly popular and well made assets, many used by AAA games.
  • mnau 3y ago
    Valve is not interested in games, only steam. DOTA 2 (2013) was their last mentionable game.
    • _chu1 3y ago
      Half-Life Alyx*
• swalsh 3y ago
  I wish game development wasn't so monolithic. You're either all in on Unity, or all in on Unreal, or all in on GoDot. They are designer forward, code later. Each has a marketplace of sorts, but in my experience it's substandard. Compare that to web development (different beast I know, but there's no reason gaming can't be more componentized). Web development is so simple these days because I spend most of my time gluing stuff together, and sanding the edges. Game development has concepts like this, and I have no doubt I'll get replies showing me some nifty component system, or talk about how I just don't understand ECS etc, but they seem tacked on to a monolithic walled garden. There's something magical about "npm install x" and adding a whole feature to your app. Maybe it's because "it's art" and game development is just a passion project.
  • galleywest200 3y ago
    > Web development is so simple these days because I spend most of my time gluing stuff together, and sanding the edges. This does exist in the gaming industry, it is called "shovelware". "Shovelware" is when you just glue existing assets purchased for cheap and "shovel" them into a game for a quick buck. Usually not very complex games, low effort stories, etc. Also usually very cheap to download.
    • a_cardboard_box 3y ago
      I assume the parent comment meant gluing parts of the game engine together like renderers and physics engines. You can make shovelware in a monolithic game engine.
  • TheRoque 3y ago
    No, it's not because it's art, it's because it's okay if all websites look the same, but regarding games, mostly 1 or 2 or its kind will survive, the others have to innovate or will be seen as sub-copies. On top of that, the complexity of making a game makes it so that it's more "coupled" to the hardware, so it's harder to generalize. If you want more component, then you can use the assets store, but at some point you will have to put in some work if you want your game to not be considered as a shovelware
  • 3y ago
• dcow 3y ago
  This essay lost the plot! There’s nothing about the whole situation that open source fixes. Your champion open source project can change its license and pricing too. The only way to protect yourself here is to enter into a non-ambiguous and non-shitty contract with your vendor. If the software industry learns anything from this it should be that it’s not super smart to build your business on a technology with variable pricing that you don’t have control over (or something to that effect).
• coldtea 3y ago
  >A Wake-Up Call on the Importance of Open Source in Gaming This is no "wake-up call" as there was never any doubt that all things being equal, FOSS would be a better option. There are already where plenty of FOSS options to build games. The developers who didn't pick them up did it because Unity/Unreal give them features and convenience and such they don't get from them.
• qwerty456127 3y ago
  To me (not really into gamedev actually so chances are I'm completely wrong) it seems like nowadays, when physics and reneding is done in hardware and game engines bundle so much logic and are shared among so many games, creators will soon be able to give up coding (anything except scripts) and concentrate on selling pure content. Users will then purchase compatible engines from engine developers or use open-source engines.
• bennyschmidt 3y ago
  Everyone told me "use Unity" "the biggest mistake you can make is building your own engine". How well did that advice age? Nobody needs Unity or Unreal. My most recent game (playshadowvane.com) is built on 100% proprietary technology, I built everything in-house down to the physics. Always ignore mainstream game dev advice, they are just trying to sell you products. Build as much as you can in-house, it's not only better for the look/feel of the game, but no company will be able to rug pull you later.
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • Someone1234 3y ago
    Obviously I won't defend the Unity situation. Ultimately though it is all about time efficiency, solo or small teams have little manpower and since they don't even know if their first, second, or fifth game will sell any at all it may not make strategic sense to spend months reproducing common engine features in order to save a hypothetical percentage of revenue that they may never ultimately make. You need to test the gameplay concept as cheaply as possible. Creating a game engine from scratch is FUN, and if game development is a fun hobby then full steam ahead. If however it is a business that you plan to make money on, you're unlikely to recoup the time investment into a bespoke engine just to test the market for your games. If the game turned out to be successful you could always piecemeal replace the commercial engine with bespoke via updates (inc. using money to hire people from the success).
