Updates from others: Devolver Digital (Publisher) Definitely include what engine you’re using in game pitches. - I'm reading this as Devolver is effectively banning Unity from the largest indie...
Unity really is helping make sure "enshittification" is the word of the year. I could see that maybe they felt they needed to make this change to help their finances. However, instead of starting...
Unity really is helping make sure "enshittification" is the word of the year.
I could see that maybe they felt they needed to make this change to help their finances. However, instead of starting with the next release after Unity 2022.2.9 (or whatever is current) and working like hell to provide devs a reason to switch they went about it in the most hostile, stupid and brain dead way imaginable. They have wholesale burnt every bit of goodwill the brand had. I'd be surprised if this wasn't mentioned in business classes.
Egg on my face, I guess, but I’m really not laughing at this one. Either they should’ve expected people who weren’t familiar with them to take them seriously, or they knew this would happen and...
Egg on my face, I guess, but I’m really not laughing at this one. Either they should’ve expected people who weren’t familiar with them to take them seriously, or they knew this would happen and didn’t care. I don’t appreciate either one.
Does anyone have links to the actual tweet from the Cult of the Lamb account and/or the Massive Monster announcement. I can't find either, just screenshots in this article or copies of the...
Does anyone have links to the actual tweet from the Cult of the Lamb account and/or the Massive Monster announcement. I can't find either, just screenshots in this article or copies of the screenshots.
I think that if you're logged out, tweets are displayed in a random order. I first looked it up in a private tab (habit on mobile so I don't have to clutter my search bar) and it was scrambled,...
I think that if you're logged out, tweets are displayed in a random order. I first looked it up in a private tab (habit on mobile so I don't have to clutter my search bar) and it was scrambled, but clicking these links and viewing the profile while logged in had it in nice, actual chronological order.
The order of tweets on profiles when logged out is bizarre. Tweets from years ago interspersed with tweets from a few months ago. I've had trouble viewing replies to tweets too. I've given up on...
The order of tweets on profiles when logged out is bizarre. Tweets from years ago interspersed with tweets from a few months ago. I've had trouble viewing replies to tweets too. I've given up on trying to open any Twitter links at all.
It's a deliberate choice to make you more likely to log in, though I imagine the effect is more in line with what you've been doing--giving up on trying to open Twitter links. Musk has turned...
It's a deliberate choice to make you more likely to log in, though I imagine the effect is more in line with what you've been doing--giving up on trying to open Twitter links.
Although I don't disagree with you, Twitter was acting this way long before Musk took over, I'm not sure many people knew this because having a Twitter account was fairly common, but without one,...
Although I don't disagree with you, Twitter was acting this way long before Musk took over, I'm not sure many people knew this because having a Twitter account was fairly common, but without one, the site had been unusable for a long time.
While definitely not common, it is not unheard of for developers to delete their games. A prime example would be the Flappy Bird game, which the developer removed while the game was extremely popular.
While definitely not common, it is not unheard of for developers to delete their games.
A prime example would be the Flappy Bird game, which the developer removed while the game was extremely popular.
Yeah, I remember reading this as well. I’m having trouble finding where I read it since it’s been a while. If I remember correctly, there were issues with family members too.
Yeah, I remember reading this as well. I’m having trouble finding where I read it since it’s been a while. If I remember correctly, there were issues with family members too.
If I recall correctly, he ended up not liking the addictive nature of the game. He was also facing some legal stuff from Nintendo because of the graphics, so that probably didn't help.
If I recall correctly, he ended up not liking the addictive nature of the game. He was also facing some legal stuff from Nintendo because of the graphics, so that probably didn't help.
I think the Cult of the Lambs tweet is just a semi-joke like you said. However, I think a lot of developers are seriously considering it. The potential for people to abuse this and bankrupt...
I think the Cult of the Lambs tweet is just a semi-joke like you said. However, I think a lot of developers are seriously considering it. The potential for people to abuse this and bankrupt smaller developers is just one of several issues. Potentially a bigger issue is just a lack of trust in Unity to not try to institute some other unpredictable change on games made before that policy.
I think it's the retroactive application that's caused the most harm. It's one thing for developers make a game knowing Unity would charge a fee if they hit a certain amount of revenue, but another to suddenly be slapped with it five years later. It raises questions about what else they'd try to pull. Any games made with Unity are suddenly like a liability now.
