Unity - Game Dev Explains - (Pay per install drama / scam)

yesterday Unity decided to baffle the world by announcing its pay per install business model. this has caused waves of upset and confusion as this will actively destroy indie games
#scam #unity #drama
Unity - How to kill the gaming industry - (Pay per install drama)
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[@Wauzmons]

I'm pretty much losing 2 years of my work because of this shit. I hate how corporate greed is ruining creativity and passion over and over again. Things I love are getting destroyed, just so some rich asshole can buy a new yacht. I am so tired...

[@hopelessdecoy]

The sad thing is is that they could of made money in a symbiotic fashion vs this parasitic one..... I don't think anyone is against Unity making money as long as it's fair. This is not just greed it's incompetence in running a business. It's like a lumber yard charging home builders for every person who moves into their homes and then wondering why no one buys their product....

[@ItsBoyRed]

Godot! :D

[@shadeitplease7383]

Hate to hear it man. Corporations always find a way to ruin shit. Good luck to you.

[@keccakec]

Gets worse if you look up how much the guy, who came from ea ironically, that made this decision makes a year.. 11 mil to come up with these braindead decisions

[@hopelessdecoy]

@@keccakec Oh God, EA? No wonder then. RIP Unity

[@khandimahn9687]

I imagine there will be litigation against Unity in the very near future. Especially since the CEO and execs dumped stock a week before this announcement. That sure sounds like insider trading, which is very illegal.

[@khrishp]

I do wish that was true but it's more of a nothing burger. Unfortunately. The CEO sold 2000 stocks the week before this announcement but he has several million stocks so it was more just a routine trading operation, not indicative of insider trading. I think it's actually worse though because that means that the CEO honestly believes that this is the best way to run the company, which makes it very unlikely that they'll change their course now.

[@TimmehWatson]

​@@khrishpgiven he's a former Exec for EA, I imagine he's pretty well versed in putting the corporate interests before the players/community.

[@AM-qo8sh]

Given the attitude of we will make up a number and send you a bill (just trust us). It seems to me like there should be some wire fraud litigation as soon as 2024 rolls around and they start sending out their unsubstantiated invoices. Force them to produce transparent billing, which in turn will expose their dodgy practices for tracking users.

[@thomaslacroix6011]

"we can change the agreement at any time for any reason" is not an enforceable clause in any contract. Normally it takes something outrageous for a contract or agreement to be illegal, but this does seem to reach the outrageousness required

[@-AirKat-]

@@TimmehWatsonI heard he wanted to put micro transactions on _reloading_ in Battlefield

[@mug-o-tea9517]

when your 2 years into a project, (around 50% done) and you realise that in reality you only have textures, 3d models, and a new engine to learn

[@CallumUpton]

thats the spirit!

[@kinrechoo3183]

that the thing about making game that most player don't know, is that we have to keep learning non stop.

[@Trollleben]

Or just cry about it and give up lol there are too many bad games out there that are garbage that need to go under anyways

[@myob94]

@@Trolllebenholy robot. Go farm reactions somewhere else 😂

[@tristunalekzander5608]

And easily portable scripts if you use C# Godot (which I would highly recommend)

[@twilightthepony]

Developer: "How do we know that fees you're asking me to pay are correct?" Unity: "Trust us, brah."

[@ilaril]

Maybe they'll sell you even a "trust me bro - warranty" shirt on top off it too.

[@Light-kq9qp]

How can that be legal. Imagine two people go to a restaurant, order the same meals, and the restaurant estimated their bills. One person would end up paying slightly more or less than the other person if they just estimated the prices without going into explicit detail. You cannot just estimate someone's bill, you have to have a receipt detailing every single transaction or else they could just add a few extra dollars because it is within the margin of error. That is the problem with estimating costs, it is unpredictable and inconsistent. This has to be illegal.

[@SergeDuka]

@@Light-kq9qpI don’t think any court would agree with this BS. There’s gonna be a huge pile of lawsuits on Jan, 2.

[@tzxazrael]

well it's not like they'd have any kind of ... idk, financial incentive or something... to purposefully inflate the numbers a bit, right? surely they'd ~never~ abuse public trust by doing that, would they.

[@kanadaj3275]

The funny part is that per any lawyer I've asked, doing this change to any previous versions of Unity is actually wildly illegal. For future versions they could get away with it, but not for versions that are already released because they do not provide additional value for this transaction of additional funds. That's not to mention laws against bait&switch tactics, which is a kind of fraud.

[@thePsiMatrix]

Yeah, I've seen the courtroom dramas where someone tries to change the terms of a contract and they lost. A Landlord changed the terms of a lease, the renters said no and moved out, landlord tried to sue them for lost rent since they broke the lease, landlord changed the terms mid-contract so they didn't owe because the lease was 'broken'. Also didn't help they modified the actual signed lease so the renters had a copy of the unaltered original. Same as Adobe providing old versions of Photoshop CS2 et. al. (that once leaked out years ago) because that would break the terms of the original sale.

[@CainXVII]

Yeah that's my understanding of the law too. You can't just alter a contract backwards, and if you want to make changes, both parties have to agree. There is a rule that you can't get something for nothing but I'm not sure that applies here since you are still getting the program, it's just a price hike. I definitely think it will be hard for Unity to argue that the people who made games in the past signed off on this though

[@thelasttoknow]

I believe that’s why companies are trying to push this practice. Because if it becomes the norm like most stuff regurgitated into our faces them they can say oh but not that many people complained so it’s fine. As common as thees company’s try to push this bad practice. There should be a new law to keep companies in line. To quit trying to attack normal workers from pulling these stunts. Stilling data, trying to bleed small creatures for their work, and in bad faith. If the rolls were reversed would they accept the same fate?

[@sunbleachedangel]

I'm sure there could be a class action that would sue Unity for the equivalent of 5 dollars and they will surely never do anything like this every again after that

[@demiwolf4life13]

This, my first thought was that a licensing agreement can't be retroactively changed and I don't think they could apply this to any game created or published before this policy goes into effect. There's an argument that any game that starts development before the change can ignore this charge and people could buy a save from a 3rd party created before next year and argue that the change doesn't apply to them.

[@stage6fan475]

There is a new hit game that all game industry CEO's are absolutely mad about playing: "Who can be the biggest scum bag". You get extra points if every serious gamer hates your guts and wishes a big filthy sanitation truck would run over your face.

[@BRBingeDrinker]

I can think of a couple CEOs...

[@Trollleben]

I think people are making it into a bigger deal than it needs to be

[@corranhorn85]

Really??? How big of a deal do you think it should be? What possible defense could you make for the decision??@@Trollleben

[@Trollleben]

None at all @@corranhorn85 most of you here in the comments aren't game devs, real ones at least lol and the guy making the video even said he was an Unreal guy anyways so he's just making a video bitching about something that has no effect on him either

[@corranhorn85]

So, you have no idea what you're talking about. Cool.@@Trollleben

[@mrboogerlip]

I'm not even a game developer, but this is so upsetting to hear. I wish all the devs who've used Unity luck

[@everythingpony]

I'm a backer for backpackhero, it's an issue

[@raploky]

thx man

[@Trollleben]

I had to laugh at how sensitive people are getting upset when it has nothing to do with them lmfao!

[@Trollleben]

not for you it isn't @@everythingpony lol

[@raploky]

@@Trollleben so you don't care that company that offers you their product just punishing you by achieving success using it? You don't care about the fact that they can and WILL change their rules mid-game once more? No?

[@alexankd]

I was primarily a Unity developer, but I was moved to an Unreal project a few months ago and have been learning the engine since then. I had no idea what a huge, if unintentional, favour my company did for me.

[@Lewrid]

They quietly scrubbed their TOS right before this, a TOS that explicitly mentions that you won't have to abide to TOS changes that were made after your game was released. You know, kinda like this retroactively counting your sales before January 1st.

[@MERLK2]

one sided change of business contracts will give em a lot of attention ... by business lawyers and comissions. Cause this looks not exactly law-abiding

[@znail4675]

@@MERLK2 Anyone wanna bet how long it will take until Blizzard or another major publisher sues them?

[@ClockworkBard]

​@@znail4675 I'm curious how these changes impact Game Pass and PlayStation Plus. If Unity inadvertently tried to change the deal on Microsoft or Sony, all the courtroom transcripts would say is: Omae wa mou shindeiru. Nani?!

