Unity Faces Mass Outrage & Revolt From Devs After Charging Fees For Game Installs

[@YongYea]

Fuck John Riccitiello, dude is pretty much the Palpatine of the gaming industry. PATREON: www.patreon.com/yongyea TWITTER: twitter.com/yongyea INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/yong_yea TIKTOK: www.tiktok.com/@yongyea TOP PATRONS [CIPHER] - Waning Zane [BIG BOSS] - Devon B - Jonathan Ball [BOSS] - Gerardo Andrade - Michael Redmond - Peter Vrba [LEGENDARY] - BattleBladeWar

[@wargamesmaster]

He's not Palpatine, he's more like the living definition of the "rule of two". An evil person who did insanely awful stuff and another is in the shadows, waiting for his time to take the n°1 a-hole place in the gaming industry.

[@evilgibson]

Oh wait, I tried looking through the text but it looks like the fee is applied on Jan 2024 for all Unity games if they are going on a per install basis. If you released your Unity game before that date, could the dev still be charged for every install?

[@mix3k818]

What do we expect from him? He was in charge of EA and he said he wanted to charge players for every bullet in Battlefield.

[@GlivGluv]

He sold a bunch of stock before the announcement too.

[@musketeer1232]

At least Palpatin had standards.

[@revaxx3075]

The CEO is literally the spitting image of every grimey greedy corporate evil boss character in every movie and game

[@pax1217]

Full ready player one vibes

[@PokeGuy6]

Agreed. It's greedy corporate bastards like him who are the cancer in video gaming.

[@GorFrag]

he's bad enough to have been the head of EA.

[@smokinggnu6584]

@@pax1217 I had the exact same though there.

[@VitalVampyr]

A living "greedy businessman" stock photo.

[@kylexile87]

This is one of the craziest oversteps I’ve ever seen in gaming history. Absolutely ridiculous.

[@Nicholasmcmath-cr1xl]

Agree

[@MrRoxBrown]

Yet...

[@dr.bishop8915]

An overstep that makes your company as sustainable as a drop of water in the desert.

[@RavenShugo]

MTX was craziest overstep in gaming history, but here we are with armies of white knights defending it.

[@Tenchinu]

ex-EA

[@B3RyL]

Unity: *Destroys the devs' trust* Devs: "How would we even know the numbers you charge us for are correct?" Unity: "Trust me, bro"

[@oprime]

Devs: We don't trust you! (They proceed to install their OWN software to monitor Unity to make sure they aren't being overcharged. Which is what I would do if I had ANY kind of brains.)

[@anakomaru]

Or, you know, switch to unreal, lmao

@@oprime Realistically, they will switch to other engines, like Godot for 2D and Unreal for 3D

[@TheSoCalledZoner1]

gotta play fair

[@imaginalex5850]

it's not the unity pre 2020 before it was acquired, this is EA wearing it's carcass for many years and destroying it from within.

[@Lugmillord]

I hope big companies sue Unity's leadership into oblivion.

[@fluffysnowgryph4527]

They won't go after larger companies as they will have fleets of lawyers on standby and plenty om money for legal fees and will be more than willing to fight off unity's BS. They will mainly target smaller indie developers as they normally dont have a large dedicated legal team and alot of money for a very long and drawn out court battle.

[@videochantel6069]

Even if so, those people will always get a job somewhere else. Why wouldn't you hire someone who's been in every big company. Even if you drove them to the ground. We as a society value image not skill. I have witnessed a man being fired multiple times and still getting higher job positions. Because his resume shows he's been a manager in all places. Why would it be different.

[@tysonvienneau1830]

@@fluffysnowgryph4527 Well here's the thing, there are games made by the triple A titans have games in unity, so they're affected. Meaning they have reason to go after unity. And it's bad enough to be ostracized by one of them

[@cherrydragon3120]

​@@fluffysnowgryph4527uhm... you may be forgetting that some Unity games are published by Big companies. :) Square enix, nintendo, microsoft. They will have to cough up the cash for their dev studio's using unity and getting succes. 😂 they will NOT be happy in the slightest as publishers

[@NotLikeUs17]

@@fluffysnowgryph4527if all the smaller companies band together and do a class action lawsuit they can.

[@josueayala1249]

I never would have imagined living in a world where installing a game could hurt a developer.

[@mediumvillain]

Incredible isnt it

[@sasaki999pro]

*Me, Mass Uninstalling and Reinstalling Heartstone on every device in my home JUST to screw with Activision Blizzard:* _My reasons are beyond your comprehension..._

[@AshAsmodeus]

@@sasaki999pro nah; not really... with what AB is doing these days they'd deserve worse but I don't think it would be fair to the devs of a game like Cult of the Lamb to suffer for the egrious missteps made by the triple-A companies

[@sasaki999pro]

@@AshAsmodeus Nah nah, I aint touching those games, CoL and Cuphead are staying firmly on my hard drive where they belong.

[@SlaveKnightGael1579]

Did you forget about pirating?

[@samael335]

If they sold stocks in their own company before announcing something they knew would tank the stock price, then the SEC needs to open an investigation for illegal insider trading.

[@breakupgoogle4584]

This. We should all write them an email asking them to look into it.

[@phdonme1]

Yes yes yes

[@phdonme1]

Which I believe is actually incoming right now

[@jonathonspears7736]

Absolutely agree

[@janky477]

There is a huge lawsuit coming, that much is guaranteed. This Ricitiello guy needs to be sent to jail, and then charger $6000 per meal.

[@Boss_Fight_Index_muki]

Unity is doing a great job ensuring the success of Unreal Engine 5

[@alsen99]

Or any other game engine

[@imsoarty]

Massive Godot W

[@peepopalaber]

@@imsoarty Was abouut to say that, Godot ftw.

[@ronnibech3376]

Unfortunally my cynical mind is twist and turning and saying this like " I wonder if UE CEO have something to do with it like waving a fat deal under the nose of CEO" would not be the first time ceos of different companies was in bed with each other 😓

[@TheGothGaming]

UE5 is still more expensive than Unity even with the new fee. UE5 takes 5% of your revenue once you hit a certain threshold. Granted their threshold is much higher but it also takes a bigger cut from the devs. Im not defending unity, I understand they have to also make money and flat fee licenses are not enough. The thing that pisses me and everyone else is the fact that they want to implement this to existing games, retroactively. People that already paid for the flat licenses can now be subject to this extra and unexpected fee. Also the way they communicate it was horrible, too much confusion.

[@Apan1154]

The fact that they decided to make it per install rather than per purchase suggests to me that they are going to abuse this immensely and make quick bucks. They can easily make a bot in the company whose sole purpose is to uninstall and re-install unity games they bought and this will give Unity endless stream of revenue. They'll likely buy small unity games so that the time for each installation is short, driving the selected unlucky indie developer into bankrupcy.

[@L16htW4rr10r]

I wouldn't even be surprised at this point if this is true....

[@casachezdoom2588]

As others have stated, they wouldn't even need to do this. Since the method they use to make the calculations isn't transparent, they can just inflate the numbers...

[@gavinw77]

You should know that an install is not every time you click the install button, it's the number of active instances of the application. For example, I have a MS.365 sub, so I can have 5 logins simultaneously, that means I can have 5 active installs. I can reinstall the apps repeatedly on different machines, and after I've cleared a system drive. I don't pay for each installation procedure, I have already payed for the installs.

[@kelp7060]

@@gavinw77 Yeah, let's just trust them with that and not changing it in future and actually be able to track that information. You don't see the issue.

[@paladin181]

They made it per install to target free games like Genshin Impact and Pokémon Go.

[@labenvenci1584]

What we learn from Nintendo and Unity, *Do not hire ex-CEOs from EA for CEO positions.*

[@ArmageddonEvil]

Do not hire ex-CEOs from EA, Microsoft, Acti-Blizzard, or any of the Triple AAA Industries for Games, Movies, etc. It's a bad idea. That's what we learned today kids, that you cannot trust these scumbags in suits not to only scam you out of money but kill off fun for profit and greed. Bobby Kotick probably has a CEO position lined up in Unreal Engine possibly.

[@wahahaFM]

Also from blizzard

[@username172]

​@@wahahaFMwasnt blizzards bullshit also partly caused by an ex EA employee?

[@supersmily5811]

SOMEONE DID THAT TWICE!?! They didn't learn?

[@supersmily5811]

SOMEONE DID THAT TWICE!?! They didn't learn?

[@Gehrich_]

Ah, John Riccitiello. Right there is a man with a knack for turning games and studios alike into graveyards and financial skills that can be summed up as "aquire a company, run it into the dirt, trade all goodwill for money ASAP, and bail." If he weren't a CEO, he'd be a crypto scammer.

[@porterbennett7041]

i still dont understand why he got hired or rehired for that fact

[@Gehrich_]

@@porterbennett7041 He has an astounding track record for enormous short term returns. His ability to milk a cow to death is likely appreciated by similarly myopic financial grifters posing as businessmen.

[@DeathCluntch]

I mean he learned from the best in that field of ruining games! I’m talking about EA

[@elhazthorn918]

So I'm starting to understand how and why the French in the olden days treated their monarchs in the way the did. I used to think "how barbaric!" but I'm actually sympathizing with the French now.

