16 ms·

An open letter to our community

249 points by gmjosack 3y ago

pikseladam 3y ago
new comers won't chose unity.
rybosworld 3y ago
This is better than what they announced originally but it doesn't cure the breach of trust. I have no doubt that as long John R. and Tomar B. continue to run the show, that the company will behave unethically again in the future.
- rybosworld 3y ago
  Also, there are still hints of them trying to play this off as a misunderstanding rather than what it really was: a predatory pricing scheme and an attempt to retroactively change ToS. "When we first introduced the Runtime Fee policy, we used the term “installs” which the community found to be unclear so we’re using the term "initial engagement" as the unit of measure." The community did not find this unclear. The original pricing scheme was very straightforward about developers being charged multiple times for a user that reinstalls a game, or install it across multiple devices. This is Unity trying to rewrite history so they don't seem like the bad guys.
  - flutas 3y ago
    > This is Unity trying to rewrite history so they don't seem like the bad guys. Yup, even going so far as to rewrite the FAQ and pretend they never said the initial answer, it only being noted as "(Updated, Sept 14)"[0] For full context, the original Q/A was > Q: If a user reinstalls/redownloads a game / changes their hardware, will that count as multiple installs? > A: Yes. The creator will need to pay for all future installs. The reason is that Unity doesn’t receive end-player information, just aggregate data. and has since been edited to > Q: If a user reinstalls/redownloads a game, will that count as multiple installs? > A: We are not going to charge a fee for reinstalls. The spirit of this program is and has always been to charge for the first install and we have no desire to charge for the same person doing ongoing installs. > (Updated, Sep 14) > Q: Do installs of the same game by the same user across multiple devices count as different installs? > A: Yes - we treat different devices as different installs. > (Updated, Sep 14) [0]: https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-plan-pricing-and-packaging-updates.1482750/ https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-plan-pricing-and-packa...
    - rybosworld 3y ago
      It's sort of surprising that they would try to act as if the plan was never to charge for multiple installs. By lying about the situation so transparently, it's clear to me that this is nothing more than damage control, and that the loss of trust does not deserve to be earned back.
      - shoemakersteve 3y ago
        Honestly. They want to earn back people's trust, so they figure the best way to do that is with good ol' gaslighting. Thing is, it'll probably work. At least to some extent. The irony is actually kind of funny.
  - DonHopkins 3y ago
    Here's where a professional NFT shilling tech influencer tried to carry the water for Unity by parroting their gaslighting that developers were bitchy little children who "misunderstood" the announcement, and the NFT shill's followers chimed in with how stupid and childish and demanding game developers are. https://www.facebook.com/robert.tercek/posts/pfbid0RPPNvecmeL2hvpy8SwYZpxzksjvobd5E3fffNysmDx8vkjyPDXr6LC23hhikdXazl https://www.facebook.com/robert.tercek/posts/pfbid0RPPNvecme... Including un-ironic replies like this one commenting "some insight into what the gamer peasants are talking about" and quoting one game developer's factual reaction, to which the NFT shill replied by calling it "unhinged conspiratorial speculating that poisons the whole atmosphere". https://www.facebook.com/robert.tercek/posts/pfbid0RPPNvecmeL2hvpy8SwYZpxzksjvobd5E3fffNysmDx8vkjyPDXr6LC23hhikdXazl?comment_id=253549331001123&__cft__[0]=AZUHH9FiRw3ke_D1vr4VVNE454lsGCqQ0qPsGbjB0YtnHc9CphF17iVR3oXp54q-kNPeL7g0dCwl8w7nyUh91EZS9hM3OxfbUNGr4LltvIldy-D0IXWPS5SptKqm90zy98KLnZruF8N2lzdW9K0UrxU6&__tn__=R]-R https://www.facebook.com/robert.tercek/posts/pfbid0RPPNvecme... I took the NFT shill to task on that, with quotes and links and receipts. I pointed out that he and Unity were the ones "poisoning the whole atmosphere" by gaslighting, calling developers "confused" when they actually understood all too well, and if anyone was "poisoning the whole atmosphere" first and foremost, it was John Riccitiello literally and publically calling game developers "some of the biggest fucking idiots". https://www.pocketgamer.biz/interview/79190/unity-ironsource-john-riccitiello-marc-whitten-merger/ https://www.pocketgamer.biz/interview/79190/unity-ironsource... Twice the NFT shill snarkily blamed game developers for the death threat. First he baselessly accused game developers of "often" making death threats, then he gleefully berated game developers for not condemning it (which they actually did, but he didn't bother to notice), demanding they condemn it without actually condemning it himself, when it was actually a Unity employee who made the death threat, not a game developer: "Game developers often find colorful ways of making their disappointment known." https://www.facebook.com/robert.tercek/posts/pfbid0RPPNvecmeL2hvpy8SwYZpxzksjvobd5E3fffNysmDx8vkjyPDXr6LC23hhikdXazl?comment_id=6186765958093891&__cft__[0]=AZVVTu0M-mJ7U46wUY2Ga1pTm7mjhHVWdZYADGDeMkD-kkwuS3X0LD7X1lYw3eA0Q1ZRJSHM7iN6knsQYRfBXmXnS25YWAq0QlVXTtVelKJBcLH0fPMnRLArWKAiLwcDuP38nsM-8irfNQUN6kJxwDM2&__tn__=R]-R https://www.facebook.com/robert.tercek/posts/pfbid0RPPNvecme... "I notice that none of game developers who shared their righteous indignation last week had the courage to speak up and condemn the cowards who phoned in death threats to Unity offices. Keep it classy, game developers." https://www.facebook.com/robert.tercek/posts/pfbid0RPPNvecmeL2hvpy8SwYZpxzksjvobd5E3fffNysmDx8vkjyPDXr6LC23hhikdXazl?comment_id=676859170745408&__cft__[0]=AZVVTu0M-mJ7U46wUY2Ga1pTm7mjhHVWdZYADGDeMkD-kkwuS3X0LD7X1lYw3eA0Q1ZRJSHM7iN6knsQYRfBXmXnS25YWAq0QlVXTtVelKJBcLH0fPMnRLArWKAiLwcDuP38nsM-8irfNQUN6kJxwDM2&__tn__=R]-R https://www.facebook.com/robert.tercek/posts/pfbid0RPPNvecme... >Here are the Godot folks, who have greatly benefited from this fiasco through no fault of their own, condemning the bomb threat, and proving you wrong. No, Robert Tercek, you are wrong when you blame game developers for the bomb threat with no evidence, when the police say it was a Unity employee, and when you falsely claim that game developers "OFTEN find colorful ways of making their disappointment known" like making bomb threats. >Godot Engine @godotengine >We extend our sincere solidarity and support to the Unity workers. The recent reactions have left us profoundly disappointed. Threats of violence should have no place in the gamedev community. https://twitter.com/godotengine/status/1702413121086705951 https://twitter.com/godotengine/status/1702413121086705951 The truth behind the Unity "Death Threats": https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/16j21jg/the_truth_behind_the_unity_death_threats/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/16j21jg/the_truth_... >Update: San Francisco police told Polygon that officers responded to Unity’s San Francisco office “regarding a threats incident.” A “reporting party” told police that “an employee made a threat towards his employer using social media.” The employee that made the threat works in an office outside of California, according to the police statement. The PacMan Fever / NFT Shilling thread: https://www.facebook.com/robert.tercek/posts/pfbid0RPPNvecmeL2hvpy8SwYZpxzksjvobd5E3fffNysmDx8vkjyPDXr6LC23hhikdXazl?comment_id=1561493267715917&__cft__[0]=AZXo0BRfMkkwklXPy0dQmadsg1AFOqRj-V0z7c0ac3BWBTM5mntB03_RvSojNz-tCGXPdiAB7u3WNuPf0kY1EBgpaG9rxiV_kWnzwaYGkhGq6CSHIycX1N_GXRJtuGGcQwQvLtyVAbBEqcVS7j3QD5kO&__tn__=R]-R https://www.facebook.com/robert.tercek/posts/pfbid0RPPNvecme...
markhaslam 3y ago
This seems very reasonable actually? Being able to choose 2.5% revenue share (half of Unreal) does not sound bad to me. And very glad they removed the retroactivity of the new fees.
- drpossum 3y ago
  It may be reasonable and this is nothing but an attempt to stop the bleeding. There is no reason to trust them or their leadership again. The fact the CEO wasn't booted immediately shows they still want that style of leadership. The fact the CEO is not the one making this statement shows the fact Unity not interested to hold him accountable. They did this last year making dumb statements about monetization and then pulled this out this year. They deserve no trust and anyone that continues business with them gets what they deserve.
  - markhaslam 3y ago
    Fair points. Not sure if it will ever be possible to get back the trust they destroyed.
- gs17 3y ago
  If they had opened with this it would have been amazing, but this being 3-4 revisions in with nothing locking them to this going forward, it's not that good a look.
cmcaleer 3y ago
I think it might be too little too late. I do wonder if this was always the plan with classic door-in-the-face technique, but I can't imagine they would have anticipated the absolute magnitude of backlash. Their product certainly isn't as special as they clearly think it is, and the fact that they attempted to unilaterally change the contract in as egregious as way as they did is unacceptable and not behaviour I would want from a vendor I'm reliant on. Anecdotally, I'm seeing a lot of game devs being surprised at relative ease of migration in some instances, though I imagine there are megaprojects which will have a much worse time. Crow had to be eaten but it looks like they're only tasting the feathers.
- octacat 3y ago
  Companies in 2023 are just competing in how hostile they could be to the users/workers and still get away with it.
- cowsup 3y ago
  Unity lost a lot of goodwill among developers, and it took over a week for them to admit fault. I seriously doubt they planned all along to present a temporary horrible plan, to make their “real” plan easier to swallow. If this were a 48- or 72-hour turnaround, maybe. But Unity lost a lot of goodwill amongst developers and there are some they may never get back as a result.
  - intelVISA 3y ago
    Developers aren't the ones choosing Unity most of the time...
    - deleted 3y ago
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    - msk-lywenn 3y ago
      Huh? Who then?
purplecats 3y ago
ask for something you know will cause backlash (an anchor point) then recede to what you actually want
gmjosack 3y ago
This is basically everything policy wise they needed to do to quell the storm. This is honestly what should have just been announced originally. So much reputational damage just to arrive at a reasonable model weeks later. I'm happy for all the Unity developers out there that are breathing a sigh of relief. Hopefully they can ship their ongoing projects but I'd be hesitant about a continued long term relationship with Unity after this. This isn't the first Unity backlash and I'd be surprised if it's the last.
- dpkonofa 3y ago
  Ever since the mobile ad-first approach that's been a result of their buyout/merger/whatever it was, I think most Unity developers are bouncing. No one in their right might would leave their potential income in the hands of these sycophants.
