Developers remain critical of this latest statement from Unity. “There wasn’t any ‘confusion’,” said Trent Kusters of Jumplight Odyssey studio League of Geeks. “In fact, the exact opposite is the concerning issue here; That we all, very clearly, understood the devastating impact and anti-developer sentiment of your new pricing model far better than you ever did (or cared to) before rolling it out.”
If you haven’t tried their “Brooklyn Style” crust, I’d give it a try. I don’t like their new regular crust at all. Brooklyn Style only comes in large and extra-large, though.
And if we’re talking about apologies and corrective action: the only real way forward is a completely fresh executive team at Unity. Anything short of that means they’re simply going to try this all again in a slightly different fashion once focus on their clusterfuck dies down.
A trifecta of VC and PE firms own a majority share or Unity’s shares. Those guys love a monetization scheme, which is all this is. The board’s not going anywhere.
The real question is whether or not people will continue to use Unity. Apologies mean less than nothing in a case like this regardless of whether or not they’re sincere. This is a company that’s shown their cards. Why give them business when you can go elsewhere?
Personally, this has made me start looking more into Godot. I’ve got a project I’m going to be working on that I was going to do in Unreal, but this Unity stuff has made me skeptical of tying my creative output to any one company that can’t be easily replaced. Getting that wrapped up with a proprietary platform that comes with licensing that might change just seems like a bad idea now. Maybe Unreal is okay today, but what about down the road? Why start building into a system that there’s no guarantee won’t enshittify a few years down the road?
I’d like to get my major mechanical stuff squared away and develop a visual style and then tell more stories without reinventing the wheel every time. Once I’ve got my assets built on top of an engine, I’d rather add to it over time than arbitrarily scrap it every few years. Updating and refactoring is all well and good, but I’m not in it to code the same system over and over.
That makes Godot look pretty appealing, and any closed source corporate offering look pretty shady.
That’s how this comes off. The ultimate non-apology. Fuck off, Unity.
Edit: something to consider is that Unity intentionally made this change as terrible as it is so that they could put out this apology, and roll things back to where their main goal was the entire time. It’s kind of like when you list your house for a high price so that it gets negotiated down to the price range you wanted from the outset. Don’t be shocked if Unity changes this a bit but keeps it essentially the same. It means they can then reflect on history and go “hey, remember that time we listened to the developers?” while still fucking them over.
hindsight is 20-20. My point is not to jump to conclusions, nobody knows what is going on through their head. They may be really that fucking stupid, as most executive staff tend to be.
This is called the “Door in the face method” of bargaining. Start with a request so high and absurd that you “slam the door in their face” because it’s so absurd.
The next time they try, they’ll come back with an offer that sounds far more reasonable than the original request. Since you’re still primed with the previous context, your brain makes it sound less bad than it probably is ("At least it’s not the first offer!). You’re more likely to accept after this.
The opposite technique is called “foot in the door”, start with a small request (get your foot in the door) and then increase the ask after the small request goes over.
Imagine that you start a game project (which will cost you years and a lot of $$$ to develop) and at any point Unity just arbitrarilly changes the conditions (which can be of any kind, not just extra charges) that apply to your game, after you’re too far into development to feasibly replace Unity, and do it retroactivelly, so after your game is already out it can still get impacted by it.
Suddenly a totally viable project might become unviable or, worse, an active drain on your company’s finances or even your own (i.e. your company and, depending on how you structured it, even you yourself can go bankrupt), and all of that based on the fickle wishes of a higher up in Unity.
At this point it makes no business sense whatsoever to choose Unity: there is way, WAY, WAY too much risk involved by choosing it (new charges that apply retroactivelly as this one can literally kill your company) and at the same times there are viable alternatives out there without such risks.
For any project not yet deeply tied to Unity, from the day they came up with a retroactive change to their pricing, the obvious, clear as day, choice from a business point of view became to not use anything from Unity, even for shitty shit asset-flipping “near zero investment” projects.
Can you quickly tell me what’s the applicable jurisdition for this if say, a gamedev company based in Uruguay sells a game made with Unity (HQ US) via Apple Store (HQ US) to a user in China who installs it 3 times?
At the very least it will cost you quite some legal fees to merelly figure out the jurisdiction because there are multiple legal angles to go after this (contract law, intellectual property) which might yield different jurisdictions (maybe it’s contract law and then maybe its the US, maybe Uruguay, or maybe it’s IP law and it’s the copy of the game to the device local storage i.e. the installation - that is treated as requiring licensing of the Unity IP, and it defines the jurisdiction as China because that’s were the user did it … or maybe the US because that’s what the IP owner is).
