Unity Says 'We Apologize,' Promises Changes to Previously-Announced Pricing (ign.com) 127
"We have heard you," Unity posted on Twitter/X on Sunday afternoon. "We apologize for the confusion and angst the runtime fee policy we announced on Tuesday caused."
"We are listening, talking to our team members, community, customers, and partners, and will be making changes to the policy. We will share an update in a couple of days. Thank you for your honest and critical feedback."
Within 90 minutes Unity's tweet had been viewed over 1 million times. Pushback had built over the last five days to Unity's announcement that next year they'd charge developers per game installation (beyond certain thresholds). IGN reports: Unity tried to clarify the policy, saying it will only count "net new installs" on any devices starting January 1 and devs would not be paying fees on re-installations, "fraudulent" installs via botnets and the like, trial version, web and streaming games, and charity-related installs. Unity also claimed that "90 percent of customers will not be affected by this change."
The development community did not take kindly to these proposed changes and clarifications, and many teams across the globe, including Rust 2 developer Facepunch Studios, said they won't be making their games in Unity now. Others, like Massive Monster, threatened to delete its Unity-made game Cult of the Lamb on January 1 should these changes happen.
The pushback got so severe that Unity offices in San Francisco and Austin had to close due to what it called a credible death threat.
"We are listening, talking to our team members, community, customers, and partners, and will be making changes to the policy. We will share an update in a couple of days. Thank you for your honest and critical feedback."
Within 90 minutes Unity's tweet had been viewed over 1 million times. Pushback had built over the last five days to Unity's announcement that next year they'd charge developers per game installation (beyond certain thresholds). IGN reports: Unity tried to clarify the policy, saying it will only count "net new installs" on any devices starting January 1 and devs would not be paying fees on re-installations, "fraudulent" installs via botnets and the like, trial version, web and streaming games, and charity-related installs. Unity also claimed that "90 percent of customers will not be affected by this change."
The development community did not take kindly to these proposed changes and clarifications, and many teams across the globe, including Rust 2 developer Facepunch Studios, said they won't be making their games in Unity now. Others, like Massive Monster, threatened to delete its Unity-made game Cult of the Lamb on January 1 should these changes happen.
The pushback got so severe that Unity offices in San Francisco and Austin had to close due to what it called a credible death threat.
Is the damage already done now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is the damage already done now? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think they re-evaluated in time to prevent any major harm. It still depends on the structure Unity ultimately decides on, obviously, but they should have avoided most of the harm.
Current devs will have to balance weigh the cost of switching platforms against whatever the new pricing structure will be. Switching platforms is usually VERY expensive, so the sunk cost of their existing development work will strongly encourage existing devs to stay.
Bear in mind that Unreal's structure, while more reasonable IMO, started collecting royalties MUCH sooner than the Unity plan. If Unity can hold on to the edge with a more sane structure than per-install, I think they'll be able to hold the same niche they currently hold.
I do think this affair will cause a drop in confidence in Unity for a while, which should result in an uptick for FOSS engines, at least for a while.
Re: (Score:2)
Will Godot gain from this?
It was interesting to see Blender and Gimp gain a lot of traction over the years as larger studios started funding efforts to improve the tools as an alternative to the very expensive (and moving to subscription model) alternatives like Adobe Studio.
There's a tipping point where there's enough of an installed base and ecosystem for FOSS tools to make them viable not just as a cheaper alternative, but as a better (customizable, supported, platform agnostic) tool.
Godot is raking in the euros (Score:4, Insightful)
Hendrik Mans on GDP claims in this toot [mastodon.gamedev.place] that Godot is raking in a lot more donations since Unity announced the price change. The counter for this month has exceeded 44,000 euros.
Re:Is the damage already done now? (Score:4, Funny)
Will Godot gain from this?
The Godot developers will gain burnout because of having to address the sudden onslaught of bug reports, working for free.
Re: (Score:3)
Will Godot gain from this?
The Godot developers will gain burnout because of having to address the sudden onslaught of bug reports, working for free.