  - brucethemoose2 3y ago
    > most Unity developers Most non mobile Unity developers? Unity has cultivated this reputation as a provider for artsy indies and small studios, and now some larger AAs, but I think they want to be a provider for mobile casinos. That's where all the money is, and they are less likely to balk at more fees.
    - dpkonofa 3y ago
      No, most Unity developers. Unity the company definitely wants into that market but, unfortunately for them, that's not the majority of their customers.
- misnome 3y ago
  How does this help anything when they have already demonstrated their willingness to alter terms and retrospectively add fees or alter licensing conditions. They already walked back changes once before saying “Okay you can keep the terms you agreed on your version” and went back on that promise for this clusterfuck. They burned the trust bridge and nothing they _ever_ do or can say will bring that trust back.
skilled 3y ago
I didn’t follow this very much but did they basically tried to enforce this on people out of the blue? If so, that must sting like crazy to have to walk it back with the addition of losing trust and goodwill of your users, not to mention those that went on to different engines. How high up does this rank in “the dumbest decisions you can make” chart?
- deleted 3y ago
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pushcx 3y ago
Does anyone have the text of this? For me the page appears momentarily, then is replaced with a blank white screen reading "An unexpected error has occurred." The archive.org copy is also broken. (Most likely some kind of analytics or ad erroring because of a browser privacy setting.)
- cmcaleer 3y ago
  To our community: I’m Marc Whitten, and I lead Unity Create which includes the Unity engine and editor teams. I want to start with simply this: I am sorry. We should have spoken with more of you and we should have incorporated more of your feedback before announcing our new Runtime Fee policy. Our goal with this policy is to ensure we can continue to support you today and tomorrow, and keep deeply investing in our game engine. You are what makes Unity great, and we know we need to listen, and work hard to earn your trust. We have heard your concerns, and we are making changes in the policy we announced to address them. Our Unity Personal plan will remain free and there will be no Runtime Fee for games built on Unity Personal. We will be increasing the cap from $100,000 to $200,000 and we will remove the requirement to use the Made with Unity splash screen. No game with less than $1 million in trailing 12-month revenue will be subject to the fee. For those creators on Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise, we are also making changes based on your feedback. The Runtime Fee policy will only apply beginning with the next LTS version of Unity shipping in 2024 and beyond. Your games that are currently shipped and the projects you are currently working on will not be included – unless you choose to upgrade them to this new version of Unity. We will make sure that you can stay on the terms applicable for the version of Unity editor you are using – as long as you keep using that version. For games that are subject to the runtime fee, we are giving you a choice of either a 2.5% revenue share or the calculated amount based on the number of new people engaging with your game each month. Both of these numbers are self-reported from data you already have available. You will always be billed the lesser amount. We want to continue to build the best engine for creators. We truly love this industry and you are the reason why. I’d like to invite you to join me for a live fireside chat hosted by Jason Weimann today at 4:00 pm ET/1:00 pm PT, where I will do my best to answer your questions. In the meantime, here are some more details.* Thank you for caring as deeply as you do, and thank you for giving us hard feedback. Marc Whitten
- deleted 3y ago
risingsubmarine 3y ago
A definite improvement but the CEO needs to go. It's the only way to begin restoring long term trust. Developers & publishers are extremely wary of unstable business partners.
- aeyes 3y ago
  I'm surprised that this letter isn't written by the CEO, maybe the board is already in the process of axing the guy.
  - eitally 3y ago
    I'd be more surprised if the board hadn't been included in the review process for the previous change.
    - Waterluvian 3y ago
      Boards are often presented pre-packaged answers via CEOs with slide decks. They are rarely given the flat truth about reality. Good boardmembers know this and how know to smell and cut through bullshit. Sales gonna sell.
- jstarfish 3y ago
  Yeah. An apology isn't enough in this case-- words clearly mean nothing to them. We were always told C-level compensation is as absurd as it is because they're expected to fall on their sword for fucking up. Keeping your position after defrauding customers is not a sign of good faith, it's just another [social] contract broken.
  - tombert 3y ago
    Yeah, I really do not understand why these executives get such huge salaries. They get all the credit when something goes well (see: Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, probably a dozen other CEOs in big tech), but when their decisions lead to a drop in revenue they get to fire 12,000 people, get to keep their exorbitant salaries and/or stock options, and just blame everyone else for the problem, or blame a "bad market". I really do not understand what it is that they actually do, outside of being an extremely overpriced and lazy spokesperson.
alexb_ 3y ago
People are going to continue to complain, but I honestly think this is a pretty good walk back. It addresses all of the more legitimate things people were upset about: - $1,000,000 income floor for a trailing 12 months - Doesn't apply to old versions - Billed a lesser amount of 2.5% revenue if available, so low-cost indie games don't get destroyed Not to mention, removing the requirement to have "Made with Unity" on the free version? Surprised they would change this - it wasn't really a problem for most people, and afaik getting rid of the "Made with Unity" was one of the main reasons people would buy the non-free versions of Unity. I think this is probably the best they could have done for indie devs. As it turns out, pushback works. They did destroy a lot of trust with developers with this move though. Going to be hard to get any of that back.
- JohnMakin 3y ago
  > - Doesn't apply to old versions It's not beyond the realm of reasonable belief to assume they can or will roll out some breaking change eventually that forces upgrades.
  - dangerwill 3y ago
    That isn't really a thing they can do for already shipped games, unless your game has an online component with dedicated servers and you need to update unity on the server side for a security fix. Most games don't upgrade their engine post launch, unless they are a live service game intended to get constant, significant updates for a long time.
  - LanceH 3y ago
    Or shift other (possibly not yet existent) assets between versions. The goodwill has been burned and now everything needs to be contractually spelled out. Or, for a good number of people, they can bail out to Godot for 2D or Unreal for 3D or consoles.
  - raincole 3y ago
    The old version of Unity can be used offline. Truly offline. How are they going to force you to upgrade? Hakc into your PC?
drpossum 3y ago
I like how the CEO can't be bothered for this, though. Shows real leadership
- peteforde 3y ago
  That the CEO didn't write this is a major indicator that he has or will be fired.
  - drpossum 3y ago
    What are they doing? Biding their time?
    - koromak 3y ago
      Figuring out how to cut up the pie most likely
    - peteforde 3y ago
      There's a term for this: dead man walking. This is all pure speculation based on what I would do if I was on Unity's board. I'm confident that his contract has all sorts of gotchas and landmines, so there is probably a ton of expensive lawyering happening right now on both sides.
    - Rapzid 3y ago
      Maybe they are begging Acton and Ante to come back from "sabbatical" (or whatever their official statuses are).
generationP 3y ago
[EDIT: False; see comments.] From a viewpoint of "will it be compatible with a DRM-free release that doesn't phone home" (i.e., playing by GOG rules), this doesn't seem to solve the problem at all. What is in it for them? Why per install and not per sale?
- Macha 3y ago
  It says that they're trusting developer provided numbers, and they've basically moved from literal installs to basically a user count metric provided by the developer, so it seems there is no need for it to be DRMed or phone home.
  - generationP 3y ago
    Ah, I didn't spot that they no longer require counting installs. But you're right; this is probably what "the number of new people" means. And the "2.5% revenue share" variant means no hurdles for freeware. So a real improvement indeed. Thanks for the corrections!
    - gs17 3y ago
      And freeware can get rid of the Made with Unity splash screen now, so it's honestly a big step up from where we were before. I'd still rather switch to Godot, but at least I can walk away from Unity calmly instead of running away screaming.
endisneigh 3y ago
It’s interesting how some complain companies don’t listen to them, and others say that it doesn’t matter if changes are made after (rightful) complaints. I have absolutely no stake in this and I’m sure these aren’t the same people, but it is interesting. From reading the original proposal and this new one, they should’ve gone first with this one. I’m sure unity developers will hesitatingly continue their work.
- njovin 3y ago
  > It’s interesting how some complain companies don’t listen to them, and others say that it doesn’t matter if changes are made after (rightful) complaints In this case I think those can (rightfully and reasonably) be the same people. If a company rolls out a pricing/licensing change that is so detrimental to the developers that it seems like no reasonable developer would have thought it was a good idea, then it looks like the company rolled it out either without talking to their developers or without taking their feedback into account, both of which are equally bad. In cases like this where the business acted so egregiously, the damage is done and trust might not be restorable long-term without C-level heads rolling.
- deleted 3y ago
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- PaulKeeble 3y ago
  If they had gone with this one to begin with they would have lost some customers but no where near as many. What they did makes them clearly an unstable business partner that is willing to break the law to rip you off. Walking it back changes the deal but it doesn't change the type of business they are.
- Macha 3y ago