[@anderskronquist9750]

@@znail4675 In another segment they mention they will go for the distributor/publisher side, which with Gamepass games likely means Microsoft, and they're far from alone (Epic Games with their Free Games might qualify, as was mentioned elsewhere) I'm pretty sure that all of that will not be received well, no matter how small the install fee is. The main issue is that for games like Witcher 3 or other super popular games, you will likely end up with reinstalls eating up all of that profit. Sure, sure, it's not likely to happen to everyone, but it's a flat fee per action made by someone other than you. Of course it's going to fuck someone over. The web part is the worst, of course, but with streaming games becoming more popular, how will that work? Every time I log into nVidias streaming centre and click a game, it's an install? Of course they'll try to do something about it, maybe try to limit it to a max of one reinstall fee per user per time period (day? month? year?), but since they're going "trust us brah, and if not, file a complaint to our fraud department and we'll get right on that" then they should have expected this backlash. As Callum said, it's just a really bad idea that gets worse the more you look into it, and even worse, it might be deliberately designed to let them pass their revenue split thing as "the lesser of two evils" and try to force everyone to use their systems to deliver ads and sell microtransactions to users.

[@WK-47]

Terms of service aren't legally binding - a company could write something in them that breaks laws - and are mostly there to cover asses. If this goes to court (hopefully something like the EFF will support the backlash and provide legal aid) then we can expect at least some aspects of the change, particularly that sneaky retroactive one, to be deemed unlawful. It's more than an ideological issue as it directly affects the bottom line of SMEs (small and medium enterprises), which as a business decision will have to migrate engine. That'll in turn ironically cause Unity to take a major hit to profits. Greed is greed, but it's hard to see something so impractical and unsustainable working the way they'd like it to. Of course, this is all speculation. Time will tell. What's certain is that Unity is way out of line. Usually I support legit businesses taking reasonable steps to foster profits, because it's often of benefit to the economy and is ethical as long as it doesn't harm the consumer, but there's no way after so many successful years that this is necessary for Unity to continue operating.

[@jorgebernier5d]

One thing is true, even if they back down after the backlash, they pretty much already showed how little they think of their clients/developers. If I was a Unity user, I would run as far away from Unity as I can (while I can) and NEVER look back.

[@kavinh10]

they just need a tiny portion of developpers to stay on board for it to be a success.

[@alt-q1y]

Yup, even if this is reverted, I'm totally done with Unity. Anti-consumerism is a disgusting thing. Godot seems like a solid replacement

[@alt-q1y]

@@kavinh10 I don't see any successful dev sticking with Unity, that's a LOT of money that's going down the drain

[@olafthebear2327]

They've shown their colours

[@dongiovanni1993]

Disagree. There is a huge ecosystem, which is stupid to abandon just for one (a few) CEO guy stupidity. If the community reaction will be right, they will just step back and forget the idea for a while. Also others may learn some lesson from this very case, which is good too. They call it a negative feedback loop.

[@krazer9515]

Got to love Unity's comment that "it wont affect most companies". As if what they really want to say is "It wont affect them now, but in the future after everyone has accepted this model, we will slowly expand our charges to get more money"

[@razaquu]

THIS is the real gist of things right now.

[@maxhax367]

It won't affect companies. It will destroy everyone else

[@AkhierDragonheart]

This is like a lottery saying they're now going to charge the winner for every ticket sold. Sure, most people aren't going to win. However, everyone who is going to buy a ticket at least hopes to win. So even if this literally only affected a handful of games, every developer needs to consider the fact that they might end up being one of those games. Because even horrible games can end up viral.

[@SnivyTries]

Here's the best part...remember how they released that table of pricing? Big companies don't use Unity like we do, they pay for the fancy upgraded version. They pay a PENNY per install for using the business version, whereas home users pay 20 cents. They are literally charging smaller devs 20x the price for success.

[@hiddenshadow2105]

@@SnivyTriesAnd they don't charge gambling companies a cent.

[@TimothyChapman]

Dev team: Has a bunch of systems of various hardware configurations to test that their game runs well on each system. Unity: "That'll be $10.00 for every build tested."

[@nexustarget8994]

The crazy thing isn't that this isn't an incremental progress of worse like most companies do, this is an insane leap into fantasy. Like there aren't even costs to installing a runtime for them, they gave no justification other than we want more money.

[@goon009]

Are they taking some advice from Adobe, don't make better products make people pay more for a mediocre product

[@connormclernon26]

The guy in charge is a former EA executive who needs to be fired with no golden parachute

[@R2Bl3nd]

Maybe they're going to backpedal and say they were just kidding and they accidentally published a draft memo or whatever. We can only hope

[@azmbp2]

@@R2Bl3nd lmaooo, reminds me of the Rust Foundation drama a few months ago.

[@UlshaRS]

It's the big bad idea so when they roll out their actual idea it seems 'better' but it's just a slightly smaller pile of radioactive shite

[@dpm305]

There are already quite a few communities openly discussing using the mass install attack you discussed. Their response to this matter is basically "just trust us bro" when people ask how they will prevent people from just faking installs. The funniest bit about this is unity is already used by the most MTX heavy industry to boot. Mobile game devs love to use unity, both western and eastern. They operate on a business model that is predicated on a tiny fraction of the install base actually putting in money, along with the expectation that people will not just reinstall but install on more than one device. To quote a famous angry gamer "WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!".

[@Legoguy9875]

What baffles me the most is that this applies not just to future releases, but ALL releases. It would be one thing if this only applied to games developed/released after the Jan 1st 2024 date when the policy goes live, since at least it would give developers time to decide whether or not to risk the financial burden with whatever current project they have. Having this apply retroactively to ALL Unity games means that even if you decide to stop using Unity going forward, you're still at risk of being financially screwed over if you've released a game prior to this. The fact that they scrubbed their TOS of anything stating that developers working on older versions of Unity are exempt from policy changes like these just proves that this decision was driven solely by greed, regardless of whether or not they backtrack on it.

[@znail4675]

Changing the TOS and removing the parts that prevents the TOS from being unilaterally changed can be considered fraud even, so we aren't only talking about civil charges, but criminal charges as well.

[@cassiusbright1062]

Frankly, to abandon Unity at this point isn't even a boycott, it's self preservation. No matter how hard they backtrack on this, they've proven that they're willing to throw all trust in the garbage for a quick buck. Anybody that has the option to not use Unity at this point but continues to is, in the nicest words possible, an idiot. My sympathies to those that are stuck with it for the foreseeable future and the best of luck to them in transitioning away from it.

[@HandFromCoffin]

it's not a boycott when they force you out... I mean this is just.. wtf...

[@Trollleben]

I'm laughing so hard at how upset everyone is over Unity, people should really go read everything it says instead of listening to a guy who said in the video he's an unreal guy and has no affect on him lmfao!

[@moronicmisfit9148]

​@@Trollleben

[@Gordoxgrey]

@@Trollleben So what is he's a UE developer? A ton of Unity developers are also pissed at this dumb decision

[@devforfun5618]

should i also ignore all the other unity developers i follow that are migrating to godot ?@@Trollleben

[@adam7802]

Unity insiders were selling their shares all year, they knew what was coming. You can also see they have a huge amount of debt... They are clearly desperate.

[@snowcold903]

and on top of their debt they are getting sued too for what they currently are doing.

[@megamax898]

Company is in debt but keep giving the dirtbag CEO his millions of dollars a year. I wonder why it’s not profitable? Is it our fault? Or is it the CEO who has more money than a small city?

[@Trollleben]

Citation needed, you sound like a democrat saying something without any proof

[@UCXEO5L8xnaMJhtUsuNXhlmQ]

​@@megamax898The CEO that got fired as the CEO of EA

[@adam7802]

@@megamax898 all I know is my friend looked at the numbers and their debt has drastically soared to billions in a couple of years. Not sure how they can rack up so much so quickly but it looks really bad.

[@CAlbeluhn]

In quite a few regions in the world, it is illegal to retroactively change the TOS and start charging people money because the company wanted more money. This specifically is one aspect that's going to get Unity sued by multiple companies. Also, Unity did state somewhere that they'll be going to the platforms selling the games I believe, which would mean distributors like steam... I wonder what the lawyers at Steam would think when they get a random outrageous invoice that wasn't previously agreed upon from Unity. (this is just going to get worse and worse). You can definitely make new rules and put them out there for future projects to abide by, but you can't go back and just change TOS like this.