    • bob1029 3y ago
      > You need to test the gameplay concept as cheaply as possible. There are some edge case concepts that I have found to be completely impenetrable on commercial engines. Multiplayer is the #1 thing in my mind. I've gotten the FPS multiplayer examples to "work" for UE and Unity, but the confidence I have in these solutions is not great. I've seen what Unity can do (BattleBit), but I don't know how many decades of game industry black magic and hackarounds it requires to force a commercial engine to behave that well. I really think the answer is that it depends. If you aren't trying to have a "perfect" version of some gameplay aspect (i.e. multiplayer in my case), then the commercial engines will absolutely be the fastest path to validating your idea. Put differently, I think some game ideas are not possible to validate on commercial engines. But, I don't think this is very common.
• deleted 3y ago
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• RunSet 3y ago
  In bygone days, I would say: "In the future, all games will be Quake." But it was easier for my audience to hear a joke than the truth.
  • deleted 3y ago
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• miragecraft 3y ago
  The logic that Epic and Unreal Engine will do something similar as Unity doesn't track for me. The argument hinges on the premise that Epic, who operates their own game store and is courting developers aggressively with generous revenue split, is willing to burn their bridge with developers for questionable increase in profit; in addition it presumes that the plain old revenue share model that Unreal Engine utiltizes makes less money than this so-called runtime fee. I beg to differ, I think the only reason Unity went this route is because they don't want to be seen to publicly break the promise of no revenue share/royalty pledge they had earlier, and ironically came up with an even worse monetization scheme. In my opinion, the only reason this whole fiasco happened is because Unity the company has too many headcounts and has too much expense, and the reason for that is they grew too big, and the reason they grew too big is because they took the company public and in that sphere success is measured in growth, even if the company is much healthier if it had stayed smaller. Epic is privately held, Valve is too, Unity is not and we ended up here. I think that says a lot.
  • HeavyStorm 3y ago
    Also Epic only needs to look to their closest competitor to see this is a terrible idea. That said, the author forgets to mention one more important advantage of open source alternatives like Godot: they avoid market manipulation simply by existing, as they block monopoly. Unity wouldn't risk _future_ customers if they were not as confident in their position (Unity is king on mobile, don't forget).
  • sigmoid10 3y ago
    I don't think this is a problem of company structure. It's solely a problem of bad management. If they had listened to their users or their own developers, or any remotely sane person with some touch of reality, then this wouldn't have happened. But if you hire the former CEO of EA - a guy with no low level industry experience and who left his last job because of poor financial performance - then this whole fiasco seems like it was inevitable.
    • miragecraft 3y ago
      On the surface that is the case, but once you're a publicly traded company you're beholden to your shareholders, not your customers, so your goals and incentives changes drastically and "bad management decisions" gets made. You think the management made a mistake, I think the management (as a result of going public) is the mistake.
• philipov 3y ago
  There is no indication that Unreal would follow suit, and no corroboration for such a claim is given in the article. How does the author get off saying that?
• JackMorgan 3y ago
  This should also be a wakeup call to anyone using closed source tools at all: DynamoDB, MongoDB, Elasticsearch, AWS Lambda, Azure, AWS, Azure Devops, SqlServer, Oracle, etc. While some of these tools are best in class, it's borrowed time until the owner decides to change the terms, stop offering it, or raise prices enough to damage your business. Closed source software tools are a liability, and the benefits often are only minor compared to the risks. I've been on several teams where entire projects with dozens of person years of effort had to be thrown out because tools stopped being supported or were made prohibitively expensive. This isn't about open source posturing. Relying on closed source software you can't easily switch off of just isn't worth the risk. (As an aside, I'm not a purist, I'll use tools like JetBrains, because I could easily switch off to open source tools if I had to without any disruption to my business) Edit, I do not suggest writing your own tools, I suggest using great open source tools: postgres, apache, Linux, mariadb, open source languages, Redis, couchdb, etc.
