Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An open letter to our community

blog.unity.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 223 posts

Re: An open letter to our community

#191

Post by gumballindie »

DonHopkins wrote: post #185
gumballindie wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A part of me thinks that the CEO (and all the other executive morons who decided to make the installation fee) was sitting there thinking "what are they going to do? Move to Godot?" Their CEO gives me the impression of a rich but unsophisticated mba type who can only deliver revenue growth by raising prices. I doubt he even thought about captive customers and lack of what he might have thought alternative engines,…

I know John Riccitiello from when I worked at Maxis/EA on The Sims last century, and when he was involved with investing in Will Wright's Stupid Fun Club, and later when he was involved as CEO of EA in open sourcing SimCity for the One Laptop Per Child. We (including Eben Moglen, Free Software Foundation general counsel) explained to him why EA should open source the original SimCity source code under GPL-3, and what…

Interesting. What i fail to understand though is how on earth he could have approved or thought that this may be a good move. I find it hilariously childish. But glad it ignited the idea of open source in game development - hope the industry figures out how to also monetise it.

Re: An open letter to our community

#192

Post by danShumway »

rhtgrg wrote: post #108
tombert wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well Unity is being accused of some dishonesty with updating things and not disclosing it [1]. If that's true, then it's possible that it's been somewhat purged to make themselves look better. That said, that's a big "if", I'm just regurgitating what I read in news articles. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37615183

Jan '22 TOS does not have such a clause either (from archive.org): https://web.archive.org/web/20220716041837/https://unity.com... At this point I'm pretty sure this is a dishonest attempt to dig up a 2020 change (if this clause even ever existed, which I've seen zero proof of) and correlate it to a 2023 announcement as if these things were done in tandem. Downvote me all you want. I don't think Godot et al will surv…

The Jan 22 TOS you link to includes this section:

> Notwithstanding this Section 1.4, any modification of the Unity Software Additional Terms is subject to Section 8 of the Unity Software Additional Terms.

If you click on the "Unity Software Additional Terms" link within that clause, it will take you to the July 2022 snapshot of those terms in the Internet Archive (https://web.archive.org/web/20220716082334/https://unity.com...). Section 8 reads:

> 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”). [etc...]

As of March 2023, those terms were still present in the TOS (https://web.archive.org/web/20230303043022/https://unity.com...), moved to section 6 (Modifications to these Software Terms and Long-Term Supported versions).

The terms disappear in the May 2023 snapshot (https://web.archive.org/web/20230528084511/https://unity.com...), which states that the last update to the TOS was April 3rd, 2023, which is fully consistent with all of the reporting about this change.

Not only is there no conspiracy from Godot, the reporting is correct. The TOS was modified between March/May of 2023 to remove the reported clause and the Internet Archive proves it.

Re: An open letter to our community

#193

Post by danShumway »

rhtgrg wrote: post #90
tombert wrote: post #77

If they are willing to retroactively change the TOS once, why wouldn't they do it again once the smoke has settled? I don't make games, I have nothing at stake in this fight, but this just feels like PR damage control and to be completely honest, I don't think most software engineers are so absolutely dependent on (proper noun) Unity to risk this company doing shady stuff again, and I suspect this entire ordeal will…

> If they are willing to retroactively change the TOS once, why wouldn't they do it again once the smoke has settled? I haven't seen any evidence they did that, it's mostly been FUD from Godot supporters. The initial communication was messy, but where are actual TOS changes that are being touted so loudly? https://unity.com/legal/terms-of-service https://unity.com/legal/terms-of-service-legacy

I commented similarly below, but see the March 2023 snapshot at https://web.archive.org/web/20230303043022/https://unity.com... Section 6 (Modifications to these Software Terms and Long-Term Supported versions).

If you go to the next snapshot (https://web.archive.org/web/20230413210637/https://unity.com...), Section 6 will be missing and you'll see the following header at the top of the TOS:

> Last updated: April 3, 2023

> What’s changed: We have posted an update to our Unity Editor Software Terms to, among other things, provide for our Industry Offering. We’ve also updated other sections, including those relating to data collection and modification of terms.

Interestingly, their linked FAQ (https://web.archive.org/web/20230605071610/https://unity.com...) provides no mention of the fact that they've removed the clause. I can't know what was going through Unity executives' heads when that FAQ was written, but they apparently didn't think it important to draw attention or specifically notify users about that revocation of their rights.

Re: An open letter to our community

#194

Post by johnnyanmac »

jstarfish wrote: post #51
risingsubmarine wrote: post #15

A definite improvement but the CEO needs to go. It's the only way to begin restoring long term trust. Developers & publishers are extremely wary of unstable business partners.

Yeah. An apology isn't enough in this case-- words clearly mean nothing to them. We were always told C-level compensation is as absurd as it is because they're expected to fall on their sword for fucking up. Keeping your position after defrauding customers is not a sign of good faith, it's just another [social] contract broken.