  "Unity decides to change the deal in a way that costs us money for our already developed game" was not something on anyone's threat model. Until last year, Unity's TOS even included provisions that would have unambiguously prevented such a move. Maybe some considered "Unity changes the deal in the future and we need to learn a new engine for project n+1 and get stuck on an old version of Unity on our current project" as a threat. But now that Unity has put the first one in people's minds, Unity has to put people at ease about that to get to square one, not just cancel the current attempt.
rybosworld 3y ago
These words are an improvement of the situation but nothing here can be considered legally binding. For all intents and purposes, this is meaningless until they update the old ToS to prevent this from happening again.
- whartung 3y ago
  I may be misremembering but this is what happened with recent the Open Gaming License fiasco. As I recall, they inevitably changed the current one with a clause saying “we explicitly can’t pull the rug out from folks anymore with this license”. Simply ensuring that while they can create new licenses for new content, that can’t mess with creators who adopted the previous one.
- bangonkeyboard 3y ago
  > For all intents and purposes, this is meaningless until they update the old ToS to prevent this from happening again. Unity did just that the last time this happened, in 2019: 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... They silently deleted the then-added clause allowing you to use the ToS you agreed to before this most recent attempt.
bangonkeyboard 3y ago
Unity is not trustworthy. This was not the first time they've changed terms unilaterally, and will not be the last. This letter should be seen as a rickety runway extension: finalize any Unity projects you already have in development, but make sure you move to another engine in the immediate future.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  well, this at least saves Silksong. That's all I can ask for at this point. But if they are considering a 3rd Hollow Knight it'd be the biggest W if they chose an open-source engine (and hopefully not take 7 years, but TBH I'd take my time too if I made hollow knight money).
jhaehl 3y ago
While a good portion of developers will still be switching engines and staying there, as an AR developer, there isn't really anywhere else for me to go aside from developing with WebXR. Because of this, I am glad to see these changes.
- roblabla 3y ago
  What prevents you from using Unreal Engine? It has AR, and it seems fairly mature, though I've never tried it. Is it technical limitation/pricing?
  - peteforde 3y ago
    Apple won't even release an Unreal SDK for Vision Pro, since they are still fighting over Fortnite. Unity has a major lock on the VR/AR/MR space.
  - jhaehl 3y ago
    Apple's Vision Pro support as well as Niantic's Lightship ARDK are currently only available via Unity. In general, many of the tools for new AR platforms and devices are developed for Unity first. With all of this backlash that might change in the future, but for the time being the overwhelming majority of AR support goes into Unity.
INTPenis 3y ago
Trust is a fickle thing. Why would a new game creator use Unity with the fear of suddenly having the rug pulled from under your with another ToS change? Doesn't he realize this?
Macha 3y ago
So, if this had been what they launched with out the window, I don't think they would have had the same uproar. I don't think this is a door-in-face technique planned retreat (compared to the "leaked" proposal earlier this week which basically just started the install count at 0 and increased a revenue threshold, but still maintained it applied to existing games developed under the current deal). I don't think this is enough that I would consider Unity for a new project (compared to my niggling doubts on my projects using Godot and Bevy in the past that maybe I should just bite the bullet and learn the "grown up" engine, until this announcement). That would require something a bit more iron clad renouncing their claim to be able to change the deal like this. I don't know if Unity considers it a success that they've moved from their customers being in a "port everything now" rush to "Well I wouldn't take that deal, and a lot of customers will now not be upgrading Unity or developing their next titles in Unity". But I guess as a consumer this moves my position to "someone should sue them for a declaratory judgement that making this retroactive is not legal" to "Well, guess I'm not investing in learning Unity".
momojo 3y ago
I'm out of the loop but used to use Unity as a hobbyist. What's been going on? The letter and comments hint at an out-of-the-blue policy change? Who was affected?
- omgmajk 3y ago
  I skimmed this but it seems like a fine explanation: https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/12/23870547/unit-price-change-game-development https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/12/23870547/unit-price-chang... Basically policy changes that were absolutely abysmal and pretty much killed the entire Unity engine for most people. Now walk-back but trust is broken forever.
aschearer 3y ago
What a bizarre self-own to just end up at "2.5% of revenue when you earn one-million or more in a year."
spl757 3y ago
Done bun can't be undone. Just another example of the enshittification that's rampant.
MikeBVaughn 3y ago
"We should have spoken with more of you and we should have incorporated more of your feedback before announcing our new Runtime Fee policy. Our goal with this policy is to ensure we can continue to support you today and tomorrow, and keep deeply investing in our game engine." It is hard to think of a diplomatic response to this specific framing. Of course the first substantive paragraph was this. It's inevitable, and I'm convinced it's encoded into some fundamental physical constant. If a company actually, once, for-real avoided this specific sort of mealy-mouthed, boilerplate-indirect-corporatese semi-apology, I would seriously consider using their product solely on that merit alone. I'm fairly certain I'm not the only one who feels that way, and it's sort of amazing that nobody appears to have figured that out. Surely someone in some sort of corporate PR position at some company is reading this. Think about it. Seriously think about it. --- Edit: this isn't a personal criticism of the author either, I'm pretty darn sure that this the post was vetted and revised by at least one layer of PR and legal. The issue is an intractably systemic one that is not rectifiable by any individual. Outside of maybe the C-suite, I'm skeptical the that it makes any sort of sense to attribute blame to any individual for this type of corporate apology.
- avalys 3y ago
  I’m curious, what would you recommend they should have said instead?
  - PoignardAzur 3y ago
    Not GP, but for a while I have thought that PR shitstorms should be treated like security breaches and outages. So you do a blameless post-mortem where you outline what went wrong, your five whys, and what steps you are taking to make sure it doesn't happen again. The Rust leadership did it right during the RustConf scandal. Key figures resigned (from leadership, not from their respective teams), changes in procedure were announced, process transitions were accelerated, etc. Here Unity is just saying "here's somsome decisions we're lightly amending, sorry you got upset".
yellow_lead 3y ago
Did they wait so long to release it on a Friday?
rybosworld 3y ago
Original pricing scheme was the brainchild of John R and Tomar B. As far as I am concerned, this announcement changes nothing with those two still present.
tombert 3y ago
If they are willing to retroactively change the TOS once, why wouldn't they do it again once the smoke has settled? I don't make games, I have nothing at stake in this fight, but this just feels like PR damage control and to be completely honest, I don't think most software engineers are so absolutely dependent on (proper noun) Unity to risk this company doing shady stuff again, and I suspect this entire ordeal will work as great marketing for engines like Unreal. A part of me thinks that the CEO (and all the other executive morons who decided to make the installation fee) was sitting there thinking "what are they going to do? Move to Godot?", but if that was their line of thinking, and if they seriously did not think they were competing with Unreal, then I really do not see what business they have being multimillionaires in charge of any kind of decision-making process.
- rhtgrg 3y ago
  > If they are willing to retroactively change the TOS once, why wouldn't they do it again once the smoke has settled? I haven't seen any evidence they did that, it's mostly been FUD from Godot supporters. The initial communication was messy, but where are actual TOS changes that are being touted so loudly? https://unity.com/legal/terms-of-service https://unity.com/legal/terms-of-service https://unity.com/legal/terms-of-service-legacy https://unity.com/legal/terms-of-service-legacy
  - tombert 3y ago
    I have no skin in this game, but I read this article: https://gameworldobserver.com/2023/09/14/unity-license-terms-github-repo-removed-retroactive-changes https://gameworldobserver.com/2023/09/14/unity-license-terms... ETA: You updated your post with the TOS, but from what I read the concern was that the new TOS said it applied to any new distribution of the Unity Runtime, without specifying versions and the like.
    - rhtgrg 3y ago
      I have never seen a Unity TOS that specified versions as seen in the screenshot of the link you shared. Where did they get that screenshot from? They need to share their source. For all we know this is a change from 2020 (latest version referred to in their screenshot). In which case I think you will agree that is plenty of notice and most likely unrelated to be maliciously related to what's being announced now. They've even walked back the applicability to old versions as seen in GP.
VohuMana 3y ago
Too little too late, at least for me. I have been slowly working on some game ideas I want to make, in this process I have been checking out different game engines to see which one meets my needs best. With these changes I have removed Unity from my list of engines I am considering using. Granted I am just one dev and definitely don't represent the community as a whole so who knows maybe I am in the minority here.
DiabloD3 3y ago
A lot of the game developers I know are either dropping Unity projects right in the middle of development to switch engines, or they're working on their last Unity project and abandon the engine forever. You're only going to see major(-ly incompetent) studios from now on using it (ie, big enough to pressure Unity into complying to their licensing requirements, ie, Microsoft or Nintnedo kind of big).
29athrowaway 3y ago
Too late. They issued an ultimatum and proved they can change their time at any time for any reason. That got people thinking that it's an unacceptable risk and they are working on mitigations.
throw7 3y ago
Why is this not being given by the dude that made the initial pronouncement? I'm not affected by unity, but if I was I'd think long and hard about being fooled twice.
gmerc 3y ago
