[iliketrains]

This is not about "unwilling to pay for quality tools", but completely changing the way they charge for the tools, which gets applied to all legacy software that ever used their tools, despite their previous (now deleted) clauses that new TOS won't apply unless you use the new version, is just ridiculous to me.

Even if one stopped using Unity to develop new things before this change, they are still on the hook for product installs (even if they are free games), which are by the way tracked by Unity "proprietary data model".

Example: https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/16hgmqm/unity_want...

A few quotes from the FAQ:

Q: If a user reinstalls/redownloads a game / changes their hardware, will that count as multiple installs?

A: Yes. The creator will need to pay for all future installs. The reason is that Unity doesn’t receive end-player information, just aggregate data.

Q: Are these fees going to apply to games which have been out for years already? If you met the threshold 2 years ago, you'll start owing for any installs monthly from January, no? (in theory). It says they'll use previous installs to determine threshold eligibility & then you'll start owing them for the new ones.

A: Yes, assuming the game is eligible and distributing the Unity Runtime then runtime fees will apply. We look at a game's lifetime installs to determine eligibility for the runtime fee. Then we bill the runtime fee based on all new installs that occur after January 1, 2024.

[duped]

Many years ago I worked at a startup that tried to do this. To make a long story short the goal was to make money off content that was made with the tool instead of selling the tool directly to people making the content.

Zero sales later, we all lost our jobs because if you show up with a new pricing model that completely upends how businesses even account for their spending and pricing, it better be the greatest fucking piece of software ever made that has zero competition or an industry standard because no one is going to use it.

[senectus1]

lol, in the last week I have:

Setup dualboot linux/windows, installed my 6 fav games on the linux side

Decided I didnt like that distro, wiped it and reinstalled with a new distro. then installed my 6 fav games

messed something up and decided it would be faster to reinstall again, did that and re-installed my 6 fav games.

got issues with my steam deployment, mucked about and fixed it but in the process deleted my previous install. realized i could just copy the data from the windows partition across and did that.

With this scenario I could be up for 24 install charges, despite never playing the games.

My 15 yr old son is teaching himself programing for the purpose of being a games developer and this news horrifies him. I really dont see this is going to last.

*Edit, 30 installs. forgot to count the windows installs.

[kyleee]

Unity sends their thanks

[falcolas]

> This is not about "unwilling to pay for quality tools", but completely changing the way they charge for the tools, which gets applied to all legacy software that ever used their tools, despite their previous (now deleted) clauses that new TOS won't apply unless you use the new version, is just ridiculous to me.

That's a risk you run when the company you're buying your tools from is beholden to shareholders. Which a vast majority of the companies we can even buy tools from are/will be.

[ffhhttt]

I’m not sure shareholders asked them to over hire since 2019 by more than 2x (conservatively) and start spending billions to acquire random companies without having a clear vision what are they planning to so with them.

That mostly came from the board and the executives. It’s not like shareholders really that many ways to influence company policy that much besides selling or buying their stock