[@RElNHART1]

@@elhazthorn918 Id pay a dollar to reload a guillotine.

[@antnuh765]

They're called Unity for a reason. They can pull stuff like this and get the entire industry unified against them. Truly a heartwarming story.

[@ricardohoang8452]

Hoyoverse will piss them off at China LMAO

[@SomeKindaSpy]

It makes sense when you realize this is the same executive from EA who wanted to charge people $1 for reloading their gun in (i think it was) modern warfare. He also sold 2,000 shares in Unity stock a few months back.

[@athenewdecade5135]

Can't wait for Nintendo lawyers to burned them out

[@obiwanjebroni505]

doesnt matter, theyll squeeze a premium out of the people who try and stick it out and then they'll shut down and take their money to the bank as they declare bankruptcy and write the losses off on their personal taxes.

[@thesosoartist4458]

​@@SomeKindaSpy Would be Battlefield, he was an EA executive, not activision

[@alejandrodiazart]

Thank you Unity, for decidedly solving for me my dilemma of whether to learn Unity or Unreal.

[@williamstark9568]

I need to decide Godot or Unreal. I'm glad for you though.

[@massam9343]

Imagine a paint company charging an artist for everyone who views their painting. Imagine a concrete company charging a builder for everyone who walks into a building. Imagine a tool company charging a carpenter for everyone who sits in a chair.

[@frostreaper1607]

Don't give them ideas, its already going downhill with AI art as there are idiots in favor of copyrighting styles.

[@pseudonayme7717]

Welcome to Crapitalism 🤢

[@monakh_jcf2312]

Its basically the residuals the hollywood writers and Film Actors Guild members are whining about

[@L_e_t_h_e_r_e_a_l]

@@pseudonayme7717I wouldn’t even consider this capitalism anymore this is plutocracy now.

[@misakamikoto8785]

Imagine a company charging a streamer for everyone who views their channel, oh wait.

[@Birdman-zg1sz]

The higher ups at Unity need to be investigated for insider trading considering the fact they sold stocks before announcing this awful change. Unity not only shot themselves in the foot, this was a headshot.

[@krisztiannemeth6875]

Thats exactly what i thought, but i dont know much about the law, would this stick in court?

[@swissarmyknight4306]

Wait, would they tank the company on purpose?

[@ultimatediscdork]

Yep. I may be wrong about this but usually there is a freeze on shares during a transition like this. So for them to do a massive dump before a major announcement reeks of insider trading violation.

[@toobig7150]

@@krisztiannemeth6875 It would, thing is that (as usual) this is always ignored unless the noise made its really big OR its also "bundled" with other crimes, unless it was in EU then i doubt anything will happen. An awful lot of CEOS do these kind of sells right before anything big, even announcing that, but no one really cares. Speaking of EU: Its totally on the power of the union to simply say "well, we wont allow you to do that here", they have done things like that in the past and literally forced apple too,......but i think what will happen its that Unity parent company will go bankrupt first.

[@maxmikester8185]

Martha Stuart went to jail for exactly this. If they don’t go to jail there is going to be a riot…

[@RayTheomo]

"He was formerly CEO of EA" Honestly couldve ended the video there. Tells us everything we need to know.

[@kallemetsahalme5701]

its always possible he was the ceo for a day. in his initiation speech he goes "we will be making games for gamers from now on" at which point security walks to the stage and says this man isnt working for us anymore. but i can just imagine riccitello playing pacman or space invaders cabinet in his youth in moes tavern and going "oh if i got a nickle for every yellow ball, or could add a popup screen to buy a power orb every time a ghost is just about to hit and then make some ghosts invisible so you dont know when its about to happen"

[@Become-Eggplant]

Isn't that the same jackas* that suggested that they should charge players for ammunition in games?

[@sharkeatinpizza]

​@@Become-Eggplantyes he is, suggested battlefield charging $1 to reload your magazine

[@ALongAndLowTide]

He ruined gaming

[@3Rayfire]

Former CEO of EA....you see that's the one bit of information needed to crystallize everything. Thanks Yong, you made it make sense. I understand everything now.

[@DKNguyen3.1415]

Yep. EA known for making money by killing developers for quick short term profits, leaving dead developers in its wake.

[@jrg87]

Just to point out, AFAIK, the reason he's a FORMER EA CEO is apparently because he was too much even for EA

[@FubukiTheIcyKing]

​@@jrg87Man, when the forces of evil say you're too much, and you know you've gone too far

[@Yoruko0628]

@@jrg87 If that is right, shouldn't they say the same thing about Andrew Wilson?

[@user_hellothere]

I like how no one brings up the fact that unity themselves could set up install bots

[@alejandrocamberosrodriguez4222]

Wouldn't be surprised if they were already working on that.

[@SikGamer70]

They don't even have to do that. They are "calculating" installs in-house, there is nothing besides whistleblowing stopping them from just jacking up the numbers.

[@Weaver_Games]

Would they even need to? They could just lie and say you owe X money. Why go through the rigmarole?

[@MrSqurk]

Also no-one is mentioning that a malicious individual could setup a VM system that merely spoofs installs. All the talk is around non-genuine installs but faking an actual install through the runtime environment almost seems trivial.

[@TheDwagonHD]

​@@MrSqurksomeone mentioned you can also prob look and see what triggers the "install flag" in unity, and just make a script that repeatedly activates the trigger, dont even need to install at all.

[@meatypacky5371]

Honestly I’m not even surprised how bad unity has been ever since he’s been added as the owner of it

[@Deliveredmean42]

How did that happen is beyond me. The warning signs are there. And short term sucess has always have the long term troubles.

[@theunknowman12]

@@Deliveredmean42 being greedy is the answer. Him being CEO doesn't last forever so he probably trying to get as much money as possible

[@DarthDragon007]

@@theunknowman12 I think the answer is stock/share holders. They always seem to think in the short term. How can we get more profit in small amounts of time? Ugh makes me sick.

[@Travelerr]

Honestly this surprised me rhat it's not a violation of anti consumer practice as well as everyone on the board of unity not being on the hook for insider trading

[@Deliveredmean42]

How can it make profit if it results in lower stock? The idiosyncrasy of stock/share holders is amazing@@DarthDragon007

[@ProduccionesPaquito]

Honestly, I'm impressed. This is a level of sheer f*cking hubris you'd only see in a Greek myth

[@Zlx1]

Hahaha 🤣

[@banishedpest115]

I don't know about hubris, seems like sheer folly.

[@daigonmocs0785]

@@banishedpest115 same thing if youre philosophical

[@gh3ttoduCanada]

Game myth

[@apasten0818]

...and then he was horribly tortured eternally in the depths of Hades, as he neither received nor deserved any pity from mortals and gods alike.

[@GoldDounuts]

Man this policy is hella exploitable. A bad faith actor (such as a rival company) could easily write a script to repeatedly build up a virtual machine, install the game, then tear it down. Unity is asking to be sued by leaving this in place.

[@TheNascentLight]

You can take John Riccitello out of EA, but you can never take EA out of him.

[@nyerion5712]

You can take Riccitello out of EA but you can't take the Riccitello out of EA, I believe he was one of the trash that brought the shitty ideas to EA and the game development world and ruined it forever

[@3AMREVIEWS]

What an absolute parasite

[@TheDezembro]

I'm glad he's out during the time of the new Jedi games or we would be f*cking paying to fill the Force bar.

[@L16htW4rr10r]

​@@TheDezembroThank God...

[@celsius4831]

*EA Unity be like:*

[@JackVania]

Developer here. I've helped a lot of devs over the last 9 years working with Unity launch their games on PC and console. This stings. Not only for my personal projects but everyone I've had the pleasure of working with. I am now working diligently helping devs port and move engines which is not an easy task like some may think. There's a lot of learning involved with other engines but I am doing my best to help devs get back on their feet as quickly as I can. I have postponed my own work until I can get others in the community sorted quickly and efficiently. This is not fun. My heart goes out to everyone.

[@maxbreaker]

Would you recommend I develop mobile games on godot, unity, or unreal?

[@jakehero95]

​@@maxbreaker Game Maker is another great option depending on your needs

[@andrewkandasamy]

@@maxbreaker Depends. I'm in favor of Godot, but I also use RPG Maker and despite having a rather steep price tag of $70 it usually can be bought on sale and is very quick to learn and use for its niche of games. It also has an active community and many compatible asset libraries. That being said, it is extremely limited because it is geared towards making a single type of game. Although if you're really willing to go the extra mile you can use it for a lot more. For example, I'm using it create a FE style game.

[@AegixDrakan]

Oh yeah, everyone I know in the industry is reeling from this. I'm one of several people at my own studio taking a sick day today just to deal with the mountain of extra stress that just got dumped on all our backs. x_x

[@RaptorsTroll2]

​@@maxbreakerUE5 stomps its competition.

[@eriknewton4656]

boy it never fails to amaze me how the gaming industry manages to hit new lows.

[@apophisstr6719]

Welcome to extreme capitalism.

[@rob_over_9000]

@@apophisstr6719Just means someone else will compete to fill the gap left by Unity, quit bitching about capitalism unless you have a better system.

[@yuuka4964]

​@@rob_over_9000Ya know, communism is still on the table.