Absolutely. Unity can no longer be trusted. At this point, anyone starting a new project should actively avoid Unity at all costs. Even if Unity backtracks, it is just too risky. Frankly, I think...
Absolutely. Unity can no longer be trusted. At this point, anyone starting a new project should actively avoid Unity at all costs. Even if Unity backtracks, it is just too risky.
Frankly, I think Unity's days are numbered regardless. They employ 7700 people to maintain an indie-scale engine. For comparison, Epic employes 2200 people to maintain a far more advanced AAA sacale engine, push that engine into Hollywood for real time pre-vis and in-camera VFX work, and maintain one of the most popular AAA live service games in the world. This whole move on Unity's part reeks of them desperately trying to find more revenue to stay afloat.
I'm not on Unity's side here, I wouldn't trust them to "helpfully" calculate how much I owe them with their black box of an algorithm. But as far as I could gather, they're not charging anyone...
I'm not on Unity's side here, I wouldn't trust them to "helpfully" calculate how much I owe them with their black box of an algorithm. But as far as I could gather, they're not charging anyone retroactively, they're using historical figures to determine elegibility for the new fees in the future. So if you have hit their revenue thresholds and/or whatever else they decide, they will charge you from some point in the future (whenever this policy comes into full effect, no idea when that is supposed to be).
It's not retroactive in that it applies to downloads made in the past, but it is retroactive in that it applies to downloads of games that were made and released in the past. Imagine you used...
It's not retroactive in that it applies to downloads made in the past, but it is retroactive in that it applies to downloads of games that were made and released in the past.
Imagine you used Unity to make a game in 2019. You read the terms of service, you decided it was all good, you published the game. After 2019, you never touched the codebase again. Then, in 2024, your game gets very popular for some reason and you pass the threshold for this to take effect! Unity will now be charging you for every install, despite the fact that the per-install fee wasn't included in the terms of service when you agreed to them and despite the fact that you haven't so much as touched the engine in the past five years.
I feel like I must be missing something here because I deal with a lot of software licensing at my company and I've never seen a license agreement that would allow for the retroactive changing of...
I feel like I must be missing something here because I deal with a lot of software licensing at my company and I've never seen a license agreement that would allow for the retroactive changing of terms like this.
That's the general consensus, that it's not legal. Someone posted a clause from their TOS where they claim they're allowed to change the terms at any point, and if you continue to use Unity after...
That's the general consensus, that it's not legal. Someone posted a clause from their TOS where they claim they're allowed to change the terms at any point, and if you continue to use Unity after they change it after the "notice of modification", then it's assumed you consent to the new terms. By the way, the "notice of modification" seems to boil down to them posting the new terms on their site and having a "last updated" line at the top.
Still, the fact they tried at all is enough to just decimate any trust in them. I'm honestly in awe of how audacious and horrible every aspect of this move is. I've never seen such a brash and clueless policy change where literally every single part is bad and indefensible.
I was under the impression that this would go into effect with some new version of the engine. Is it really like, I could cost Squad $1.00 by installing KSP 1 on five different computers come...
I was under the impression that this would go into effect with some new version of the engine. Is it really like, I could cost Squad $1.00 by installing KSP 1 on five different computers come January 1st?
The way I’ve seen it described is like, you know how sometimes websites say stuff like “if you continue to use our website, you agree to our updated terms of service” etc? Well, it looks like...
The way I’ve seen it described is like, you know how sometimes websites say stuff like “if you continue to use our website, you agree to our updated terms of service” etc?
Well, it looks like Unity are trying this in a new way like “if you continue to sell your game, which comes packaged with our engine installer, that totally also counts as you agreeing to our new terms”
Therefore, unless you now take down and delete your game from every game store, new purchases means you agree to the new license terms, and new installs means Unity gets to charge you for it… even if it’s been years since you last uploaded your game to anyone’s storefront…
That said, I’m not a lawyer so I don’t know if I’m interpreting it correctly, or if it would hold up in court if anyone challenged the new terms. But that’s the gist of what they’re trying to do…
On the one hand Cult of the Lamb (CotL from here on out) is popular (and expensive) enough that they probably aren't in any danger of losing money on this new fee schedule. On the other hand,...
On the one hand Cult of the Lamb (CotL from here on out) is popular (and expensive) enough that they probably aren't in any danger of losing money on this new fee schedule. On the other hand, highly reviewed and popular game deletes itself due to Unity's BS is headline grabbing, sends a message, and game popularity wanes with time, so could very much be a minor hit to "delete" the game on Jan 1/Dec 31.