Oh, it’s community now, not “prospective bagholders” and “pigs for slaughter”. Next they are gonna push a narrative of greedy mid level managers over hiring and building fiefdoms like everyone else. The Metagame for the C level is zero risk and zero accountability They can fuck right off and fire the CEO Management knew this was going to be controversial including internally so they hid it from employees who could have told them just how bad the idea was and how many edge cases they had to consider. Management needs to be fired.
sdfghswe 3y ago
It takes 20 years to build your reputation and only 5 minutes to ruin it.
drra 3y ago
Unity attempt at cash grab is nothing new but since it backfired they are using their sweetest words to walk it back. This is happening all the time in ecosystems where businesses are built completely relying on a single vendor or platform. The difference is hardly anybody hears or cares about it. You are not doing good job if your company or business model can be killed by anyone else than you or your customers.
xyst 3y ago
got to love the Meta-esque “I am sorry” opener. At least they made changes to the program though. I feel Unity violated trust of community. No going back. Today it’s a claw back. Tomorrow (future) it’s back to f’ing over the community once the heat wears off. Or a new CEO is appointed.
omgmajk 3y ago
Heads has to roll in the c-level space for them to Ever get the trust back. This walk-back is reasonable but they will still lose a majority of their customers. I am glad that people late in their projects can still ship and see a profit and hopefully move on to another engine.
hysan 3y ago
Dropping this on a Friday with a fireside chat happening in the afternoon on the same day leaves a bad impression. A blog post announcement is ok, but my reading of this is that there is no guarantee that they will not attempt a retroactive change again (ex: their TOS change and removal). This is a step in the right direction, but feels there’s still a long gap to bridge if they want to earn back trust.
opyate 3y ago
Tangential: what other downloadable software makes (or, tries to make) money with "revenue share"? I'm aware of these not-downloadable-but-is-digital services/stores/platforms that do: - app stores (Apple takes 30%, Google takes 30%) - content (YouTube keeps 45%, Twitch takes a cut) - e-commerce (Etsy 5% transaction fee; eBay takes a %) - music/podcast (Spotify; SoundCloud) - e-learning (Udemy; Teachable) - gaming (Steam takes 30%; Epic takes %12) - rental (AirBNB service fees; Turo commission on each car rental) - freelancing (Upwork's sliding fee; Fiverr takes 20%) But Unity is DOWNLOADABLE software, not a platform/app-store/SaaS. So, why revenue share? Surely most devs just make free-standing/downloadable games that don't tie into any platform-y features? AFAIK, even Unity Enterprise [0] is just source code, support, 3-year LTS bug fixes, and the only real thing that's platform-y is the build server, which seems to cost extra anyway. 0. https://unity.com/products/unity-enterprise https://unity.com/products/unity-enterprise
- aschearer 3y ago
  For starters, their number one competitor Unreal.
- FateOfNations 3y ago
  It's best to think about more like a royalty.
  - opyate 3y ago
    Well, in that case, I'm glad it's not common across software, e.g. imagine authors having to pay MS Word or Scrivener a cut for every book sold, or musicians for every song made with Logic Pro or Ableton. What makes games so special?
jenkstom 3y ago
Why can't we just come out and say that the agent / capital model is consumer antagonistic and work on fixing it? This is just a symptom, the cause needs to be addressed by the legislature.
- CatWChainsaw 3y ago
  We can't say it not because it's not-quite taboo, but the agents that benefit from the model employ a psyops where everyone who points out the problem is a weakling loser and shouldn't be listened to. If you're losing at Capitalism it's clearly your fault, and not entrenched parties with millions of times the resources as you thwarting you however they can.
lijok 3y ago
Still not listening are they
an5 3y ago
Salut
glimshe 3y ago
Their executives make millions. They make millions because they are supposed to have unique insights and skills that the rest of us don't have. These insights are supposed to exactly avoid this situation where they probably killed the company with an absolutely irresponsible plan (from a business perspective). I think this is a historical blunder in the the industry and will be studied in business schools in the future. There is no amount of walkback that will work here. The only possible way out, if any is even possible, would be a summary dismissal of their entire leadership team due to gross incompetence. These people don't deserve even minimum wage, much less the millions they make. A junior business manager out of school wouldn't have made such irresponsible, company-killing move. These are some of the worst executives in gaming history, to be honest.
Scalene2 3y ago
If you as a gamer or developer are unhappy with this outcome or are unhappy that this happened at all. Have a reminder that Godot (an open source MIT License) game engine could use your support, Godot offers a way to address this long term instead of relying on a contract with an untrustworthy company: Use: Homepage with download links for Latest and LTS versions for Android, Linux, macOS, Windows, and Web (you can build for iOS but cannot write on it). https://godotengine.org/ https://godotengine.org/ Code/document/contribute: https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/contributing/ways_to_contribute.html https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/contributing/ways_to_... Donate/fund: https://fund.godotengine.org/ https://fund.godotengine.org/ IMO there is nothing Unity can realistically do to regain trust, when a corporation shows you what their goals are and how they plan to reach them; believe it.
wildermuthn 3y ago
Some meta-commentary about executive leadership: the skills required to gain such a position are orthogonal to the skills required to exceed at such a position. Clarifying Questions: 1) What type of person gets hired as CEO? 2) What type of person excels as CEO? 3) What type of person seems most suited to being a CEO while actually being least suited? Possible Answers: 1) the salesmen, the connected, the take-crediting, the attractive, the eloquent, the politically savvy, the ambitious, the tactical 2) the decisive, the persevering, the give-crediting, the communicative, the empathetic, the trustworthy, the humble, the strategic 3) When confidence is unwarranted Both types of people have high confidence, but only one type has a good reason to be confident. Both types are effective in making plans and executing upon them, but where the first type’s plan’s focus on personal success, the second type’s plans focus on mutual success. Is there a good way to distinguish between the two? Yes, but subtly — have their former direct reports gone on to success outside of the candidate’s current sphere of influence? The first type will drag along the people they can trust to support their personal ambitions, elevating them in the process. The second type will elevate their direct reports without grasping on to them as life preservers in choppy political seas. Being a good CEO is a very difficult job, and should be rewarded. It is the most important job anyone can have at a company. It is also the hardest to fill with the right person, given the hordes of ill-suited confidence men seeking their own stardom.
egypturnash 3y ago
"I’d like to invite you to join me for a live fireside chat hosted by Jason Weimann today at 4:00 pm ET/1:00 pm PT, where I will do my best to answer your questions." Awaiting countless variants of "who the hell thought this price change sounded like a good idea, and are they fired yet".
peteforde 3y ago
It's really telling to me that we've heard not a peep from co-founder and CTO Joachim Ante. Oh wait, apparently he is no longer CTO as of May 2023. Well, what was his last official statement? 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... "When you make a game with Unity, you own the content and you should have the right to put it wherever you want. Our TOS didn't reflect this principle - something that is not in line with who we are. We charge a flat fee per-seat -- not a royalty on all of your revenue. Building Unity takes a lot of resources, and we believe that partnerships make better services for developers and augment our business model -- as opposed to charging developers to pay for Unity’s development through revenue share. 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." Well, that all sounds pretty good to me! Perhaps its time for Joe to pull a Steve Jobs style comeback.
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  He was perfecting the “rest and vest” while I was there.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    Clearly worked at a different part of Unity. Joe was very involved on the DOTS side while I was there. Arguably a bit too involved at times. But I'd take that 1000x over what other c execs were doing at other places I worked at.
    - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
      Fair Basically had no input on the AI side which I found odd given that (at least at the time) JR etc were suggesting that AI was going to be leading the future of U Obviously we saw what happened so *shrug*
peteforde 3y ago
YouTube Unity dev channel CodeMonkey just did an excellent summary of the revised TOS changes. https://youtu.be/m4OzqgTa_hk?si=xiuNmYNVEgNoZ-Dj&t=455 https://youtu.be/m4OzqgTa_hk?si=xiuNmYNVEgNoZ-Dj&t=455 I have linked to his interactive exploration of their fee calculator, which should set many "what if" scenarios to rest. Nobody can really say anything educated about the long-term impact on trust, but I suspect that if they can Riccitello things will return to something of a baseline and nobody will be talking about it in a year. I trully cannot fathom Riccitello's tenure remaining viable on the other side of this. He is a dead man walking, corporately speaking. I'm reminded of a favorite allegory which seems perfect for today: New CEO walks into her office just as the old CEO is leaving. Old CEO says congrats and good luck; I left you three sealed envelopes which you should open in times of crisis. Things go well until they don't. First letter says "blame your predecessor". This fixes things until the next crisis. Second letter says "blame the technology". Nothing could go wrong, until it does. Third letter says "write three letters".
Rapzid 3y ago
People woke up to the fact that Unity Technologies is a dirty Ad company. That toothpaste isn't going back in the tube.
olgeni 3y ago
The tone of this post is exactly the same as a company would use after a very public incident of harassment or discrimination. So, they probably realized it was not the smartest thing to do.
CatWChainsaw 3y ago
Trust is like a nice glass vase... It takes a long time to make one. It takes seconds to break one. And you can put it back together, but you'll always see the cracks from The Last Time This Happened.