[@jblps]

@@apophisstr6719 *Unregulated predatory practices

[@comyuse9103]

@@rob_over_9000 i do, socialism, and communism. fuck you could even make an argument for _feudalism._

[@Marvolo14]

I doubt this will hold up in court. Devs and publishers should take Unity to court and contest the charges and make them prove their methods and the accuracy.

[@fnln3011]

Even winning that lawsuit devs should still transition to some other engine wherever possible. This is a huge "do not trust this company" moment.

[@jwarrior9986]

Hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to lawyers later...pretty much kills indie.

[@JackFoxtrotEDM]

Unity's Terms of Service had a clause that pointed out that you can follow the ToS of your Unity version. So if you have an older version of the Unity engine and they change the ToS, you can still abide by the ToS that's in place for your version of Unity instead of the new one. But as soon as they made this change, someone pointed this out, people sighed in relief, because using an older version of Unity or current version means that it doesn't apply to them. But guess what? As soon as this got pointed out, UNITY REMOVED THAT CLAUSE FROM THE TOS SHORTLY AFTER! Now, I'm pretty sure that any time a ToS or EULA gets changed, you have to be notified and be allowed to reread and reconsider it, yeah? I don't know if developers have to agree to this new ToS just yet, BUT they removed a clause from an existing ToS without notifying people or letting them reconsider it. In fact I'm pretty sure it's technically required by law, even if the contract says they can change it at any time without warning. Fun fact: Legal documents and contracts like this are not legally-binding if they break the law. You can "agree" to their terms all you want, as others point out, but if they're asking you if they can do something illegal, or for you to do something illegal, the contract is no longer valid and will not hold up in court.

[@errorx_x1063]

Yay! I like being gaslit by video games

[@Mac_Omegaly]

Yes. It was removed the moment WotC tried to undo the same statement in their open license agreement. Which was WotC trying to steal all D&D content ever made.

[@chickencurry420]

Now THAT sounds like a great point to mention in court

[@jason2mate]

I mean it means any dev can refuse to pay these fees, because Unity literally can't take them to court for this, as they would have to produce proof that they deleted these things.

[@LemonRush7777]

That doesn't sound very legal.

[@HattaTHEZulZILLA86]

He's the PERFECT example of what NOT to do when you make a videogame.

[@pastaplatoon6184]

We can only hope that Larien and Fromsoft set a new standard.

[@evandaymon8303]

Expect he isn’t making game just fucking over everyone who use the engine

[@dr.bishop8915]

This guy’s going into the book of how not to make a game

[@Jbeasty1990]

Except it readily works and has made them boatloads. At least they act in their own interest, while consumers keep mindlessly buying the stuff acting like it isn't bringing everyone and themselves down. All the while taking the time to argue against that in random comment sections and shit. Harder to be mad at guys like this when THAT is going on....

[@masteroak9724]

DO NOT hire Richitello or any old geezer like him who want the money without understanding how the thing works.

[@pipmimi]

Amazing how one company can irreparably damage the games industry like this. Have they never heard of "Don't bite the hand that feeds"???

[@senertyk5376]

You gotta pay per bite lol

[@goldencash]

Of course they know that phrase But they still want to try and not only bite it but fuck it too

[@generalsci3831]

Start getting people to boycott. Without a boycott, people like this company will never care.

[@honorablejudgecoinberg1788]

@@generalsci3831and this is why they do it. Consumer integrity is a zero. Corporations know this and exploit it. There will be no end.

[@tranz2deep]

Are you kidding? This is EA and its castoff leeches! These parasites are responsible for buying, holding hostage, ripping off, and killing franchises and dev studios and they have been doing it for decades!

[@NeuroTheory]

One thing that I've not seen mentioned are all the schools that teach game development with Unity as their main engine. The amount of people that are affected by this is a lot more than those already working in the industry. This particular fuck up is one for the ages.

[@pretzelboi64]

This is all driven by laziness and a false sense of superiority. People started falsely believing that they could just make 3D games without having to learn any C++ or 3D graphics theory around 2010 because someone else would do it for them, which led educators to pivot from teaching pure theory to teaching Unity trivia. This is the result

[@mr.animefan8920]

A former CEO of EA... now it all makes sense.

[@monkaWGiga]

Not just any CEO of EA. The CEO of EA who was around when Ultimate team was introduced and other shady practices.

[@bruvathroatpuncher500]

If your business proposal was too greedy even for EA, then NO company should ever hire him within a position of power. Unity must now fall because of this.

[@sunlightcrusader]

Even todays EA is not THIS problematic. I see them getting on with the Jedi games. John Riccitiello is just industry-annihilating guy who should not be in any gaming industry related company. Absolutely disqusting.

[@JoseJimenez-fc6pu]

How wonderful it must be to be John Riccitielo. A man so out of touch with the real world, so detached from humanity, he might actually be living and running Unity from the moon. 🚀🌙

[@pcachu]

If he was actually on the moon the Toast King would kick him in the junk for this, and Moon Keith Moon would use his head as a snare drum.

[@AndrewTaylorNintyuk]

He's a money hoarding asshole, he doesn't see people or understand his products. He just wants to get as much money as possible and will step on anyone or anything to get as much as possible.

[@Brimst0ne_XB]

If he were out of touch it wouldn't be so evil. He's not oblivious he knows exactly what he's doing which makes it 10 times worse.

[@F1fan4eva]

@MyLazySundae​​⁠thanks to unchecked/unfettered capitalism

[@Xelos86]

Shouldn't he be in Jail for introducing globally gambling to kids under "surprise mechanics" costume?

[@NewNecro]

Congratulations to Riccitiello for inventing a new form of piracy that makes developers ACTUALLY LOSE money when someone pirates a game 😂🎉

[@ael371]

ähm , not how that works. been a pirate for almost 15 years by now. That detection stuff runs over a api that is build into unity platforms aka gaming platforms that sell unity games.that would include steam ,epic, gog and whatever else there is. If you pirate a game its already set to think that you own it officaly by simulating certain files it will read out from the platform (at least nowadays, back in the day it was files that were on the cd/dvd disk). Thats also why epic cracks and steam cracks are two complety different kind of shoes , while gog simply dosent have DRM. Unity would have no way of tracking piratet installs of their game.

[@5th_Vertex]

they can make the "viruses"/bots that reinstall.. that smells like big scam and very wrong,, total bs,

[@augustday9483]

>pirate game >write a script that reinstalls it 1000 times >developers lose hundreds of dollars The memes are real.

[@johnjohnson9073]

Fuckers weren't supposed to make that one greentext a reality

[@lk5388]

​@@augustday9483ill do that with any ea or activision game😂😂😂

[@Kyntteri]

Unity would probably do massive install campaigns themselves for all the devs affected by their scheme, to create even more revenue. If they claim that they're the only ones with monitoring tools, who's there to stop them.

[@kyleadelaide]

They wouldn't even have to do that. If it's a proprietry black box system, they could just put their finger on the scale and inflate the numbers. After all, it seems to be a "trust me bro" system.

[@DeliciousDogMeat]

That would be criminal fraud on the part of anyone directly involved. To attempt this would require many people to know about it, and one of them would blow the whistle. Their numbers could be questionable for other reasons, but this isn’t a realistic concern.

[@Kyntteri]

@@DeliciousDogMeat They're pretty clearly ready to scam the crap out of the devs.

[@DeliciousDogMeat]

@@Kyntteri No, they're trying to exploit their market dominance for profit. That does not mean they are going to turn the company into a criminal enterprise. Be realistic.

[@subtlewolf]

​@@DeliciousDogMeatOnly if you can prove intent. As often the incentive here isn't so much to order someone to cheat but rather to turn a blind eye to potential problems that inevitably creep up.

[@Laternater]

It always blows me away that all it takes is a single, permanent, reminder that these CEO's are entirely mortal.

[@KorangarInc]

Can't tell if this was meant to be "immoral" or an undertone death threat lol

[@Eweyhen]

Are you saying we should kill someone over a video game? Lol

[@valletas]

​@@Eweyhenwhile what he was saying is dumb this isn't really over any videogames Remember unity is a tool first that people use on a daily basis to make a living It's not a game, it's not drama, it's not even a controversy It's simple unity taking away people's livelihoods and their families well being

[@CyFed_Republic_of_Kaltovar]

At least someone is willing to have some testicles in public. In France they burn things down when someone with power sneezes wrong. In America we bend over and cry while we ask them to stop nailing us. When does "It's not that big of a deal" stop being a good argument against being mad at someone who won't stop messing with your life in 1000 different tiny ways? These vampires seek out and destroy any natural joy in the world so they can copy it, mass produce it, and charge you money for what was once free. People like them kill millions every year by making "Small changes" to healthcare policies, pension schemes, and workforces around the world but suddenly I'm supposed to wet my pants because somebody vaguely references something bad happening to one of them?

[@TheScyy]

You need mental help, now. You sound like a psycho to react like that to this.

[@sodreir.8666]

John Riccitiello made the impossible: he UNITED the gaming community

[@michaelcgrigori7823]

Nice one😂😂😂😂😂!

[@generalcjg]

We haven't seen this type of massive uproar since Star Wars Battlefront 2 EA released in 2017. Ironic, isn't it?