That depends so much on project structure. If run right then the developers can end up concentrating on what they need to work on whilst layers of other volunteers can handle the public discussion. Linux still works reasonably fine even with massive numbers of users. There are a bunch of projects which are broken with just a few. Very often mostly a matter of integrating people who want to help quickly and making sure that they are willing and able to do the right things.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Is the damage already done now? (Score:4, Insightful)
What the studios need to do, is consider funding an open source engine. This will ensure that they don't get surprises like this, the code can be audited, new stuff added on if need be, and if something secret needs to be added, the code base can easily be forked and that fork used internally, with branches of it contributed back. Done right, it would mean devs working on it would be able to do security, and plenty of people could run automated source code validation tools on it.
If a lot of companies need a critical product as a core part of their business, why not just contribute and build a F/OSS project and throw their devs at it? This is how Linux became mainstream and businesses don't have to worry about the OS stack, compared to before 1991, when one debated between using XENIX, Dell UNIX, BSD 386, BSD/OS, AIX PS2, A/UX, and many, many other UNIX flavors based from BSD or AT&T SVR4 code. Having all the work on Linux made life easy on that front. If similar happens with a game engine, it would mean something that pretty much any gaming company would benefit from, and they would be assured that they won't be dealing with "pray I don't change the deal further" type of stuff.
Re:Is the damage already done now? (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue is people (as companies) are fundamentally selfish. Linux came about because Linus wanted to play with a kernel. Everyone else just kinda jumped on board expanding it. There just happened to be an ecosystem of open source software readily available to run on Linux without much changes. Then Slackware, and later on, Redhat happened. Then the commercialization happened. It won't happen the other way around, with diverse companies throwing in money to create a product. If we are lucky, they might start support Godot better, who knows.
Re: (Score:3)
This is a case where you really do need the GNU/Linux terminology. GNU/Linux came about because RMS got pissed off at this company modifying his software but not sharing the changes...but they couldn't get their kernel working. But there was this guy Linus who wanted to play with a kernel, and the GNU license seemed like a good choice...
One should always try to eliminate "there just happened" from an account if possible.
Re: (Score:2)
The studios won't do that because they want to protect their competitive advantages.
It's dumb, because sooner or later an OSS engine is going to surpass all of their efforts anyway, and none of them ever get very far out in front of the pack any more because the difficulty has increased with the complexity, so they are just wasting effort now and in the future to be slightly better in one or two areas. All their competition accomplishes is, ironically, retarding progress.
Re: (Score:2)
iD has released their engines for free since forever. It isn't about having a functioning engine... it is the dev tools created to use them. Believe it or not, writing your code in a blind text editor and debugging with a bunch of printf statements isn't the panacea that linux nerds would have you think
Re: (Score:2)
It's prohibitively expensive for a game that has been in the works for some time, but it's not as expensive as people think to retrain Unity devs to Unreal. Unreal isn't as scary as "C++" makes it sound, it's closer to Unity than most people think. So while people won't switch engines mid dev-cycle, they sure as hell will think thrice about starting new projects on Unity.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Unreal isn't as scary...
Yes, it is. But not because of C++. It's scary because Epic can do the exact same thing to Unreal that Unity has done. A lifetime of work can unravel immediately if Epic so decides it. It's much better to use a Free game engine such as Godot.
Re:Is the damage already done now? (Score:4, Insightful)
Current situation seems to be:
Are you making a technically more complex game or a game that requires high quality 3D? Use Unreal.
Are you making a technically more simply game or a game that focuses on 2D? Use Unity.
The problem is that latter niche can be increasingly filled with Godot. Unity's main advantage is that of being the first to arrive in this niche, as Unreal is just far too heavy and complex of an engine for a technically simple RPG like Wasteland 2, or a typical Unity 2D platformer. But Godot is now at the point where it can technically do those. And with Unity demonstrating that they consider themselves free to change the rules at any point retroactively, effectively killing not just your profitability, but your chance of ever making it big in the first place, there's a severe and urgent need to move from Unity to anything else.
