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Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

ramatak.com

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Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#611

Post by throwaway7679 »

flangola7 wrote: post #596
TylerE wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are paid, non open source forks that support console. Actual godot does not, and never will. From their own docs: “ Godot does not officially support consoles (save for XBox One via UWP) currently. The reasons for this are: To develop for consoles, one must be licensed as a company. Godot, as an open source project, does not have such a legal figure. Console SDKs are secret, and protected by non-disclosure agre…

Why would an SDK be secret?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983#Loss_...

TLDR A game market flooded with shovelware crap is a disaster for everyone.

Modern day consoles intentionally add hurdles/friction/cost to publishing in order to weed out the less serious studios.

Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#614

Post by jrmg »

A commenter on the Ars article pointed out this from the Unity FAQ (https://unity.com/pricing-updates) and I can’t get over it:

———

Will developers be charged the Unity Runtime Fee for subscription-based games?

No, in this case the developer is not distributing it so we’re not going to invoice the developer on subscription-based games (e.g. Apple Arcade, Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Plus, Netflix Games, etc.)

———

Surely Unity management can’t think this will fly? Surely MS, Apple etc. have contracts with developers that say they have the full rights to distribute the games under some arranged fee structure. Is Unity now just going to go to them and say “Hey, those contracts you have actually don’t give you the right to distribute the parts we own. You’ll have to pay us too!”. That just seems so unrealistic.

And, further, even if that ‘works’ MS, Apple etc. would surely then have a legal case against the developers, who represented that they were assigning full distribution rights to the games, to make them pay anyway.

This all just seems like a giant ill thought through mess, and I think this ‘subscription’ question and answer is indicative of how the entire thing was planned. Is Unity management really so naive that they think this will work? Are they just following the whims of a CEO with no legal input? Did they just not think this through? Are they _trying_ to get all this into litigation?

Usually with things like this, where there’s a lot of online sound and fury, I can make a ‘well, they probably intend for this result, that’s why they’re doing it like this’ judgement. But this just seems like chaos and I am finding it so hard to understand how any of this was decided.

Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#615

Post by bookmark1231 »

chimeracoder wrote: post #564
mabbo wrote: post #563

I think at this point, the real question is who in their right mind would ever build a game in Unity again? I'm sure this will make their company a short term gain in profits, but in very short order no more Unity games will be made . Even if you accept the terms they're proposing, you know damn well they are willing to change the rules at any time at your expense. Unity just became an extinction-level-event liabilit…

> I think at this point, the real question is who in their right mind would ever build a game in Unity again? This is pretty unfortunate, because Unity is partly responsible for the surge of Linux gaming over the last 10 years. Supporting Linux comes nearly for free on Unity (compared to many other engines), and fewer Unity games will likely mean fewer Linux games.

In my experience Proton works so well now that the only games that don’t work are those with really invasive anti-cheat systems

Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#617

Post by singleshot_ »

otterley wrote: post #584
NotYourLawyer wrote: post #566

Disregard

Isn't promissory estoppel typically used as a fallback theory when a legal contract does not exist?

My reading is that the article skips a step in its analysis. Note that I did not watch the linked video with the video game lawyer and whatever he says is probably more contextually useful than what I say:

I’d be more apt to call this an illusory contract where one party reserves the ability to choose how it performs. This destroys the mutuality of agreement in which the contract rests. In some circumstances this might get you to a win simply by escaping the contract. But not if you want damages; in this situation an equitable remedy that does not presume the existence of the contract would be exactly what you would want.

On the other hand all of these clickwrap licenses seem to reserve the right to change at any time. I think the only reason that they are not adjudicated as illusory is the existence of mandatory arbitration clauses but I’m not sure. I’d be interested in being set straight if someone reading this is more knowledgeable.

Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#618

Post by gabereiser »

TylerE wrote: post #588
kevingadd wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Godot games have been shipped on consoles plenty of times

There are paid, non open source forks that support console. Actual godot does not, and never will. From their own docs: “ Godot does not officially support consoles (save for XBox One via UWP) currently. The reasons for this are: To develop for consoles, one must be licensed as a company. Godot, as an open source project, does not have such a legal figure. Console SDKs are secret, and protected by non-disclosure agre…

Consoles no longer require specialized hardware to develop for. There are test kits for ps5 but you can compile on your PC. Where are you getting your information from? The only requirement is a header or two and a code sign. Godot OSS can’t support consoles because the SDK (those headers) are closed source, but there’s nothing stopping you from implementing the half dozen header functions in Godot source yourself. There’s some companies trying to provide that support. I’m sure Godot* (the company) will as well.

To dismiss Godot because you, a solo hobby dev, can’t target PS5 is hilarious.

Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#619

Post by Gareth321 »

If developers signed agreements to that effect, yes, in America. There are fairness tests in many other countries.

What is blowing my mind is that developers have been signing agreements which effectively gave Unity the right to take any revenue they wish, at any time. At that point the developers don’t own their company anymore. Unity does. Always have a lawyer check your agreements before you sign them. If your business relies on an agreement to function, make sure the other party can’t make unilateral changes.

Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#620

Post by kibwen »

nugget wrote: post #528
philipov wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the only reason Unity went this route is because they don't want to be seen to publicly break the promise of no revenue ... Not quite. Unity merged with a company that sells mobile ads: ironSource. They are direct competitors of AppLovin, the dominant player in that market. The terms and backroom deals that Unity is offering devs will waive these fees if they use Unity's ad products instead of AppLovin. Thi…

Unity seems to be attempting this in the most deceptive and deceitful way possible, establishing the new Runtime Fee and then offering a temporary 100% "waiver" of the fee if you use their other (presumably inferior) products. As soon as the pressure fades, the waiver will be reduced to 50% and then eventually dropped completely - but of course the new fees will remain. They must think the average game developer has…

> They must think the average game developer has no business sense whatsoever.

Any game whose monetization strategy is "ads" is uniformly trash-quality shovelware. They're not here for the long haul, they're here to optimize short-term profit and dump as much garbage on the app store as they can.

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