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Unity has seemingly silently removed its GitHub repo that tracks ToS changes

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Re: Unity has seemingly silently removed its GitHub repo that tracks ToS changes

#151

Post by labster »

Auracle wrote: post #143
labster wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m pretty sure that would be an unconscionable contract at $1, not a mere unethical contract. The latter is legal, the former is not.

Wouldn’t that depend on the income of the developer vs. how many installs they get? Surely even $.20 for someone that has a hit mobile game that sells for $.99 would be unconscionable. After App Store fees and accounting for potential multiple installs it could halve their income.

I didn’t actually make claim about the $0.20 case. Multiples of $1 is clearly too much for products that cost $0.99. But with America’s courts headed by an obviously illegitimate Supreme Court, who knows? The lesser amount could be pronounced legal.

Re: Unity has seemingly silently removed its GitHub repo that tracks ToS changes

#152

Post by awesomeMilou »

judge2020 wrote: post #37
awesomeMilou wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Simply, they could have not made this retroactive How can they make this apply retroactively though? For already shipped titles, if I'm no longer providing updates anymore, how can they force me to pay money? I'm aware that games no longer have a final shipping date, with early access and all, and as a dev I'd likely would want to offer continued support in such a scenario. But the way I understand it from the over…

Are there perpetual unity licenses? If not, then surely the retroactivity comes as soon as you renew your license.

This has nothing to do with whether there are perpetual licenses or not.

The way the go about this makes it seem that you enter a contract that you can never reasonably exit out of, as in order for you to stop having to pay, you'd have to convincingly prove that you forced every customer to uninstall your app, i.e. that there isn't at least one install left.

This sounds absolutely bonkers to me.

Re: Unity has seemingly silently removed its GitHub repo that tracks ToS changes

#153

Post by d3w4s9 »

gmjosack wrote: post #48

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…

I am curious -- if you are a business and buy Google Ads, and they tell you how many impressions and clicks you got, are those numbers verifiable? How effective is it at filtering out "bad" clicks, like the ones from a competitor who wants to exhaust your ad money? Is the situation similar?

Re: Unity has seemingly silently removed its GitHub repo that tracks ToS changes

#154

Post by Akronymus »

mikepurvis wrote: post #111
riffraff wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forgive my ignorance, what disaster are you referring to?

It was a very dumbed down attempt to reboot the franchise, when what the fans wanted was what Cities Skylines would later deliver.

> when what the fans wanted was what Cities Skylines would later deliver.

For me personally, C:S goes in too much on building a nice looking city and not enough on the simulation aspect.

Re: Unity has seemingly silently removed its GitHub repo that tracks ToS changes

#155

Post by Nathanba »

wodenokoto wrote: post #132
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Well, it depends on how you think of the license. Is it like you buy a license for a specific release or do you subscribe to a license to the software across all releases? I don’t know. I can see how it would be ridiculous if Amazon said “oh, by the way, starting next year you have to pay a cent every time you finish any of the books you bought on your kindle” But if Netflix went “starting next year, there’s a surcha…

I think whether something can only run on the company's service is the differentiating factor. So if Unity games all required to be played on unity3d.com or if they all required online communication with unity3d servers to function at all then people would accept that the contract for finished games could change anytime.

Re: Unity has seemingly silently removed its GitHub repo that tracks ToS changes

#156

Post by wwtrv »

hedora wrote: post #40
umpalumpaaa wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that they did it retroactively and they also added a per install/download fee. So if your game has 1mio installs you pad the install fee x 1 Million. Unreal has no install fee like this. “A 5% royalty is due only if you are distributing an off-the-shelf product that incorporates Unreal Engine code (such as a game). Provided that you notify us on time using the Release Form, you will only owe royalties…

> Some mobile games have a ton of installs and a very small amount of revenue per user. Those 27cents per install are a lot of money for those type of games and will even make some business models no longer feasible. When you put it that way, Unity could have come out of this price change looking like heroes with better messaging. Serious games pay the $0.27 fee moving forward, and (hopefully) that comes with some ne…

> $0.27

The highest possible fee seems to the $0.20 (only if 100% of your users are in the US and a few other rich countries). Also it only seems to the there to encourage everyone on Personal/Plus to upgrade to Pro (before these changes you were already required to do that if you company revenue was above $200).

Realistically it's going to be closer to $0.02-0.05 per install.

Re: Unity has seemingly silently removed its GitHub repo that tracks ToS changes

#157

Post by turquoisevar »

danielbln wrote: post #144
brundolf wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll see I guess! But even if it's not illegal the shortsightedness is staggering, which makes me question if leadership would have even foreseen legal problems

Well, about that: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/unity-software-incs-president...

Believe it or not this is completely legal in the US.

The way it works is that company insiders can’t freely sell or buy stock, instead they have to submit a form (Form 4) to the SEC on which they report the sale, almost always based on a prior setup plan (called Rule 10b5-1 plan) that can’t be changed and automatically effectuates. These forms get published.

The CEO’s Form 4 can be found here: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1810806/000181080623... It shows the plan to sell shares was created in May this year.

The other executives also sold shares, which can be found under “Ownership Disclosures” here: https://www.sec.gov/edgar/browse/?CIK=0001810806

This is of course silly because the CEO can just plan something detrimental for September all the way back in April (which the fuckery with the terms suggests happens), create a plan in May to sell shares in September just before the announcement is made and make sure that the drop in stock price doesn’t affect his wallet.

But in the good old US of A that all considered above board.

Re: Unity has seemingly silently removed its GitHub repo that tracks ToS changes

#158

Post by turquoisevar »

brundolf wrote: post #85
gmjosack wrote: post #48

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…

IANAL but isn't this what we have an FTC for? It feels like pretty blatantly unfair business dealings, particularly the fact that it's retroactive Literally "I am altering the deal, pray I do not alter it any further"

The FTC and other such agencies won’t do shit because corporations are the highest authority in the US.

Every once in a while they’ll pick a “sacrificial lamb” for a slap on the wrist and call it a day.

Re: Unity has seemingly silently removed its GitHub repo that tracks ToS changes

#159

Post by turquoisevar »

paxys wrote: post #24

I hate the word "silently" in headlines like these. How else are the supposed to do it? By throwing a press event?

They made a blogpost after their last drama touting how transparent they are going to be forward and how saintly they’ll be and how, in an effort to support these goals they’re making a GitHub repo where you can track changes made to the ToS.

So yeah, a fucking blog post telling people that they’re pulling the plug on the repo is the least they could do.

Anything short of that is doing it “silently”, especially considering that the old ToS stated that you can choose to stay on the old ToS if a newer one is detrimental to your interest and the new one removes that.

Re: Unity has seemingly silently removed its GitHub repo that tracks ToS changes

#160

Post by idbehold »

d3w4s9 wrote: post #153
gmjosack wrote: post #48

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…

I am curious -- if you are a business and buy Google Ads, and they tell you how many impressions and clicks you got, are those numbers verifiable? How effective is it at filtering out "bad" clicks, like the ones from a competitor who wants to exhaust your ad money? Is the situation similar?

Ah, the difference here is that game developers have alternatives to Unity. You can't verify Google's numbers, but fortunately for them there's no (meaningful) alternative. The advantages of being a monopoly!
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