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This video[1] talks a bit about this from a lawyer's point of view and is a really good overview. For people who are not paying as much attention to this I'd like to summarize the main points of frustration. 1. Unity has just shown they believe they are able, and they are willing, to change the terms on what you have to pay them. What are the bounds to terms like this? What if Unity is tight on money and decide to sq…
>Unity has been extremely wishy-washy on how they even plan to track this mentioning proprietary systems they can't elaborate on and your only recourse is to appeal if you think they got the numbers wrong. They must know that their methods will ultimately be revealed during discovery during the inevitable lawsuits. So I’m wondering if they haven’t actually figured out how they’re doing it yet.
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I have only been generally following this but I don’t think this is quite accurate. It seems more like, starting in 2024 when you get more downloads the fee would be applied. I see people talking here about apps that have a huge user base and a very low price per purchase. I admit that segment didn’t pop into my mind initially. And I see the problem there. I also imagine the Unity execs may have missed that scenario…
I believe the whole point and plan is that you use the Unity ad network exclusively. My understanding is that you get exempted then. Unity makes the most money with its Ad provider and would love to kill other ad mediation frameworks to get a bigger slice of the pie.
Their current move is either because they being extremely greedy, or because they're burning a lot of cash. We make simple games, and we're using Unity because of its community support and assets, not because we love Unity, the company. The community moves, we move.
Now if they're changing the terms arbitrarily, and hide that behind the "I agree" button, it proves that they have turned evil. We, along with several other fellow game companies don't support evil, and already migrating our games to Godot. We were prepared for something like this, but didn't anticipate Unity will flip their face this soon. This move only promotes Godot or Unreal; a far more different result than whatever they expected.
What I hate most about this is that it puts unbounded liability onto developers. They can't control how often their game will be installed in the future. The outcome will likely be that the minute a game falls below a certain rate of sales they will be forced to make it unavailable because they can't risk the ongoing cost of the existing userbase continually reinstalling it. Every time a new platform or device is rel…
> What I hate most about this is that it puts unbounded liability onto developers. And Unity can continue to raise the per-installation price as well. If they lose a bunch of customers but want to maintain their current income, why not raise it to $1 instead of just $0.27?
Same goes for youtube, discord, zoom, aws. Invest in the alternarives you idiots, don't wait until it's too late. You won't garner any sympathy when they tighten the strings.
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I believe the whole point and plan is that you use the Unity ad network exclusively. My understanding is that you get exempted then. Unity makes the most money with its Ad provider and would love to kill other ad mediation frameworks to get a bigger slice of the pie.
I am pretty sure that they can't actually just *say* that. I suspect you are right.
I wonder how it'd have gone down if Unity had said, "From Unity version 2024 and beyond, if you have ads in your game, you must get them from us," and let that be the end of it.
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> Those 27cents per install are a lot of money for those type of games and will even make some business models no longer feasible. Exactly. So if they did this in an upfront way, they would have said that starting with Unity 2024 there is this new cost structure. Then game devs can make informed choices if they want to build those types of games on the platform. This retroactive stuff is insane and I cannot figure ou…
> This retroactive stuff is insane and I cannot figure out how a company can make that type of move if they care about their users. I can't even understand how it can possibly be legal. How on earth is it even possible to say "your game which was released before we updated this license is subject to the updated version"? IANAL but that sure seems like something which would require both parties to agree to the updated…
> Unity may update these Unity Software Additional Terms at any time for any reason and without notice (the “Updated Terms”) and those Updated Terms will apply to the most recent current-year version of the Unity Software, provided that, if the Updated Terms adversely impact your rights, you may elect to continue to use any current-year versions of the Unity Software (e.g., 2018.x and 2018.y and any Long Term Supported (LTS) versions for that current-year release) according to the terms that applied just prior to the Updated Terms (the “Prior Terms”). The Updated Terms will then not apply to your use of those current-year versions unless and until you update to a subsequent year version of the Unity Software (e.g. from 2019.4 to 2020.1). If material modifications are made to these Terms, Unity will endeavor to notify you of the modification. If a modification is required to comply with applicable law, the modification will apply notwithstanding this section. Except as explicitly set forth in this paragraph, your use of any new version or release of the Unity Software will be subject to the Updated Terms applicable to that release or version. You understand that it is your responsibility to maintain complete records establishing your entitlement to Prior Terms.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220716084623/https://github.co...
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But it means that their legal teams say that it's legit already, so that's why most people assume that this is legal.
A lawyer friend of mine once told me that most of his job as a contract lawyer was basically a game to see if the other company's lawyers were paying attention and to take absolutely everything he could if they weren't.
It's very different from the situation where one party retroactively changes conditions.