Unity deleted these terms, don't let them get out
Unity deleted these terms, don't let them get out
254 comments
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Basically don't update existing games & stop using Unity completely & you're good.
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No, Unity is still saying they want a cut of old games if they're ever newly installed.
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Does this mean that the "Report on install" feature is already in the old release? It's a reasonable feature to already have, I assume Unity gives you a handful of statistics "for free" as part of using the engine.
However there is a difference between "installs" the number and "installs" the billing number. A website might have 1,000 page views. So 1,000 users? Well we need unique page views. What makes a page view unique? What if someone visits your website but leaves after 2 seconds, do we count those?
In addition to being a terrible decision I don't think the company is prepared at all for this decision.
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"y'know, maybe Reddit and Twitter are on to something"
-Unity CEO, probably-
"Your right Gary! The best way to endear our current users to us AND make more money is to take a big, heaping, smelly shit right into their mouths. While they are coping with that amazing gift we'll just sneak off with their wallets. BAM! Money motherfucker!"
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Reddit, Twitter, Google, Twitch, Meta, you name it, they're all having to find new ways to make money now that the decade-long bullrun of low interest rates and endless VC money is over.
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Looks like 2023 will be remembered as the year of big size enshittification. So many companies going to shit. Reddit with restricting API access, Twitter with...everything really, Google with its DRM and now Unity...great year so far, right?
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Lmao when you're trying to turn your company into a bloodsucking vampire but you forgot that long ago, you told your lawyer to chain the coffin in case this very thing happened.
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"Hey bro, let's go check out those sirens over there. I swear, bro... just plug your ears with wax and tie me to the bow. Bro, it'll be so epic."
Sirens arrive
"Bro, why the fuck did you tie me down?? Smash this goddamn boat against the rocks!"
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I wish we could get names of the teams that decided this was a good idea. I'd love to hear their side
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I want to know who hired that fucking CEO and put him up to purposefully tank Unity.
This can't be anything less than a blatant attempt to destroy a company so who would have a vested interest in destroying Unity? It can't just be for money.
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Sadly, there often comes a time when a critical mass of the business leaders decide "you know what, I want to cash out and no matter how disastrous this will be long term, I think short term this will milk some revenue out of some captive audience".
In the IT industry, that time is usually when Broadcom buys you.
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You've hurt me right in the vSphere.
What a lot of people at these companies don't understand is that other options existing means people will find a way to continue without you... The more that happens, the larger the community... the faster you fail.
When Broadcom announced buying VMWare, literally all the IT subreddits in unison looked for other alternatives. We're on Proxmox now, it's been a better product than VMWare in literally every way.
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In the software side of IT, this is usually when you start seeing layoffs and a mass replacement of talented developers with bottom-of-the-barrel offshore contractors. Beware the following fail cascade.
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Kicked me right in the Reddit.
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Its the same ethos of those CEOs that are demanding everyone must return to the office. No ifs, or buts.
They damage moral which takes years to build up, they further announce layoffs which destroys whatever moral was left.
These idiots never seem to be held accountable.
Honestly, these management types need to be case studied.
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It is Big Godot pulling the strings to entice people to jump ship to their free and open source game engine. The plan is dastardly, but effective. Can't use other game engines if there are no other engines left standing.
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You know, if Godot was actually a for-profit endeavor, I probably would believe you.
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It's not only the CEO, it's all the board. Don't think he can do this kind of shit alone.
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It can’t just be for money.
Lol (litterally)
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this means that if Unity sends you a bill, you don't have to pay it, and if they take you to court, you prove that you're acting within the terms of the license you agreed to, which keeps your lawyer fees to a manageable level because you already have all the documents you need: the contract and your source code.
I mean right? IANAL.
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If it affects your rights then yes. It's not just that they're sending a bill. For example, if it is illegal to change a TOS to suddenly charge for something that wasn't in your jurisdiction then it's probably affecting "your rights".
Even then, it only says the current calendar year. They're making the pricing change on January 1st, right? If so then you're probably out of luck.
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You cannot update to a modern version of unity, or install any unity version anymore technically. I think bc they outline the ability to use the license without updating versions you should be okay.