We're seeing this in sudden explosion of donors to Godot.
Re: (Score:2)
Y'all should have stopped trusting them back in 2009.
As it is, there is some serious suspicion that this was maybe intended to sink the stock, as several people who were on the board, sold substantial amounts of shares in the company just before the announcement (which is known as "insider trading") so it will be very interesting to see what becomes of this. Did more people know? Or did some dipshit sincerely think that this wasn't going to chase away developers in droves?
Nobody wants this license model, an
Re:Is the damage already done now? (Score:5, Interesting)
Businesses don't think or operate like individuals. Being once bitten often does not make business partners twice shy. Its all a matter of dollars.
When you are a shop with staff all skilled up on Unity and games in the works on Unity, it is not at all easy to swap over to another engine. Its very expensive, time consuming, and outright risky. They really don't want to swap.
Unity is the best priced major game dev engine on the market. They are allowed to increase prices. All other prices are going up, after all, why shouldn't theirs? Developers will tolerate a lot of abuse from them and keep coming back for more so long as the deal is still good for the kinds of games they can make.
What I think was the most problematic aspect of this price hike is that it wasn't just a price hike, it also targeted a completely new aspect of success. The way in which it worked resulted in a very uneven distribution of costs that punished small devs the most AND created new incentive to push much-reviled DRM into games. That is a much more serious consequence than a simple price increase would have had, especially if the price increase could be introduced as another tier in the current model.
Re: (Score:3)
I think your comment deserves some thought - this could really be a sly attempt to push DRM - oh, you want to be sure to only pay for per install PER USER? Well, you will have to prove it, and here's our DRM engine you can use to prove it...
Re: (Score:3)
Short selling could never be done on sufficient scale to offset their massive amount of stocks owned by board and management.
The only conspiracy theory which could make some sense is that this was done as a prelude of a take over, where management was promised they would make out like bandits any way but the buying company wanted to weaken the shareholders a bit first.
Re: (Score:2)
No one should ever have to "trust" a vendor. All they have to do is say "we won't change the pricing on a version that's already out" and you no longer have to "trust"
They should also clarify that within a major version, bugfixes won't change the pricing.
Re: (Score:2)
Even with that statement, how do we know that this won't happen again in a few years? The vendor owns the code and copyright, and there is nothing their customers can do if they decide to double the price and charge $20.00 for every install, retroactive five years, should they so choose.
This is why the gaming industry should see about an open source engine, because money thrown at that will pay off in the long run, and companies wouldn't have to worry about this stuff happening if the engine is freely lice
Re:Is the damage already done now? (Score:5, Insightful)
> No one should ever have to "trust" a vendor. All they have to do is say "we won't change the pricing on a version that's already out" and you no longer have to "trust"
Unity used to say this. Then they yanked the Terms from Github where this was written, and decided to retroactively charge everyone for installs.
You can't trust them now. Even if they say "Ok ok, we listen, we change!". This just means they're going to come back later with something else. Best to transition off now.
Re: (Score:2)
They removed the existing agreement? Sounds like they got inspired by Wizards of the Coast a few months back. Maybe they should have looked at the fallout from that decision ...
You can't trust this if there is any 'cloud'. (Score:2)
If the product has any cloud component, they can change the licensing terms for the 'cloud', and your only recourse is to not access those services. If the product is designed not to work without cloud access, then you are stuck. Either accept the new terms, or drop all your work based on their frame work and migrate to a new one.
One reason why software vendors so like 'the cloud'.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The damage is already done for some developers. https://steamcommunity.com/app/230190/eventcomments/5992658048662299635/?ctp=7#c5992658048672280563 [steamcommunity.com]
Unity has failed multiple attempts at communicating this, it was warned internally by its own engineers how this would go down in its current form, it was advised by Unity insiders (devs like you and I) not to go forward with the announcement because this was the response it would get.
Most importantly the grievous wound has already been inflicted, by changing their terms in this way, retroactively applying it to all engine versions, removing the visible TOS from Github and removing the clauses which allowed developers to remain on older TOS they have proven they are able and willing to change the arrangement at the drop of the hat.
