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Unity Editor software terms update: Runtime fee cancellation
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoHuge fan of how Unity put the terms of service in a public GitHub repo. Do other organizations do this?
- gmueckl 2y agoNot sure how much good that does. Git history is mutable.
- karmakaze 2y agoIt's also tamper-evident. Forks would detect the rewrite.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoI have no idea how GitHub handles this. If I fork a repo through the GH GUI, the source repo rewrites history-is mine impacted? I assume GitHub does all sorts of tricks to minimize materializing data changes unless required. My “fork” could just be a pointer to the now mutated origin.
- drpossum 2y agoIf this changes in the source repo and you try to reconcile from your unmodified base you'll be in for some bad surprises (things like "no common history" errors in the worst of cases). This is the reasons why you have to be careful with things that change branch pointers like squashing merges.
- Flemitplo 2y ago[dead]
- tapoxi 2y agoThey actually did this when they had a public spat with Improbable and stealth-changed the ToS to forbid Improbable's use of Unity. When called out, Unity posted the ToS to GitHub as a promise of transparency going forward. They deleted the repo it a few months before rolling out the runtime fee and published it again after being called out. So it's great in concept, but we've already seen it completely ignored in practice.
- jarrell_mark 2y agoFinally a legit use case for blockchain
- stavros 2y agoBecause they couldn't just also move off of the blockchain?
- hollow-moe 2y agoUse legaleese to fight legaleese, just write in the ToS itself only the blockchain version is applicable. If they want to move off they at least have to update the blockchain version to remove the blockchain requirement for applicability.
- stavros 2y agoWhy couldn't they do the same with Github, then? What problem does the blockchain actually solve that git (or just a website) wouldn't?
- theginger 2y agoThey could of course just do that, so there is no benefit from it being in block chain compared with anywhere else. The only advantage block chain provides is you don't have to trust anyone. Eg you don't have to trust GitHub to not delete or modify the repo themselves, but they weren't any part of the problem here.
- rolph 2y agoi would like to see this work somehow. the whole modal click thru as part of bootup; install; or update is really old.
- Citizen_Lame 2y ago[flagged]
- SunlitCat 2y agoThat's why I'm really skeptical about relying on large game engines. Sure, they offer a lot for a relatively low cost, but being dependent on whatever the developers include in their terms of service—and especially on the things left unsaid or that could be decided in court—makes me hesitant to use one.
- krapp 2y agoThis isn't a problem if you use an open source engine that costs nothing and demands nothing. Cough Godot cough.
- ganoushoreilly 2y agoBut even that Engine has its own drama / issues surrounding it with devs being locked out of access etc..
- krapp 2y agoThat drama was overblown, but it isn't stopping anyone from downloading the engine and using it.
- diath 2y agoHave you personally developed a game in Godot?
- wilg 2y ago
- the_gorilla 2y agoThere isn't any real coming back from this other than waiting a decade for people to just forget about it. They went out of their way to do something that was highly unpopular, retroactively binding, with nebulous enforcement rules that unity decided. This was a massive unforced blunder.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoIt certainly gave Godot a huge boost in mindshare. If you are starting a greenfield project today and you are Godot compatible, are you really going to risk capacious Unity altering the deal again?
- pnw 2y agoThey fired the CEO who made that decision. That seems like a pretty solid signal?
- tapoxi 2y agoThey have made the right moves after this, but it was their second massive breach of trust after the Improbable debacle. The people invested in the Unity ecosystem will stay, but Unity drove a lot of people to Godot and Unreal. Unity now occupies a weird space where it's more expensive and harder to use than Godot, but not as powerful as Unreal. As someone who has taught middle schoolers game development, Godot will absolutely replace Unity for students not only due to its price and licensing, but the ease of getting it deployed on a fleet of machines without even requiring a separate IDE.
- gamblor956 2y agoGodot is only cheaper if you plan to make purely for the PC. If you have any aspirations of a console release, Godot is significantly more expensive.
- tapoxi 2y agoThe Switch support is free and community developed. For Xbox/PlayStation W4 has a plugin module for about $800/year, that's less than half the cost of a single Unity Pro seat.
- dang 2y agoRecent and related: Unity is cancelling the runtime fee for games customers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41521630 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41521630 - Sept 2024 (76 comments)
- Sabinus 2y agoToo little too late. Game Devs I know are too aware of enshittification trends to be baited back into Unity for their next game. Unity has shown their hand and I think it's a slow death from here.
- whalesalad 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- gxd 2y agoToo little, too late. As the owner of a game company, I cannot trust Unity for my business, it's too much risk. A new CEO looking for a fat short term bonus could bankrupt me (as it there weren't enough risks as it is).
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