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It's fascinating to watch the fallout from this. I've seen a few "insider trading" conspiracy pieces about the CEO selling 50k shares of stock this year with t

It's fascinating to watch the fallout from this. I've seen a few "insider trading" conspiracy pieces about the CEO selling 50k shares of stock this year with the knowledge that the announcement would tank the stock price. I feel like that ignores the other 3+ million shares he owns. In any case, I think it's more a story about hubris and miscalculation. Even the apology misses the most important fact, which is not necessarily the cost of the change itself, but the demonstration that Unity is willing to change terms AFTER you've shipped software using their engine. That's a massive breach of trust as well as a massive risk. What's preventing them from announcing next September that new installs will incur an even larger cost or that the thresholds will be lowered.

wlesieutre 3y ago
> Even the apology misses the most important fact, which is not necessarily the cost of the change itself, but the demonstration that Unity is willing to change terms AFTER you've shipped software using their engine. That's a massive breach of trust as well as a massive risk. And the obvious fix to that is to put out an announcement saying "Sorry about that, you can trust us, and if you release a game using Unity you can stick with that version of the ToS instead of us being able to foist new terms on you whenever we want forever." Except.... Unity did that already last time they made company destroying ToS changes, and then just went back on the promise and said they're forcing the new ToS on everyone. So why the hell is anyone supposed to trust whatever apology they put out this time? https://blog.unity.com/community/updated-terms-of-service-and-commitment-to-being-an-open-platform https://blog.unity.com/community/updated-terms-of-service-an... Updated Terms of Service and commitment to being an open platform (2019) Retroactive TOS changes When you obtain a version of Unity, and don’t upgrade your project, we think you should be able to stick to that version of the TOS. In practice, that is only possible if you have access to bug fixes. For this reason, we now allow users to continue to use the TOS for the same major (year-based) version number, including Long Term Stable (LTS) builds that you are using in your project.* Moving forward, we will host TOS changes on Github to give developers full transparency about what changes are happening, and when. The link is https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/TermsOfService https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/TermsOfService.
- daef 3y ago
  The TOS-repo on github 404s... can't make that shit up...
- MichaelDickens 3y ago
  > if you release a game using Unity you can stick with that version of the ToS instead of us being able to foist new terms on you whenever we want forever. IANAL but isn't this how it works by default? If two parties agree to a contract, one party doesn't get to unilaterally change the contract after the fact. The only way they get to change it is if they put some wording in the contract to the effect of "As long as the game runs on the Unity engine, Unity has the right to charge whatever it wants." So it would simply be a matter of removing this language from the TOS.
  - philipov 3y ago
    And who's to say that they don't just put that language back? They've demonstrated willingness to do that.
  - wlesieutre 3y ago
    Unity's position is > Our terms of service provide that Unity may add or change fees at any time. We are providing more than three months advance notice of the Unity Runtime Fee before it goes into effect. Consent is not required for additional fees to take effect, and the only version of our terms is the most current version; you simply cannot choose to comply with a prior version. Further, our terms are governed by California law, notwithstanding the country of the customer. https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-plan-pricing-and-packaging-updates.1482750/page-45#post-9297488 https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-plan-pricing-and-packa... They're saying "the terms of service say we can add whatever new fees we want whenever we want." I'm not sure whether the original fee structure that people had agreed to was outlined in the earlier version of the ToS or not. If people agreed to allow Unity to unilaterally change the pricing structure then they may be stuck with it. But if they need to actually change the ToS to make these fees, then I'm skeptical it would stand up in court (IANAL). They made very definitive public statements that people would be able to use the existing agreements with your current engine version, and saying "you simply cannot choose to comply with a prior version" now can't possibly hold water.
btown 3y ago
I think it's also an incredible case study in how your users who are themselves most profitable (in this case, the Mihoyo's of the world), and who you see yourself wanting to emulate in levels of profitability, are not necessarily the pillars holding up your ecosystem. If this were just a skirmish between Unity and microtransaction-heavy mobile game publishers, then there would be legal battles, but all in all they would rather pay a per-install fee than rewrite their games from the ground up. But every small and mid-sized developer and publisher feels like they were considered fodder for this battle, and their goodwill is why the big guys chose Unity in the first place. And a $1M annual revenue threshold might as well be nothing - that barely feeds a two-pizza team! It would be as if Github made every open source repository with more than 5 regular contributors pay per git pull. Absolutely absurd.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  Sad thing is they ALSO lost the gamble with the large studios. A half dozen of them turned off ads in protest. Even if the price was dirt cheap, businesses don't like contracts being changed, so that was another miscalculation. Maybe if they actually promised something exciting in Unity 2024, they could change the contract there and entice people to join. But that's another historical pain point for the company. What's the last actually shipped feature that really excited developers? HDRP? I sympathize with how they went about it, but they underestimated how much people wanted some sort of migration strategy. DOTS thats still floundering on what it wants to be 5+ years into development, and also a shakey target?
randac 3y ago
The CEO selling is a bit of a red herring. This covers more of the shenanigans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOCTSp_U-KI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOCTSp_U-KI Apologies for a video link but that's all I have.
li2uR3ce 3y ago
Altering the deal is SOP where law permits it. Read any privacy policy or user "agreement" and note that they all have "Darth Vader" clauses where they get to alter the deal when ever it suits them. It's even your job to spam refresh on the page and use a diff tool to figure out what changed. The difference is that these customers potentially can defend themselves with lawsuits and switching to a competitor.
- philipov 3y ago
  In a sense, those clauses seem like the embodiment of a best alternative to a negotiated agreement. They reserve broad leeway to account for possibilities that might not have been anticipated; for the fact you can never anticipate everything. They are tolerated to the extent to which they are applied conservatively for this implicit, reasonable purpose. The problems arise when some cowboy executive comes in and reads the letter of the law without regard for the spirit of the law and starts thinking they can get away with radical innovations that destroy the stability of the business ecosystem. Business partners in a contract may grant broad leeway conditioned on the trust that it will not be abused, but now that trust has been destroyed, how can you continue to do business with such a counterparty?