[@Trollleben]

Does it affect you? it's not going against the end users, just the low quality devs

[@CAlbeluhn]

​@@Trollleben "Just the lower quality devs". That's a terrible take on the situation. And yes, it does effect me considering I'm a game developer. Even if it didn't, it still is an issue for a ton of games already on the market considering things are retroactively applied (or so Unity says) to previously released games. As in, games will be taken down, demos won't be released as much, there will be fewer early access games. This effects anyone who plays games. Developers who are used to Unity that are now jumping ship due to mistrust in the company now have to re-learn aspects of different game engines. "Just the low quality devs"... They won't be effected by this if they don't reach 200,000 installs, as well as $200,000 profit. Bad games most likely won't reach these thresholds, so bad games won't be effected by this.

[@Trollleben]

I gotta admit @@CAlbeluhn I haven't read anything any of you have been commenting lmfao! I'm just here stirring the shit as they say, I could care less about Unity or the devs, I'm here for the comments

[@MegaRifty]

Not just steam. They'd also be going after companies like Microsoft, charging them for games made by developers they've published for. It's not going to end well for unity.

[@sirsurb]

....but you can't go back and just change TOS like this... youtube left the chat

[@RAFMnBgaming]

it's kind of terrifying what this means for games preservation too. Not only are a lot of games going to be delisted or taken offline because the creators can't pay, moving around whatever legitimate copies of the games do exist in the wild is going to still create a financial burden for the devs so we may end up in a situation where some games are forever trapped on a small group of PCs, all of which will eventually fail.

[@cheezking28]

As if games preservation needed MORE pitfalls... god this sux

[@ThoraeJenkins]

I mean, if a game is in a state that it needs to be preserved, there's no company for them to try and charge. Also it's not impossible for people who don't plan on using Unity any more after this to just tell Unity to go fuck themselves when they come calling for these fees. What're they gonna do, start a lawsuit over a few hundred dollars? The company was already losing money before this change, they'll bankrupt sooner than later, just stall if they do sue you.

[@RAFMnBgaming]

@@ThoraeJenkins That's far from the case. There are a ton of games from companies that are still around that need/have needed preservation efforts because the companies behind them don't keep them listed or have had to take down after they lost the liscences to stuff in them. I mean, we all remember the e-shop closure earlier this year, right? Unity offered Wii U build support IIRC. There's tons of Wii U games from companies still doing fine who absolutely could have unity knocking on their door depending on what engine they used whose games are still completely inaccessible.

[@ThoraeJenkins]

@@RAFMnBgaming That's super fair, I really only think about games from a PC perspective and that doesn't come up as often because of how easy it is to 'pirate' games that are no-longer available. RIP console brothers, you guys have it rough

[@kveller555]

Well, pirates will be there to save us once again. It never stops being hilarious to me how constantly breaking the law (at least as far as videogames are concerned) ends up being the most ethical thing people can do a lot of the time.

[@nixilaas8071]

Unity managed to find a way to be the most evil company in gaming in one easy step that's impressive

[@madeliner1682]

Yeah, like Bro. This is a category with EA in it 0_o

[@raysandrarexxia941]

@@madeliner1682 Unity CEO was former EA CEO. He owns the category.

[@kusazero]

This is not evil, at least evil needs to be cunning.

[@nixilaas8071]

funny you should mention EA have a cheeky look at what other places Unity CEO has worked lol@@madeliner1682

[@UlshaRS]

This is Corpo Greed Exploiter V 3.2 Same user, new features

[@ryans5615]

Brought to you by the CEO that amplified the EA Spouse "grind ethic", started driving Bioware into the ground, and decided charging MTX per reload is a brilliant idea...

[@wobblyboost]

also RiP BF :(

[@Nerobyrne]

would be cool if we could elect them, wouldn't it?

[@DeadPixel1105]

All these big businesses *seriously* need to stop bringing this guy in to be their CEO. He does nothing but incredible damage to every company he works for. You'd think businesses would have learned by now that he's NOT good for business. He's poison and will do nothing but damage the company and its reputation. He plans to drive up profit ALWAYS backfire and wind up costing the company money in the end. How is this guy STILL getting work anywhere? He's shown time and time again that he does NOT have the intelligence or foresight to be a CEO.

[@Xyler94]

@@DeadPixel1105 Unfortunately, he makes short term money, the only thing investors and shareholders care about. They don't care that a decision can make them lose money in 2 years, they only care that this makes money this month... Which is so shortsighted of anyone.

[@UnkleCreepy75]

This should be illegal due to the fact that a collective could purposely drain a target dry. Disgruntled gamer / developer with big fan bases installing and deleting repetitively. Wow this is bad.

[@Novice_Maker]

I'm pretty sure it is illegal if they go through with it. The contracts with most studios probably don't mention this, if they then attempt to charge studios for downloads on games that are already out under this new model, the studios can probably get a class action going. If they do it for new purchases their sales will go down, and devs who are attacked in that way will have reasonable grounds for a class action. Basically it will be a bloody mess in court.

[@Trollleben]

I'm gonna laugh when people go read everything directly from Unity instead of watching some dude on KZbin that cherry picks what he wants to put in his video

[@charg1nmalaz0r51]

@@Trollleben enlighten us because the words were there on the screen. What could they possibly say to make it better lol

[@Novice_Maker]

The cherry picked stuff is pretty bad. They'd better give everyone on earth a gold plated gobjob to make up for it

[@Trollleben]

Na @@charg1nmalaz0r51 I'm saying a lot of game devs need to fail lol most of the games out now are garbage anyways

[@GeorgFKa]

As a D&D player and content creator, this is giving me the weirdest DejaVu to the Wizards of the Coast OGL crisis earlier this year. I understand (begrudgingly) that corporations literally have to milk their IPs and product for every possible cent, but the levels of disconnect between the corporate suits and their customers (and likely most of their staff making the actual product) are just comically off the chart.

[@josephpotter5766]

This. Right up to and including the flagrently illegal concept of changing the terms on a previously negotiated contract and attempting to enforce it against prior art.

[@WhatWillYouFind]

The saddest thing too is that we still have Neverwinter Nights "the games, not the mmo" and Baldurs Gate 3. Their live service digital client just does not seem to have any viability, because they will try to extract more money than what the condensed experiences offer at much higher rates. No dm I have ever talked to used a digital client, they have the books or pdf files and run it like a traditional game. If a modern client was released they're competing directly against MASSIVELY well made products that WILL put them to shame because unlike Larian, WOTC has 0 passion for their product these days. The average user or DM is not going to allow themselves to be nickle and dimed to buy a cosmetic cloak, or spell FX, or whatever else might be required to mirror whatever they have bought IRL. It is a none starter, in WOTC case . . . Larian buying them out and making a "decree" that the company is returning to it's roots would be the only fix in my eyes for what was attempted earlier. WOTC needs to be "under new management." UNITY needs the same, but I doubt anyone will use them anymore anyway . . . because unless they codify that they will never do in the future, which I could believe if it was Larian, then it is all moot. Unity self immolated themselves and they deserve their just rewards.

[@PixelPenGamer]

Yet the idiots buying their crap just continued as soonnas WotC backtracked. Hopefully this does not happen here.

[@Zambles]

Jesus christ the OGL thing was THIS YEAR? i deadass thought that was like 2 years ago

[@keithwinget6521]

@@Zambles I mean, we all kind of aged 2 years since then, taking all the drama so far this year around the world into consideration... Shit is just nuts.

[@unwarranteddesign806]

Mega Crit (Slay the Spire) put out a statement last night saying that they're knee deep into the development of their next game, which is using Unity, and are going to migrate it to a new engine. What got me about it is they ended the statement with "We have never made a public statement before. That is badly you fucked up."

[@wadz668]

Even if they walk it back, the damage is already done. My kid uses Unity and said now he's going to make his own game engine for developing in. It's something he'd been working on the past few months but now is putting more time and effort into. The game industry needs to be run by gamers (like it used to be)

[@RagnarokiaNG]

Its a good thing there isn't an F5 key that can be used to spam refresh a webpage.