IANAL
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iVaginal
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Pussy
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So basically unity wants money even for games made on their engine before this shitty update. All older versions of games with older versions of unity are eligible to be monetized. Forget ethical, how is that even legal?
Unity, I hope you die. Sorry to all the Devs who put their soul into developing it.
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That's what I thought also. I mean they could legally also add that for every instalation of an old game the developer would have to send nude pics to Unity CEO?
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Yup. Totally normal. It is part of the user agreement. We just aren't aware of it yet.
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Jesus dude chill it. Somehow hating Unity is popular here, and don't get me wrong I am also here because I hated the corporate asshole named spez, but this move Unity wants to make isn't super unreasonable. They want to charge proportionally to the amount of usage. If they'd done this right out of the gate, nobody would have thought that is unreasonable. Unity is a great engine, they should be able to charge for it.
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If they'd done this right out of the gate, nobody would have thought that is unreasonable.
More realistically, a lot of Devs would've never have chosen it, thereby not having it to become as popular as it is today. Something else would've taken its place, simple.
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If they'd done this right out of the gate, nobody would have thought that is unreasonable.
That's ridiculous. There's no technical way they can accurately detect repeat installs on the same device, or pirated copies. Which means devs will pay out the nose for no reason. The outrage exists for a reason
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Somehow the worst take ive seen in a long time. And to add to the convo they should have just did what unreal does with the 5%
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What is it with tech companies being too shitty lately?
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The Venture Capital Well is running dry, tech companies are turtling up their data so other tech companies dont use AI to scrape all their content... its the 12th hour of the tech bubble and they're all scrambling to become real companies that make, you know, money. Problem is they dont know how, and customers dont want to pay them for the garbage they used to tolerate when it was free.
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The lack of "easy money". A lot of companies have had accelerated growth due to an influx of investments which were mostly interest-free (or very low interest) loans . You didn't have to have a good product - just overinflate your value till your IPO, then the value will determine stock price, everyone gets rich.
Now that interest rates are higher, investors want a lot more bang for their buck. Couple this with companies that no longer know how to make good products, now they're just squeezing shit dry and scheming and scamming their customers to fulfill their one and only legal obligation: make more money for the shareholders.
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If I could be certain this is true, I'd be optimistic.
It would mean (because of some things being more profitable than other) that after long labor pains (involving legal battles and IP laws changing for patents and anti-monopoly laws changing back to working state) these companies were going to die and the better ones were going to take their place.
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Capitalism. While the average person is frustrated over their grocery bills being 2x, the corporate ghouls are trying to milk as much money as they can. Not to mention I believe they pulled out their shares before the decision was made so it seems like they were trying to just cash out before shit hit the fan.
Everything is being run on borrowed money, even major studios like Marvel or Blizzard take injections and answer to share holders / venture capital, instead of just making a better product.
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Like I answered in another comment, this would be wonderful, as this would mean that they are going to crash hard. Better a horrible end than horror without end. I mean, every magnificent era of development started with a frustrating crisis of this kind. So let it go boom, I don't care that much about any of the big tech around. Well, Sun was nice, but it's dead.
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Greed and societal acceptance of greed.
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And interest rates doing an uh oh and they can't think of any more innovative a solution than to soak their paying customers
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Not just acceptance. There has been a worship of the greediest people as the most "successful" and those who are "worth" the most.
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IDK, but a lot of tech stock got a massive boost during Covid, then when that was over, and we instead got war in Ukraine, there has been a bit of a slowdown. So maybe they think the progress they had should continue, even if the economy doesn't justify it.
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The Ukraine stuff has nothing to do with it.
It's the feds attempts to wrangle inflation (caused by dumping trillions into the economy during COVID)by hiking interest rates. Companies with barely profitable or even unprofitable business models used to be able to borrow money at stupid cheap interest rates. Now that it's 7-8% they realize they have to figure something out.
It was this silicon valley "trade profits for scale and then we'll figure it out later" approach. That only works when cheap loans could float you until you hit scale or figured something out.