[@christopherrowe7860]

When devs and gamers become legion against you, you know you just really fucked up

[@michaelcgrigori7823]

@@christopherrowe7860 you spelled legion wrong 😎

[@Lexyvil]

@@generalcjg All it took was one man. One non-legend.

[@shiredude87]

Congrats John Riccitiello, you found the emergency eject button for devs to stop using your platform, also hes now guilty of insider trading

[@MisterVercetti]

And? Remember: this is America, the largest neo-feudal state in the world. The government isn't in charge of the uber-wealthy; it's the other way around.

[@B3RyL]

Not guilty yet, but just wait until the SEC gets involved.

[@smoothbrian.3997]

@@B3RyLLet’s hope this evil sewage blob gets serious prison time. I’m crossing my fingers.

[@JBlaze8814]

Fantastic video detailing the situation. This isn’t just bad for devs, it’s bad for gamers too. Hopefully Unity gets what they deserve.

[@dvdjkaufmn]

It's only bad for gamers if they keep giving companies like EA and Activision, even more money...

[@xxCrimsonSpiritxx]

It's going to be bad for gamers only eventually when developers start to charge extra 0.20 cents for their games to cover Pay per Download

[@TheTrueRandomGamer]

I can already smell the Microsoft lawsuits. They're not gonna accept those charges.

[@lightingthief4482]

They aren't the only one. Just about every single company going have Unity's head on a pike. This is finna be fun to watch

[@monkaWGiga]

Hearthstone uses Unity. I highly doubt Activision Blizzard are the kind of company to share profits from installs.

[@kamildrews3517]

Same with Bandai Namco, whose Klonoa, Pac Man World and Katamari remasters are all done using Unity.

[@theplaguedoctor3381]

not just microsoft, they are changing the TOS in a very visible way, they are sure to get a class action law suit because of that.

[@CapnFlappyJaw42]

*laughs in Nintendo*

[@SoulConstruct]

The sad part is that Riccitiello can just walk away from this. He can start anew, with a new company, or at a new company, and never look back. Meanwhile, the companies and workers who put their blood, sweat, and tears into making their games are left with the aftermath, and severe circumstances that came out of nowhere.

[@elhazthorn918]

I'm hoping his shareholders get so pissed he gets drawn and quartered by them.

[@Alexander-rk4cu]

Heck, even the devs at Unity, who wants it to work, wants to do the right thing, are on the loosing end, their workplace and their is now untrust worthy, they are the ones getting sacked later to save profit. This whole thing screws over EVERYONE except for the shareholders and ceo's.

[@XPuntar]

@@Alexander-rk4cu In reality even shareholders lose! ... In long term!

[@arcamean785]

I hope this CEO dude is investigated by the FTC because this has shady written all over it, I feel bad for all the devs who are going to be forced to either delist or risk getting hit with what feels again like illegal charges. Imagine buying a chevy cruze then years later chevy comes along and says "Oh you're using this car for business? Ok we've determined you've passed the passanger threshhold so we're gonna charge you .20 per passenger".

[@kosajk]

Not so funy fact is we are slowly going this direction They already charge monthly fee for using "luxury" things like seat heating, in a car that you payed full price for and have it already instaled on...

[@liandoaethend2403]

paying tax for unneccesary sht, like you have to pay for anything, just simply living is hard

[@jawstrock2215]

FTC is constantly gutted by the GOP. they don't have teeth at all. Even if they find him guilty of it, all he'll have is a fine of 5k$

[@Amyante]

Yeah, selling stock a week before a major change you know is going to affect stock prices negatively is the textbook example of insider trading, and pretty much all the Unity CEOs did it.

[@docc19]

Unless he harms their bf Sony in some way, the FTC doesnt give a crap!

[@UnreasonableOpinions]

The entire body of staff told the executives that this was a heinous idea, got told that this was not how they'd do it and there'd be more answers soon, and then the day after announced the policy to the public unchanged. They are currently in the middle of a massive staff walkout, split halfway between people walking out for now and people who are straight-up handing in their papers.

[@IlIBonesIlI]

I remember expressing concerns of this sort of thing happening back during 2012, when I was on an entry level Video Game Development course. My concerns were dismissed my the tutor as "too depressing" and "unlikely to ever happen". The Future is now old man.

[@Cozm1k]

Lmaoooo, we live on this planet with greedy fucks, of course this was gonna happen!

[@RurouniHiro]

Ring him up, show him the article,

[@grayfox6518]

It's how it goes ironically, those who impart great wisdom in foreshadowing are seldom listened to until after it's too late.

[@thegreatshamalamadingdong9788]

Tutors/teachers have never been up on the whole gaming biz. Back in the day when I was at school some 30 odd years ago, when I told my tutor I wanted to get into game development I was told "computer games will never be a viable business" lmao 🤣

[@Aereto]

​@@thegreatshamalamadingdong9788 Though retrospectively it is for the best. We need to approach video games as works of art, because the approach as a business will make it built to suck the money out of anyone using it.

[@CeHee123]

"He was formally at Electronic Arts..." That explains everything.

[@mattmiller4233]

That last bit is especially chilling. They knew what they were doing was against the rules, and silently rewrote them the night before. The only thing they could do now to possibly save any future for the company would be not just an immediate backtrack, but a public sacking of Richitiello with no golden parachute. Without that, they're screwed.

[@AnDOnlineify]

I fucking wish he had no golden parachute. Unfortunately, many CEOs have on contract to have a golden parachute when leaving a company and he probably has one as well.

[@danthonygregory4157]

​@@AnDOnlineify Should it be the time to bring the tar and feathers?

[@AskMeWhyYoureStupid]

Bothersome , sure , messed up , absolutely. Chilling ? I don't think so doesn't fit here . Nothing really terrifying about their act , nor unnerving, sure it's screwed up , but that's not chilling . Thats just corporation being corporations . Nothing scary about it.

[@maxmikester8185]

Considering what they are doing is kind of criminal, what with insider trading among other things, I’m sure that golden parachute is null and void.

[@Blodhelm]

@@AskMeWhyYoureStupid Chilling for people who made games in Unity and now have to worry about Unity charging them for installs years later.

[@bigsyrup8567]

And now we’re seeing from posts on forums that Devs don’t have to pay the fees if they’re using IronSource as their ad provider, according to their Unity rep. It’s all about forcing devs to use THEIR ad service if they want to stay in business.

[@sarcadoodle4036]

It continues to amaze me that Unity really thought that any decent financial department would EVER sign off on a "trust me bro" invoice. Every finance department I've ever been in has been very picky about details and a "Lol we have no way of proving these numbers" approach is going to cause them to tell you to go away very quickly and rather impolitely too.

[@auraaetherbladesigma6939]

As there would be metaphorical corpses of Suits as a result. 🖕😂

[@Bethgael]

Oh, they know. /tin foil hat/ something something merger with known developer of trojans, sorry, ads, something something end user registry install trawling just like EA has used since their Origin app which I have always called the "orange trojan".

[@GalenLeRaaz]

I don't know how it is in other countries, but in Poland, if the contractor changes the rules of contract or makes changes in the agreement documents, the other side is fully allegeable to break the contract, take all the assets that came with the contract (devices, tools, software, etc.) and leave the contractor without any fees. Such changes are also punished by Polish law under the Anti-Monopol and Consumer Protection Act.

[@aralornwolf3140]

I wish more countries had those laws.

[@mattvoelker241]

While its certainly nice to be able to do that, it means that all the time and effort that went into making the unity engine version is dumped and devs now have to learn a new engine AND port the game into the new one. They're betting on it not being worth the man-hours. There seems to be a lot of this happening lately, the unchecked contract changes i mean. Microsoft changed their Minecraft TOS without telling anyone earlier in the year as well. Now Unity is changing theirs and screw you if you dont like it.

[@supersmily5811]

How the HECK did Unity decide to even hire that guy? Who does that? Did he blackmail them? Are their families okay?

[@jawstrock2215]

That's the problem with publicly shared companies. You always end up with gougers on top.

[@Sipalinggamingguyssubkecil]

Money

[@HumanPerson_final]

He's got experience and he's driven by profits. Granted, those profits are short-term and his experience is just in being terrible, but they don't look that deeply.

[@vespenegas261]

@@Sipalinggamingguyssubkecil Looks like they will not have any very soon.

[@Kirgoss]

It's not just him. A CEO can't simply do something like that by himself, at least not easily. The entire board of directors is behind this decision. The fact that these people have been selling company shares beforehand even suggests that they might be destroying their own company deliberately.

[@jrussellmoore]

For me, one of the most agregious points of it all is what you barely touched at the end: the change that was highlighted by the removal of the licensing changes tracking repository, where one could see what changed from one version to another. Even if their will is to force developers to always adhere to the latest version of the licensing terms, I don't think they can force those who have already shipped games using the current and older versions of them. As per the terms of those licenses, they can (and any sane one, should) stick to the ones they used at the time they finished the game or update and not upgrade at all, using the exact same version of the SDK and runtime if need be for future updates. As for the repo being deleted, what, do they think developers won't be "diff"ing the changes going forward? It is a shame to see how they are driving the engine into the ground; it is quite capable without being crazy difficult, but I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole anymore.

[@DeepSouthSimulations]

Just when you think John Riccitiello can't come up with a more slimey monetization scheme he completely shatters all expectations.