[@nebufabu]

Or that there's no tools that can do it for you, in, say, half a dozen VMs overnight... -600 bucks per night by a single user who was, say, totally unfairly banned for totally not cheating. A brigade of, say, 100 users, who got riled up over whatever can bankrupt most studios in a week... WebGL games are dead.

[@khrishp]

​@@nebufabueven better, the rust developer says that within a day cheat client makers had already developed an auto reinstall program that spoofs unique hardware addresses so that there is almost no way to tell that they are the same person redownloading over and over.

[@Poldovico]

@@nebufabu "I'll make a Docker image of your game" is now a serious threat to a game developer's livelihood. Set up a script that just keeps generating containers with random MAC addresses. Each deploy a new install, probably without even having to go through the installation process.

[@WhatWillYouFind]

"checks tabs, 100 firefox open tabs" well fuck, wouldn't it suck if I had an ADDON that automatically reloads pages and clears my cache on a timer . . . . . ooops sorry Poncle and Vampire Survivors you deserve to eat the corporate sht sandwich. tee hee /sarcasm

[@dans4125]

this is one of the most shocking corporate greed instances I can ever recall.

[@WhatWillYouFind]

I don't believe any alive or dead company has ever tried " per install" fees . . . because the implications of it alone are so based in a dystopia that would make Total Recall a vacation retreat.

[@Gecko998YT]

The head of Unity used to work at EA, which .. explains a lot 💀

[@SharienGaming]

@@WhatWillYouFind some have tried in the past, but not many - like i think microsoft played with that idea for a while, but they abandoned it, either because courts slapped them or because of user backlash though their variant was just the "maximum 3 installs per bought license" kinda crap (and no, that wasnt meant as simultaneous, migrate your system 3 times? yeah thats it you need a new key mind you, this was a long time ago and im not really sure about the specifics...i might get a lot wrong there its just not something thats feasible, especially for something thats commonly installed and deleted like a game - just a speedrun to drive away all customers

[@znail4675]

It's not really a case of greed, but stupidity. There is simply noway that the big publishers will just take this lying down without suing Unity for everything they own.

[@hop-skip-ouch8798]

@@WhatWillYouFind You should know, the person at the helm once theorised asking a dollar for a reload in an FPS game. Because surely someone 6hrs into their session wouldn't quit their game for a dollar.

[@Person01234]

I think it's also safe to say there's not a court around that will uphold Unity's attempts to retroactively apply this. If it does, then it will be setting the precedent in the country that any company you have contracted with at any point can simple amend the contract to say something that you never agreed to and thereby obligate you to pay them an arbitrary amount of money for the rest of your life. It would kill the entire concept of contracts and I don't think I need to explain why that isn't going to stand.

[@OscarSommerbo]

It really depends on how the contracts are worded, and how Unity words this change. Many licensing deal have provisions for changing fees and fee structures. Just like you cable bill goes up without a new contract, so too could the Unity-Dev contract be worded. And worst since it is a click-through agreement, I doubt very many devs actually read the agreement.

[@super12rider]

​@@OscarSommerbo that's only true going forward but when they made the original game that wasn't what they agreed to.

[@Person01234]

@@OscarSommerbo But all such changes to contracts can be rejected. Yes it means the dev would have to stop selling their game, but I'm telling you no halfway sane court would uphold retroactive application of new fees to old actions taken under an old contract that then apply for the rest of your life with no chance to out, no matter how much 1pt "we reserve the right to alter this contract" text they put in it.

[@mikesanders8621]

You think there are courts in the states that are even halfway sane? The FTC just lost to Microsoft. Your country is corrupt beyond repair.

[@setojurai]

The Unity CEO managed to enrage Microsoft, Disney, Apple, Nintendo, Sony, Activision, EA, AND The Yakuza. That's just the short list of organizations who likely want him dead. And The Yakuza aren't even the scariest ones on that list.

[@eavatar]

You forgot Tencent. They might come with wrecking bal

[@loganwidener4811]

The yakuza? Why them specifically?

[@Nerobyrne]

"You thought you could get away with this, haha" *kick "You didn't count on the Mouse, did ya?"

[@znail4675]

This is so crazy as there is noway those major corporations will just let this slide. The only question I got right now is who will acquire Unity after they default?

[@setojurai]

@loganwidener4811 because several Japanese game companies that aren't Nintendo have ties to them.

[@RisingRevengeance]

Here's another problem I thought of. They say this applies to games already on the market, so many of those games will be taken down right. But steam and other platforms still allow you to install those games. What I mean is can the developer get stuck paying these fees even without having a game on the market?

[@Relativity404]

oh shit, you're right!

[@CLove511]

Even then, how about a game that bombed at its $40 release price but has since found success because "Eh, it's only $3"?

[@ClockworkBard]

Also, physical games still exist. If I pick up the Shadowrun Trilogy for Switch off eBay (don't; it's like $80 limited print-run scalping nonsense, but it helps make the point), is that three more installs (one for each game on the cart) the moment I pop it into the system? Three more when I put it in my Switch Lite? Three more when my roommate borrows it? We're already nearly up to $2 in fees for a single cartridge sale that didn't even go to the developer and can't be removed from the market without physically breaking into my house and robbing me.

[@crowhaveninc.2103]

This has been one HELL of a year for stereotypical dystopian corporate bullshit. It's almost as if mega corps and super CEO's are seeing the finish line to a cyberpunk world and are just speedrunning it at this point. This also makes Ross' (Accursed Farm channel) about preserving and archiving games even more important. We might LOSE a lot of these indie games. I think we don't just need a game dev union, but a gaming union in general. Game companies are too easy a target for corporate parasites.

[@Timic83tc]

yuzu emulation wins again, drm bozos

[@RAFMnBgaming]

keep in mind though in this case making copies for the sake of preserving games would still cost the developers money, so even that's been ruined.

[@StoutShako]

Not if they archive them before the hammer comes down and the company makes their game unavailable afterwards.

[@crowhaveninc.2103]

@@RAFMnBgaming yes, that's true. But if they keep them somewhere safe (such as an independent archive organisation) they can re-release it once Unity goes bankrupt

[@Timic83tc]

@@crowhaveninc.2103 any unity game, even if PC one has DRM, will be completely safe if it had a switch releae thanks to yuzu/ryujinx :D

[@wilhelmschmidt7240]

It would be absolutely terrible if a bunch of people started playing with the little bit of code that recognizes download numbers and starts blocking or worse sending negative numbers of installs to Unity (depending on how they track)

[@alaeriia01]

Ooh, the old "roll the odometer back" trick.

[@OscarSommerbo]

I assume that Unity "fraud department" will be very busy. And that patching out the "feature" that tracks install will surface rather quickly.

[@user-S853]

Or just tell your computer’s firewall to never send data to Unity. Wouldn’t be that difficult with a tutorial.

[@svndwich977]

@@OscarSommerbosure, but it’s inevitably going to be a piracy problem for unity, wherein if enough people fuck them over, no legal team in the world could even hope to catch everyone.

[@RobinBlend]

​@@user-S853how would that be handled? this sounds like a good idea so I'm curious! 😮

[@elizabethyoung5304]

This is so scummy. I'm assuming a dev company pays for a license for Unity. Why should devs pay Unity for installs of their games? It’s so horrible for indies

[@ZerglingLover]

they do

[@Toberumono]

This is Unity changing the “license fee”. The easiest good example is Unreal Engine - you pay 5% of revenue for the engine after $1,000,000 (or something like that). Short, simple, everybody makes some money. Unity’s license fee used to require that you pay for the right to make the game in their engine, which is fine (not my preferred style, but it’s not bad). They’re basically making it so that the license to develop and the license to distribute are separate and are making Satan proud with their method of charging for the distribution license.

[@scragar]

Unreal Engine also only collect their fee if you make more than 10,000 USD(or equivalent in other currencies) in a quarter. If you have a bad quarter and only earn $3,300 each month you get to keep all of it even if the game keeps selling(although let's be honest, if your game makes a million I don't think you care much about their less than $500 cut of profits).

[@arpytrooper2604]

​@@scragar5% of a million is $50,000

[@MissGameStudio]

@@arpytrooper2604 Yes, but the first million isn't charged, so $1mil plus $10k would be $500

[@zonenknautsch]

I'm honestly wondering how much of this is even legal in the various jurisdictions it's going to apply.

