Comment on Unity to introduce runtime fee based on installs

• Kushan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Unity already has a business model, it’s licensed to the developers. That’s how they have operated for years. This change is retroactive and frankly dangerous.

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  • snooggums@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Retroactive pricing seems like bullshit to me, but since devs are up in arms it must be legal somehow.

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• kiwifoxtrot@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  It’s retroactive and it’s not based on sales, it’s based on installs. So for example, I purchase a game on steam and I own a PC, a steam deck, and I have a kid with a PC. That’s 3x the fees for one sale even though I can only play it on one device at a time. Maybe I get bored of the game and uninstall it. A year later I want to play it again, there’s a new fee for the same sale and PC that unity gets.

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  • g0nz0li0@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    From what I understand there is also a risk that pirated copies could count. It’s hard to see how Unity can effectively defend against it.

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    • echodot@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      It’s clear that they haven’t bothered to actually think any of this through.

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      • DreamySweet@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Or they have but the potential profit outweighs potential negative PR.

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  • DreamySweet@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Now imagine someone makes a program that repeatedly installs and uninstalls the game.

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    • Pyroglyph@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Unity says they have measures against this, but that then smells of spyware. How would they know how many times a game has been installed without that?

      Unity may say they have a solution to that too, but no matter the implementation, bad actors will find a way to exploit it.

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• Lodra@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Yes, unity costs money to develop and a fee is reasonable. But I think the are a few risks with this model.

  How do they track installations? Metrics from steam and other platforms? Convecting to a license server at install time? Or maybe at runtime? I don’t know the answers but they all seem to have implications for users regarding privacy and/or offline gaming.

  It’s also a variable fee to game developers. A single user can install the device on multiple devices despite buying the game once. Similarly, a game can be installed repeatedly over time. This is a financial risk to game development companies. I could see them mitigating this risk in several ways. First, they can pass the fee to the end user. So every install costs $0.20. Secondly, they can limit the number of installs per user. Do you want to install more than 5 times ever? Buy the game again! Thirdly, they could simply shut down the fireflies service, making me installations impossible. None of this is good for a gamers.

  And what happens to games made by companies that shut down entirely? Today, games remain available through steam, etc. But with this new pricing model, games running unity will continue to cost money over. Who pays the bill after the company is gone? This reminds me of Worlds Adrift, a game that used a licensed library. When the developer company shutdown, they were unable to release their server source code because the third party couldn’t can’t send bills to the open source community. Thus, the servers were destroyed and running the client (still vailable via steam!) just gives the user an error message about license issues or something. Users paid for a game that they are now unable to use.

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  • kicksystem@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Thanks for this. A lot of challenges for sure. I still don’t think it’s a bad business model per se and that these challenges can’t be addressed; I am sure they’ve thought of most of these challenges if not all. All business models are plagued with such challenges, but I think the worst thing about this one is simply that it is a departure from an old business model.

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• shnizmuffin@lemmy.inbutts.lol ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  For a game engine that does all the hard work?

  Tell me you’re not a developer without saying you’re not a developer.

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  • kicksystem@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    only for the last 30 years

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• dingleberry@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Them freeloading developers stealing the hard work of Unity.

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• Lmaydev@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  It deals with the problems that all games face and that have well established solutions.

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