[@Grogeous_Maximus]

The only way to be greedier is if WotC charges people per dice roll in their VTT. Gross.

[@mikeha]

he's the poster boy of the stereotypical psychopath CEO who only cares about one thing : Money and making as much money as fast as he can, in perpetuity increasing profits every year

[@Chromodar]

The concept of each sale being worth a variable amount for the seller depending on what the buyer decides to do with the product after purchase is legit insane.

[@DeepSouthSimulations]

@@Chromodar Exactly. How do you manage your budget when you can't even calculate what you may owe Unity? And I don't see how it can possibly be legal for them to do this retroactively on existing titles like they were talking about?!

[@TTHStuff]

Let's not forget the fact the unity board of directors sold their shares before announcing this. You know, insider trading. No doubt they will also be buying the shares back on the cheap just before they announce the backpedal.

[@pacmonster066]

While it is true the CEO sold about 2k shares a week or so before the announcement, the important context people who keep mentioning this seem to miss, the dude has over 300k shares in the company. He sold under 1% of his shares. Not exactly cutting and running. So while it's certainly suspicious, it's also not really the major deal people keep trying to push

[@Fighter_Builder]

@@pacmonster066 He's also been steadily selling shares all year... Around 20,000 in total if I remember correctly.

[@SharpShot501st]

@@pacmonster066 Apparently he's sold 50k shares over a year prior to this announcement. Now, 300k seems like a lot compared to 2k for only a week prior, but when you re-contextualize it to 50 over a year and not 2 over a week and pricing changes are planned way in advance... It starts to seem more like he was trying to hide what was about to happen. I could be wrong on this, but this is just what I've heard.

[@majema007]

Insiders selling-off is a bearish indicator, but it's not like doing a share buyback has the opposite effect. By that logic, Meta's stock price wouldn't have dumped back in 2022 despite how they were spending $45 billion on stock buybacks.

[@antiquecardboard]

@@pacmonster066 Thank you for this context.

[@WillowsPeak77]

Unity: Don't worry we will charge Microsoft and Sony everytime someone installs your game on their subscription service. Sony and Microsoft after increasing the price of PS+ and Game Pass: 🤨🤨🤨 THAT'S CORPORATE GREED FOR YOU.

[@fuckoffgoogle1657]

This. They knew in advance and planned the release before this news broke

[@anttimaki8188]

Im pretty sure they will just give a finger to unity and dev. "Seems like You problem".

[@WillowsPeak77]

@@anttimaki8188 True 🤣, I hope this will cause them to rollback the whole decision and not half-ass it, like when they announced "Don't worry this pricing model will only affect 10% of our devs".

[@WillowsPeak77]

@@fuckoffgoogle1657 That's the really sad part. How do you annouce that at 2:30 AM in the morning. There really is no rest for the wicked.

[@Atzy]

This whole thing is such an example of why corporate greed is so self-destructive.

[@joseaca1010]

The worst part: Unity was already in a shaky finantial position before this (in part i guess because like 30% of profits go to pay stockholders like ricitiello) which is part of the reason why they announced this change, right now, even if they walk back this change, they have ruined their reputation and many devs will choose to use different engines

[@toobig7150]

i saw devs saying that even if they backpedal, they will never use unity out of pure fear of this repeating in a smaller scale, unity its literally dead as a company

[@gilroyscopa]

I feel bad for the devs who can't backpedal. Learning an engine is no small feat. They basically screwed over every unity-devs job prospects.

[@elhazthorn918]

They actually said they "needed to make Unity profitable." I looked up what Riccitiello gets compensated each year. In 2022 alone, apparently his total compensation was around $11,000,000. Yeah. Don't you hate it when you're at home trying to do your finances, trying to cut costs? Gee, I should feed my kids less. I can't do without my gold leaf toilet paper.

[@liandoaethend2403]

​@@elhazthorn918 as an average homed person, if its legal and morally okay i would fly there and hit him myself ngl

[@testoftimegaming5219]

I wont touch unity ever again i might get half way though dev on a game and they implement some crazy shit like this

[@aronoc3599]

The shareholders ought to sue him for insider trading. I for one, can't wait to see what kind of lunacy transpires with the data. My team at work reviews use cases for approved data sharing, and we have been laughing at what Unity claims they can track. "Trust us bro" usually equates to "We don't know how we're going to do that."

[@zeening]

seriously, i thought it was hilarious they said "estimates of downloads" but you bet your ass they'll fight tootha nd nail for an EXACT dollar amount, but "estimated downloads" my ass

[@JingIeFett]

One of the Unity employees on the main thread on the Unity forum actually mentioned that Unity doesn’t actually know 100% yet how they’ll be tracking it

[@arrowghost]

The lawsuit will be gigantic for sure if it comes out, and I hope that EA CEO can be overthrown and get someone benevolent or even David Helgason to come back.

[@Marc-gj9vx]

It wouldn't hold in court. He has been selling Unity stock for years and sold a lot more in 2022. He is also not buying back any so it's not really "trading". If you look at the board of directors, especially the ones tied to IronSource, they are the ones who sold a lot more shares than the ceo.

[@edward3190]

He actually didn't sell much, it's like 1% of his share, but the rest of their leadership sold a lot more, Unity president sold 1/3 of her shares.

[@Iakovanders]

Absolutely floored that the response to "Will you charge for pirated installs" isn't no, but instead "let us know if you're affected by piracy and we'll work something out". Every game no matter how popular is going to have a percentage of pirated installs unless they have some hefty DRM.

[@justinwhite2725]

No. It was "yes, but feel free to send us feedback."

[@Oshroth]

I remember years ago World of Goo devs put out an article where they estimated that they had a roughly 90% piracy rate based on number of copies sold vs analytics, etc.

[@andrewcurlutu6422]

Doesn't matter WHAT DRM a company uses. It will eventually be cracked. Using unstable DRM is what tends to get companies into trouble time and time again.

[@elbuhdai605]

Slight correction. Every single game is going to be pirated regardless of the DRM they have in place. All DRM does is punish paying customers because all DRM measures can be breached.

[@andrewcurlutu6422]

@@elbuhdai605True to a point. However, Steam's and GOG's ease of finding games and running them has done something to obviate that. It's things like Origin's awful buggy launcher that annoy people enough to pirate in some cases.

[@cameronward9443]

Riccitiello is a product of the gaming industry getting big enough that real corporate meddling starts to happen. Companies that are publicly traded have a legal obligation to produce an ever increasing profit if they are able to do so. People like Riccitiello's job is literally only to find creative ways to make more money. If you have already reached market saturation and can't expect to sell more copies of a given title next year, then they have to look for additional revenue streams. Maybe we as gamers should be carefully considering if we are going to support gaming companies who are publicly traded with their primary investors being giant faceless index funds who demand exponential growth year over year.

[@BladeValant546]

What is most frustrating is the fact there are many like this guy. One just said we need more unemployment because workers are getting arrogant. This wont change until we elminate these people from positions of authority and power.

[@oprime]

No, what we need to do is make companies STOP being run by stockholders/shareholders and letting them put CEO's in charge that are Yes-Monkeys to their evil ways. Those people are the ones that force them to release buggy games before they're polished to where they'd be good games and stable as a rock. By releasing early they get more money returns rather than waiting for the game to be good enough to become popular and make even better returns.(Baldur's Gate 3 popularity is proof that it can be done.)

[@Silentmissile]

​@@oprimeyup

[@hippopotatomoose]

What???? Are you suggesting socialism???? Oh no!!!

[@filovirus1]

it would be better if they stopped breathing.

[@jaywerner8415]

@@hippopotatomoose Socialism when not taken to the Extreme can be good. Like, pensions and Social Security for example, pretty sure that falls under socialism.

[@Culebrunch]

I find it funny that they say that this doesn't really affect 90% of their customers which means they just straight up stated that they are fully aware and simply don't care that they're screwing over the 10% of their customers this will severely impact. And to top that 100% of all the devs of all calibers completely oppose this affront against gaming.

[@AConquerorsVendetta]

Why do you do percents backwards though

[@Culebrunch]

Because I messed up and thought they went first?

[@dudebruh8534]

It's ridicules' that their condemning those 10% but if you think about it it's even worse than that. If those 10% of developers are forced to take this tax then that will only push them towards pushing more scummy microtransactions in their games. This totally hurts the consumer as a whole.

[@Alexanderrak]

I don't think it's 10% of their customers I mean if they end up taxing you for all old games deves made wouldn't that mean that all deves will be impacted in the end weather it's big or small+ that's without talking about unintentional install bombing or installing in variety of consoles with old games or current ones....damn Unity really screwed everyone over as this is really a huge damage no matter what happens next.

[@ksl-988]

The 10% that it will effect most is up-and-coming devs with newly successful games.

[@dariusperry4541]

The second you mentioned this guy was from EA, Unity going this cursed route made a lot more sense than it did before knowing that.

[@esr1412]

They (CEO and board members) wanted to cash-out and walk away from the company, so they sold their cut and pushed the self destruct button on their way out.