249 points by gmjosack 3y ago

new comers won't chose unity.

This is better than what they announced originally but it doesn't cure the breach of trust. I have no doubt that as long John R. and Tomar B. continue to run the show, that the company will behave unethically again in the future.

rybosworld 3y ago
Also, there are still hints of them trying to play this off as a misunderstanding rather than what it really was: a predatory pricing scheme and an attempt to retroactively change ToS. "When we first introduced the Runtime Fee policy, we used the term “installs” which the community found to be unclear so we’re using the term "initial engagement" as the unit of measure." The community did not find this unclear. The original pricing scheme was very straightforward about developers being charged multiple times for a user that reinstalls a game, or install it across multiple devices. This is Unity trying to rewrite history so they don't seem like the bad guys.
- flutas 3y ago
  > This is Unity trying to rewrite history so they don't seem like the bad guys. Yup, even going so far as to rewrite the FAQ and pretend they never said the initial answer, it only being noted as "(Updated, Sept 14)"[0] For full context, the original Q/A was > Q: If a user reinstalls/redownloads a game / changes their hardware, will that count as multiple installs? > A: Yes. The creator will need to pay for all future installs. The reason is that Unity doesn’t receive end-player information, just aggregate data. and has since been edited to > Q: If a user reinstalls/redownloads a game, will that count as multiple installs? > A: We are not going to charge a fee for reinstalls. The spirit of this program is and has always been to charge for the first install and we have no desire to charge for the same person doing ongoing installs. > (Updated, Sep 14) > Q: Do installs of the same game by the same user across multiple devices count as different installs? > A: Yes - we treat different devices as different installs. > (Updated, Sep 14) [0]: https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-plan-pricing-and-packaging-updates.1482750/ https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-plan-pricing-and-packa...
  - rybosworld 3y ago
    It's sort of surprising that they would try to act as if the plan was never to charge for multiple installs. By lying about the situation so transparently, it's clear to me that this is nothing more than damage control, and that the loss of trust does not deserve to be earned back.
    - shoemakersteve 3y ago
      Honestly. They want to earn back people's trust, so they figure the best way to do that is with good ol' gaslighting. Thing is, it'll probably work. At least to some extent. The irony is actually kind of funny.
- DonHopkins 3y ago
  Here's where a professional NFT shilling tech influencer tried to carry the water for Unity by parroting their gaslighting that developers were bitchy little children who "misunderstood" the announcement, and the NFT shill's followers chimed in with how stupid and childish and demanding game developers are. https://www.facebook.com/robert.tercek/posts/pfbid0RPPNvecmeL2hvpy8SwYZpxzksjvobd5E3fffNysmDx8vkjyPDXr6LC23hhikdXazl https://www.facebook.com/robert.tercek/posts/pfbid0RPPNvecme... Including un-ironic replies like this one commenting "some insight into what the gamer peasants are talking about" and quoting one game developer's factual reaction, to which the NFT shill replied by calling it "unhinged conspiratorial speculating that poisons the whole atmosphere". https://www.facebook.com/robert.tercek/posts/pfbid0RPPNvecmeL2hvpy8SwYZpxzksjvobd5E3fffNysmDx8vkjyPDXr6LC23hhikdXazl?comment_id=253549331001123&__cft__[0]=AZUHH9FiRw3ke_D1vr4VVNE454lsGCqQ0qPsGbjB0YtnHc9CphF17iVR3oXp54q-kNPeL7g0dCwl8w7nyUh91EZS9hM3OxfbUNGr4LltvIldy-D0IXWPS5SptKqm90zy98KLnZruF8N2lzdW9K0UrxU6&__tn__=R]-R https://www.facebook.com/robert.tercek/posts/pfbid0RPPNvecme... I took the NFT shill to task on that, with quotes and links and receipts. I pointed out that he and Unity were the ones "poisoning the whole atmosphere" by gaslighting, calling developers "confused" when they actually understood all too well, and if anyone was "poisoning the whole atmosphere" first and foremost, it was John Riccitiello literally and publically calling game developers "some of the biggest fucking idiots". https://www.pocketgamer.biz/interview/79190/unity-ironsource-john-riccitiello-marc-whitten-merger/ https://www.pocketgamer.biz/interview/79190/unity-ironsource... Twice the NFT shill snarkily blamed game developers for the death threat. First he baselessly accused game developers of "often" making death threats, then he gleefully berated game developers for not condemning it (which they actually did, but he didn't bother to notice), demanding they condemn it without actually condemning it himself, when it was actually a Unity employee who made the death threat, not a game developer: "Game developers often find colorful ways of making their disappointment known." https://www.facebook.com/robert.tercek/posts/pfbid0RPPNvecmeL2hvpy8SwYZpxzksjvobd5E3fffNysmDx8vkjyPDXr6LC23hhikdXazl?comment_id=6186765958093891&__cft__[0]=AZVVTu0M-mJ7U46wUY2Ga1pTm7mjhHVWdZYADGDeMkD-kkwuS3X0LD7X1lYw3eA0Q1ZRJSHM7iN6knsQYRfBXmXnS25YWAq0QlVXTtVelKJBcLH0fPMnRLArWKAiLwcDuP38nsM-8irfNQUN6kJxwDM2&__tn__=R]-R https://www.facebook.com/robert.tercek/posts/pfbid0RPPNvecme... "I notice that none of game developers who shared their righteous indignation last week had the courage to speak up and condemn the cowards who phoned in death threats to Unity offices. Keep it classy, game developers." https://www.facebook.com/robert.tercek/posts/pfbid0RPPNvecmeL2hvpy8SwYZpxzksjvobd5E3fffNysmDx8vkjyPDXr6LC23hhikdXazl?comment_id=676859170745408&__cft__[0]=AZVVTu0M-mJ7U46wUY2Ga1pTm7mjhHVWdZYADGDeMkD-kkwuS3X0LD7X1lYw3eA0Q1ZRJSHM7iN6knsQYRfBXmXnS25YWAq0QlVXTtVelKJBcLH0fPMnRLArWKAiLwcDuP38nsM-8irfNQUN6kJxwDM2&__tn__=R]-R https://www.facebook.com/robert.tercek/posts/pfbid0RPPNvecme... >Here are the Godot folks, who have greatly benefited from this fiasco through no fault of their own, condemning the bomb threat, and proving you wrong. No, Robert Tercek, you are wrong when you blame game developers for the bomb threat with no evidence, when the police say it was a Unity employee, and when you falsely claim that game developers "OFTEN find colorful ways of making their disappointment known" like making bomb threats. >Godot Engine @godotengine >We extend our sincere solidarity and support to the Unity workers. The recent reactions have left us profoundly disappointed. Threats of violence should have no place in the gamedev community. https://twitter.com/godotengine/status/1702413121086705951 https://twitter.com/godotengine/status/1702413121086705951 The truth behind the Unity "Death Threats": https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/16j21jg/the_truth_behind_the_unity_death_threats/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/16j21jg/the_truth_... >Update: San Francisco police told Polygon that officers responded to Unity’s San Francisco office “regarding a threats incident.” A “reporting party” told police that “an employee made a threat towards his employer using social media.” The employee that made the threat works in an office outside of California, according to the police statement. The PacMan Fever / NFT Shilling thread: https://www.facebook.com/robert.tercek/posts/pfbid0RPPNvecmeL2hvpy8SwYZpxzksjvobd5E3fffNysmDx8vkjyPDXr6LC23hhikdXazl?comment_id=1561493267715917&__cft__[0]=AZXo0BRfMkkwklXPy0dQmadsg1AFOqRj-V0z7c0ac3BWBTM5mntB03_RvSojNz-tCGXPdiAB7u3WNuPf0kY1EBgpaG9rxiV_kWnzwaYGkhGq6CSHIycX1N_GXRJtuGGcQwQvLtyVAbBEqcVS7j3QD5kO&__tn__=R]-R https://www.facebook.com/robert.tercek/posts/pfbid0RPPNvecme...

markhaslam 3y ago

This seems very reasonable actually? Being able to choose 2.5% revenue share (half of Unreal) does not sound bad to me. And very glad they removed the retroactivity of the new fees.

drpossum 3y ago
It may be reasonable and this is nothing but an attempt to stop the bleeding. There is no reason to trust them or their leadership again. The fact the CEO wasn't booted immediately shows they still want that style of leadership. The fact the CEO is not the one making this statement shows the fact Unity not interested to hold him accountable. They did this last year making dumb statements about monetization and then pulled this out this year. They deserve no trust and anyone that continues business with them gets what they deserve.
- markhaslam 3y ago
  Fair points. Not sure if it will ever be possible to get back the trust they destroyed.
gs17 3y ago
If they had opened with this it would have been amazing, but this being 3-4 revisions in with nothing locking them to this going forward, it's not that good a look.

cmcaleer 3y ago

I think it might be too little too late. I do wonder if this was always the plan with classic door-in-the-face technique, but I can't imagine they would have anticipated the absolute magnitude of backlash. Their product certainly isn't as special as they clearly think it is, and the fact that they attempted to unilaterally change the contract in as egregious as way as they did is unacceptable and not behaviour I would want from a vendor I'm reliant on. Anecdotally, I'm seeing a lot of game devs being surprised at relative ease of migration in some instances, though I imagine there are megaprojects which will have a much worse time. Crow had to be eaten but it looks like they're only tasting the feathers.