wlesieutre 3y ago

> Even the apology misses the most important fact, which is not necessarily the cost of the change itself, but the demonstration that Unity is willing to change terms AFTER you've shipped software using their engine. That's a massive breach of trust as well as a massive risk. And the obvious fix to that is to put out an announcement saying "Sorry about that, you can trust us, and if you release a game using Unity you can stick with that version of the ToS instead of us being able to foist new terms on you whenever we want forever." Except.... Unity did that already last time they made company destroying ToS changes, and then just went back on the promise and said they're forcing the new ToS on everyone. So why the hell is anyone supposed to trust whatever apology they put out this time? https://blog.unity.com/community/updated-terms-of-service-and-commitment-to-being-an-open-platform https://blog.unity.com/community/updated-terms-of-service-an... Updated Terms of Service and commitment to being an open platform (2019) Retroactive TOS changes When you obtain a version of Unity, and don’t upgrade your project, we think you should be able to stick to that version of the TOS. In practice, that is only possible if you have access to bug fixes. For this reason, we now allow users to continue to use the TOS for the same major (year-based) version number, including Long Term Stable (LTS) builds that you are using in your project.* Moving forward, we will host TOS changes on Github to give developers full transparency about what changes are happening, and when. The link is https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/TermsOfService https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/TermsOfService.

daef 3y ago
The TOS-repo on github 404s... can't make that shit up...
MichaelDickens 3y ago
> if you release a game using Unity you can stick with that version of the ToS instead of us being able to foist new terms on you whenever we want forever. IANAL but isn't this how it works by default? If two parties agree to a contract, one party doesn't get to unilaterally change the contract after the fact. The only way they get to change it is if they put some wording in the contract to the effect of "As long as the game runs on the Unity engine, Unity has the right to charge whatever it wants." So it would simply be a matter of removing this language from the TOS.
- philipov 3y ago
  And who's to say that they don't just put that language back? They've demonstrated willingness to do that.
- wlesieutre 3y ago
  Unity's position is > Our terms of service provide that Unity may add or change fees at any time. We are providing more than three months advance notice of the Unity Runtime Fee before it goes into effect. Consent is not required for additional fees to take effect, and the only version of our terms is the most current version; you simply cannot choose to comply with a prior version. Further, our terms are governed by California law, notwithstanding the country of the customer. https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-plan-pricing-and-packaging-updates.1482750/page-45#post-9297488 https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-plan-pricing-and-packa... They're saying "the terms of service say we can add whatever new fees we want whenever we want." I'm not sure whether the original fee structure that people had agreed to was outlined in the earlier version of the ToS or not. If people agreed to allow Unity to unilaterally change the pricing structure then they may be stuck with it. But if they need to actually change the ToS to make these fees, then I'm skeptical it would stand up in court (IANAL). They made very definitive public statements that people would be able to use the existing agreements with your current engine version, and saying "you simply cannot choose to comply with a prior version" now can't possibly hold water.

btown 3y ago

I think it's also an incredible case study in how your users who are themselves most profitable (in this case, the Mihoyo's of the world), and who you see yourself wanting to emulate in levels of profitability, are not necessarily the pillars holding up your ecosystem. If this were just a skirmish between Unity and microtransaction-heavy mobile game publishers, then there would be legal battles, but all in all they would rather pay a per-install fee than rewrite their games from the ground up. But every small and mid-sized developer and publisher feels like they were considered fodder for this battle, and their goodwill is why the big guys chose Unity in the first place. And a $1M annual revenue threshold might as well be nothing - that barely feeds a two-pizza team! It would be as if Github made every open source repository with more than 5 regular contributors pay per git pull. Absolutely absurd.

johnnyanmac 3y ago
Sad thing is they ALSO lost the gamble with the large studios. A half dozen of them turned off ads in protest. Even if the price was dirt cheap, businesses don't like contracts being changed, so that was another miscalculation. Maybe if they actually promised something exciting in Unity 2024, they could change the contract there and entice people to join. But that's another historical pain point for the company. What's the last actually shipped feature that really excited developers? HDRP? I sympathize with how they went about it, but they underestimated how much people wanted some sort of migration strategy. DOTS thats still floundering on what it wants to be 5+ years into development, and also a shakey target?

randac 3y ago

The CEO selling is a bit of a red herring. This covers more of the shenanigans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOCTSp_U-KI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOCTSp_U-KI Apologies for a video link but that's all I have.

li2uR3ce 3y ago

Altering the deal is SOP where law permits it. Read any privacy policy or user "agreement" and note that they all have "Darth Vader" clauses where they get to alter the deal when ever it suits them. It's even your job to spam refresh on the page and use a diff tool to figure out what changed. The difference is that these customers potentially can defend themselves with lawsuits and switching to a competitor.

philipov 3y ago
In a sense, those clauses seem like the embodiment of a best alternative to a negotiated agreement. They reserve broad leeway to account for possibilities that might not have been anticipated; for the fact you can never anticipate everything. They are tolerated to the extent to which they are applied conservatively for this implicit, reasonable purpose. The problems arise when some cowboy executive comes in and reads the letter of the law without regard for the spirit of the law and starts thinking they can get away with radical innovations that destroy the stability of the business ecosystem. Business partners in a contract may grant broad leeway conditioned on the trust that it will not be abused, but now that trust has been destroyed, how can you continue to do business with such a counterparty?