[@starsuper64]

He and Bobby kotick are great examples of how awful these greedy ceos are Fun fact: Nintendos Ceo (Shuntaro Fuakawa) is paid 2.51$ mill a year. Bobby kotick is paid 155$ million in a year

[@thomasedwardharrison2879]

When Nintendo was going down Iwata cut his salary twice so he won’t have to loose any employees. When Sega was facing bankruptcy, the chair gave up half a billion dollars and wave the fee off on his death bed to save the company. And then we have Bobby and that guy

[@guilhermehank4938]

​@@thomasedwardharrison2879both are eastern companies, what did you expect?

[@Walt_Xander94]

Considering Nintendo showing their true colors these days, changing $70 for games that are 7th Gen when it comes to hardware, theyre not any better. They just slowly pulled bs(since the Wii, actually) until nowadays, not do it all at once & double down like EA and the rest.

[@The-Singularity-X01]

@@Walt_Xander94 Nintendo treats their _customers_ like shit, but they only treat their employees 'badly'.

[@PropaneWP]

And for what? What could possibly be the motivation for making that kind of money? It's so pointless.

[@eaglerabbit8922]

A big part of the problem is that the people that run these companies are not gamers themselves. They do not care or do not want to know what gamers really want. All they see are the dollar signs. Before when you made a quality game that was 100% complete with no extra fees, you got your moneys worth and those companies were successful just doing that. Nowadays greed has gotten so bad that they do not even care that they look like idiots with bad reputations.

[@AfutureV]

If anything, these changes incentivise creating games like that, full games with no extra ways of revenue. I see that as a good thing.

[@corvus8638]

Eventually society will collapse due to this

[@georgeelliott6877]

People are not paying microtransactions or playing AAA games! And that’s somehow the developers fault?! And systemically racist and blah blah blah? How many times and where have we heard of this irrelevance before?

[@RiversJ]

They wouldn't need to be gamers, if they simply had some competence and weren't cartoon levels of greedy empty suits produced at MBA programs around the world would be enough. Humans in a word.

[@st.altair4936]

That's why you use FOSS equivalents, which are community driven and developed by the same people that use them; the community.

[@Xanthez4O]

We can only hope this CEO suddenly develops an interest in cost-effective deep sea tourism and decides to test his new prototypes himself.

[@ultimamage3]

Damn, too soon XDDDD

[@bruhhunter8258]

@@ultimamage3 Not in this case.

[@lordasian8476]

So you want him to die ?

[@Ragnarok540]

​​@@lordasian8476just to suffer a quick implosion, nothing painful.

[@seliamila1005]

​@@Ragnarok540fish food 😂

[@TheOnlyShimapan]

Thank you for covering this and bringing more awareness to this situation in such a detailed and comprehensible video. This situation is so infuriating and many small independents studios like us are stuck too far in development to switch engine and are stuck between either shipping their game using Unity and dealing with this bs we never agreed to in the first place, or completely scrap projects that have been over a year in development already. This also applies to all the tools we've created and the years of expertise we've had with the engine that will all have to go down the drain. Hopefully they backtrack so we can just finish our current project in peace, but one thing is for sure: the trust is broken and we will never use Unity again for future projects. Not only is there too much financial risk for all the reasons that were mentioned in the video, but also: finding a publisher that will accept to fund indie games made with Unity will also be a risk, and platform owners, such as Microsoft with Game Pass, are more likely to just refuse Unity-made games on their services instead of forcefully complying with Unity's policy.

[@aaronlefebre5060]

Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft will slam Unity so hard once they start seeing the numbers they owe, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Unity games start to disappear from those three stores, as well as Steam and GOG. Edit: Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Steam, Epic, and GOG are 6 of the most major online storefronts that will be affected by this if Unity pushes this through. Devs will pull their Unity-based games, which will cause a lot of problems for all six of these companies. Regardless of whether or not they use Unity themselves, their e-shelves are stocked with Unity games, and those will vanish, which will cost the platforms serious money. That's why they will be mean mugging Unity with their law ninjas fast as lightning if this goes through.

[@uberbyte7467]

Sony and Microsoft not so much, Sony doesn't use engines other then the ones they own for thier first party titles and Microsoft only does so with a select number of titles. Nintendo however? They'll raise hell.

[@awsxedc3]

According to this, the only ones who would actually see a fee would be Sony and Microsoft. The only instance where the big 3 would pay a fee is if they are hosting a Unity game on their streaming service. Otherwise, if the game is only put up for sale on their stores the usual way, the developer still pays fees.

[@KianaMai]

@@uberbyte7467They will have to pay if Indie Games use Unity on Game Pass and whatever PlayStations equivalent is.

[@colbycornwall2344]

This is dead on correct went 2024 comes around

[@Craz3t0wn]

@@uberbyte7467 many unity games are available on gamepass which means any unity game downloaded from gamepass would be charged to microsoft.

[@CalvinChikelue]

Astounding that Unity managed to make a bassackwards change that literally forced developers of all stripes into the position of DREADING their own game’s SUCCESS & not just its failure.

[@Weaver_Games]

@@TorchdriveIndustries It's really the trust me bro part that is concerning. If you're a solo indie the terms aren't too bad but you have no idea what Unity will try to pull in the future and also no idea how accurately they can actually measure installs.

[@MrSqurk]

@@TorchdriveIndustriesthere are also cases where free games will be royally fucked.

[@MrSqurk]

@@TorchdriveIndustries yeah, total agreement brother. Just adding on

[@CoOlKyUbI96]

⁠​⁠@@TorchdriveIndustriesI think what some people tend to forget is that a vast majority of the video game industry is all about executives trying to constantly push the boundaries of what is acceptable and what isn’t. Yeah the original plan may have only applied to high volume, low margin games. But I can guarantee you that if this change was accepted and not be met with a lot of backlash, then in a few weeks or a few months the policy would have changed for the worse

[@crystalwater505]

@@CoOlKyUbI96 Yep and people need to realize that these corporations want to suck out every last inch of cash in an industry and then move on. It only benefits the executives. They are already rich and greedy so they don't care about those on the working floor.

[@oprime]

Just a question: If unity is tracking by per install. Then who is to say that even the charity exception won't be abused as well? For example: devs could use charity more often to get around paying unity. Pirates may use the charity code. Imagine if Unity may only count the FIRST install of the game as the exception and then any installs onto other computers with the same charity code as invalid and make the dev still end up being charged money per install. All of these and more are possibilities and since Unity has the ability to change things, I wouldn't be surprised if Unity changes their policies in response to these tactics that might remove money from their greedy hands. It is clear why developers are scared and unwilling to trust them at this point.

[@Rough_Estimates]

There's too much greed in the gaming industry

[@enterprisedavidcain]

It’s time for a new video game crash and time to end gaming

[@Rough_Estimates]

@@enterprisedavidcain Woah, we don't have to go to extremes now 😨

[@Marksman3434]

There's too much greed in almost every industry, period. The artistocracy needs a new culling 1789 style.

[@kosmosXcannon]

I saw a video that was able to make a good point on when the trend may have significantly started. Essentially the gaming industry was one of the few industries that was largely unaffected from the Great Recession. Where do all the MBA from ailing industries flock to? They flocked to the gaming industry. Initially it may have been good because these companies still had people that cared. Eventually they mostly got weeded out and replaced with people looking to make money. A decade or so later, look at where we are now.

[@InfectiousViper]

@@enterprisedavidcainNo. instead support people that deserve the support. Then again it’s easier said than done, thousands will still buy the next Madden or Fifa or whatever Fifa is called now.

[@SleepyMatt-zzz]

Glad my wife's sister left the company when she did a couple months ago after mentioning that the company vibe was starting to get weird. Unfortunately the new company she works for is developing their game in Unity, but said that it's early enough in its development to switch engines. Hope it works out for her, no developer deserves this treatment, especially with the insane amount of time and investment needed to develop and ship a game.

[@phoenixflamegames1]

Best of luck to your sister mate👍🏻

[@СашаБицадзе-щ7г]

@@phoenixflamegames1*wife’s sister

[@inkchip7351]

Wishing her the best of luck

[@liandoaethend2403]

Your wife's sister have some spidey sense, i hope the best for her and it goes smoothly

[@sirgregoryadams]

The "same device" part is even worse than it seems. In order to know that you're installing on the same device, you need to collect data about the device and upload them to some Unity servers to be able to recognize it later. That breaks all kinds of privacy laws everywhere. Certainly GDPR and all the Consumer Privacy Acts in the US.

[@lominero5]

Cookie?

[@L16htW4rr10r]

​@@lominero5Cookie from what I remember is only for websites though. It might work on Steam since they have websites, but I personally never got the option to use cookie or not. And mobile phone app used API or something. In short, not all devices use the same tool to collect data. I can't imagine how they would collect data for consoles. It's out of my scope.

[@LudwigVaanArthans]

​@@lominero5this won't fly for the scope of what they wanna do. What happens if you reinstall the OS and then reinstall the game?

[@sirgregoryadams]

@@lominero5 Cookies can be deleted. Also, your "device" is never actually just one device. It's a collection of components that can individually change. So, what makes the device "the same"?

[@gavinw77]

No, there is nothing wrong with collecting information about the installation, and the user. That is standard practice.

[@WhatDemocracy]

Great breakdown Yea. I see this as just another step towards oblivion for the gaming industry.... it's unbelievable how far it has fallen.. I remember playing hundreds of hours of Morrwind when I was a kid. The game cost me £25 and gave me endless hours of joy. Games like that are so rare now..