This “cleared up”, next you’ll have to figure out if it such retroactive pricing changes were legal there or not: maybe you’re lucky, maybe you’re screwed.
For new projects I don’t think it’s worth it for a small gamedev company to spend time and money pursuing the “let’s clear the legal status every way Unity can screw me in the future so that I can use Unity” option rather than the “let’s use something else” option.
It’s really only worth checking it for companies with existing or advanced projects on top of Unity were the income/potential-income from those projects justifies it (vs the options of just pulling the project out from distribution or redo it with another framework).
I mean, sure, eventually somebody will have paid the legal costs of this and maybe the legal decision is broad enough and in the right jurisdiction for your company and it’s applicable … and then Unity just goes and comes up with some other shit that somebody has to take through the legal rigmarole to figure out if they can. Also, unless its illegal everywhere, some companies will be affected.
Meanwhile “Don’t use Unity on any future projects” is a pretty straighforward way to minimize your project risks…
Can you quickly tell me what’s the applicable jurisdition for this if say, a gamedev company based in Uruguay sells a game made with Unity (HQ US) via Apple Store (HQ US) to a user in China who installs it 3 times?
Then Urugauay, since the contract for Unity is between Unity and the game studio in Uruguay, and is the game studio that must pay Unity, not the Chinese buyer (not sure if applicable by Uruguay’s law). In every country where you sell something, you need to follow the law applicable to the buyer, not the seller.
If you change Uruguay with Italy (where I live) then it is illegal, for example no matter where the seller has the HQ and no matter where I sell the game. And I suspect in most of EU. If you sell me something then we have a contract, then both of us cannot change it retroactively unilaterally, I am not even sure if it is legal if both of us agree. Many US based company tried and failed.
If Unity pull a stunt like this on an Italian game studio, the studio can simply avoid to pay and if Unity kill the current license agreeement the studio can sue them. Sure, Unity can then refuse to sell new or renew licenses to the studio, but that is another thing, the old license is still valid.
At the very least it will cost you quite some legal fees to merelly figure out the jurisdiction because there are multiple legal angles to go after this (contract law, intellectual property) which might yield different jurisdictions (maybe it’s contract law and then maybe its the US, maybe Uruguay, or maybe it’s IP law and it’s the copy of the game to the device local storage i.e. the installation - that is treated as requiring licensing of the Unity IP, and it defines the jurisdiction as China because that’s were the user did it … or maybe the US because that’s what the IP owner is).
True, but that is the cost of doing business in a foreign country. Why did you think Apple (US based) put the USB-C on the new IPhone ? To be nice ? Or because EU imposed it ? Is not this a price for Apple ?
This “cleared up”, next you’ll have to figure out if it such retroactive pricing changes were legal there or not: maybe you’re lucky, maybe you’re screwed.
That is another problem and, at least in Europe, Unity is on very thin ice. From the game studio perpective is a problem only if their local law allow for a retroactive change in a contract, else the new terms are void and Unity can say what they want.
In Europe, if Unity can track retroactively the installations, then they tracked the users and if they (or the game studio ) did not notified the user it is a direct violation of the GDPR and all it need to is just one user that sue them. And before you say something, it is already happened before. The fines are pretty interesting btw…
For new projects I don’t think it’s worth it for a small gamedev company to spend time and money pursuing the “let’s clear the legal status every way Unity can screw me in the future so that I can use Unity” option rather than the “let’s use something else” option.
Completely agree on this.
It’s really only worth checking it for companies with existing or advanced projects on top of Unity were the income/potential-income from those projects justifies it (vs the options of just pulling the project out from distribution or redo it with another framework).
Again, nope. If it is illegal in the studio HQ country, then is not worth checking: the term cannot be changed.
What can happen, in Italy, is that Unity can change unilaterally the contract for the future and in this case the game studio can simply modify the selling price of an already released game or put a adeguate price tag in any future game in a too advanced development stage to be redone with another game engine. And of course change the game engine for all the other projects.
But there is no way that Unity can monetize past installation of a game based on a contract with certain conditions.