People that have purchased the game can still download it from Steam (and I assume other services) as I have done with games from devs that no longer exist.
Exactly. Delisted games on Xbox (and I assume PSN) are still associated with your account and can be re-downloaded whenever you'd like. For example, there are currently no core Forza Motorsport...
Exactly. Delisted games on Xbox (and I assume PSN) are still associated with your account and can be re-downloaded whenever you'd like. For example, there are currently no core Forza Motorsport games available for purchase (due to timed car licenses), but I'm still able to access my copy of Forza 7 for reinstallation.
The only counter-example I can think of is P.T., but that was a pretty special case.
And I never suggested that, but there's people who think everything running on Unreal nowadays is a good thing as opposed to building their own engines.
No one is suggesting everyone move to Unreal
And I never suggested that, but there's people who think everything running on Unreal nowadays is a good thing as opposed to building their own engines.
What does Tencent have to do with anything? Epic is still majority-owned by the CEO, not to mention they have literally nothing to do with the business decisions of Unity, outside of how any other...
What does Tencent have to do with anything? Epic is still majority-owned by the CEO, not to mention they have literally nothing to do with the business decisions of Unity, outside of how any other business organically influences the other.
Updates from others:
Devolver Digital (Publisher)
Definitely include what engine you’re using in game pitches. - I'm reading this as Devolver is effectively banning Unity from the largest indie publisher around.
Mega Crit (Slay the Spire)
Despite the immense amount of time and effort our team has already poured into development on our new title, we will be migrating to a new engine unless the changes are completely reverted and TOS protections are put in place. We have never made a public statement before. That is how badly you fucked up.
Innersloth (Among Us)
This would harm not only us, but fellow game studios of all budgets and sizes. If this goes through, we'd delay content and features our players actually want to port our games elsewhere (as others are also considering). But many developers won't have the time or means to do the same. Stop it. Wtf?
Aggro Crab
This decision puts us and countless other studios in a position where we might not be able to justify using Unity for our future titles. If these changes aren't rolled back, we'll be heavily considering abandoning our wealth of Unity expertise we've accumulated over the years and starting from scratch in a new engine
Garry Newman (Rust)
It's our fault. All of our faults. We sleepwalked into it. We had a ton of warnings. We should have been pressing the eject button when Unity IPO'd in 2020. Every single thing they've done since then has been the exact opposite of what was good for the engine. We had 10 years to make our own engine and never did. I'm sure a lot of game companies are feeling the same today. Let's not make the same mistake again, Rust 2 definitely won't be a Unity game.
Matt Wood (Worked on Half-Life 2, Portal 2, CSGO, Left 4 Dead)
Yeah, this will absolutely be the last Unity game from me. 100%
Freya Holmer (Shader Forge)
I don't understand how unity's decision could've gotten this far, there must've been a massive amount of backlash internally at unity, but those employees were clearly not listened to by the people making this decision, why?
Cool how a huge fraction of the entire global games industry is under threat and panicking, including the people working at unity, while the people responsible for this decision are dead silent and remain completely unaccountable
Landfall (TABS, Stick Fight)
We would love to stick with the engine we have used to make our games for the past 10 years, but at present, we don't see how we can start any new projects using Unity when there is no way to know what kind of retroactive business model they might throw at us in the future
Rami Ismail (Vlambeer)
Unity should not be able to retroactively change the terms & conditions on products or sales you've already made. Them making this move says they're willing to, and that should be terrifying
Brian Wilson (Forest Cathedral)
As someone who's only developed in Unity, this is bad.
As someone who helps run a publisher with upcoming game pass titles, this is very bad.
As someone who reviews thousands of pitches a year (95% in Unity), this is extremely bad
George Broussard (3D Realms/Apogee. Duke Nukem 3D)
The Unity board needs to call for resignations. Start with John Riccitiello and most of the exec team responsible for the design and communication of this atrocious idea. They are destroying Unity. Act swiftly. Only with heads on a spike will some semblance of trust be restored
David Szymanski (Gloomwood, Dusk, Iron Lung)
I would be fascinated to know what legal ground they think they're on, trying this bullshit. Maybe it's finally time to drop Unity.