Re: Is the damage already done now? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The damage is done, but it's even worse than that. Because the looming damocletian sword hanging over everyone is simple: If Unity could pull that stunt, why shouldn't Unreal be able to? Why shouldn't any "free" engine maker?
If you license an engine beforehand, it's pretty trivial to enshrine anything in a contract. No backsies, no retroactive change of licensing terms, etc. That's harder to do when your license only starts way, way after you already sunk a considerable amount of money and time into a game,
Re: (Score:2)
Does the Unreal license require a continuing subscription for which the terms can be changed down the line?
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know for sure, but I was under the impression that they, too, claim a part of your sales as theirs?
Anything that works on a "as long as you sell something, you pay us a cut" model is subject to that problem.
Re: (Score:2)
I've seen a rather interesting investigative take on youtube, which runs dives into recent actions that Unity did such as its corporate mergers and actual small print in the terms. It seems like this change in rules was actually to kill a competitor in a market where company with which Unity (the company) fused recently by making itself more expensive and then waving the additional costs if you used services of the company they fused with over its competitor (which also tried to offer Unity a fusion and was
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
It is one of the vanishingly few activities that are available to us and that bring us any joy in life.
What the f do you want? Who the f are you to rank what we consider as important?
Re: (Score:2)
Just because reality, which I try to stick to, does not correlate well with your head-canon, does not entitle you to threaten me.
You can disagree with my product and service and say that you won't pay money unless XYZ is done. That is your protected right. But you do not get to threaten me with violence to get XYZ done. That's what terrorists do.
Re: (Score:2)
So, did sending death and rape threats ever accomplish anything? I mean there had to have been at least one company where management said "we got multiple emails from anonymous people threatening to rape and kill us, then rape our bodies; we have to do what they want, even if it is extremely unprofitable for us, I am glad that I chose this industry, the fans here are great". Right? Right?
Re: (Score:3)
crime-free countries like India? And to think this schlock got modded up. Feh.
And let's not start on China.
Re: Is the damage already done now? (Score:2)
He said, while using a misspelled portion of the female anatomy from which all human life springs as an insult. You could literally not have acted more like a teenage boy there.
Re: (Score:2)
Fuck gamers.
Re: (Score:2)
misspelled
teenage
How do these even relate?
Re: (Score:2)
A lot of gamers ARE teenage boys. And even younger than that. Girls, too.
Kids, of course, are going to behave in an immature way without due regard to consequences. It is in the nature of youth to do so. There is nothing wrong with being young, and no amount of vitriol from you will change that.
Incidentally, video games are now a well-established form of entertainment for adults as well. Adults are an extremely lucrative gaming market and we are getting plenty of titles aimed at adults (including outri
Re: (Score:2)
I'm talking about the adults who think nothing of sending death and rape threats over games.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Is the damage already done now? (Score:4, Informative)
The one unity is claiming to have received came from an unity employee itself, which is very understandable, as it's a retard higher up killing the engine for more profit, or even personal profit, given Riccitiello sold a shitload of shares before announcing this bombshell.
But he probably should just calm down, get some lawyers and see what they can do.
Re: (Score:2)
> But nerds care more about games anyway, because games are the most important thing in the world. So important that they must send death and rape threats to protect it
Twice now you've sympathized with the company and tried to deflect the conversation.
You're now accusing people who didn't even send the supposed threats of sending them.
See what I meant when I said you're propagandized ? Stick to the topic : Unity's shitty walk back of their shitty behavior.
Re: (Score:2)
Twice now you've sympathized with the company
No. Twice now I abhored the behaviour of sending death threats.
They are not equivalent.
Learn some basic logic, you incompetent shit.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe consumers should start acting out like this more.
Threatening to kill and rape people?
Slashdot's gone downhill.
unacceptable (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
It was ONE employee who did this. Pretty sure that person will pay dearly for it.