octacat 3y ago
Companies in 2023 are just competing in how hostile they could be to the users/workers and still get away with it.
cowsup 3y ago
Unity lost a lot of goodwill among developers, and it took over a week for them to admit fault. I seriously doubt they planned all along to present a temporary horrible plan, to make their “real” plan easier to swallow. If this were a 48- or 72-hour turnaround, maybe. But Unity lost a lot of goodwill amongst developers and there are some they may never get back as a result.
- intelVISA 3y ago
  Developers aren't the ones choosing Unity most of the time...
  - deleted 3y ago
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  - msk-lywenn 3y ago
    Huh? Who then?

purplecats 3y ago

ask for something you know will cause backlash (an anchor point) then recede to what you actually want

gmjosack 3y ago

This is basically everything policy wise they needed to do to quell the storm. This is honestly what should have just been announced originally. So much reputational damage just to arrive at a reasonable model weeks later. I'm happy for all the Unity developers out there that are breathing a sigh of relief. Hopefully they can ship their ongoing projects but I'd be hesitant about a continued long term relationship with Unity after this. This isn't the first Unity backlash and I'd be surprised if it's the last.

dpkonofa 3y ago
Ever since the mobile ad-first approach that's been a result of their buyout/merger/whatever it was, I think most Unity developers are bouncing. No one in their right might would leave their potential income in the hands of these sycophants.
- brucethemoose2 3y ago
  > most Unity developers Most non mobile Unity developers? Unity has cultivated this reputation as a provider for artsy indies and small studios, and now some larger AAs, but I think they want to be a provider for mobile casinos. That's where all the money is, and they are less likely to balk at more fees.
  - dpkonofa 3y ago
    No, most Unity developers. Unity the company definitely wants into that market but, unfortunately for them, that's not the majority of their customers.
misnome 3y ago
How does this help anything when they have already demonstrated their willingness to alter terms and retrospectively add fees or alter licensing conditions. They already walked back changes once before saying “Okay you can keep the terms you agreed on your version” and went back on that promise for this clusterfuck. They burned the trust bridge and nothing they _ever_ do or can say will bring that trust back.

skilled 3y ago

I didn’t follow this very much but did they basically tried to enforce this on people out of the blue? If so, that must sting like crazy to have to walk it back with the addition of losing trust and goodwill of your users, not to mention those that went on to different engines. How high up does this rank in “the dumbest decisions you can make” chart?

deleted 3y ago
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pushcx 3y ago

Does anyone have the text of this? For me the page appears momentarily, then is replaced with a blank white screen reading "An unexpected error has occurred." The archive.org copy is also broken. (Most likely some kind of analytics or ad erroring because of a browser privacy setting.)

cmcaleer 3y ago
To our community: I’m Marc Whitten, and I lead Unity Create which includes the Unity engine and editor teams. I want to start with simply this: I am sorry. We should have spoken with more of you and we should have incorporated more of your feedback before announcing our new Runtime Fee policy. Our goal with this policy is to ensure we can continue to support you today and tomorrow, and keep deeply investing in our game engine. You are what makes Unity great, and we know we need to listen, and work hard to earn your trust. We have heard your concerns, and we are making changes in the policy we announced to address them. Our Unity Personal plan will remain free and there will be no Runtime Fee for games built on Unity Personal. We will be increasing the cap from $100,000 to $200,000 and we will remove the requirement to use the Made with Unity splash screen. No game with less than $1 million in trailing 12-month revenue will be subject to the fee. For those creators on Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise, we are also making changes based on your feedback. The Runtime Fee policy will only apply beginning with the next LTS version of Unity shipping in 2024 and beyond. Your games that are currently shipped and the projects you are currently working on will not be included – unless you choose to upgrade them to this new version of Unity. We will make sure that you can stay on the terms applicable for the version of Unity editor you are using – as long as you keep using that version. For games that are subject to the runtime fee, we are giving you a choice of either a 2.5% revenue share or the calculated amount based on the number of new people engaging with your game each month. Both of these numbers are self-reported from data you already have available. You will always be billed the lesser amount. We want to continue to build the best engine for creators. We truly love this industry and you are the reason why. I’d like to invite you to join me for a live fireside chat hosted by Jason Weimann today at 4:00 pm ET/1:00 pm PT, where I will do my best to answer your questions. In the meantime, here are some more details.* Thank you for caring as deeply as you do, and thank you for giving us hard feedback. Marc Whitten
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risingsubmarine 3y ago

A definite improvement but the CEO needs to go. It's the only way to begin restoring long term trust. Developers & publishers are extremely wary of unstable business partners.

aeyes 3y ago
I'm surprised that this letter isn't written by the CEO, maybe the board is already in the process of axing the guy.
- eitally 3y ago
  I'd be more surprised if the board hadn't been included in the review process for the previous change.
  - Waterluvian 3y ago
    Boards are often presented pre-packaged answers via CEOs with slide decks. They are rarely given the flat truth about reality. Good boardmembers know this and how know to smell and cut through bullshit. Sales gonna sell.
jstarfish 3y ago
Yeah. An apology isn't enough in this case-- words clearly mean nothing to them. We were always told C-level compensation is as absurd as it is because they're expected to fall on their sword for fucking up. Keeping your position after defrauding customers is not a sign of good faith, it's just another [social] contract broken.
- tombert 3y ago
  Yeah, I really do not understand why these executives get such huge salaries. They get all the credit when something goes well (see: Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, probably a dozen other CEOs in big tech), but when their decisions lead to a drop in revenue they get to fire 12,000 people, get to keep their exorbitant salaries and/or stock options, and just blame everyone else for the problem, or blame a "bad market". I really do not understand what it is that they actually do, outside of being an extremely overpriced and lazy spokesperson.

alexb_ 3y ago

People are going to continue to complain, but I honestly think this is a pretty good walk back. It addresses all of the more legitimate things people were upset about: - $1,000,000 income floor for a trailing 12 months - Doesn't apply to old versions - Billed a lesser amount of 2.5% revenue if available, so low-cost indie games don't get destroyed Not to mention, removing the requirement to have "Made with Unity" on the free version? Surprised they would change this - it wasn't really a problem for most people, and afaik getting rid of the "Made with Unity" was one of the main reasons people would buy the non-free versions of Unity. I think this is probably the best they could have done for indie devs. As it turns out, pushback works. They did destroy a lot of trust with developers with this move though. Going to be hard to get any of that back.

JohnMakin 3y ago
> - Doesn't apply to old versions It's not beyond the realm of reasonable belief to assume they can or will roll out some breaking change eventually that forces upgrades.
- dangerwill 3y ago
  That isn't really a thing they can do for already shipped games, unless your game has an online component with dedicated servers and you need to update unity on the server side for a security fix. Most games don't upgrade their engine post launch, unless they are a live service game intended to get constant, significant updates for a long time.
- LanceH 3y ago
  Or shift other (possibly not yet existent) assets between versions. The goodwill has been burned and now everything needs to be contractually spelled out. Or, for a good number of people, they can bail out to Godot for 2D or Unreal for 3D or consoles.
- raincole 3y ago
  The old version of Unity can be used offline. Truly offline. How are they going to force you to upgrade? Hakc into your PC?

drpossum 3y ago

I like how the CEO can't be bothered for this, though. Shows real leadership

peteforde 3y ago
That the CEO didn't write this is a major indicator that he has or will be fired.
- drpossum 3y ago
  What are they doing? Biding their time?
  - koromak 3y ago
    Figuring out how to cut up the pie most likely
  - peteforde 3y ago
    There's a term for this: dead man walking. This is all pure speculation based on what I would do if I was on Unity's board. I'm confident that his contract has all sorts of gotchas and landmines, so there is probably a ton of expensive lawyering happening right now on both sides.
  - Rapzid 3y ago
    Maybe they are begging Acton and Ante to come back from "sabbatical" (or whatever their official statuses are).

generationP 3y ago

[EDIT: False; see comments.] From a viewpoint of "will it be compatible with a DRM-free release that doesn't phone home" (i.e., playing by GOG rules), this doesn't seem to solve the problem at all. What is in it for them? Why per install and not per sale?