Because if there’s one thing I learned from my own contact with the Law (not being a lawyer myself) is that sometimes it is indeed exactly as it makes logical sense (in which case it would basically be as you describe) and sometimes it’s not and depending in the jurisdiction you might even have to end up in Court to figure it out.
I don’t know about you, but I won’t stake my company’s future on presuming the applicable Law matches common sense, even with the assurances from a non-lawyer on the Internet.
My point being that we won’t be sure until somebody gets legal clarification on this, maybe even gets their day in Court over this, and after that then all of us to whom that legal clarification does apply (and me being in the EU also, it would probably apply to my country as it does to Italy) can rest easy (or not, depending on what the clarification says) … until Unity tries something else.
Meanwhile I’ll keep on slowly decoupling the code from its Unity dependencies on the project I have and trying out Godot and the Unreal Engine, just in case and because I have to, as I pointed out, protect myself from the risk of them pulling some other bullshit in the future.
Even this does get reversed (or shown illegal in the applicable juridiction) and I do end up shipping the project with Unity, I’ll always keep on “looking over my shoulder” with them and this has definitelly made it more likely that I will end up using Godot or Unreal on my next projects, if only because it has pushed me to properly put time aside to seriously try both out and I’m pretty sure they’ll be better than Unity at least for some kinds of game.
Nope, but I know my rights. And as a buyer I have rights.
Because if there’s one thing I learned from my own contact with the Law (not being a lawyer myself) is that sometimes it is indeed exactly as it makes logical sense (in which case it would basically be as you describe) and sometimes it’s not and depending in the jurisdiction you might even have to end up in Court to figure it out.
I know, and I agree. But on this thing I am pretty sure for a couple of reasons:
I had to interact with a lawyers for something similar both while working and in private matters
In Italy there are precedents, and with big companies (true, maybe the process is a little slower than what it should be)
If you think about it, it anyone can change retroactively the contract, then contracts are useless garbage and no business could be done.
I don’t know about you, but I won’t stake my company’s future on presuming the applicable Law matches common sense, even with the assurances from a non-lawyer on the Internet.
My point being that we won’t be sure until somebody gets legal clarification on this, maybe even gets their day in Court over this, and after that then all of us to whom that legal clarification does apply (and me being in the EU also, it would probably apply to my country as it does to Italy) can rest easy (or not, depending on what the clarification says) … until Unity tries something else.
Me neither, but I know what the law say in my country and I know that if I sign a contract, the seller cannot alter it after.
I know for a fact that if we agree that you sell me something at 1 euro/month, you cannot decide in 2024 that the charge for 2023 is 2 euro/month. You can ask 2 euro/month for 2024 and sign a new contract, but 2023 it a done deal. And if you put a clause in the contract that state “the seller can change retroactively the charge and pretend the difference on arrears” the clause is automatically void since it is a vexatious terms that are forbidden by law by default.
Maybe Unity can pull the trick in the US where, given the prohibitely high costs of the justice system, a small indie studio would pay and a big corporation can discuss, but in EU I don’t think Unity can really pull the trick. Or any of these kind of tricks.
Meanwhile I’ll keep on slowly decoupling the code from its Unity dependencies on the project I have and trying out Godot and the Unreal Engine, just in case and because I have to, as I pointed out, protect myself from the risk of them pulling some other bullshit in the future.
Even this does get reversed (or shown illegal in the applicable juridiction) and I do end up shipping the project with Unity, I’ll always keep on “looking over my shoulder” with them and this has definitelly made it more likely that I will end up using Godot or Unreal on my next projects, if only because it has pushed me to properly put time aside to seriously try both out and I’m pretty sure they’ll be better than Unity at least for some kinds of game.
Yep, trust is way harder to gain and really easy to lose.
I would like to be a bit more certain that at point were the heavilly-rigged IP lLaw (with associated things like EULAs and “by using this software you accept it’s TOS”) crosses with Contract Law, obviously breaking of contract law with retroactive changes is laughed out of court even when the legal argument was made that the Unity Runtime is licensed separatelly from the Unity Editor and as the installation of a game that contains parts of the Unity Runtime is a copy of copyrighted material, then it’s up to Unity to determine the licensing conditions.
However after watching the complete legal shit show that’s been done around IP Law since at least the 90s (note how in almost 3 decades EULAs in software haven’t been clearly and definitivelly thrown out everywhere, given that they’re trying to “change the terms of the implicit contract which is a sale after the sale”), I’m not willing to risk my company until I’m sure.