  • onethought 3y ago
    But history has shown them get cheaper and more capable over time for nearly every example you gave.
    • JackMorgan 3y ago
      Survivorship bias. These are the ones that haven't _yet_ gotten worse and are still currently popular. I'm listing them so people won't get blindsided when they do eventually bite their users. There isn't enough space to list the closed source software tools that didn't make it. Off the top of my head: Adobe Flash, MS Basic, SourceSafe, ActiveDesktop, FoxPro, J#, Oslo, IronRuby, and Silverlight.
      • Iulioh 3y ago
        The problem is that behind OS software there isn't a lot of incentive to develop. I mean, sute, but there is a reason why really good and complex software is usually closed.
      • lowbloodsugar 3y ago
• zoogeny 3y ago
  I think we are starting to see the cracks in the utopic vision of open source. I know it sounds very harsh, but I feel the vast majority of people complaining about these kind of situations are people who want the benefit of the tremendous engineering accomplishment of a game engine like Unity without contributing or paying in any way. Somehow people have convinced themselves that just using a technology is equivalent to supporting it. I'm not immune to this. I just considered how I would feel if React or Golang suddenly changed so that I had to pay to use them. React is supported by Facebook and Golang by Google, both unimaginably massive and wealthy corporations. Even though I have never directly contributed a single thing to either project, I know I would feel some combination of betrayed, angry and frustrated. But I think about all of it. nginx, haproxy, redis, postgresql, nodejs, python. I don't think I could even write out all of the open source I am using in my projects within the confines of a Hacker News comment. Just trying to wrap my head around how I could even pay for all of that software if I had to is anxiety inducing. I don't mean just the cost, even the logistics of that many micro-transactions. Imagine trying to pay every YouTuber you watch some fair value for the content you consume. We are no where near an answer on this, I don't believe it will be settled within my lifetime. But the current model to justify the free-lunch we've all been served is crumbling. If the corporations that we expect to bear the cost of our free-lunch start to crumble then we are all in for a rude awakening.
  • berkle4455 3y ago
    Nah, we used and paid for Unity because the licensing structure we signed on with made sense. They’re literally changing the terms on us in a way we cannot push back against. Games made years ago are subject to this new fee structure. Games which are no longer sold at the same nominal price and a massive existing install base who anytime they reinstall our game we get the privilege of paying Unity each time forever.
    • paulmd 3y ago
      > Nah, we used and paid for Unity because the licensing structure we signed on with made sense. They’re literally changing the terms on us in a way we cannot push back against. Games made years ago are subject to this new fee structure. and you can still do this with the software codebase released before april 3rd, you just don't get ongoing development. this may, of course, involve rollbacks etc, you need to rebase onto the older version not the one that's been out for the last 5 months. But the license does explicitly allow you to do this. > Unity may update these Unity Software Additional Terms at any time for any reason and without notice (the “Updated Terms”) and those Updated Terms will apply to the most recent current-year version of the Unity Software, provided that, if the Updated Terms adversely impact your rights, you may elect to continue to use any current-year versions of the Unity Software (e.g., 2018.x and 2018.y and any Long Term Supported (LTS) versions for that current-year release) according to the terms that applied just prior to the Updated Terms (the “Prior Terms”). The Updated Terms will then not apply to your use of those current-year versions unless and until you update to a subsequent year version of the Unity Software (e.g. from 2019.4 to 2020.1).
• pxoe 3y ago
  >It’s like if Microsoft decided that you had to pay per person who read your document made in Word. funnily enough, isn't that literally what figma does with their surprise 'editor fee' charges
• numlock86 3y ago
  > While Unreal engine currently does not have terms like Unity’s, there’s nothing stopping them from doing something similar. In fact if Unity manages to get away with this it seems likely they will follow suit. I sense a lack of arguments if people make up pure speculation like that without any foundation. Also Unity's business model had a negative tendency over the last couple of years already ... with Epic having clear statements and an ethical roadmap in response. Oh, and by the way: Unreal Engine is open source. The more you know.