No Brakes Games (Human Fall Flat)
We seriously question whether we can trust Unity moving forward, and whether we can continue to use this game engine. Unity, we're asking you to reverse this decision. Prioritize your customers and players over corporate greed
Running With Scissors (POSTAL)
The gaming industry needs to be nicer to the consumers and the developers. Too much greed these days leading to less games made with passion. There needs to be a unity between everyone who plays and makes games to ensure the future of the industry doesn't go down the shitter.
And while there is no official statement from Microsoft, when Unity said Microsoft would pay the fees for games on subscription services like Game pass I'm pretty sure I could hear Microsoft's lawyers cackling.
Unity really is helping make sure "enshittification" is the word of the year.
I could see that maybe they felt they needed to make this change to help their finances. However, instead of starting with the next release after Unity 2022.2.9 (or whatever is current) and working like hell to provide devs a reason to switch they went about it in the most hostile, stupid and brain dead way imaginable. They have wholesale burnt every bit of goodwill the brand had. I'd be surprised if this wasn't mentioned in business classes.
This was a joke.
Egg on my face, I guess, but I’m really not laughing at this one. Either they should’ve expected people who weren’t familiar with them to take them seriously, or they knew this would happen and didn’t care. I don’t appreciate either one.
Man, even in hindsight it doesn't really look like a joke.
This is in response to Unity's proposed new pricing model, which would charge developers per installation.
Further discussion here.
Does anyone have links to the actual tweet from the Cult of the Lamb account and/or the Massive Monster announcement. I can't find either, just screenshots in this article or copies of the screenshots.
https://twitter.com/cultofthelamb/status/1701715971663425897
https://twitter.com/MassiveMonster/status/1701808567140102633
Thank you. I hate twitter as it is, but went to their account and scrolled for ages without seeing that and CTRL+F "delet" found nada.
I think that if you're logged out, tweets are displayed in a random order. I first looked it up in a private tab (habit on mobile so I don't have to clutter my search bar) and it was scrambled, but clicking these links and viewing the profile while logged in had it in nice, actual chronological order.
The order of tweets on profiles when logged out is bizarre. Tweets from years ago interspersed with tweets from a few months ago. I've had trouble viewing replies to tweets too. I've given up on trying to open any Twitter links at all.
The whole site has really gone to shit in the last year or so. I just don't even bother with Twitter links anymore.
It's a deliberate choice to make you more likely to log in, though I imagine the effect is more in line with what you've been doing--giving up on trying to open Twitter links.
Musk has turned Twitter into a mess.
Although I don't disagree with you, Twitter was acting this way long before Musk took over, I'm not sure many people knew this because having a Twitter account was fairly common, but without one, the site had been unusable for a long time.
I imagine this is just the social media manager catching a trend, they would never actually delete their game, it'd piss off too many people
While definitely not common, it is not unheard of for developers to delete their games.
A prime example would be the Flappy Bird game, which the developer removed while the game was extremely popular.
That was because the guy had an ethical breakdown over the game, he thought it was actively causing harm to the world. It wasn't a business decision.
I remember it differently - that it was because it was causing him stress from making so much more money than his neighbors and community
Yeah, I remember reading this as well. I’m having trouble finding where I read it since it’s been a while. If I remember correctly, there were issues with family members too.
What kind of harm could flappy bird be causing?
If I recall correctly, he ended up not liking the addictive nature of the game. He was also facing some legal stuff from Nintendo because of the graphics, so that probably didn't help.
Apparently the Nintendo thing was just a rumor??
I think the Cult of the Lambs tweet is just a semi-joke like you said. However, I think a lot of developers are seriously considering it. The potential for people to abuse this and bankrupt smaller developers is just one of several issues. Potentially a bigger issue is just a lack of trust in Unity to not try to institute some other unpredictable change on games made before that policy.
I think it's the retroactive application that's caused the most harm. It's one thing for developers make a game knowing Unity would charge a fee if they hit a certain amount of revenue, but another to suddenly be slapped with it five years later. It raises questions about what else they'd try to pull. Any games made with Unity are suddenly like a liability now.
Absolutely. Unity can no longer be trusted. At this point, anyone starting a new project should actively avoid Unity at all costs. Even if Unity backtracks, it is just too risky.
Frankly, I think Unity's days are numbered regardless. They employ 7700 people to maintain an indie-scale engine. For comparison, Epic employes 2200 people to maintain a far more advanced AAA sacale engine, push that engine into Hollywood for real time pre-vis and in-camera VFX work, and maintain one of the most popular AAA live service games in the world. This whole move on Unity's part reeks of them desperately trying to find more revenue to stay afloat.