[@Vastin]

Whole lotta people wondering that right now. Not the least legions of steely eyed high priced lawyers at MS, Sony and Valve, who are supposedly on the hook for Unity runtime installs via their platforms, somehow.

[@HimePenguin]

Even if Unity takes this back, don't go back. Stay away. With this Unity has proven that they don't care and cannot be trusted.

[@Wampa842]

Unity-the-company has been in the doghouse for years by now. It's time for the game engine to follow, and I hope developers will have the fortitude to make an informed choice for their new projects instead of just using the "default" option because it's there. Don't get in bed with the devil just because he offers it first.

[@austinglueck2554]

The engine is an excellent and versatile tool, it's the leaders of the company who are the devil. I'll likely be making my switch soon.

[@leodouskyron5671]

This is a class action lawsuit in the making. I hope they enjoy getting sued because they are demanding money with no accountability & taking info without end user consent. Let me count the laws this could be breaking (not a lawyer).

[@Catheidan]

Class action? They just picked a fight with every company in the business. Microsoft, Tencent, Blizzard, all of them

[@crowhaveninc.2103]

Maybe Legal Eagle will be willing to make a vid about this? He usually doesn't cover niche topics like this, but this might actually be big/interesting enough for him. I mean, especially the last point of "Yeah, if you've already made a game you will have to pay as well" seems VERY illegal to me. It's like rewriting a contract and only keeping the signatures.

[@Rocker-1234]

@@Catheidan the real question is, will ea use thier corporate greed for good for the first time ever?

[@ZeroCanalX]

@@Rocker-1234 The did come down on that asshole who was suing everyone for using word Edge in gaming and forced him in court to admit he actually didn't have the trademark anyway.

[@HandFromCoffin]

Sue for what? There is no mandate you have to use this.

[@roelbrook7559]

I honestly hope this causes Godot to receive some love. Unreal seems like a fantastic engine, but it needs competition (though Godot seems nowhere near that right now)

[@diersteinjulien6773]

as far as I know after playing with it for a few months, godot is very good as a lightweight 2D engine. It's not quite there yet for 3D, but it got the advantage of being totally free

[@Clockwork0nions]

@@diersteinjulien6773 There are still better 2D engine than Godot depending on the type of game you are going to make.

[@diersteinjulien6773]

@@Clockwork0nions good. Having more options is always better. I would be curious to know which you recommend, if you know more

[@chezeus1672]

i can already hear my mom say: "how could your last project fail so suddenly? anyway, i was looking through job offers for you, and [random AAA studio] just opened up new job offers for 'installers'. wasn't it always your dream to work at that company? and you were always good at installing things for me, i'd say that sounds like the perfect job for you!"

[@goffe2282]

The fact that there is absolutely no way to check the numbers on your invoice makes this proposal dead on arrival. I can't imagine it ever passing a challenge in the courts.

[@hedgehogbjj]

I was 4 months into building a RPG as a solo dev in Unity. When this got announced I scrapped my project and started over in UE5. I am lucky I don't have 10 years dev experience with Unity but I do feel the last 4 years of learning Unity was a waste.

[@Xyler94]

Wishing you success on your RPG, :)

[@jeddsh5956]

Same here. I was making a small platform for fun for the past year in unity. That's not happening any more :/

[@IslamistSocialist371]

there is godot. basically an open source unity

[@morgan0]

i hope they get sued over this, and lose their userbase. at this point, you can’t trust them, and making any new game in unity is a liability.

[@dasfloechen]

I have no idea where this will lead to in the end, but, if they really want to send install information (good luck in the EU) I have more trust in the "prates" to disable that and crack the game than to Unity to deliver accurate data.

[@AcanthaDante]

If there ever was an argument to be had for open source game engines, this is it. I've tinkered with Ren'Py before and it's fun for a simple game format (visual novels) and there are others as well. My husband, who is a software engineer (but hasn't worked in gaming) has talked about building tools that facilitate certain game genres more easily, but I might suggest he build them in Unreal or an Open source engine rather than Unity so it doesn't bite his behind.

[@pretzelboi64]

Unreal? Terrible idea. Unreal will eventually pull something like that on its users because it's a public company trying to turn a profit for its investors and the Unity fiasco will turn it into a valuable monopoly which will only accelerate the process of enshittification. It's basic business sense

[@blondbraid7986]

I'm glad I've got experience with AdventureGameStudio.

[@Eeveelyn]

I've seen this happening over and over where company's at any time can decide to change their contract, completely screw you and there's nothing you can do about it. It's easy to say that if you don't like it go somewhere else. In reality that's often not an option at all or comes with significant loss of money and time. The scary part is that if one big company does it, it's not unusual for other ones to follow. I kinda hope that there are some big studios / publishers considering to sue them. This model just goes way to far and is incredibly exploitable. It also punishes anyone who already made a game in Unity or is currently making one when the contract was different and that hopefully opens up some way to do something about it legally.

[@propheinx2250]

Maybe Larian, but no AAA publisher will ever get involved. They have incentive to do nothing at all. AAA are constantly being compared to indie games and the comparison doesn't end up looking good for the AAA game. So why would they stop that from ending?

[@epicgeometro]

We need all major Unity devs to get together and sue Unity for every penny they have. The corporate monsters behind schemes like this aren't even eligible to be called human.

[@justinwhite2725]

This CEO used to work for EA and wanted to charge players $1 to reload in an fps.

[@RebelShardAleph]

I get the feeling that the older versions of the Unity Game engines are gonna be pirated all over the place so that people can still make games and not be harmed by this BS. Because there has to be code in the newest version to enable this scummy behavior so if you go back enough generations it should be impossible for them to enforce their actions. Edit Cuz I didn't see the last QA......0_0! WHELP! *Claps Hands.* Unity is dead.

[@insu_na]

To be fair, warez groups which remove game DRM and release the games on file-sharing sites for free aren't doing this with the intent to hurt the game developers. They of course don't mind potentially hurting the developers, but at least it's not the goal. They of course don't want studios to go bankrupt either, so I'm confident that at least the big warez groups will also remove Unity's install tracker from their pirated versions of the game. It's not like these groups are just morons who copy & paste game files. (By and large at least). Removing DRM usually requires a fair bit of knowledge in reverse engineering, so while they're already removing the DRM, they might as well remove the "bankrupt the devs" "button".

[@harshamohite1289]

You can't release a commercial game project on a pirated piece of software for obvious legal reasons, so that's not an option if you're looking to start a sustainable business.

[@prestigemultimediagroup6436]

​@@harshamohite1289watch me lol btw it's not pirated I've owned a unity license since version 2... I have every legal right to use any version pre the hub... its in the eula for the older versions lol

[@renobutters]

@@insu_na Now I'm imagining Unity throwing a lawsuit at game devs who have had their games cracked and patched against unity trackers. "We are in possession of a widely spread build of your game that is actively violating your user agreement. You owe us one... Million... Dollars! Hohohoho!"

[@distantforest2481]

Unfortunately no, Unity is likely to have been tracking installs long before this. Maybe several years before. That's why they can say with confidence that "Lifetime Installs" count

[@TheInternetHelpdeskPlays]

Given that the unity CEO sold 50,000 of his shares before the announcement, he knew this would go badly. I reckon he will buy them all back with the lower price and then walk back the announcement.

[@vxicepickxv]

I'm not the SEC, but they may want to watch about it.

[@Zetasphere]

C-suite executives have scheduled stock sales. They happen automatically. The CEO has like 3 million shares, so what is a few thousand to him?

[@markbaker4425]

Just to let you know that it was a scheduled stock sell off he had notified the sec about that is yearly. He wouldve been absolutely wrecked. Regulation is tight on this stuff.

[@pelinoregeryon6593]

a deliberately orchestrated dump > deflate > and buy back scheme do you think?

[@Tim5corpion]

reminder that the CEO is a former EA executive.

[@Paul_LaSalle]

I am both a professional game developer, having worked for large AAA studios for the last 20 years, but also an Indi developer having worked on numerous small projects and personal projects. I got my start as a hobby game developer in the late 90s and I’ve been using unity since it was a thing. I love unity it’s easy to learn, highly artist friendly, but because of all this drama I’m checking out other game engines like Gadot and Flax which are open license, free to use and highly capable… i’m also very well-versed in unreal engine. I’ve used that in almost every studio I’ve worked for and currently at Gearbox. I always liked unity because it felt a little more pick up and play.. I have supported unity through thick and thin and I’ve known numerous people who have worked there and this situation is just really sad to see.