>We were always told C-level compensation is as absurd as it is because they're expected to fall on their sword for fucking up.

We were? I thought it was as simple as "big leader + big company = big money". Made sense in the days where those leaders rose the company off the ground. Not so much when it's just some MBA that comes in or a friend of some other rich guy that simply wants to increase stock numbers.

Re: An open letter to our community

#195

Post by johnnyanmac »

bangonkeyboard wrote: post #35

Unity is not trustworthy. This was not the first time they've changed terms unilaterally, and will not be the last. This letter should be seen as a rickety runway extension: finalize any Unity projects you already have in development, but make sure you move to another engine in the immediate future.

well, this at least saves Silksong. That's all I can ask for at this point.

But if they are considering a 3rd Hollow Knight it'd be the biggest W if they chose an open-source engine (and hopefully not take 7 years, but TBH I'd take my time too if I made hollow knight money).

Re: An open letter to our community

#196

Post by AndrewKemendo »

peteforde wrote: post #169

It's really telling to me that we've heard not a peep from co-founder and CTO Joachim Ante. Oh wait, apparently he is no longer CTO as of May 2023. Well, what was his last official statement? https://blog.unity.com/community/updated-terms-of-service-an... "When you make a game with Unity, you own the content and you should have the right to put it wherever you want. Our TOS didn't reflect this principle - something t…

He was perfecting the “rest and vest” while I was there.

Re: An open letter to our community

#197

Post by badRNG »

dpkonofa wrote: post #187
m463 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what the reality really is? Does this stuff all blow over? Thinking back to recent controversies: - reddit with third party apps - the D&D open gaming license - redhat and centos - etc...

I think it does, to an extent. Reddit is still alive, for example. It's just nowhere near the community and content it used to be and, in my mind, it won't ever be that way again. Reddit's biggest benefit was that most of the moderators were people who were really, really into very niche topics. The big subs were all moderated by the same 10 people so they devolved into meme depositories and made up stories that stok…

Reddit, like Twitter, isn't going anywhere. It's just a worse value for the end user, and in Reddit's case the business is potentially better off for it, users be damned.

Re: An open letter to our community

#198

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

morrbo wrote: post #80
cmcaleer wrote: post #4

I think it might be too little too late. I do wonder if this was always the plan with classic door-in-the-face technique, but I can't imagine they would have anticipated the absolute magnitude of backlash. Their product certainly isn't as special as they clearly think it is, and the fact that they attempted to unilaterally change the contract in as egregious as way as they did is unacceptable and not behaviour I woul…

I simply don't trust publicly traded companies these days. I genuinely can't think of an example where a private company in the tech space has become better since going public. I don't like to MBA bash, but it large tech companies genuinely seem filled with people who don't even like tech (let alone love it) and are just happy to squeeze everything and everyone at any opportunity. I'm genuinely concerned and waiting…

I definitely agree with this sentiment. And it's not just publicly traded companies - I like the saying "private equity kills everything it touches" because whenever PE buys a a company I have never seen it turn to anything but a shit pile eventually.

At some point with all companies the finance people take over. But well-loved products and companies are never created by finance people - they're created by people with a passion for something.

Re: An open letter to our community

#199

Post by johnnyanmac »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #196
peteforde wrote: post #169

It's really telling to me that we've heard not a peep from co-founder and CTO Joachim Ante. Oh wait, apparently he is no longer CTO as of May 2023. Well, what was his last official statement? https://blog.unity.com/community/updated-terms-of-service-an... "When you make a game with Unity, you own the content and you should have the right to put it wherever you want. Our TOS didn't reflect this principle - something t…

He was perfecting the “rest and vest” while I was there.

Clearly worked at a different part of Unity. Joe was very involved on the DOTS side while I was there. Arguably a bit too involved at times.

But I'd take that 1000x over what other c execs were doing at other places I worked at.

Re: An open letter to our community

#200

Post by dpkonofa »

badRNG wrote: post #197
dpkonofa wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it does, to an extent. Reddit is still alive, for example. It's just nowhere near the community and content it used to be and, in my mind, it won't ever be that way again. Reddit's biggest benefit was that most of the moderators were people who were really, really into very niche topics. The big subs were all moderated by the same 10 people so they devolved into meme depositories and made up stories that stok…

Reddit, like Twitter, isn't going anywhere. It's just a worse value for the end user, and in Reddit's case the business is potentially better off for it, users be damned.

I disagree. Twitter is already dying, albeit slowly. Reddit will suffer the same fate. The entire reason Reddit grew the way it did was because it had content that other sites didn't have and the reason it had that content was because of the niche subreddits modded by people who were extremely passionate about niche stuff. Reddit won't grow anymore because the content being fed to it now is just content stolen from other sites and it's not any easier to access or better for being on Reddit. It's a worse value for the end user because the value was in the people that have now all left.
Post reply on HN