But in Unity's case I think it's partially that (they aren't profitable), but partially related to the stuff apple is releasing and doing lately.
I think unity is trying to get in front of a possible boom in Mac and apple gaming. Charge dev $.20 per install so you insure you get a piece of every game install and avoid a confrontation with Apple about app store rates.
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I know Unity claim they can apply their new pricing to old versions anyway, but setting that aside, how practical is it to simply stay on Unity 2022 LTSB or earlier?
I'm not a software developer, I'm a CAD modeller. My company pays Autodesk a substantial amount of money every year for licence tokens which grants us access to new releases, but using the latest is pretty much unheard of.
For AutoCAD, 2022 is the default (2024 is current) although they don't seem to have added much of interest since v2019. For the likes of Civil 3D and Revit there are useful updates in newer versions, but the version used is locked in at the start of a project, and upgrading mid scheme is only done in exceptional circumstances.
If Autodesk came out with some kind of scheme in their 2025 tos that said "if you model a bridge in Revit, we will charge 5 cents for every car that crosses or passes under it" then we could easily stick on 2024 for a decade, more than enough time to skill up on the alternatives.
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You can't do that in unity, because each version has somehow a major bug ruining your life or your project.
They usually only fix them after they introduce another bug that breaks another part of your project, so it's a neverending race.
You don't wan't to reimplement everything yourself and they are always "working on it" so you trust them
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If those were the terms you signed, those are the terms that matter.
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But do the terms you signed say they are allowed to change the terms at any time with notice?
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Sure, but they also say you can use an old version if you prefer the old terms. Basically, that if they update the terms, it’ll only apply to the current/future versions.
So just stop using the current version. Just use the old version which still has the old terms. You never agreed to the new terms, and under the terms you agreed to, you can continue to use the old terms.
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Yes that is what the post you commented on says But they also say you can use an old version if you don't like the changed terms.
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Typically terms of service can and will be updated and if you don't object to them you're deemed to have accepted them.
Many people will be familiar with emails entitled "your terms of service have changed" or "updates to your terms of service"
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Can someone help me understand? Maybe my understanding of contracts is too simple but in this example:
I've developed and published a unity game. The game is complete and will receive no future updates from me, but will remain on sale for the foreseeable future.
My understanding of the current situation is that unity is somehow claiming these new terms will apply to my game. But I don't see how that's feasible. Shouldn't my relationship with unity be at an end as the product was completed? Would I have to de-list my completed game to avoid charges? How is that legal?
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The game is complete and will receive no future updates from me, but will remain on sale for the foreseeable future.
That's the sticking point. A game could be complete, and receiving no material updates, but still need to be "updated". Sometimes the app stores require a re-compile and you will be bound by the new terms.
In the worst cases, a highly played but low earning game (like Flappy Bird) requires a recompile to update the minimum API level it supports in the Google play store. There are no gameplay changes what-so-ever. If you don't re-compile and update it, Google will de-list the game. But you also can't submit the update unless you accept the new terms.
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So is this something that all companies deal with? For example:
If Google builds an app with an embedded library that costs a license fee, and the company that offered that license decides to raise is price by 10x for future versions and they only give 3 months warning. Now my app has to go without security updates or suddenly be subject to extreme charges. But I don't have enough time to completely rewrite my app either.
I find it hard to believe companies would leave this sort of thing up to chance. If AWS suddenly decided to 100x it's price structure would that actually fly legally? If so, why don't they?
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If this is true, they're really screwed. No one is gonna use the new versions.
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Well good luck to Unity in fighting massive games like FGO or Genshin.
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Wait, is Genshin made with Unity?
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Yup
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Nintendo lawyers:omau wa mou shindieru
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Internet archive is awesome
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I'm so scared for the Silksong developers right now.
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My faith is unshakable.
I am an ardent worshipper of the holy SHAW and shall continue praying even more devoutly for the second coming of our lord and savior Hornet.