Re: (Score:2)
Because stuff like this coming from an employee isn't a symptom of the wider gaming culture, and the wider gaming culture wouldn't latch on to this incident as validation for their own extreme overreactions, in a positive feedback loop.
Re:unacceptable (Score:5, Informative)
What actually happened:
https://www.polygon.com/238737... [polygon.com]
https://arstechnica.com/gaming... [arstechnica.com]
Whilst I agree entirely that death threats are unacceptable, Unity's attempt to spin this so that people assume it was multiple angry third-party developers (spin which has been largely successful) is also unacceptable.
Re: (Score:2)
The death threats came from within the house. They told you this so you'd side with them, and you did. Congratulations, you are susceptible to propaganda. They managed to deflect the criticism they were deservingly getting into you sympathizing with them.
Re: (Score:2)
What he did was say he hopes they catch the responsible parties.
But that was dumb because we already know who the responsible party is, and it's someone who works for Unity.
IoW Unity called in a death threat against Unity. But they are pretending that it was a customer who did it, and uncritically reporting what they want is doing their bidding.
Re: (Score:2)
Why is that statement so hard for you fucking nerds to agree with, without dragging in any extra baggage to excuse it?
Re: (Score:2)
I already said it was dumb in another, which is a specific kind of wrong. I don't work for you, and I'm not your trained ape, so I'm not going to write what you expect me to just because you want me to.
Death threats are stupid because they are legally actionable and therefore easily used against you.
Re: (Score:2)
Death threats
legally actionable
used against you.
Imagine being such a fauxtistic nerd that you think THIS is the problem with death threats.
Re: (Score:2)
Imagine being such a bootlicker for a destructive and dying system that you think that death threats aren't an inevitable response to how people are treated under it.
Re: (Score:2)
Imagine thinking people criticizing a game is justification for raping someone.
Imagine thinking that not supporting the threat of rape and death is the same as supporting the other side. You and that RedK tosser need to learn some fucking logic.
Do I support Unity's actions? No.
Did you even ask my position on Unity's actions? NO.
So go fuck yourself, you fauxtistic nerd.
Re: (Score:2)
You think you know what I think, and you're criticizing me for knowing what you think. Waaaaaaah, and also waaaaaah. Cry me another river right next to the first one.
Re: (Score:2)
Death threats
legally actionable
used against you.
You LITERALLY said this was the problem with death threats. Not the fact that it's literally a human being's life on the line, possibly multiple, given the US's prevalence for mass shootings. But that it would hurt the person - in a LEGAL context - making the death threats.
You LITERALLY said this.
So, like I said, GO FUCK YOURSELF. Fucking fauxtistic gamer kunt. Fauxtism isn't a laudable personality goal, you piece of shit gamer.
Re: (Score:2)
I said it was a problem. You're here ranting and raving about what you think I think, when I made it clear that I'm not a doll you can pull the string on to get whatever phrase you want out of, because you apparently have a learning disability that prevents you from reading and understanding simple statements. I feel for you, I really do, and I can probably help you find a screening service that can provide you with a diagnosis.
But in the mean time, run along with your fantasies of competence, and being in
Re: (Score:2)
Calling out the fucked up behaviour doesn't mean you're automatically siding with the company.
But here you are, saying that I support them.
Having trouble reading that one simple sentence, you illiterate kunt? Fuck off.
Re: (Score:2)
You ARE siding with the company because what the company said was bullshit and you're repeating it uncritically.
The call came from inside the house [slashdot.org], but Unity is pretending that this is backlash from gamers. And you are here to help them.
That's because you're a bootlicking sycophant. Go lick boots elsewhere, I find it tedious to watch.
Re: (Score:2)
You ARE siding with the company
I'm siding AGAINST death threats in the gaming industry/community, no matter who makes them.
Learn the different, you piece of shit. Fuck off.
Re: (Score:2)
Learn the different, you piece of shit. Fuck off.
Think different?
The primary difference between you and someone with a point is that you only think you're making one. But you also think you can coerce me into being your trained monkey, which is not how anything works. All you've done is quadruple down on thinking you run shit here, and prove that you don't.