  • adultSwim 3y ago
    > Unreal Engine is open source It doesn't look like it to me. https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/eula/unreal https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/eula/unreal
    • numlock86 3y ago
      > The Licensed Technology licensed to you under this Agreement includes all Unreal Engine code and related content that is copied to your computer when you install Unreal Engine. Have you read it? You literally get read access to their entire GitHub repo.
      • adultSwim 3y ago
        Yes. Having access to the source is not the same as open source. I encourage you to re-read it. They also have an FAQ clearly outlining the restrictions. https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/faq https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/faq "Can I copy and paste Unreal engine code into my own project or engine? If you use any Unreal Engine code in your product (even just a little), then your entire product is governed by the Unreal Engine EULA, and is subject to 5% royalties when your gross lifetime revenues from that product exceed $1 million USD."
        • numlock86 3y ago
          > [...] and is subject to 5% royalties when your gross lifetime revenues from that product exceed $1 million USD. That's part of their general license and business model anyway, and not specific for source code usage, but the engine (parts) itself. How is this relevant? > I encourage you to re-read it.
• adultSwim 3y ago
  Games make a lot of money. It makes sense that studios would make for the world they profit from. Changing the deal mid-stream seems like the big problem here.
• ribit 3y ago
  This is a straw man argument. The problem is not closed source but lack of regulation and power asymmetry between the large company and a small customer. These types of bait and switch one-sided contract changes should be illegal. In fact, the way how Unity approached this is likely illegal, since they have retroactively changed the contract while attempting to hide this fact from the customers. We need to strive towards establishment of fair, enforceable legal frameworks that prevent this kind of abuse from large players, instead of magically hoping that open source will fix everything.
  • __loam 3y ago
    I agree completely, but open source alternatives like Godot make it easier for people to pack up their things and leave, and you'll never need to deal with this issue if your business uses open source software. Open source can be a part of how we hold abusive corporations to account, and it's a way for developers to take action without hiring a lawyer.
• Eumenes 3y ago
  These platforms just pigeon hole developers into a corner. Yeah I get it - it makes game dev 'accessible' but what are we really missing out on? I'd take quality of quantity any day. Entire generations of programmers are being boxed into being tool dependent. Same goes for web frameworks and mobile ecosystems. Obviously building a game engine from scratch is a massive work of labor and requires vast knowledge in alot of things, but outside of AAA studios, is anything building engines from the ground up?
• sproketboy 3y ago
  [dead]
• gareth_untether 3y ago
  Sets a bad precedent if they can. Even if they backpedal now, trust has been broken.
• mabbo 3y ago
  I think at this point, the real question is who in their right mind would ever build a game in Unity again? I'm sure this will make their company a short term gain in profits, but in very short order no more Unity games will be made. Even if you accept the terms they're proposing, you know damn well they are willing to change the rules at any time at your expense. Unity just became an extinction-level-event liability for any game company. Who would dare touch it with a ten foot pole? The leadership will be ousted by their shareholders quickly enough, I expect.
  • chimeracoder 3y ago
    > I think at this point, the real question is who in their right mind would ever build a game in Unity again? This is pretty unfortunate, because Unity is partly responsible for the surge of Linux gaming over the last 10 years. Supporting Linux comes nearly for free on Unity (compared to many other engines), and fewer Unity games will likely mean fewer Linux games.
    • yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
      Depends what they jump to; godot, for instance, should be similar AIUI?
      • TylerE 3y ago
        Godot is never going to be able to ship for consoles due to license incompatibility. That's a pretty big dealbreaker for non-hobbyist projects that aren't exclusively targeting desktop.
