Pricing should protect indie and small businesses. When it destroys those, we need government to step in because we’re on track to create oligarchs in every industry that are too big to fail.
simple@lemm.ee 9 months ago
It’s actually neither of those, the biggest impact is free-to-play games. Hearthstone, Legends of Runeterra, virtually every Unity mobile game in the market… Having to pay per install has huge potential for abuse and can cost a fortune for games with millions of downloads.
Cheers@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
falkerie71@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
JFC, I just learned that they are retroactively applying this new rule. This means that games that are out already or have been on sale for multiple years will have to pay the runtime fee too. Insane. They can bankrupt a studio before they even release their next game.
snooggums@kbin.social 9 months ago
I still can't believe that retroactive fees like that are legal.
ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 9 months ago
They aren’t and likely won’t hold up in court.
snooggums@kbin.social 9 months ago
Gotta pay the lawyers to go to court though.
WHYAREWEALLCAPS@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Welcome to capitalism! Ain’t it grand!
BURN@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Because they’re not charging for previous installs, not new ones, and they operate technically on a free “subscription” model it’s going to be hard to challenge legally
Cavemanfreak@lemm.ee 9 months ago
I don’t think they can enforce that, right? I assume that would be a change of the contract, which they can’t just do willy nilly.
dust_accelerator@discuss.tchncs.de 9 months ago
Yeah, I think that’s straight up illegal and I would simply refuse to pay.
If they can retroactively change terms, why can’t I, as a bonafide counterparty in that agreement? Maybe something like a 100% discount on runtime fees for days that ends with ‘y’.
Otherwise I could simply “retroactively apply” a 100% discount on my lease or new car purchase. Or for a better comparison, retroactively charge my employer for previous work, as I now decide to add a fee?
The correct answer and what all studios/devs should do: tell them to retroactively pound sand and ditch Unity for all future projects.
AnonStoleMyPants@sopuli.xyz 9 months ago
I don’t think this is true? Their site unity.com/pricing-updates says “The fee applies to new installs beginning January 1, 2024”
Heavybell@lemmy.world 9 months ago
New installs not new releases. So if you put out a game a few years back and suddenly a bunch of people start installing it on their new PCs, you’d get hit with this fee… assuming it is legally enforceable.
Hell, even if it isn’t strictly legally enforceable, if you still need to deal with Unity in some way in future you could be forced into dealing with this fee in order to get Unity’s cooperation.
AnonStoleMyPants@sopuli.xyz 9 months ago
Oh yeah good point. The word “retroactively” just gave me the idea that it would apply to old installs, because this whole thing is about installs.
Still, that is a major dick move.