Re: (Score:2)
> Calling out the fucked up behaviour doesn't mean you're automatically siding with the company.
Yes, it does. Because while you're doing that, you're criticizing the camp who's attacking the company legitimately, tossing them in with the guy who did the threats.
The good response to "we received death threats!" is : "Deal with it, we're talking about your own fucked up behavior, and this has nothing to do with it".
Because as is usually the case, the death threats either don't exist at all (hoaxes) or lik
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, it does.
No it fucking doesn't. Stop talking to me if you're going to be this much of an illogical tosser.
The Cult of the Lamb comment was a joke... (Score:2)
"We're going to delete our most profitable game to make a a point over a fraction of a percent of profit" said no one ever.
Re: (Score:3)
Remember, Net New Installs may install a NEW install by an existing user.. So its not a tiny thing.. this has a BIG ramification
Re: (Score:3)
On some products the payment will be hundreds of percent of the sales price. And it's completely impossible to predict whether it will be a fraction of a percent or hundreds of percent because the method of calculating the payment is proprietary and opaque.
You can have $200k in profits and owing $400k in fees very easily, especially on an indie game with a free demo mode.
The Exec who suggested this policy worked for EA. (Score:2)
Where he once suggested charging gamers for bullets when they ran out in MMOFPS games.
Re: (Score:2)
The only asset they have is their game engine revenue.
Being the only asset that can be squeezed, its being squeezed.
There is no chance that the squeezing with stop.
Re: (Score:3)
Unity also owns a major mobile-ad and in-game-purchase monetization platform called LevelPlay. And they said those devs who switched to it would have their Unity runtime fees conveniently waived [eurogamer.net].
Re: The Exec who suggested this policy worked for (Score:2)
Saw this elsewhere and this is a majorly important aspect.
It's also generally illegal; they decimated the income streams if you don't use their new service. Generally that's a violation of antitrust laws.
Re: The Exec who suggested this policy worked for (Score:2)
Only if the market provides no alternatives, which it does. But it might violate Dutch law on linked sales.
"We apologize for the confusion" (Score:5, Insightful)
There was no confusion.
You were greedy and got called the fuck out.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, LOL, came here to say just that. Wish I had mod points.
Re: (Score:2)
It's also about who called you out.
The apology came fast when bunch of game studios threatened to cut off their ad source completely from their platforms.
Re: (Score:2)
Fire the CEO (Score:5, Insightful)
CEO must be fired (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Because the CEO alone is responsible? What world do you live in?
These useless token sacrifices of some high-profile dude are all the rage, I know. But there's a lot more to corporate culture than a figurehead CEO.
Re: (Score:2)
Insider trading?
Re: (Score:3)
No, perfectly standard and normal trading for CEOs to sell their shares. He sold 2000 of them. That is part of 50000 he sold this year in close to 50 separate transactions. For the record he gets about 150000 a year as part of his share package.
CEOs working for medium sized companies often get most of their pay in shares, and convert those shares to cash, in a process that needs to be announced to the FTC months in advance, which it was.
Re:CEO must be fired (Score:4, Interesting)
If you have insider information and you sell shares before the information hits the public, it's insider trading plain and simple. When you can schedule both the trading and the "company changes" far in advance how is that not unfair advantage and not insider trading?
Re: (Score:2)
If you have insider information and you sell shares before the information hits the public, it's insider trading plain and simple. When you can schedule both the trading and the "company changes" far in advance how is that not unfair advantage and not insider trading?
No it's not plain and simple. There is nothing at all abnormal about these share trades (fun fact, the CEO has so far offloaded less shares this year than last year). I said these share trades were announced months in advanced, but that's not the whole story. *THESE* trades were announced months in advance. Just like the trades before them, and those before them and those before them. This is public information, you can make the same trades as they do, you know how they will move shares. That is the entire
Re: (Score:2)
It will matter if that firing involves a cannon.
