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Hold on, is that for real? Like, for Unity games developed years (maybe over a decade) ago, developers would need to start to pony up if they’re installed now? I thought that pay by install thing was just for licensing contracts from now on (not that this isn’t bullshit too, but at least people could just move on to another engine).

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chaorace@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Apparently, it’s dubiously legal (i.e.: nothing technically against established licensing orthodoxy, though still sufficiently experimental that it could cause a new legal precedent to be set if successfully challenged).

But basically here’s the gist:

To sell games made with Unity, you need to have a license

The license comes with terms and an expiration date

When the license expires, you can choose to either stop selling the game or get the newest version of the license

The newest version of the license has these per-user fees attached

In short: copies you’ve sold are sold – Unity can’t ask for a cut of those. You can keep selling copies for as long as your current license lasts, but after that you either have to shelve the product or agree to give Unity a cut of each sale moving forward. Unfortunately for Unity, even if legal, they will struggle mightily actually enforcing their fee structure – captive customers are notoriously difficult to bill efficiently. That 4chan meme at the top of the comments illustrates the gap quite nicely: money isn’t going to magically materialize in their bank accounts when the install button gets clicked. They’re going to have to work their asses off for those quarters.

Source: Moon Channel
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Chreutz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
As far as I have understood, the license not per game and is renewed in some interval. So once the current license expires for your company, you’re on the new license, and will need to pay if you sell a copy of an older game.

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hoshikarakitaridia@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
No, it will come for all developers.

Now there’s some ambiguity about it, and maybe you could file a lawsuit, but it’s not that much, and otherwise this contract WILL be enforced for everyone.

Either way, switching to Godot or to Unreal sounds like a good move rn. Would have switched to Unreal anyway, fair superior engine for bigger games imo.

Oh also this gives the new lumberyard engine more market share as well (Amazon) which will be interesting.

What thrilling times we live in.

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