I mean, if all this was for certainly ruled by Contract Law and only Contract Law, all you say makes perfect sense as that’s pretty mature even in cross-jurisdiction trade relations. However this stuff overlaps with IP Law (as I said, the installation of software in a computer is considered a copy of copyrighted material) and that one has been heavilly rigged and abused for decades, including in situations where Contract Law would seem to apply (EULAs in software being a pretty big one).
You seem to be going from the starting from the point that the Law makes sense and is fair, which understandable … if you aren’t well acquainted with any lawyers ;)
I would like to be a bit more certain that at point were the heavilly-rigged IP lLaw (with associated things like EULAs and “by using this software you accept it’s TOS”) crosses with Contract Law, obviously breaking of contract law with retroactive changes is laughed out of court even when the legal argument was made that the Unity Runtime is licensed separatelly from the Unity Editor and as the installation of a game that contains parts of the Unity Runtime is a copy of copyrighted material
Well, I obviously understand you and would say that it is the right thing to do.
And I only talk about my country and by extension think that maybe it is the same in all the EU even if I know that, while there should be an uniform law it is not always that way.
But even if the Unity Editor and the Unity Runtime are licensed separately, this just make 2 license so 2 contracts, nothing else. But both licenses must follow the law of the country they sell it.
then it’s up to Unity to determine the licensing conditions.
Which is true.
What I am saying is that what Unity cannot do is to do a retroactive change to the terms of the license.
However after watching the complete legal shit show that’s been done around IP Law since at least the 90s (note how in almost 3 decades EULAs in software haven’t been clearly and definitivelly thrown out everywhere, given that they’re trying to “change the terms of the implicit contract which is a sale after the sale”), I’m not willing to risk my company until I’m sure.
I mean, if all this was for certainly ruled by Contract Law and only Contract Law, all you say makes perfect sense as that’s pretty mature even in cross-jurisdiction trade relations. However this stuff overlaps with IP Law (as I said, the installation of software in a computer is considered a copy of copyrighted material) and that one has been heavilly rigged and abused for decades, including in situations where Contract Law would seem to apply (EULAs in software being a pretty big one).
I am pretty sure that the EULA in Italy and EU is different from the one in US and the one in other countries.
So probably the EULA I accept is legal in my country and if there is some illegal terms they are void.
You seem to be going from the starting from the point that the Law makes sense and is fair, which understandable … if you aren’t well acquainted with any lawyers ;)
Let’s say that I had to interact with lawyers more than I’d liked to.
Having been in the business of software since the 90s and following what’s been done under the cover of IP Law (which would apply here given that the installation of software has been deemed a copy of copyrighted material), I’ve seen a lot of shit that would seem not to make legal sense be accepted by courts (notice how EULAs in shrinkwrapped software are deemed “an attempt at changing the implicity contract of a sale after the sale” in jurisdictions like Germany ut in others like some US states they’ve been found to be legally enforceable) so all this stuff has to be legally clarified in an iron clad way before it can be trusted.
I mean, even open source software with the most well written and ironclad license has been shown to have problems because of Patents (another bit of IP Law heavilly abused in the last 3 decades).
They want apple to buy them. Apple can’t really lean on unreal at this point since the epic lawsuit. So unity is the next viable option. They want apple to buy them and/or they wanted a piece of every download on apples phones/vr.
Apples last announcement is telegraphing a shift towards gaming on some level. Unity is being opportunistic albeit tone-deaf AF.
This is the part they’re missing: apple actually care about the appearance of quality.
I’m not saying apple makes quality products, there’s some good debate there that they really don’t. But they certainly foster the belief that apple products are superior in quality to their competitors.
Unity is a great engine when it’s used well, but it doesn’t have a reputation for quality. It has a Reputation that says “anyone can publish a bolted together asset flip and make a quick buck off of twitter hype”
I doubt apple would acquire unity based purely on the fact that unity does not adhere to apple’s ideals on branding. Apple tends to buy rights from young companies that don’t have large established brands yet, because it’s easier to fold them into the cult of apple. An established brand with a known reputation would be a tough sell, especially when Apple has the resources to simply make their own product that’s tailored to their hardware.
That’s a good point. I know apple usually doesn’t do acquisitions because cultures just clash too much (especially when it’s a large company). It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
Unity just shot themselves in the foot. If I was a game dev, I’d think twice or thrice about starting a new project with unity.
