Game development engine Unity has U-turned on some parts of its hugely controversial plan to enforce fees on game creat…

Game development engine Unity has U-turned on some parts of its hugely controversial plan to enforce fees on game creat…

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342Y

Not nearly enough though.

They’re still exploiting their customers who’ve been developing products based on a completely different fiscal agreement; you can’t just change engines after years of work.

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242Y

The worst isn’t even people currently developing things - it’s developers who already have released products. Imagine if you released something like, over the summer, for example. You’ve been paying the current revenue share, and will continue to do so until Jan. 1, then you’ll start paying the per-install fee. So you’re paying twice for the same customers’ purchases.

I really feel like they’re going to lose a lawsuit on that.

Unilateral contracts don’t have unlimited power and “we can blanket change what we want to charge you on games already made” doesn’t seem like it’s going to be enforceable.

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82Y

Exactly - as others have pointed out, if they can do this, what’s stopping them from raising it to $1 per install, or $100?

body_by_make
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18
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2Y

There’s no way they can stop install bombings. There’s gonna be something that they rely on that can be changed somehow, and even if they find a way to perfect it, how could any developer trust that it’s flawless?

This is bad even if everything did work and everything was flawless. They’ve wrecked their trust here.

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-102Y

Unfortunately there’s only unreal engine as an alternative…

hypelightfly
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2Y

Godot is also an alternative and it’s free/open source so no worries about the company completely changing how they charge you in the future and destroying all the work you have done for years.

https://godotengine.org/

body_by_make
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182Y

That’s not necessarily true. Lots of alternatives exist and Godot seems to be what all the cool kids are using now

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62Y

And the 3D demos are impressive. The recent version uses Vulkan and has lots of interesting new features.

I hope this increased interest results in better funding. It’s a great project, just limited by manpower.

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252Y

From games as a service we went to game engine as a service. What is the next step? C++ as a service?

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12Y

More like oxygen as a service at this rate

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42Y

There absolutely were non free language compilers at some point. If we hadn’t had tjings like GCC, it’d be a different world.

Just look at Apple, they always asked money for XCode.

LoafyLemon
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232Y

C++ rebranding as €++ 🤑

stopthatgirl7
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102Y

Don’t give them ideas.

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132Y

They’re idiots for this policy. You alienate your devs, you ruin your platform.

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42Y

Most businesses get ruined if you alienate your customers. The exception would be monopolies.

🐱TheCat
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502Y

Unity had made their plans clear. Whether they backtrack a bit now or not doesn’t matter. We know what direction they are heading: squeeze more money out of indie devs

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262Y

The controlling shares of Unity are held by a trifecta of private equity and venture capital organizations. That’s why this is happening. It’s a classical presentation of the (short-term) profit über alles enshitification cycle.

stopthatgirl7
creator
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172Y

And seeing as how the CEO sold 2000 shares just days before this announcement, short-term profit really is all they’re in for.

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62Y

2000 shares is nothing

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cake
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82Y

It’s best part of $80k, it’s still money made from insider trading.

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02Y

No, it’s probably just being sold to pay taxes.

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cake
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22Y

Which is still money.

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1
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2Y

Yes, but it doesn’t rise to the level of “insider trading,” which means using internal-only information to make trading decisions. If they sell these stocks regularly, on a schedule, in the same quantity, it’s not insider trading.

And that’s exactly what they’re doing, you can see their trades, and they’re consistent for about the same amount. So they’re not trading because of changes going on internally, they’re trading based on a schedule, probably because they need cash flow for some reason. My guess is taxes for their stock compensation.

stopthatgirl7
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152Y

The insider transaction history for Unity Software Inc shows a clear trend: over the past year, there have been 49 insider sells and no insider buys. This could be a red flag for potential investors, as it suggests that those with the most intimate knowledge of the company’s operations and prospects are choosing to sell their shares

@[email protected]
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12Y

Ehh, the top folks at Google were all selling their maximum-permitted amount every window they got for a decade and the stock held up.

You typically don’t need to buy shares as an insider, the company just prints more gambling slips – er, I’m sorry, non-transferrable stock options – and hands them out.

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02Y

Or it just means they see it as compensation and are selling for taxes and expenses, not because they are worried about the long term direction of the company.

sickday
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112Y

That’s correct. Even with this backtrack, it’s a safe bet that they’ll likely re-introduce this same policy with different wording once they believe their consumers have calmed down.

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mod
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52Y

Yeah it’s like knowing the foundation is structurally unsound and still deciding to build a house on it hoping it won’t get worse. It will.

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