Re:CEO must be fired (Score:4, Informative)
It won't matter, he already cashed out:
https://kotaku.com/unity-devel... [kotaku.com]
Jesus this stupid story needs to die. He hasn't cashed out much of anything. The CEO sold 2000 shares prior to the anouncements, which makes up about 2% of his yearly share package. In fact over the entire year he has sold only about 1/3rd of that year's remuneration. The rest of the board equally so. They are converting their imaginary pay into actual pay, and have done so consistently and slowly over time, nothing more.
Unity: Touted Like Open-Source (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Also its focus was on scriptability and having a connect-the-dots type interface for casual games.
Re: (Score:2)
Godot seems good enough as an alternative... (Score:2)
This is an unrecoverable blunder. You reap what you sow, etc etc.
"We are listening, talking to our..." (Score:2)
Maybe if they had done this before making the announcement in the first place, they wouldn't be in this situation. There's so much of this going on... MBAs assume they know better than the people actually doing the work, they refuse to believe they might have some valid and applicable knowledge.
There's every reason this will happen again. (Score:5, Informative)
"Consent is not required for additional fees to take effect, and the only version of our terms is the most current version; you simply cannot choose to comply with a prior version."
https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-plan-pricing-and-packaging-updates.1482750/page-45#post-9297488
Seems to indicate how they feel about "changing the terms" in the future.
Re: There's every reason this will happen again. (Score:2)
They're channeling Darth Vader. That always goes down well with your customers. Not.
Re: (Score:2)
A Unity rep consulted one of their lawyer about a response to question:
"Consent is not required for additional fees to take effect, and the only version of our terms is the most current version; you simply cannot choose to comply with a prior version."
https://forum.unity.com/thread... [unity.com]
Seems to indicate how they feel about "changing the terms" in the future.
Pretty much this.
A great deal of trust has been lost. I suspect that a lot of companies looking to use Unity in the future will want an iron clad contract fixing costs and fees.
Also I cant help but think this was planned deliberately to get the outrage over a price increase over and done with by releasing an outrageous increase, then walking it back to a merely large one.
90% Unaffected (Score:2)
Unity is a platform used by many. Big studios, indie studios, and a metric shitton of people just having a play. Did they include all their customers in this, including the very many who don't actively ship any games for profit?
Even I have Unity installed on my machine and my programming and modelling skills can charitably be described as childlike.
Get out while you can (Score:2)
I would recommend everybody to immediately switch to some other graphics engine, before it's too late. This just shows exactly what they are trying to accomplish do and you can expect more of these things and shenanigans in the future. Consider this your warning.
"We're 'sorry'..." (Score:2)
"I calculated the odds of this succeeding versus the odds I was doing something incredibly stupid and... I went ahead anyway." -- Crow T. Robot of MST3K
None of them play Dungeons and Dragons, I guess (Score:3)
Or they might have skipped this tune after having heard it before when Wizards of the Cost (not a typo) tried extremely analogous crap about a year ago. It didn't go so well then, either.
Unity was much more fun ... (Score:2)
Back in the beginning, when I got into it. When it was three guys in Copenhagen just making a little cool game engine for us Mac users. And yes, I am that old a Unity user ... my member registration number on their forums is in the low single digits. I recall I beat even David Helgason registering, in fact (who is also a super nice guy btw).
I hope Joachim and the others are still having fun after this broo-ha-ha cause they are ultra-cool and super friendly guys. Hi guys.
You want to make an apology that people... (Score:2)
Walk back this entire concept of charging a fee for an installation.
Full stop. It's completely fine to be required to pay for a different version after you exceed a certain dollar figure, but if you want to get devs to take your apology seriously, you have to move to a pricing model that (once you have passed the threshold for being no longer able to use the personal edition) is based only on the number of developers the company has.
This is leaving aside that your company h
Just do what other engines do and charge a royalty (Score:2)
If Unity as a company needs to make more money to keep funding the development of their engine, they should just do what Unreal Engine and others do and charge a percentage of total revenue (after some threshold is hit) as a royalty. Easy to understand and implement and hits the biggest and highest-earning developers (with the biggest capacity to pay) the most.