Macha 3y ago
It says that they're trusting developer provided numbers, and they've basically moved from literal installs to basically a user count metric provided by the developer, so it seems there is no need for it to be DRMed or phone home.
- generationP 3y ago
  Ah, I didn't spot that they no longer require counting installs. But you're right; this is probably what "the number of new people" means. And the "2.5% revenue share" variant means no hurdles for freeware. So a real improvement indeed. Thanks for the corrections!
  - gs17 3y ago
    And freeware can get rid of the Made with Unity splash screen now, so it's honestly a big step up from where we were before. I'd still rather switch to Godot, but at least I can walk away from Unity calmly instead of running away screaming.

endisneigh 3y ago

It’s interesting how some complain companies don’t listen to them, and others say that it doesn’t matter if changes are made after (rightful) complaints. I have absolutely no stake in this and I’m sure these aren’t the same people, but it is interesting. From reading the original proposal and this new one, they should’ve gone first with this one. I’m sure unity developers will hesitatingly continue their work.

njovin 3y ago
> It’s interesting how some complain companies don’t listen to them, and others say that it doesn’t matter if changes are made after (rightful) complaints In this case I think those can (rightfully and reasonably) be the same people. If a company rolls out a pricing/licensing change that is so detrimental to the developers that it seems like no reasonable developer would have thought it was a good idea, then it looks like the company rolled it out either without talking to their developers or without taking their feedback into account, both of which are equally bad. In cases like this where the business acted so egregiously, the damage is done and trust might not be restorable long-term without C-level heads rolling.
deleted 3y ago
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PaulKeeble 3y ago
If they had gone with this one to begin with they would have lost some customers but no where near as many. What they did makes them clearly an unstable business partner that is willing to break the law to rip you off. Walking it back changes the deal but it doesn't change the type of business they are.
Macha 3y ago
"Unity decides to change the deal in a way that costs us money for our already developed game" was not something on anyone's threat model. Until last year, Unity's TOS even included provisions that would have unambiguously prevented such a move. Maybe some considered "Unity changes the deal in the future and we need to learn a new engine for project n+1 and get stuck on an old version of Unity on our current project" as a threat. But now that Unity has put the first one in people's minds, Unity has to put people at ease about that to get to square one, not just cancel the current attempt.

rybosworld 3y ago

These words are an improvement of the situation but nothing here can be considered legally binding. For all intents and purposes, this is meaningless until they update the old ToS to prevent this from happening again.

whartung 3y ago
I may be misremembering but this is what happened with recent the Open Gaming License fiasco. As I recall, they inevitably changed the current one with a clause saying “we explicitly can’t pull the rug out from folks anymore with this license”. Simply ensuring that while they can create new licenses for new content, that can’t mess with creators who adopted the previous one.
bangonkeyboard 3y ago
> For all intents and purposes, this is meaningless until they update the old ToS to prevent this from happening again. Unity did just that the last time this happened, in 2019: 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... They silently deleted the then-added clause allowing you to use the ToS you agreed to before this most recent attempt.

bangonkeyboard 3y ago

Unity is not trustworthy. This was not the first time they've changed terms unilaterally, and will not be the last. This letter should be seen as a rickety runway extension: finalize any Unity projects you already have in development, but make sure you move to another engine in the immediate future.

johnnyanmac 3y ago
well, this at least saves Silksong. That's all I can ask for at this point. But if they are considering a 3rd Hollow Knight it'd be the biggest W if they chose an open-source engine (and hopefully not take 7 years, but TBH I'd take my time too if I made hollow knight money).

jhaehl 3y ago

While a good portion of developers will still be switching engines and staying there, as an AR developer, there isn't really anywhere else for me to go aside from developing with WebXR. Because of this, I am glad to see these changes.

roblabla 3y ago
What prevents you from using Unreal Engine? It has AR, and it seems fairly mature, though I've never tried it. Is it technical limitation/pricing?
- peteforde 3y ago
  Apple won't even release an Unreal SDK for Vision Pro, since they are still fighting over Fortnite. Unity has a major lock on the VR/AR/MR space.
- jhaehl 3y ago
  Apple's Vision Pro support as well as Niantic's Lightship ARDK are currently only available via Unity. In general, many of the tools for new AR platforms and devices are developed for Unity first. With all of this backlash that might change in the future, but for the time being the overwhelming majority of AR support goes into Unity.

INTPenis 3y ago

Trust is a fickle thing. Why would a new game creator use Unity with the fear of suddenly having the rug pulled from under your with another ToS change? Doesn't he realize this?

Macha 3y ago

So, if this had been what they launched with out the window, I don't think they would have had the same uproar. I don't think this is a door-in-face technique planned retreat (compared to the "leaked" proposal earlier this week which basically just started the install count at 0 and increased a revenue threshold, but still maintained it applied to existing games developed under the current deal). I don't think this is enough that I would consider Unity for a new project (compared to my niggling doubts on my projects using Godot and Bevy in the past that maybe I should just bite the bullet and learn the "grown up" engine, until this announcement). That would require something a bit more iron clad renouncing their claim to be able to change the deal like this. I don't know if Unity considers it a success that they've moved from their customers being in a "port everything now" rush to "Well I wouldn't take that deal, and a lot of customers will now not be upgrading Unity or developing their next titles in Unity". But I guess as a consumer this moves my position to "someone should sue them for a declaratory judgement that making this retroactive is not legal" to "Well, guess I'm not investing in learning Unity".

momojo 3y ago

I'm out of the loop but used to use Unity as a hobbyist. What's been going on? The letter and comments hint at an out-of-the-blue policy change? Who was affected?

omgmajk 3y ago
I skimmed this but it seems like a fine explanation: https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/12/23870547/unit-price-change-game-development https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/12/23870547/unit-price-chang... Basically policy changes that were absolutely abysmal and pretty much killed the entire Unity engine for most people. Now walk-back but trust is broken forever.

aschearer 3y ago

What a bizarre self-own to just end up at "2.5% of revenue when you earn one-million or more in a year."

spl757 3y ago

Done bun can't be undone. Just another example of the enshittification that's rampant.

MikeBVaughn 3y ago

"We should have spoken with more of you and we should have incorporated more of your feedback before announcing our new Runtime Fee policy. Our goal with this policy is to ensure we can continue to support you today and tomorrow, and keep deeply investing in our game engine." It is hard to think of a diplomatic response to this specific framing. Of course the first substantive paragraph was this. It's inevitable, and I'm convinced it's encoded into some fundamental physical constant. If a company actually, once, for-real avoided this specific sort of mealy-mouthed, boilerplate-indirect-corporatese semi-apology, I would seriously consider using their product solely on that merit alone. I'm fairly certain I'm not the only one who feels that way, and it's sort of amazing that nobody appears to have figured that out. Surely someone in some sort of corporate PR position at some company is reading this. Think about it. Seriously think about it. --- Edit: this isn't a personal criticism of the author either, I'm pretty darn sure that this the post was vetted and revised by at least one layer of PR and legal. The issue is an intractably systemic one that is not rectifiable by any individual. Outside of maybe the C-suite, I'm skeptical the that it makes any sort of sense to attribute blame to any individual for this type of corporate apology.

avalys 3y ago
I’m curious, what would you recommend they should have said instead?
- PoignardAzur 3y ago
  Not GP, but for a while I have thought that PR shitstorms should be treated like security breaches and outages. So you do a blameless post-mortem where you outline what went wrong, your five whys, and what steps you are taking to make sure it doesn't happen again. The Rust leadership did it right during the RustConf scandal. Key figures resigned (from leadership, not from their respective teams), changes in procedure were announced, process transitions were accelerated, etc. Here Unity is just saying "here's somsome decisions we're lightly amending, sorry you got upset".

yellow_lead 3y ago

Did they wait so long to release it on a Friday?

rybosworld 3y ago

Original pricing scheme was the brainchild of John R and Tomar B. As far as I am concerned, this announcement changes nothing with those two still present.

tombert 3y ago

If they are willing to retroactively change the TOS once, why wouldn't they do it again once the smoke has settled? I don't make games, I have nothing at stake in this fight, but this just feels like PR damage control and to be completely honest, I don't think most software engineers are so absolutely dependent on (proper noun) Unity to risk this company doing shady stuff again, and I suspect this entire ordeal will work as great marketing for engines like Unreal. A part of me thinks that the CEO (and all the other executive morons who decided to make the installation fee) was sitting there thinking "what are they going to do? Move to Godot?", but if that was their line of thinking, and if they seriously did not think they were competing with Unreal, then I really do not see what business they have being multimillionaires in charge of any kind of decision-making process.

rhtgrg 3y ago
> If they are willing to retroactively change the TOS once, why wouldn't they do it again once the smoke has settled? I haven't seen any evidence they did that, it's mostly been FUD from Godot supporters. The initial communication was messy, but where are actual TOS changes that are being touted so loudly? https://unity.com/legal/terms-of-service https://unity.com/legal/terms-of-service https://unity.com/legal/terms-of-service-legacy https://unity.com/legal/terms-of-service-legacy
- tombert 3y ago
  I have no skin in this game, but I read this article: https://gameworldobserver.com/2023/09/14/unity-license-terms-github-repo-removed-retroactive-changes https://gameworldobserver.com/2023/09/14/unity-license-terms... ETA: You updated your post with the TOS, but from what I read the concern was that the new TOS said it applied to any new distribution of the Unity Runtime, without specifying versions and the like.
  - rhtgrg 3y ago
    I have never seen a Unity TOS that specified versions as seen in the screenshot of the link you shared. Where did they get that screenshot from? They need to share their source. For all we know this is a change from 2020 (latest version referred to in their screenshot). In which case I think you will agree that is plenty of notice and most likely unrelated to be maliciously related to what's being announced now. They've even walked back the applicability to old versions as seen in GP.

VohuMana 3y ago

Too little too late, at least for me. I have been slowly working on some game ideas I want to make, in this process I have been checking out different game engines to see which one meets my needs best. With these changes I have removed Unity from my list of engines I am considering using. Granted I am just one dev and definitely don't represent the community as a whole so who knows maybe I am in the minority here.

DiabloD3 3y ago

A lot of the game developers I know are either dropping Unity projects right in the middle of development to switch engines, or they're working on their last Unity project and abandon the engine forever. You're only going to see major(-ly incompetent) studios from now on using it (ie, big enough to pressure Unity into complying to their licensing requirements, ie, Microsoft or Nintnedo kind of big).