[@whyisyes3957]

Godot is easy to learn and is amazing for 2D projects, the issues people report happen when they use 3D where it is inferior to Unreal in every way

[@capybaraenthusiast5164]

My jaw was on the floor this whole video. I read about this news on twitter but i did NOT know the full extent of these new policies until now. As much as I want to gleefully watch Unity get ruined by this, its heartbreaking imagining how many developers will need to get rid of and/or restart their projects from scratch because of this

[@propheinx2250]

Only the AAA industry should be gleeful over this. One of their greatest indie competitors just turned off their own life support. That means less indie games to show us precisely how garbage AAA games really are.

[@TheDragonLegacy]

I wonder how many lawsuits theyve been hit with for changing their policy for past developers

[@khandimahn9687]

Probably none yet, it takes a while to get that sort of think moving. But I imagine they will be hit with litigation soon.

[@Gnidel]

Not just quantity, but also quality. They angered Microsoft, Nintendo, Disney and many other companies known for their lawyers.

[@bbrainstormer2036]

@@Gnidel Why would this effect those 3 companies?

[@Cowboyking92]

​@@bbrainstormer2036Those companies all publish games made using the Unity engine. Most of them tend to be rather protective of their developers and their revenue.

[@Happy_Alcoholic]

@@bbrainstormer2036 Because it will still be an astronomical amount of money they weren't paying before?

[@HeyWhatsUpHelloLetsplay]

Hey as a small time indie dev Thanks for covering this kind of thing. people need to know! (edit) Time to learn unreal XD

[@CallumUpton]

thank you so much! if you click the linkTree in the description, my Discord server has a Developer lounge where you can ask for advice/help learning your new engine :D

[@KianaWolf]

Retroactively charging for the change? That can't be legal. If it is legal, that is a flaw in the legal system that must be changed. And an anecdote: Just a couple weeks ago, I was telling a friend how I remember the early days of Unity with how every browser hosted game was so crash-inclined, but how that's changed in recent years. I was gushing about how there are so many great indie unity projects now, how it's really flourished... aaaand then this happens. All of those indie games I loved, that gave me optimism for new blood entering the industry, are going to die. The company has killed them.

[@MERLK2]

before you go the path of depression any further - think about this: basically, unity had a quasi-monopoly on indy games the last couple years. You had Unreal (not gonna go into the potential problems with that), Frostbite (ahaha imagine a true indy able to afford that one), Source maybe, and so on, and of course inhouse solutions (that demand potentially a lot of time, skill and money, are always abit of a gamble, and are hard to scale pricing wise) ... and then Unity. Unity was, for PC at least THE engine. Stable, solid ... and now they themselves sabotaged that (EA managers never cease to "amaze" me). Devs n Programmers realise that they have to diversify their skill and tool set. Will it break that mentioned quasi monopoly Unity had? Dont know, honestly - but this could be very much a direly needed impulse to avoid stale patterns. The transformative phase could be a bit rocky, but then again - competition is the mother of invention. And therefore good.

[@yuzuchi5381]

It is verry much illegal in all countries im aware of :'D

[@vaporisedair4919]

I wonder if this is even legally enforceable. There are big developers who might be prefer to sue Unity than pay.

[@paynehaynes5418]

it also shakes my faith as a customer. I keep an extensive library in steam and only install the games I am currently playing. if I'm not playing or intend to playing a game I don't have it installed to protect the space on my computer. I regularly install/uninstall games in a rotation. If I know that pattern will actively harm the developers of the games I love I will be hesitant to purchase any game with unity in it. Love the games, especially my indie games, and I almost feel protective of them from something like this that will harm them.

[@OscarSommerbo]

If this is actually in a contract, I think it is illegal (depending on how previous contracts are written) You can't modify a past contract unilaterally. Well you can, but it is quite hard, again depending on what previous contracts say. And I am curious over how they are tying my game to me, that might itself be a GDPR violation. If this goes live, I would love to see some enterprising soul figure out the API and releasing a tool to just flood Unity with fake install updates. Let's see how big that fraud department really is.

[@gateroozeink5061]

The reality is, most of your game sales (by unit) come from heavy discounting on the long tail. You might only be netting $0.50 for a cheap indie game on a heavy sale, after Steam & publisher fees, so Unity would actually be taking 40% of your money in that scenario.

[@KetzerkaterContent]

... or 120% of your money if the user installs it on 3 devices.

[@despistes8160]

When people said piracy will kill the game industry I bet they didn't expect that to be true.

[@masterbasher9542]

Do one upper out of spite. Pirate, ripoff, reverse fuck engineer Unity out of spite. Is clearly, the sole word.

[@ArmageddonEvil]

@@masterbasher9542 In all honesty, if any other company does this, it'll be needed to be out of spite. Pirate Everything before they do something stupid like Unity.

[@saladsquid1]

This is legitimately a lawsuit waiting to happen. Seriously, someone NEEDS to sue them. They actually deserve it.

[@gravity_mxk5663]

I am so sad dude, I have been learning Unity for 3 years and wanted to pitch an exciting open world ftp game but now it’s all in the trash and I need to start over. These past couple of days have been some of the worst I have had in my life and I don’t really know what to do.

[@Mark-vr7pt]

"It won't affect 90% of userbase" Yes, but the remaining 10% is fucked. I'm a full time system dev, and hobbyist game dev, 0 published projects just make some stuff for fun. And even I was horrified and disgusted by this. Started learning Godot... fun engine btw

[@fridayhawks-spangenberg8979]

I'm a strongly support boycotts as a method to influence (especially large) companies, since they are amoral entities whose sole goal is to make money. I made my first game last year as part of your game jam using an html5 & typescript engine, and decided to start learning a 3d engine literally this week. I chose UE5 because it looks so awesome, and you've recommended it so highly, but Unity was a strong contender before this because C# is my primary language; I use it almost every single day for work and personal projects. RIP that idea lol

[@nicholaslarson3778]

Don't fret, C++ is not as hard as people say. For me, I had a background in C++ but not C#, but managed to pick up C# pretty quickly in Unity. I suspect it will be ok the other way, especially for an adult. As a kid, those pointers made no sense, but it is pretty easy now.

[@BonJoviBeatlesLedZep]

This might be THE most ghoulish thing I've ever seen in the entire games industry. I literally can't think of anything worse.

[@ClintWebb]

My daughter is interested in making games, and I literally just started learning about Unity to help her get started... and now that I'm hearing about this, would never ever ever use Unity. Very glad have heard about this now.

[@markhaus]

I see what they’re trying to do. Temporarily increase stock price and cashing out

[@SimonSlav-GameMakingJourney]

Can't wait to pay anytime I want to start my car

[@pelinoregeryon6593]

That's sort of the point of forcing private drivers to give up their cars so they have to use self drive taxis isn't it 🤔

[@samach]

I would like to hear from lawyers about the legality of counting existing installs that happened before the new policy. And I hope the class action is already being prepped.

[@_Morri_]

I'm more thinking about the legality of just retro-actively changing an agreement. Surely they can't just charge you money like this unless you signed a contract? I can't wrap my head around this being legal, but maybe there's some loophole i'm not aware of?

[@markaldrich8753]

I've been a Unity fanboy Through and through since 2015, but the past five years have not been good for the company. Between the IPO, buying competitors instead of updating features, lack of communication, and cancelling promising projects, this was the final straw. I ended up installing a whole slew of game engines to try out (Unreal among them. If I don't like it, I'm blaming you), and plan on making a couple small projects in each before picking one to go with. It'll probably suck for a few weeks, but thankfully Gamedev is 90% problem solving and 10% knowing the engine, so I'll hopefully pick them up quick. (Bonus points to Epic for producing a ton of material for devs leaving Unity)

[@nicholaslarson3778]

You will recover Mark! Go get those engines and WIN!!!

[@nauroticdax]

I can see 2 things they are trying to achieve here, 1 would be forcing people into the more expensive packages (pro and enterprise) as a form of protection due to it's lower charge per install but higher up front cost and 2 forcing indie devs to concede to the micro transaction model thereby further normalising it in gaming in general. It's sad that they are trying to become almost like a second publisher devs will constantly owe money to almost like they're forcing devs to be subject to micro transactions but not having the control to say no once they decide to develop on unity

[@R83145]

"You activated my trap card!" These business practices are disgusting. Thank you for explaining it in so much detail.