        • kevingadd 3y ago
          Godot games have been shipped on consoles plenty of times
          • TylerE 3y ago
            There are paid, non open source forks that support console. Actual godot does not, and never will. From their own docs: “ Godot does not officially support consoles (save for XBox One via UWP) currently. The reasons for this are: To develop for consoles, one must be licensed as a company. Godot, as an open source project, does not have such a legal figure. Console SDKs are secret, and protected by non-disclosure agreements. Even if we could get access to them, we could not publish the code as open-source. Consoles require specialized hardware to develop for, so regular individuals can’t create games for them anyway”
• NotYourLawyer 3y ago
  Disregard
  • yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
    Yes it does, on page 3; > A developer who wanted to pursue that kind of claim in court could argue using the concept of promissory estoppel, or the "notion that you can't just change the deal if somebody else relied upon it," as Hoeg put it. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/09/wait-is-unity-allowed-to-just-change-its-fee-structure-like-that/3/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/09/wait-is-unity-allowed...
  • ajkjk 3y ago
    ... It does mention it.
  • otterley 3y ago
    Isn't promissory estoppel typically used as a fallback theory when a legal contract does not exist?
    • singleshot_ 3y ago
      My reading is that the article skips a step in its analysis. Note that I did not watch the linked video with the video game lawyer and whatever he says is probably more contextually useful than what I say: I’d be more apt to call this an illusory contract where one party reserves the ability to choose how it performs. This destroys the mutuality of agreement in which the contract rests. In some circumstances this might get you to a win simply by escaping the contract. But not if you want damages; in this situation an equitable remedy that does not presume the existence of the contract would be exactly what you would want. On the other hand all of these clickwrap licenses seem to reserve the right to change at any time. I think the only reason that they are not adjudicated as illusory is the existence of mandatory arbitration clauses but I’m not sure. I’d be interested in being set straight if someone reading this is more knowledgeable.
  • dang 3y ago
    Once your comment has a reply, please don't edit it in a way that removes the context for readers! Instead, it's fine to add something to the end preceded by "Edit:" or similar.
• slowhadoken 3y ago
  Godot is completely free but I still suggest trying to write your own small frameworks. A lot of Unity’s code is third party. All their 2d rigid body physics is Erin Catto’s Box2D.
  • hnthrowaway0315 3y ago
    Yup, I always believe writing a simple 2d engine gives a lot of insights about why commercial engines do this or that. Even as simple as a tile based Ultima-spinoff engine, it's still a lot of work.
    • slowhadoken 3y ago
      To a casual developer who wants to implement a simple fun idea it’s overkill but if you love making games it’s essential. You can learn stuff from using video game frameworks too.
• bombcar 3y ago
  Every ToS-style contract has a "we can change anything about this at any time, screw you" clause, but they also almost never use it except to change their privacy policy.
  • hedora 3y ago
    There are limits to what sorts of changes are enforceable, though most of those documents also say the vendor gets to choose the arbitration firm that decides what is enforceable.
    • bombcar 3y ago
      I suspect it's partially because the lawyers remind them that certain contract terms are not enforceable, and also that shooting yourself in the foot doesn't really help revenues long-term.
• yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  So to summarize the answer to the title: Probably, unless a dev used an older version that had language around being able to keep the old terms, in which case it'll be for the courts to decide. And of course "is that legal" may or may not quickly play second fiddle to "is anyone going to use them ever again after this stunt".
  • hedora 3y ago
    Note that, "older" means before April 2023. The language that existed then said you could continue to use the calendar year version that was available at the time, so presumably, you can use 2023 releases of their software as long as you were using it (started development? started training?) before April, assuming the courts rule that the old Software ToS applies. I can't imagine anyone will start using them now, so there's a good chance that the new ToS will only apply to whatever new customers they signed on between April 2023 and Sept 2023, and people that voluntarily update to the 2024 release. Still, it's a shame. They just threw out millions of developer hours (minimum), and it doesn't seem likely they'll be able to come back from their mistake.
