An open letter to our community

#1

Post by gmjosack » Fri, Sep 22, 2023, 5:20 PM UTC

An open letter to our community
blog.unity.com

Re: An open letter to our community

#2

Post by rybosworld » Fri, Sep 22, 2023, 5:32 PM UTC

This is better than what they announced originally but it doesn't cure the breach of trust.

I have no doubt that as long John R. and Tomar B. continue to run the show, that the company will behave unethically again in the future.

Re: An open letter to our community

#3

Post by markhaslam » Fri, Sep 22, 2023, 5:33 PM UTC

This seems very reasonable actually?

Being able to choose 2.5% revenue share (half of Unreal) does not sound bad to me. And very glad they removed the retroactivity of the new fees.

Re: An open letter to our community

#4

Post by cmcaleer » Fri, Sep 22, 2023, 5:35 PM UTC

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 would want from a vendor I'm reliant on. Anecdotally, I'm seeing a lot of game devs being surprised at relative ease of migration in some instances, though I imagine there are megaprojects which will have a much worse time.

Crow had to be eaten but it looks like they're only tasting the feathers.

Re: An open letter to our community

#5

Post by purplecats » Fri, Sep 22, 2023, 5:37 PM UTC

ask for something you know will cause backlash (an anchor point) then recede to what you actually want

Re: An open letter to our community

#6

Post by cowsup » Fri, Sep 22, 2023, 5:38 PM UTC

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…

Unity lost a lot of goodwill among developers, and it took over a week for them to admit fault. I seriously doubt they planned all along to present a temporary horrible plan, to make their “real” plan easier to swallow.

If this were a 48- or 72-hour turnaround, maybe. But Unity lost a lot of goodwill amongst developers and there are some they may never get back as a result.

Re: An open letter to our community

#7

Post by gmjosack » Fri, Sep 22, 2023, 5:39 PM UTC

This is basically everything policy wise they needed to do to quell the storm. This is honestly what should have just been announced originally. So much reputational damage just to arrive at a reasonable model weeks later.

I'm happy for all the Unity developers out there that are breathing a sigh of relief. Hopefully they can ship their ongoing projects but I'd be hesitant about a continued long term relationship with Unity after this.

This isn't the first Unity backlash and I'd be surprised if it's the last.

Re: An open letter to our community

#8

Post by rybosworld » Fri, Sep 22, 2023, 5:39 PM UTC

rybosworld wrote: post #2

This is better than what they announced originally but it doesn't cure the breach of trust. I have no doubt that as long John R. and Tomar B. continue to run the show, that the company will behave unethically again in the future.

Also, there are still hints of them trying to play this off as a misunderstanding rather than what it really was: a predatory pricing scheme and an attempt to retroactively change ToS.

"When we first introduced the Runtime Fee policy, we used the term “installs” which the community found to be unclear so we’re using the term "initial engagement" as the unit of measure."

The community did not find this unclear. The original pricing scheme was very straightforward about developers being charged multiple times for a user that reinstalls a game, or install it across multiple devices.

This is Unity trying to rewrite history so they don't seem like the bad guys.

Re: An open letter to our community

#9

Post by skilled » Fri, Sep 22, 2023, 5:40 PM UTC

I didn’t follow this very much but did they basically tried to enforce this on people out of the blue? If so, that must sting like crazy to have to walk it back with the addition of losing trust and goodwill of your users, not to mention those that went on to different engines.

How high up does this rank in “the dumbest decisions you can make” chart?

Re: An open letter to our community

#10

Post by EA-3167 » Fri, Sep 22, 2023, 5:41 PM UTC

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 think the bottom line damage is that no one is going to develop new games on Unity if they have any other choice. Even if Unity walks this back 100%, why would a dev trust them not to pull this again in the future? Maybe some large projects will stop looking at migration in the short-term, but any new work is going to start happening elsewhere for sure.