[@Naomi_Boyd]

This is beyond boycotting. This is worthy of a lawsuit or two... thousand... ish.

[@asmarlokicerain7706]

1 lawsuit per install

[@svetlinsvilenov8739]

This is the sort of thing you'd expect EA to do... oh wait...

[@finalfanatic4ever]

The part that disgusts me is that this isn't a new development, it's just the next logical step. I hate to say it but there needs to be a catastrophic upheaval in the gaming industry where ALL of the current industry leaders are either obliterated or fragmented and fractured to such a way they are a fraction of their former self proclaimed glory. Going from AAA to aaa if you will. Teach people at the top that they are not infallible untouchables that have the right to do whatever they want. Remind them that those things they take for granted, such as profits, and having a job, are privileges given to them by their consumers. But what do I know? I'm just some minimum wage restaurant worker, not even a face and a name, just one of the background characters. An NPC, a social obligation you have to go through to get your food. Just like how big companies view people who use their products.

[@sunbleachedangel]

You know, before this video, I was kind of on the verge, I was like "Well, from what I understand it's not THAT bad and only affects very specific games and blah blah blah" but after seeing this and now knowing a lot more crucial information about these changes I am 100% not using Unity maybe ever again (only very recently started learning programming and game dev) and witching to, most likely, Godot, maybe Unreal later down the line

[@rmt3589]

15:52 Wizards Of The Coast just did this same kind of thing. Luckily, they backpeddled. There were deffinately boycotts, and they have not been fully forgiven yet.

[@asquirrelman]

Just had a thought, if this is applied retroactively, isnt stuff like Hearthstone built in unity? Wonder what blizzard would have to say.... Free to play games are so screwed with this. As @iandakariann below mentioned, Genshin impact and Honkai Star Rail are also unity games, might explain this a bit more maybe? god knows how many installs those games get.

[@iandakariann]

Genshin and Star rail are unity games. You have to reinstall those games on every new phone you get. I had to install Star rail 6 times in half a year.

[@probablythedm1669]

@@iandakariann what on earth are you doing with your phones to go through roughly one a month?!

[@MrTutiplengo]

@@iandakariann I've reinstalled Genshin about 4 times this year. The reason, I don't have a lot of space left on my iPad, so the update data won't download 'cause there's not enough space. But, if you uninstall then there is sufficient space to download the whole thing from scratch. Go figure.

[@s0sDarkAngels0s]

@@iandakariannRemember everytime the game get updated it's basically "reinstall" the new version of the game so it will be counted as 1 install...

[@rtbear674]

Genshin and star rail might be fine, because they make money out of tons of micro transations, if 1 person bought blessing once pretty much enough to cover. Though probably they will make new one with something else later on. who knows, we'll see.

[@zeph131]

Man, I work for an indie studio and we've been using Unity to make our first game. This is gonna bankrupt us if they actually put this into motion, either from having to move to Unreal and setting us back months or from post-game fees... It's ridiculous what these companies think are good ideas!

[@everythingpony]

It's already in motion

[@Vendavalez]

Your company going bankrupt is a sacrifice they are willing to make.

[@Person01234]

@@Vendavalez Unity will be going bankrupt too, but the CEO doesn't care.He won't end up in jail where he belongs for disregarding his fiduciary responsibility. He probably already had his wife short the company's stock and is now making good the investment.

[@cctakedown333]

​@@Person01234boyo sold 2k shares just a bit before this went down. Someone should file to SEC to look into it

[@WhatWillYouFind]

Make a great game, make the next Vampire Survivors mega hit. Once you do, have someone buy you out from the Caymen Islands or somewhere else remote. Transfer the entire business out, declare bankrupcy when you get the bill. Use the sales to be happy for once, make the sequel with a neatly packed "classic mode" of that former game in completely different engine? Unity can't retroactively change your agreed, signed contract AFTER the fact. If you live in the EU they are in for some hell. I hope your game allows you all to succeed

[@crondog]

To be fair, they have updated the FAQ to say that reinstalls and web games don't count. How they will track reinstalls, installs from charity bundles, piracy, and fraudulent installs is still just "trust us bro" however.

[@Pedgo1986]

Because they cant unless they will be collecting more data then just "tick" when game is installed for this to be true they need personal information to identify individual users/accounts/machines/etc. So it will be blanked dubious charges or real data collecting and that will be killed in EU instantly there is no chance to be compliant with GDPR not for game engine billing purposes. EU is paranoid about their GDPR its FLAG FLAG ship project and they will not open gates for unity.

[@Theydas]

It's all "trust us". They can make whatever numbers they want and charge you. There's no trust between unity and dev. It's only 1 sided. It doesn't matter what unity says, or if they don't charge for reinstalls. And in fact, people will abuse to bankrupt devs by faking install signal. It's a fact, if it is an option, it can be done. I can imagine Twitter mob going mad over some sexy women in game claiming it's nazzi and orchistrating a system, cracking game to send install signal from some virtual machines with different IP.

[@Sound557]

Do corporations think humans grow money like hair? Ffs

[@blackmark2899]

I mentally can't even wrap my head around the sheer idiocy and arrogance that it took for this to pass. Like it took no brain power to come up with scenarios off the top of my head that would abuse the system and how it's very bad for a customer base. If the customer isn't going to like your product, they aren't going to use it. Good will is hard to build and as easy as wet tissue paper to tear down. Now, I doubt there will be any indie that would publish any game through Unity with that in place. Even if they walk it back or cut it, the damage is done.

[@luridftwgaming8983]

So unity devs could just purchase the game and make a bot to reinstall it over and over. Printing money. Or just call their own run time and not even have to pay for it. This world is truly screwed.

[@Hietakissa]

They have since said it would only account for unique users (and totally ignores some situations, like charity bundles, piracy etc.), but we'll have to wait and see how well the system actually works.

[@inthefade]

Don't like a developer? Use a bot network to install their game over and over.

[@SarzaelX]

@@Hietakissa If they have no end user data, how can they know whether it's an unique user?

[@OriginalUnjustifier]

@@SarzaelX Unity: Trust us bro!

[@varnix1006]

@@SarzaelX A built in spyware no doubt.

[@frankbauerful]

If Unity demands so much money that it would bankrupt the dev, it is more advantageous for the dev to take all the money and sue Unity. Especially if multiple devs get together and use the same lawyers. Because every lawsuit loses Unity money, even if they win. They won't recoup their legal fees and the losing company will go bankrupt. This means Unity will always be forced to settle. This scheme is financial nonsense. There is also the passive aggressive version to just not pay Unity and force them into a lawsuit and then draw that lawsuit out over years. In any case Unity will never get the money. Who came up with this at Unity?

[@WhatWillYouFind]

Especially since this new policy is RETROACTIVE. Developers signed agreements 2, 3, 10, or whatever years ago under specific sales terms and conditions. If they must follow the new terms which are not what was agreed upon previously and it would actively hurt their business . . . the courts are not going to take kindly to that. No sane modernized country and their judicial system would allow it, you can't have someone sign a contract and then completely change the terms of service later without the other party also agreeing to it. No sane court would force the developers to screw themselves like this, it is so openly a blatantly predatory it warrants investigation on the part of a major government. Germany and other EU countries take user privacy and contract rights extremely seriously. what reality are we in?

[@realmasterkush]

Wow! I spent the better part of my life working with Unity. Today I formatted my windows install and I won't be reinstalling Unity on it. So many years of my life wasted learning this engine.

[@TeriyakiTakeout]

People really need to start making their own engines. It adds such a huge layer of personalization to your game and the way you can make it feel that people don’t realize. It’s why each engine has it’s own “feel” and it’s something that is really lacking in the industry right now, in my opinion. I’ve done it and it is so fun. There’s a channel called the Cherno that has an engine tutorial series if anyone is interested but trust me when I say it will make your game unique to your team in a way that Unreal and Unity and other pre made engines cannot provide.

[@cegie]

This is such a bizarre move from even a business perspective. Sure a scant few developers may stay with the engine due to large projects being far too entrenched in the ecosystem while still monetized enough to carry the new fees but everyone else will jump ship, either willingly or out of pure necessity due to the financial risk the engine would incur. No new developer in their right mind would pick it up which would cause a feedback loop of brain drain and lack of new resources causing the entire ecosystem to wither away and collapse which in turn will generate a grand total of $0 for Unity themselves.