I'm not on Unity's side here, I wouldn't trust them to "helpfully" calculate how much I owe them with their black box of an algorithm. But as far as I could gather, they're not charging anyone retroactively, they're using historical figures to determine elegibility for the new fees in the future. So if you have hit their revenue thresholds and/or whatever else they decide, they will charge you from some point in the future (whenever this policy comes into full effect, no idea when that is supposed to be).
It's not retroactive in that it applies to downloads made in the past, but it is retroactive in that it applies to downloads of games that were made and released in the past.
Imagine you used Unity to make a game in 2019. You read the terms of service, you decided it was all good, you published the game. After 2019, you never touched the codebase again. Then, in 2024, your game gets very popular for some reason and you pass the threshold for this to take effect! Unity will now be charging you for every install, despite the fact that the per-install fee wasn't included in the terms of service when you agreed to them and despite the fact that you haven't so much as touched the engine in the past five years.
I feel like I must be missing something here because I deal with a lot of software licensing at my company and I've never seen a license agreement that would allow for the retroactive changing of terms like this.
That's the general consensus, that it's not legal. Someone posted a clause from their TOS where they claim they're allowed to change the terms at any point, and if you continue to use Unity after they change it after the "notice of modification", then it's assumed you consent to the new terms. By the way, the "notice of modification" seems to boil down to them posting the new terms on their site and having a "last updated" line at the top.
Yeah. General consensus is that this wouldn't hold up in court. I also saw this post on reddit showing previous versions of the TOS directly contradict that. No way that wouldn't come up in court.
Still, the fact they tried at all is enough to just decimate any trust in them. I'm honestly in awe of how audacious and horrible every aspect of this move is. I've never seen such a brash and clueless policy change where literally every single part is bad and indefensible.
No, that would fundamentally defeats the whole point of a contract.
I was under the impression that this would go into effect with some new version of the engine. Is it really like, I could cost Squad $1.00 by installing KSP 1 on five different computers come January 1st?
The way I’ve seen it described is like, you know how sometimes websites say stuff like “if you continue to use our website, you agree to our updated terms of service” etc?
Well, it looks like Unity are trying this in a new way like “if you continue to sell your game, which comes packaged with our engine installer, that totally also counts as you agreeing to our new terms”
Therefore, unless you now take down and delete your game from every game store, new purchases means you agree to the new license terms, and new installs means Unity gets to charge you for it… even if it’s been years since you last uploaded your game to anyone’s storefront…
That said, I’m not a lawyer so I don’t know if I’m interpreting it correctly, or if it would hold up in court if anyone challenged the new terms. But that’s the gist of what they’re trying to do…
On the one hand Cult of the Lamb (CotL from here on out) is popular (and expensive) enough that they probably aren't in any danger of losing money on this new fee schedule. On the other hand, highly reviewed and popular game deletes itself due to Unity's BS is headline grabbing, sends a message, and game popularity wanes with time, so could very much be a minor hit to "delete" the game on Jan 1/Dec 31.
People that have purchased the game can still download it from Steam (and I assume other services) as I have done with games from devs that no longer exist.
And I presume same applies on consoles as well? Wasn't Cyberpunk at least "playable*" even after being unpublished?
Exactly. Delisted games on Xbox (and I assume PSN) are still associated with your account and can be re-downloaded whenever you'd like. For example, there are currently no core Forza Motorsport games available for purchase (due to timed car licenses), but I'm still able to access my copy of Forza 7 for reinstallation.
The only counter-example I can think of is P.T., but that was a pretty special case.
And there's people who think Unreal Engine monopolizing the game development sphere is a good thing.
No one is suggesting everyone move to Unreal. A lot of people are planning on moving to Godot.
I think a lot of people is missing the crucial information that Godot does not natively export to consoles.
And I never suggested that, but there's people who think everything running on Unreal nowadays is a good thing as opposed to building their own engines.
Building a new engine is not easy work, and Unreal is most popular in AA title, while AAA game fairly often ship with in-house engine
That used to be the case maybe ten years ago, but more and more big budget games are using Unreal nowadays.
It does kind of feel like a shady Tencent-ish move to get rid of a competitor.
What does Tencent have to do with anything? Epic is still majority-owned by the CEO, not to mention they have literally nothing to do with the business decisions of Unity, outside of how any other business organically influences the other.