• everyone 3y ago
  How is this tracked though?? It could work like this.. + When you build, Unity secretly adds your Unity account id to the build. + When the game is run for the 1st time it secretly calls home to Unity server with your account id + The server increments # of installs from your account by one.. But couldnt this be overcome by just creating a new Unity account for every build? I really want to know btw. I am a unity dev and have just tendered for a contract assuming we'll build it in Unity. Switching to Godot will take us time and reduce quality as we are not experienced in it.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • numpad0 3y ago
    No way you'll be changing bundle id/package name on every store release! My guess of the original game plan was likely to just print out a list of most installed games, manually work out package names to developers, and pick up the phone at Unity's convenience for negotiation talks, working out disagreements including knocking out dupes and fraudulent counts. That should be technically doable. The real problems are, most devs just don't have the cash flow to split for $0.20 per install, nor they believe they have leverages to reach into agreement for mutual benefits(special 99.9% discount or whatever), nor any viable paths for making the full amount even as eventuality(just add those banners at the top and bottom of your screen! On the launchers! People love clicking those gifs right!? Ads!), and that total dead end feeling had traumatized developers enough that they had formed impression that Unity is a total showstopper with ropes included. But the part they cast int to dollar isn't the most problematic part.
• jonplackett 3y ago
  I wonder if Apple knew about this, or have been blindsided by this - having just teamed up with Unity for Vision (although mostly just because they hate Epic). Either way it’s interesting.
• gsuuon 3y ago
  They really should have trialed this pricing structure as opt-in and then slowly rolled out (if at all) instead of wholesale shoveling it on everyone with a quarter's notice.
• chipsrafferty 3y ago
  [dead]
• indymike 3y ago
  "Our terms of service provide that Unity may add or change fees at any time... Consent is not required for additional fees to take effect." -- Unity spokesperson Never do business with a company that thinks this is OK.
• jrmg 3y ago
  A commenter on the Ars article pointed out this from the Unity FAQ (https://unity.com/pricing-updates https://unity.com/pricing-updates) and I can’t get over it: ——— Will developers be charged the Unity Runtime Fee for subscription-based games? No, in this case the developer is not distributing it so we’re not going to invoice the developer on subscription-based games (e.g. Apple Arcade, Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Plus, Netflix Games, etc.) ——— Surely Unity management can’t think this will fly? Surely MS, Apple etc. have contracts with developers that say they have the full rights to distribute the games under some arranged fee structure. Is Unity now just going to go to them and say “Hey, those contracts you have actually don’t give you the right to distribute the parts we own. You’ll have to pay us too!”. That just seems so unrealistic. And, further, even if that ‘works’ MS, Apple etc. would surely then have a legal case against the developers, who represented that they were assigning full distribution rights to the games, to make them pay anyway. This all just seems like a giant ill thought through mess, and I think this ‘subscription’ question and answer is indicative of how the entire thing was planned. Is Unity management really so naive that they think this will work? Are they just following the whims of a CEO with no legal input? Did they just not think this through? Are they _trying_ to get all this into litigation? Usually with things like this, where there’s a lot of online sound and fury, I can make a ‘well, they probably intend for this result, that’s why they’re doing it like this’ judgement. But this just seems like chaos and I am finding it so hard to understand how any of this was decided.
  • Georgelemental 3y ago
    I think that means they just won't charge the fee for such titles.
• hotstickyballs 3y ago
  Finally I can choose a game engine and start learning game development
• Gareth321 3y ago
  If developers signed agreements to that effect, yes, in America. There are fairness tests in many other countries. What is blowing my mind is that developers have been signing agreements which effectively gave Unity the right to take any revenue they wish, at any time. At that point the developers don’t own their company anymore. Unity does. Always have a lawyer check your agreements before you sign them. If your business relies on an agreement to function, make sure the other party can’t make unilateral changes.
• amelius 3y ago
  Honestly, the pricing model sounds awfully close to what Apple has been doing for years in the app store.
• imchillyb 3y ago
  Software is a recipe, literal instructions on how to fabricate a result. Recipes are patentable. Software should be no different.
• simonblack 3y ago
  WHAT'S IN YOUR CONTRACT WITH UNITY?