[@Iamkaden]

I have no words for this. CEO of EA comes into Unity with the intent to DESTROY games. What is this guy’s problem? How is this okay? I wanted to start learning Unity and start making games, but now this? Perhaps maybe, I think we should all come together and create an open source just as awesome as Unity engine for everyone to use. But I really love Unity engine. Genshin impact has amazed me so many times with its visuals. This is unbelievable.

[@HorseDe-luxe]

Godot seems like a good bet for that. It's open source and free. It works differently than Unity, with its focus on composing objects with a hierarchy of nodes, and it's not at the level of unity yet for either 3D projects or multi-platform, but it's a decent way there already, and they just established a non-profit organization to fund the engine's future development. It might not be too far off that they could close much of the gap between the two engines.

[@dfghj241]

@@HorseDe-luxe godot can't even compete agaisn't unity. there is no other alternative, except of course Unreal engine 5. pretty good engine, forces developers to be more technical with their code, which is ALWAYS a positive in this industry, yea, godot is not able to be considered by anyone serious as of now.

[@OscarSommerbo]

He was brought in to make Unity profitable. Him hating games is just secondary. The real issue is he doesn't understand indie devs, gamers or apparently contract law. I am actually quite concerned there doesn't seem to be a lawyer on staff at Unity. Because Unity is (was?) a Danish company that operate in the EU, and the EU actually has laws that protect consumers (devs in this case)

[@ThatguycalledJoe]

@@OscarSommerbo He probably just wants to speedrun getting his golden parachute deployed.

[@celarts5752]

Welp, I was on the fence about learning and using Godot before, but now it seems like it's my only choice at this moment... Why are studios just deciding to go full mask-off corporate greed now.

[@AGS363]

Because the money is getting tight.

[@laurelkeeper]

I mean, Unreal is an option. Far more agreeable fees than Unity, and as someone who uses it pretty much full-time for my job, it's really best-in-class if you want to create complex games. Not much likelihood of a similar change from Epic either, their current megalomaniacal ambitions are in... different directions.

[@celarts5752]

@@laurelkeeper Ye, currently I'm learning Godot cause any actual competitive version of Unreal doesn't run well on my PC, plus it takes up way too much space and I don't have the money to shell out on multi-terabyte externals rn

[@wobblyboost]

inB4 'Waiting for Godot' memes.

[@Akab]

​@@AGS363 where is it all going though?

[@Queldonus]

I personally feel that unity deserves far worse than a boycott, but I can’t say exactly what I think they deserve without getting on some kind of list somewhere. The best we can do is find our favorite game developers and make sure we support them in whatever project they do that gets them off of unity.

[@CLove511]

It's not going to put you on a list to say "I hope they go broke", which is the only sane response, a financial punishment for a financial assault.

[@Nerobyrne]

the government needs to block this. This is going to create the worst cyber-security disaster in human history, as soon as hackers find a weakness in the last usable version of Unity. At that point, every single program built with it become a vulnerability.

[@znail4675]

I don't think you have to worry, the list of companies this hits includes some of the largest in the industry. This pretty much dooms Unity as the legal actions wont be pretty.

[@dojelnotmyrealname4018]

Class action lawsuit for breach of contract is a good one. Second one for breach of feduciary duty considering what the stock market did.

[@Nerobyrne]

@@dojelnotmyrealname4018 Damn I never even considered the shareholders rights. I usually try to forget about that, but in this case it might actually be a good thing ^^

[@Slohcin31820]

As someone who uninstalls and reinstalls games frequently I now feel like I need to chose what Unity games I want to uninstall permanently or keep installed forever since I really don't want to be a cost to any developers. I know it's a bit of a dramatic feeling but dang does it bite...

[@oliver_twistor]

One thing that is so astonishing about this and other things like this that companies sometimes do, is that it's not good capitalism; not even good greed. If the aim is to earn a lot of money, the last thing one should do is making one's customers switching to a competitor. Some companies don't seem to understand that the single most important asset they have is their customers. No customers, no revenue. And you're right, the damage is already done, even if Unity walk this back. Who would trust them to not try this again in a year or two?

[@TAiiNE]

I am already uninstalling Unity. I was learning it to try and make a little project as a hobby that I would have liked to share. But I'm on a fixed income, I'm not risking having to pay to share something and risk a troll or some crud going down.

[@Ryanska_u]

My friend and I recently started a passion project on Unity and I guess all those months of work can go to the bin now, even more tragic for devs who worked years on a project just to get robbed by Unity. If this continues then its just Unity begging for a lawsuit

[@EvanBear]

Among us runs on unity. Among us costs $5 on PC and is free on phones. Smaller devs like that cannot afford this shit.

[@chromeinox]

"Never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake"

[@carlosgomez1361]

For damage control, they at least need to back down and fire the CEO, and still, a lot of dev teams already left unity, I've been reading the (185 pages and counting), official unity forum thread, and the talk shifted from fee debate to a straightforward "lets talk about other frameworks and how we are going to migrate" .

[@natebit8130]

Darn it, some of my favorite games such as Subnautica, Ori, and Hollow Knight are on Unity. It feels painful because I want to play their games, but I have limited space.

[@studiesinflux1304]

If this somehow goes through, I imagine people will DDoS Unity’s DRM server with infinite installs. All you would need to do is play a unity web game with your browser in debug mode and capture the call home signal. (or many signals to figure out their algorithm if they have a replay attack mitigation)

[@OscarSommerbo]

I think we will see a lot of job listings for Unitys "fraud department", if they care. I assume they will set up a halfassed (if past performance is any indicator) fraud mitigation algorithm and then deem anything that doesn't trigger fraud detection as "real". But the bigger issue is that Unity has a finacial incentive to not look too hard at the "install" signal as each is worth up to 20 cents.

[@0krana333]

or even just put an autoclicker on F5 to refresh the page endlessly

[@brycedaugherty9211]

If i heard right the executive at unity that helped conceive this monstrosity used to be an exec at EA. So it doesn't surprise me at all.

[@Hansblacksands]

He is the one who wanted to charge gamers every time they re-loaded their Guns... he must have his head up his own arse he's looking at the back of his own tonsils.

[@treyjordan3168]

Ah yes, EA, the Mammon of the Video Game Industry

[@formdusktilldeath]

The response reminds me of Kuzco from the Emperor’s New Groove: “Don’t know, don’t care, how’s that?”

[@eviel0]

I've just entered my 4th of studying game design at uni. I've exclusively been using unity up until this point. I'm SO GLAD I decided to take the Unreal Engine elective this semester because ain't no way I'll be using Unity anymore

[@pretzelboi64]

Unreal will not have your back in the future either. It's like you people never learn. It may look good now with Sweeney at the helm but he's going to get bored eventually and jump ship like Notch did with Minecraft or Bill Gates did with Microsoft. Passions are not eternal and some greedy asshole will take control of Unreal one day

[@eviel0]

@@pretzelboi64 I'm not sure what you mean with "you people never learn". It's not like I had a choice to use another engine when all my projects have required the use of Unity lol. I'm saying I'm just happy I coincidentally chose one of my electives to teach me Unreal when I almost chose a different one instead. It's easier to learn from a class than it is to teach yourself. Plus this shitshow from Unity provides people to learn to use different engines anyway, or to try and create one themselves if they have to skillset. Right now I definitely know I don't, but also I'm just a 3D artist. There's always a choice of programa to use. And as long as there's at least one that isn't the nightmare that Unity is trying to be, this shit won't be acceptable

[@pretzelboi64]

@@eviel0 What I'm saying is that Unreal isn't safe and people need to stay away. It's controlled by a CEO and a board of directors who have a LEGAL obligation to turn in a profit for their investors just like Unity did. It will become a monopoly overnight after Unity's burial and the amount of pressure Tim will be under might just make him cash out to another greedy pig like Riccitiello. If this happens, you will wish you never learned Unreal. I'm not saying you should build your own like I did because it's hard as fuck but you should probably go for something else than another engine plagued by investor interests. Anyone jumping to Unreal now will wake up to another crisis eventually. Reading about people's crushed dreams here in the comments is depressing enough that I can't believe people are setting themselves up for another round