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submitted 1 year ago by simple@lemm.ee to c/games@lemmy.world

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[-] nul9o9@lemmy.world 473 points 1 year ago

They should honestly just move their engine anyway. Unity has played their hand, and showed they are willing to make changes to their pricing retroactively.

[-] JJROKCZ@lemmy.world 132 points 1 year ago

Yep, they might roll back the changes this time but they’ve shown where they want to be and now we know. They’ll work their way slowly towards it instead of a sudden change now and it will be less noticeable and harder to fight legally when they do that

[-] slumberlust@lemmy.world 126 points 1 year ago

They're cranking the bad PR to 11 so they can dial it back to 9 and point to it as a compromise.

[-] vanontom@geddit.social 7 points 1 year ago

The exact same thing was said about Reddit execs like Huffman. They never cared enough to compromise. We'll see if the Unity execs are similarly terrible people, whose greed will destroy the company. Seems like the trend these days.

[-] Godnroc@lemmy.world 70 points 1 year ago

I think most developers can see the writing in the wall there, but switching mid-way through a project will be costly and time consuming. If the changes were fully rolled back, I would still bet many would finish what they working on and then switch for their next game.

[-] JJROKCZ@lemmy.world 37 points 1 year ago

Problem is that if your current unity game is successful this year, and then they reimplement the retroactive charge next year, you’re still screwed. If you can afford it then it’s best to change now in order to avoid that mess that might mean you have to delist your game

[-] frickineh@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago

I'm not sure it's legal to implement it retroactively. I'd be very curious to get an attorney's perspective - seems a lot like trying to unilaterally change a contract after both parties have signed. But I have a hard time imagining anyone being willing to develop using Unity going forward.

[-] assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

There's no way this is legal unless it's already in a contract -- and even then, it might still be illegal. The notion of charging people more money because you've raised your prices after they've already bought something just breaks economics completely. You'd be able to sell a bunch of a product for cheap, and then later say sike and charge everyone a lot more.

I'm sure companies would love to do that, but no company exists in isolation. Every single company is buying something from another company to sell their product. If they could do this to their buyers, then their suppliers could do it to them. It would probably end up cancelling any gains you'd get.

I'm guessing this was a move their executives made without any consultation with legal, because it's the kind of idiotic move only they could think of.

[-] JJROKCZ@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

I feel like any company with a legal department would surely check with them before announcing something like this. But maybe unity is so poorly ran they don’t have a legal team or didn’t check idk

[-] zaphodb2002@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 year ago

I think you overestimate how much they care about doing illegal things. They will try it, and if someone can prove it's illegal, they'll pay a minor fine and stop, maybe. Otherwise they'll get away with it. That's how corps look at laws.

[-] assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

I mean you'd think so, but look at how often companies get into lawsuits for clearly illegal shit. Plenty of places will still try to enforce arbitration/NDA clauses that have no actual legal basis or consequence.

[-] frickineh@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I would think so too but this entire decision has felt like the company is shooting itself in the foot, so who even knows anymore.

[-] Gamey@feddit.de 104 points 1 year ago

I bet they will do so for their next game but reimplementing a entire game is FAR easier said than done, something like that could very well bankrupt a smaller studio!

[-] bane_killgrind@lemmy.ml 34 points 1 year ago

Alright guys, time to get more copies of slay the spire

[-] BURN@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Just buy them, don’t install them though. That’ll charge them soon

[-] Magus@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

Slay the spire isn't on unity, so that's fine

[-] BURN@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

That’s what I get for not reading

[-] bane_killgrind@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago

That will be charged after January 1st 2024.

[-] babyphatman@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago

Alright fine. But I already own it on three systems... takes out wallet

[-] CaptPretentious@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago

But not moving could be far worse based on what some devs are saying.

[-] AeonFelis@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Not moving is what they'll do if "changes are completely reverted and TOS protections are put in place". In such a case, while punishing Unity is still desirable, there won't be installation fees that justify the costs of rewriting the game.

Exactly. They should take this as the warning it is, and start work on moving to an engine not run by morons.

[-] SupraMario@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

I have a feeling a lot of the engine devs from unity are seeing the writing on the wall and looking for places to jump to. Betting they have a brain drain soon

[-] ABCDE@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

How can it even be applied?

[-] darkeox@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

This. It's not easy or trivial but as a long term strategy, they should already plan investing efforts into consolidating something like Godot or another FOSS engine. They should play like you calm down an abuser you can't just escape yet while planning their demise when the time has come.

this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
2043 points (99.2% liked)

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