this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2023
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My first thought was:
This can only apply to games that begin development after this announcement...right? Otherwise it fells like a massive bait and switch.
Some companies are already announcing the elimination of their games starting in January. Cult of the lamb, for example.
I don’t see the announcement
Indie developers react to "astonishing scumbag move" of Unity's new install charge
Quote:
Massive Monster, creator of Cult of the Lamb, shared a typically amusing post including a frog from its game pooping a Unity turd. "Quit being stinky Unity," it said.
"So, what's the impact on us? Well, we have future projects in the pipeline that were initially planned to be developed in Unity. This change would result in significant delays since our team would need to acquire an entirely new skill set.
Which blows my mind. So the developer, Massive Monster, had an open-ended agreement with Unity which allowed them to unilaterally increase prices. That's easily one of the dumbest business decisions I've seen in the gaming space. How can they build a game around an engine which gives the owner carte blanche to take whatever share of revenue they wish? While I think this is a crazy pricing strategy, I'm struggling to sympathise with Massive Monster. At minimum they should have had a lawyer browse their agreement prior to signing. I wouldn't be surprised if other gems were hidden in there about IP rights.
Every Unity developer is under the same agreement. The changes were not announced to be "moving forward". It's a change to existing licenses to use Unity. For everyone. Everywhere.
I don't know that licensing changes have been retroactive in the past. How do lawyers prevent companies from retroactively changing licensing? My guess would be to sue after the fact, which is probably why these developers are hinting that they're going to suffer economic harm if Unity follows through with this. This statement may be their lawyers doing the work they'd normally do in this kind of circumstance.
A lot of those licenses are "subject to change" precisely to let the developers bait and switch like that. At best you have a specified time frame from announcement to enforcement, making it not legally speaking retroactive since the old license expires and gets replaced for all licensed material.
I think that was one of the many issues with Wizard's original OGL debacle is that it was going to be retroactive.
Then anyone using Unity is crazy. For commercial use, Epic pens deals with each developer as needed for Unreal. Terms include specific duration and royalties for the period, and the version used. All of this is agreed up front so there aren’t any surprises later. I can’t imagine signing an agreement which effectively gives control of revenue to Unity. At that point you don’t have a business. Unity owns your business.
It even applies to new installs of existing games.
The original announcement stated it was retroactive
If that isn't a massive red flag, nothing else is.