29athrowaway 3y ago

Too late. They issued an ultimatum and proved they can change their time at any time for any reason. That got people thinking that it's an unacceptable risk and they are working on mitigations.

throw7 3y ago

Why is this not being given by the dude that made the initial pronouncement? I'm not affected by unity, but if I was I'd think long and hard about being fooled twice.

gmerc 3y ago

Oh, it’s community now, not “prospective bagholders” and “pigs for slaughter”. Next they are gonna push a narrative of greedy mid level managers over hiring and building fiefdoms like everyone else. The Metagame for the C level is zero risk and zero accountability They can fuck right off and fire the CEO Management knew this was going to be controversial including internally so they hid it from employees who could have told them just how bad the idea was and how many edge cases they had to consider. Management needs to be fired.

sdfghswe 3y ago

It takes 20 years to build your reputation and only 5 minutes to ruin it.

drra 3y ago

Unity attempt at cash grab is nothing new but since it backfired they are using their sweetest words to walk it back. This is happening all the time in ecosystems where businesses are built completely relying on a single vendor or platform. The difference is hardly anybody hears or cares about it. You are not doing good job if your company or business model can be killed by anyone else than you or your customers.

xyst 3y ago

got to love the Meta-esque “I am sorry” opener. At least they made changes to the program though. I feel Unity violated trust of community. No going back. Today it’s a claw back. Tomorrow (future) it’s back to f’ing over the community once the heat wears off. Or a new CEO is appointed.

omgmajk 3y ago

Heads has to roll in the c-level space for them to Ever get the trust back. This walk-back is reasonable but they will still lose a majority of their customers. I am glad that people late in their projects can still ship and see a profit and hopefully move on to another engine.

hysan 3y ago

Dropping this on a Friday with a fireside chat happening in the afternoon on the same day leaves a bad impression. A blog post announcement is ok, but my reading of this is that there is no guarantee that they will not attempt a retroactive change again (ex: their TOS change and removal). This is a step in the right direction, but feels there’s still a long gap to bridge if they want to earn back trust.

opyate 3y ago

Tangential: what other downloadable software makes (or, tries to make) money with "revenue share"? I'm aware of these not-downloadable-but-is-digital services/stores/platforms that do: - app stores (Apple takes 30%, Google takes 30%) - content (YouTube keeps 45%, Twitch takes a cut) - e-commerce (Etsy 5% transaction fee; eBay takes a %) - music/podcast (Spotify; SoundCloud) - e-learning (Udemy; Teachable) - gaming (Steam takes 30%; Epic takes %12) - rental (AirBNB service fees; Turo commission on each car rental) - freelancing (Upwork's sliding fee; Fiverr takes 20%) But Unity is DOWNLOADABLE software, not a platform/app-store/SaaS. So, why revenue share? Surely most devs just make free-standing/downloadable games that don't tie into any platform-y features? AFAIK, even Unity Enterprise [0] is just source code, support, 3-year LTS bug fixes, and the only real thing that's platform-y is the build server, which seems to cost extra anyway. 0. https://unity.com/products/unity-enterprise https://unity.com/products/unity-enterprise

aschearer 3y ago
For starters, their number one competitor Unreal.
FateOfNations 3y ago
It's best to think about more like a royalty.
- opyate 3y ago
  Well, in that case, I'm glad it's not common across software, e.g. imagine authors having to pay MS Word or Scrivener a cut for every book sold, or musicians for every song made with Logic Pro or Ableton. What makes games so special?

jenkstom 3y ago

Why can't we just come out and say that the agent / capital model is consumer antagonistic and work on fixing it? This is just a symptom, the cause needs to be addressed by the legislature.

CatWChainsaw 3y ago
We can't say it not because it's not-quite taboo, but the agents that benefit from the model employ a psyops where everyone who points out the problem is a weakling loser and shouldn't be listened to. If you're losing at Capitalism it's clearly your fault, and not entrenched parties with millions of times the resources as you thwarting you however they can.

lijok 3y ago

Still not listening are they

an5 3y ago

Salut

glimshe 3y ago

Their executives make millions. They make millions because they are supposed to have unique insights and skills that the rest of us don't have. These insights are supposed to exactly avoid this situation where they probably killed the company with an absolutely irresponsible plan (from a business perspective). I think this is a historical blunder in the the industry and will be studied in business schools in the future. There is no amount of walkback that will work here. The only possible way out, if any is even possible, would be a summary dismissal of their entire leadership team due to gross incompetence. These people don't deserve even minimum wage, much less the millions they make. A junior business manager out of school wouldn't have made such irresponsible, company-killing move. These are some of the worst executives in gaming history, to be honest.

Scalene2 3y ago

If you as a gamer or developer are unhappy with this outcome or are unhappy that this happened at all. Have a reminder that Godot (an open source MIT License) game engine could use your support, Godot offers a way to address this long term instead of relying on a contract with an untrustworthy company: Use: Homepage with download links for Latest and LTS versions for Android, Linux, macOS, Windows, and Web (you can build for iOS but cannot write on it). https://godotengine.org/ https://godotengine.org/ Code/document/contribute: https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/contributing/ways_to_contribute.html https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/contributing/ways_to_... Donate/fund: https://fund.godotengine.org/ https://fund.godotengine.org/ IMO there is nothing Unity can realistically do to regain trust, when a corporation shows you what their goals are and how they plan to reach them; believe it.

wildermuthn 3y ago

Some meta-commentary about executive leadership: the skills required to gain such a position are orthogonal to the skills required to exceed at such a position. Clarifying Questions: 1) What type of person gets hired as CEO? 2) What type of person excels as CEO? 3) What type of person seems most suited to being a CEO while actually being least suited? Possible Answers: 1) the salesmen, the connected, the take-crediting, the attractive, the eloquent, the politically savvy, the ambitious, the tactical 2) the decisive, the persevering, the give-crediting, the communicative, the empathetic, the trustworthy, the humble, the strategic 3) When confidence is unwarranted Both types of people have high confidence, but only one type has a good reason to be confident. Both types are effective in making plans and executing upon them, but where the first type’s plan’s focus on personal success, the second type’s plans focus on mutual success. Is there a good way to distinguish between the two? Yes, but subtly — have their former direct reports gone on to success outside of the candidate’s current sphere of influence? The first type will drag along the people they can trust to support their personal ambitions, elevating them in the process. The second type will elevate their direct reports without grasping on to them as life preservers in choppy political seas. Being a good CEO is a very difficult job, and should be rewarded. It is the most important job anyone can have at a company. It is also the hardest to fill with the right person, given the hordes of ill-suited confidence men seeking their own stardom.

egypturnash 3y ago

"I’d like to invite you to join me for a live fireside chat hosted by Jason Weimann today at 4:00 pm ET/1:00 pm PT, where I will do my best to answer your questions." Awaiting countless variants of "who the hell thought this price change sounded like a good idea, and are they fired yet".

peteforde 3y ago

It's really telling to me that we've heard not a peep from co-founder and CTO Joachim Ante. Oh wait, apparently he is no longer CTO as of May 2023. Well, what was his last official statement? 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... "When you make a game with Unity, you own the content and you should have the right to put it wherever you want. Our TOS didn't reflect this principle - something that is not in line with who we are. We charge a flat fee per-seat -- not a royalty on all of your revenue. Building Unity takes a lot of resources, and we believe that partnerships make better services for developers and augment our business model -- as opposed to charging developers to pay for Unity’s development through revenue share. 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." Well, that all sounds pretty good to me! Perhaps its time for Joe to pull a Steve Jobs style comeback.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago
He was perfecting the “rest and vest” while I was there.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  Clearly worked at a different part of Unity. Joe was very involved on the DOTS side while I was there. Arguably a bit too involved at times. But I'd take that 1000x over what other c execs were doing at other places I worked at.
  - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
    Fair Basically had no input on the AI side which I found odd given that (at least at the time) JR etc were suggesting that AI was going to be leading the future of U Obviously we saw what happened so *shrug*

peteforde 3y ago

YouTube Unity dev channel CodeMonkey just did an excellent summary of the revised TOS changes. https://youtu.be/m4OzqgTa_hk?si=xiuNmYNVEgNoZ-Dj&t=455 https://youtu.be/m4OzqgTa_hk?si=xiuNmYNVEgNoZ-Dj&t=455 I have linked to his interactive exploration of their fee calculator, which should set many "what if" scenarios to rest. Nobody can really say anything educated about the long-term impact on trust, but I suspect that if they can Riccitello things will return to something of a baseline and nobody will be talking about it in a year. I trully cannot fathom Riccitello's tenure remaining viable on the other side of this. He is a dead man walking, corporately speaking. I'm reminded of a favorite allegory which seems perfect for today: New CEO walks into her office just as the old CEO is leaving. Old CEO says congrats and good luck; I left you three sealed envelopes which you should open in times of crisis. Things go well until they don't. First letter says "blame your predecessor". This fixes things until the next crisis. Second letter says "blame the technology". Nothing could go wrong, until it does. Third letter says "write three letters".

Rapzid 3y ago

People woke up to the fact that Unity Technologies is a dirty Ad company. That toothpaste isn't going back in the tube.

olgeni 3y ago

The tone of this post is exactly the same as a company would use after a very public incident of harassment or discrimination. So, they probably realized it was not the smartest thing to do.

CatWChainsaw 3y ago

Trust is like a nice glass vase... It takes a long time to make one. It takes seconds to break one. And you can put it back together, but you'll always see the cracks from The Last Time This Happened.