[@lonewolf5238]

I was thinking the same thing. It's sickening to see how far we've fallen.

[@richardliu8785]

As a pure hobbyist, I'm just a little miffed that I have to remake a sizable project in Godot thanks to this announcement. For anyone just making little game projects for fun, using Unity will be pure risk. I can only imagine how big of a headache this is for a professional development team.

[@zerohbeat]

Yeah, most studios will probably have custom tools, custom pipelines for things. Some studios may see this as a blessing in disguise to move to another engine and re-design their pipelines to be more modern.

[@VernulaUtUmbra]

"We're only going after those who are successful using our product" Yes.... because that really makes me want to be successful using your game engine.

[@thericethatsmilesback5464]

Unreal Engine 5 should take this opportunity to reach out to more indy sources, and more tools about how to translate from Unity to UE5, they would make massive bank.

[@rudeboi6502]

Unreal needs to hire you bro 🤣

[@arnox4554]

What? No. UE5 is suffering from major performance problems and super high install sizes. Maybe you can get away with that as a AAA dev, but Godot Engine 4.x is where efforts should be directed. And besides, let's not forget that Epic is controlled by a massive delusional prick as well.

[@oprime]

If Unreal has ANY brains, they will capitalize on Unity's bad decision and start to make price changes and plans that favor the devs. This way people will migrate to them.

[@lrock48]

How much you want to bet they are waiting to see the result of Unity's move to see if they can get away with it, then roll out something similar on their own. Never trust corporations whose sole purpose is to enrich the executives and shareholders.

[@XanderVJ]

​@@oprimeI don't think they need to do ANYTHING, to be honest. Unity has made such a huge screw up that Unreal will receive the biggest bank possible without moving a finger.

[@swiftbow2110]

That’s crazy. This cannot be made to stand. Everyone in the industry and consumers (gamers) need to shut this down with your wallets. Can you imagine the harm this has the potential to do with game releases, prices and long term IP sustainment if all game engines did this. Insane.

[@senormarston]

The hard part is making consumers actually stop consuming, people are a weird kind of animal, easy to manipulate, as you may have seen in the last decade

[@cyrolocker1229]

It’s impressive just how universal the backlash is, Truly it is Public Relations Art to get literally absolutely everyone to hate you

[@thefiresworddragon927]

I mean, that's what happens when you simultaneously attack Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Steam, Epic, and Disney by doing this.

[@Hotarg]

Living up to the name Unity.

[@ZzVinniezZ]

next thing u know they got the ball to say "microsoft will pay for all the installation of their game pass"

[@TheS0m3B0dy]

Crazy thing about Vampire Survivors is that it wasn't originally even made in Unity, but rather they just switched engines to Unity about a month ago. Can't even imagine being in the shoes of the devs right now, potentially having to port to a new engine again after only having done so.

[@zerohbeat]

Yeah... sadly I think that this will be happening in many studios / idie projects. Thankfully learning how Unity works + porting experience is at least some experience for game devs. If they port again to another engine, it may not be as bad as it was originally (due to the learned experience)

[@pilouuuu]

It's great to see so much unity against Unity

[@DeathCluntch]

Which Fifa and other sports games stood up like that against Gambling casino known as Ultimate team!

[@JohnQBrown]

This is one of the clearest cases of insider trading & fraud that I’ve ever witnessed. Charging people who never agreed to those changes will hopefully get this guillotine bait broke asf.

[@manograf3231]

An important detail is that they're also proposing to waive this fee completely if you use their data analytics services instead of the competitor's. Probably trying to choke out their direct (and superior) competitor 'AppLovin'. Pretty sure this is illegal.

[@mimik2098]

That's illegal as it goes in direct violation of anti trust laws

[@jakehero95]

Oh you can count on these greedy narcissistic CEOs like John to try everything they think they can get away with. Never stay very long anywhere so they don't have to face the consequences of their decisions and use the time they do have to make as much money in as little time as possible not giving a crap abt the long term or interests of the business and consumers. Until these ppl start getting jail time instead of hit with a fine that they usually don't even pay out of pocket or given a deal they're gonna keep trying it as egregiously as they have been in recent yrs. Our government is willfully complicit, mainly cuz a bunch of the ppl in it are these same ppl or share in the profits. And all the while we've for the most part sat there and let it happen almost never doing anything beyond posting on social media before it's forgotten a short time later. We're too busy pointing the finger and fighting with each other too. At this point so much needs changing i don't even know where to begin.

[@anakomaru]

"Remember, you can play the game absolutely free, but some people will most likely spend money to gain an advantage."

[@Dracossaint]

That is extremely illegal

[@shorty1k]

God the clip of Riccitiello talking with evil music in the background is such a classic. Amazing how fucking timeless it turned out to be after all these years.

[@JingIeFett]

Not only that, he was fired/resigned from EA in 2013 for “poor financial performance”. And here we are 10 years later…

[@jacehackworth6413]

@@JingIeFettdespite knowing the meritocracy is a myth and it’s totally possible to fail upwards, I hope this absolutely KILLS this dudes career. These greedy assholes look out for each other but it has to get to a point where people realize this guy will not make them money. He poisons the well with his presence.

[@CoolManCoolMan123]

​@@JingIeFetthow did he even get in Unity if EA was too embarrassed by him?

[@devandrasimanjuntak1646]

@@CoolManCoolMan123 I think that should be a sign of how screwed the gaming industry is today 😔

[@JingIeFett]

@@CoolManCoolMan123 I asked myself the same thing 9 years ago

[@Bodharas]

Something fishy is going on. There is no way they could be so daft that they wouldn't foresee the backlash. Id be curious to see who is buying a bunch of stock after it dropped. They'll probably backpedal then the stock will go back up. Then you'll see all those stocks just bought, be sold. The fed needs to investigate this. This isn't about games, it's about gaming the market.

[@MisterVercetti]

Like they'll do anything about it. Remember: this is America, the largest neo-feudal state in the world. The government isn't in charge of the uber-wealthy; it's the other way around.

[@B3RyL]

I wouldn't be surprised. This has the whiff of insider trading. But I guess we'll have to wait for SEC to get involved.

[@christopherrapczynski204]

I agree, this definitely feels like market manipulation. this is literally like if tesla was like yeah you have a timed subscription, if it runs out your car will stop working, this makes so little sense theres no way its real

[@wolfhawk1999]

Eh, I dunno. Scummy business practices in gaming isn't new. I think they are seeing how far they can push developers and consumers before they ACTUALLY stop using or supporting the platform

[@WhatWillYouFind]

The long term plan is to put these kind of fees across the entire market to create the profiteering ring that is now with live service MTX on a much grander scale. Remember, MOBILE is the largest platform and guess what this update does the most damage? Freemium games which do ads, mtx, and battlepasses aka Genshin and its ilk

[@fruitelderberry]

For my 3 years of university for game development and design major and minor. I had to use unity, which required me to become fairly proficient with it. although I always wanted to use unreal especially with all the new capabilities they keep adding to it, this whole debacle gives me a good reason to finally switch over. Feel really bad for developers and studios that are being affected negatively by the greed of a few individuals.

[@ApollyonZKX]

John Riccitiello is the employee of the month at Epic Games. No one else has ever brought their company more profit than he has. Congratulations!!

[@spidermarks3936]

This comments gonna age like milk

[@toobig7150]

(its irony) @@spidermarks3936 The CEO literally sold most of his stock because he knew things would go down bad. Right now their market share its literally the lowest it has ever been and mayor publishers are jumping ship by the hour, mayor games are also literally saying "our game will stop being sold in a few weeks" theres also rumours (twitter) that MC and the EU may step in and say "no thank you" (and i totally believe the EU part) Update: their share are down 46% and in just 1 hour it went to 46.9%, jesus they killed their company unless they backpedal FAST.

[@ksl-988]

They're probably just happy that Epic aren't the biggest scumbags in the gaming biz anymore.

[@Matruchus]

​@@spritsfal5088Yeah sure, there have been plenty of exclusives on Epic this year. For example Dead Island 2, Alan Wake 2, Alan Wake remastered, Assasins Creed Mirage, Galactic Civilizations 4, Goat Simulator 3, Sins of a Solar Empire 2. Total number of exclusives are around 40 games this year.

[@globalistgamer6418]

I think if this is allowed to stand legally, it benefits things like Godot more than Epic. If Unity is able to introduce vague new charges on already released products and rewrite their ToS to support it (including removing a clause that says you can use the version of the ToS you agreed to at the time of release) then although Unreal doesn't have these problems now (and arguably under Tim Sweeny, a low probability of introducing them in the medium term) there is still a risk of them occurring in future when you are locked into their infrastructure. If there is no successful legal claim against Unity, FOSS software with MIT style licensing will become the only way to safely hedge against this kind of thing (but it remains to be seen if Godot will get the support required to really be competitive as a 3D engine).

[@PaladinVII]

I am confident they can not lawfully change their pricing model for existing games. If they try to, they will be sued for changing the contract.

[@factorem9327]

Right? That's what baffles me bout this. Since when is a company suddenly allowed to change a contract like this without any agreement from the other party?

[@PaladinVII]

@@factorem9327 My only thought is that there is something in the contract that allows it to be changed? But... I really doubt that. Saying they can change the pricing model after the fact seems VERY illegal.