There will certainly be a chilling effect on their revenue moving forward. I don’t understand how companies this large make gaffs this bad. Do they not have someone assigned to ‘red team’ major decisions.
I always assign someone or a team of people to red team key decisions. Especially if everyone in the room thinks its a great idea.
No, because the entire industry and most of their customers are still pissed off enough at them that it’s still going to have very serious long term effects.
That’s my point - I am fairly certain they’ve destroyed any trust and goodwill the industry had towards them, to the extent that I would bet money on Unity folding in a year or two.
The only thing that would restore that trust is for Unity to dump their entire exec team, and they’re not going to do that, because the board and the exec team are all buddies.
I don’t think this is recoverable. They tried a naked cash grab (plus some other sketchy stuff lumped in), it blew up in their faces, and now everyone who does business with them knows that Unity’s leadership sees no issue with unilaterally changing all of their business agreements in a sweeping fashion. That’s not a behavior pattern that will entice other companies and developers to do business with them.
They’re an industry pariah at this point. They’d have to hand out crazy sweetheart deals to get people onboard (which, with the AppLovin context, was basically happening already)… but anyone who takes that deal should ask themselves: “What if Unity decides to change this deal, too?”
Precisely what I’m talking about. They can afford to do so, since they lost the trust of the user about 2 statements from the CEO ago.
And not to go too deep into it, but how the hell are you going to create a brand new pricing scheme in only “a couple of days”, without already having a draft of it ready? Don’t you wanna check in with your lawyer? Your CFO? This shit must take more than 2 days to do.
I don’t think they checked with their lawyer before releasing the first one (that had some pretty obviously legally dubious provisions). Why would they start asking the legal team now?
Attempted to fuck with dungeons and dragons. Google will bring you all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, probably far more informatively than I would.
That's exactly what I thought. It's like all the corporations have crossed some invisible threshold and decided that they need to burn all the bridges that got them there in the first place.
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.
Allow me to translate:
We’re now publishing the terms that we were actually going for from the very beginning. We’ve always known that the flaming bag of shit that we laid on your doorstep was unreasonable. If it worked, it worked, but if it didn’t, it can stand in contrast to the new less shit terms that you’re either supposed to agree to or rewrite your whole game. Not like our PR was great before this gambit. What have we to lose?
Correct. The right course of action would be to backtrack this per download idea completely, fire the person who thought of this, and add a clause on their ToS that such bullshit will never happen again, and that of they broke that agreement, they will refund everyone affected by it.
I mean, they have a lot to lose. There are strong alternatives. Unreal and Godot are at the doorstep. Godot doesn't take anything at all, Unreal takes, but in a reasonable manner and it's of course on 3D a lot more powerful and also offers an asset store.
The games already developed and deep into development are unlikely to jump, but future games will have a huge argument against Unity now. Unreal could completely snap their necks now by putting into writing that they never do such move.
You’d have to be crazy to want to work with this company anymore.
Forget about this being a “video game scene” specific drama. As a vendor, they’ve just fundamentally destroyed any credibility they had with their clients.
Why do you think it was a mistake? They put themselves in the spot where taking back just the most egregious fees will be considered a victory by the users while in reality the company basically got what they were hoping for.
It’s like on a Turkish bazaar when you buy a fake jersey. He will ask for 800 lira and then you talk him down to 400 and feel like a winner, but the jersey is maybe worth 100.
Sorry, I thought it was obvious I was sarcastic about their “mistake”. They want to be seen as the victims like they didn’t know in advance the outcome of their decisions. Backing down on the changes only to show something “less worst” is only a way to make the pill easier to swallow. Unity cannot be trusted anymore.
It won’t be considered a victory. The developers have already lost Unity, and Unity has already lost its developers. Even if they undo everything, the trust is permanently damaged. What developer will dare to make a multi year, million dollar bet on Unity after this?
Just so you know, this isn’t the first time Unity does this - last time they potentially enabled literal malware and forced privacy violating software on users and developers alike. Games using Unity still came out after that debacle.
Companies don’t desire to be treated as people under the law, the 1886 Supreme Court decision that interpreted the 14th Amendment as corporate personhood was the most racist decision we still live with today. The amendment was written to grant freed slaves citizenship, but the same greedy capitalists that benefited from slavery used it to begin the neofeudaism that still enriches the few while causing suffering for the masses today and it’s only getting worse. Don’t “love” any corporation, they’re literally born out of the greatest evil in US history.
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