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Oh god I didn't even think about Silksong D:
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Fuckin hell, one of my favourite game was about to ditch flash (yea I know lol) for Unity and then that. They invested tons of money, idk what will happen
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"I think we'll just stay here, in the 90's." - that dev
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Ruffle.rs allows you to run flash games using WebAssembly and doesn’t require any fees
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“The 90s called. And I picked up the phone.”
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Bro’s over here still keeping his neopets fed.
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Not a game dev but I've had interest in using Unity for machine learning. I'm now trying out Godot since it does have quite a few ML libraries and it seems to be maintained better than Unity's ml-agents.
Unity-ml-agents is quite a hassle to deal with but a few months ago I wasn't able to find any altrrnatives. At least one good thing that came out of this is that I learned that there is an alternative to using Unity now.
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I'm pretty sure there are open source alternatives to this?
Anybody care to shine some light on which projects would be comparable, and how they stack up against unity?
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Godot, it's the most mature of the bunch. It's a little different than Unity, but it's definitely very user friendly, really powerful and has an active community.
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Godot feels nicer to work in than Unity. The object model is better designed and more intuitive. I hope this gives Godot a big boost.
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Godot is probably the best choice for open source game engines. Its got funding and full time developers working on it.
Stride3D is probably the closest open source clone of Unity. It was developed by Silicon Studio as a commercial game engine but they eventually stopped and open sourced it. Its got a ton of modern features including vulkan and direct x 12 support. It has an active community too, but no full time staff making new features.
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There is, unreal besides being a product has its source available and Godot focus on the same niche most of unity games were. But the problem never was the lack of replacement, the problem is, a game with years of development on unity whould not easily switch to any alternative, they have assets from unity store, scripts made for unity, UIs using unity specific stuffs, even network protocols could be bounded with unity. Change this is an herculean task and most of the games are in barely maintenance mode, imagine a full rework. So these games should be pulled of the market and thrown in the garbage to avoid new installations.
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But the problem never was the lack of replacement, the problem is, a game with years of development on unity whould not easily switch to any alternative
I read that there's a porting tool from Unity to Godot out there. Never used it, have no idea how well it works, but that is a possible option.
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Godot Engine is a nice alternative.
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I wonder if they realize the extent to which this disincentivizes upgrades to any newer form of Unity - and the newer license - even outside the rest of the recent drama.
It would take amazing changes to even consider giving this up - and at that point, it's a hop and a skip to a platform shift.
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Google app store requires a change, old version doesn't have the capability to make the change. App gets pulled or you upgrade and make the change... boom that's all it takes. And appreciate from other comments it happens semi-regularly.
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Don't let your kids grow up to be Unity developers.
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TBH that’s a wild clause lol. Why? Most just say if you don’t like our new terms here’s the door. I don’t blame for deleting it, it’s unnecessarily dumb, but why even add that in the first place. It’s just going to be a nightmare to grandfather people as you move forward.
Honestly, so many epic fails.
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Well, it should be utterly impossible to retroactively alter the terms of an agreement once agreed upon. This just gave some wiggle room that within a given calendar year, you don't have to think too hard about the agreement as it can't change (unless you want) on you even in updates within a year.
It seems to be a pretty reasonable clause to assuage customers that while technically the terms are a living document, they can actually plan their business around the product. Giving the supplier the flexibility they want, while promising the customer the stability they may require.
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assuage customers that while technically the terms are a living document, they can actually plan their business around the product
Aaaand, it's gone.
So long, Unity.
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Any idea of why Unity did this?
I mean, they'll generate some short term cash, sure, but they just lost their entire customer base. No developer of any size can take on the liability and risk of working with Unity again, even if Unity realizes how badly they screwed this up and reverts this.
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The current Unity-CEO is the Ex-CEO of Electronic Arts, under him EA was named "Worst Company in America" two consecutive times in 2012 and 2013 by Consumerist Magazine and he's on record saying that game devs that don't focus on microtransactions are "the biggest fucking idiots".
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Most likely to sell ads. Apparently the whole “pay us for every install” thing will be waived if the developer will be using their ad platform.
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It doesn't matter for most devs, unless you don't support the game anymore, this doesn't help anything, at some point you will need an engine update to support new hardware, fix an engine bug or similar.
254 comments