[@MisterVercetti]

No no no, see, it's not a contract, it's _Terms of Service!_ That's totally different - you can change those all you want! At least, that's how any judge in the country will see it once they've received their million-dollar under-the-table check.

[@JackFoxtrotEDM]

​@@PaladinVII The Terms of Service stated that if Unity's Terms of Service changes, you didn't have to follow the new terms if you're using an older version of Unity. So if you never upgraded your Unity engine you can stay on your existing ToS. Guess what? They removed this from the ToS clause shortly after they made this announcement. So you're royally screwed regardless.

[@LM-nb7rj]

Unity really thought they could alter the deal like darth vader. 😂

[@kirara2516]

First He's trying to turn our own personal games into arcade games with a quarter per round, and now He's punishing devs every time gamers download their games? Why would a dev ever want to make a game if they're going to get charged money instead of paid for it?! Where is the logic in that?! It's just disgusting, shameless greed! Freaking disgusting!!!!

[@ZooiWanted]

I'm pretty sure someone would create a bot for set up virtual PCs on a server or anything and spam install games. If I'm not mistaken here virtual PCs would count as different platforms. And that actually could kill a small to medium self puplishing dev team. I'm not an expert on this one since I only work with hardware and not any software so correct me if I'm wrong but that's simply just to scary.

[@lymadusrodriguez2061]

Huge blow to the gaming industry and development as a whole, just sad to see greed like this. RIP Unity

[@askeladden450]

A blow in the short run, but a blessing in the long run. Open source alternatives needed more eyes and this gave them that. Future of game engines look great.

[@vespenegas261]

@@askeladden450 One thing is for sure -- they didn't have to do that and yet it was a long planned operation considering they apperently changed TOS in 2022. Not to mention inside trading by theyre own mangment. Shouldn't they be in jail for that or something?

[@askeladden450]

@@vespenegas261 i'm not sure, but from what i have heard, legal action cant be taken against them for tos removal. Stuff like this has happened many times in the past too where companies just discontinue their service on which thousands of developers relied, without any prior notice. This is just what one gets for placing all their eggs in the basket of an entity who's sole purpose of existing is to increase the wealth of stakeholders. I hope atleast this incident raises awareness on just how powerful and untrustworthy these corporations are. And that includes Epic as well.

[@vespenegas261]

@@askeladden450 Hm... Interesting. I just remembered e-mails they wrote out as a glitch to make people "update" their version. Right about TOS were thrown in a ditch. Tin foil hats on -- they knew what they were doing, going after mobile money and throwing indies under the bus. I guess they never heared of FAFO graph

[@Rotomoo]

This reminds me of how Wizards of the Coast tried to do something similar with D&D. If the community will retaliate much like the D&D community did, pretty sure Unity would have to go back on this. This is shooting themselves in the foot, currently speedrunning how to lose your entire audience of developers.

[@MihanTheNoob]

Shooting them selfs in the foot? They are fucking shooting them selfs in the head 😂😂 Their reputation have been put in to the grave 💀

[@errorx_x1063]

It looks more like blasting their leg off

[@Mac_Omegaly]

Yes, as I pointed out, Unity removed their protection from their terms of service after the failure of WotC.

[@Toastybees]

Even if they walk this back the damage is done, developers are going to be looking hard at other engines now that Unity has shown their hand.

[@sodreir.8666]

More like blasting themselves at the stomach with a shotgun

[@DR4C44N]

A CEO from EA causes the company to lose a bunch of money. Who would've guessed...

[@THGMR-ox7sd]

I’m surprised they never learn and keep shooting them selves in the foot. I shouldn’t be surprised though but what do they expect when they do dumb stuff all the time?

[@verenabecker2724]

I love how rhey keep reassuring everyone that they will work with developers to resolve fraud, when NOT resolving or even proving it happened is literally in their best interest.

[@CeHee123]

Fucking hell, I had heard passing mentions of Unity doung some dumb shit, but this is genuinely evil. Even after all these years watching game industry bull shit, I had no idea a company could stoop THIS low.

[@KarazolaX]

I'm pretty sure that their actual plan is to try and force MICROSOFT to BUY THEM OUT. If this goes through, the hundreds of unity games offered on Gamepass would be Microsoft's responsibility to pay these install fees for. Unity said that themselves. Microsoft doesn't make money per game off of gamepass, so any unity game suddenly becomes a MASSIVE risk to sink gamepass. So, Microsoft either removes the huge amount of Unity games gamepass offers, and prevents them from acquiring NEW Unity games, which would be a PR disaster for their service, or Microsoft considers a buyout to keep this change from happening. They already paid for the rights to these games on gamepass, they already have a huge investment in Unity that this change would basically disintegrate. Forcing a buyout from Microsoft is the only thing that makes sense, there's no way they didn't see the PR nightmare, they had to have been counting on it. The company heads sold off all their stock, knowing full well that this was going to tank their price, and they're holding a generation of indie games hostage to do it.

[@panzershrek7942]

I will remember that.

[@dhoffnun]

I smell so many lawsuits congealing right now

[@ribicb]

MIcrosoft's lawyers will eat Unity alive if Unity tries to enforce their newly invented unilateral change of rules.

[@wafflingmean4477]

Pretty sure Microsoft would rather remove every Unity title from Game Pass than allow Unity to extort them like that. Microsoft has a fair few Unreal Engine games on Game Pass too and likely many, many more on the horizon given Unreal's success. Letting Unity extort them is a basically giving permission for Epic to pull the same move. In the long term, the WAY better option for Microsoft is to go scorched Earth on Unity right now. Unity's already built up the social media hellstorm Microsoft needs in order to deflect all blame.

[@AegixDrakan]

HUH........ That is actually a pretty compelling conspiracy. I don't really believe it, but I wouldn't be all that surprised if it were true.

[@Nr4747]

Another problem: Early Access supposedly counts as a chargable download, but many Early Access titles require you to uninstall them and install the full version of the game once it launches (i.e. Baldur's Gate 3, for example). In that case, Unity would charge twice for what is effectively only 1 purchase of a game, just like with installing the same game on several devices or re-installing a game after having uninstalled it to save disc space.

[@42Mrgreenman]

Yeah, unless they give details on their "Proprietary data collection model"...I don't see how they can track all that data unless they are getting it without permission, burying access to it in a EULA, or they are just guessing...all three sound illegal to me, but I'm no lawyer...data privacy is such a clusterf*ck that I can't believe whomever is in charge of data security authorized it, unless they were simply overruled...dealing with internal data transfers is already a Herculean task, let alone tracking every install of every owner on every program of your platform...

[@BlackJar72]

What is really disturbing is they claim a right to change the rules for games that may have been out for years and were entirely developed under a different agreement -- not just this time, but potentially in the future to who knows what. How can anyone trust them now.

[@ChrisGrump]

Speaking out and threatening is not enough. Devs need to drop unity, no matter what they do now. They have proven time and time again that they can not be trusted.

[@faeb.9618]

basically just about all devs that can have already said they are looking into how to switch engines in their current projects and which engines to use for future ones. the only problem is that for a lot of existing games and near finished projects switching engines is not easy or feasible

[@ChrisGrump]

​@@faeb.9618i know. It is always easier said then done. But this really needs to happen.

[@Raigekon]

@@ChrisGrump It might not be outright possible tho, it costs time and money and a smaller studio might outright not have enough money to swap engines.

[@ChrisGrump]

Well, the alternative will be going out of buinsness because they have to pay fees to Unity. If they cant swap engines, they certainly cant pay this crap.@@Raigekon

[@Kuhmodo]

TBH this is next level EA. To go further beyond EA, if you will. Putting microtransactions on the devs themselves is fever dreamish lol

[@Buttz2Buttz]

If indie devs dont bring a lawsuit against them, this WILL spread to other industries. We will see if they have any balls.

[@nyencatchristmas2817]

​@@WiiManElitethe issue is that porting games to another engine could mean learning an entirely new coding language, with the possibility of it being even harder to code in. Not to mention the amount of learning curves a new engine could have.

[@nyencatchristmas2817]

@@WiiManElite honestly same. Didn't mean to seem like I was supportive of that

[@BboyFever]

@@WiiManElite To put it into perspective, it could take over a year or longer sometimes to port a game. And all these game studios have salaries and rent to pay. Keep in mind while developing the game (which already took 1 - 3 years previously) the weren't making any money. A good analogy would be you taking out a large loan to go to college. Just when you are about to graduate, the college tells you "oh, we have a new plan. Every dollar you earn from your career with our degree, we want a %". of course you're pissed, but are you gonna not graduate and take out a new loan and start again at a different college? Maybe you can afford to do that. Some cannot. That is the position some game studios are in.

[@legotechnic1314]

Lawsuits are expensive and drag on for years. Part of being an indie dev is that it's almost never financially feasible to have to go to court. Fighting for your principles is a costly affair these days.

[@EudaderurScheiss]

@@WiiManElite for someone who worked on a game inside unity for 5 years this made me smile^^ yeah or we just dont make games anymore. not worth the trouble as it seems

[@philkensebben6672]

You know you done fucked up when Yong gives you 42 minutes of his time

[@BCEcho]

Its not even a matter of how they can track installs or whatever, just the audicity to think they can change their policy across the board like this is what gets me