Out of the loop

Unity is a game engine used by a lot of developers, many of them indies. Some popular games that use Unity are Among Us, Cuphead, Cult of the Lamb, and Tunic. They recently made several changes to their TOS that has upset the gaming community.

Unity used to have a clause in the TOS stating:

"if the Updated Terms adversely impact your rights, you may elect to continue to use any current-year versions of the Unity Software (e.g., 2018.x and 2018.y and any Long Term Supported (LTS) versions for that current-year release) according to the terms that applied just prior to the Updated Terms (the “Prior Terms”)"

This meant that if you didn't agree with the new terms, you could continue using a different version of Unity and the new terms wouldn't apply to you. In April 2023, they removed that clause completely. A week ago, they announced new terms: every game install will be charged a fee of up to $0.20 starting next year, depending on what Unity subscription the developers have and how much revenue/installs the game receives.

This change was set to cover all existing Unity games, even ones made on older versions. Any time anyone installed the game, even if they had installed it previously, the developer would be charged a fee. Many of the games made with Unity are under $20, with some of the popular ones being $5 or less. Immediately people thought of ways this could be trouble: Scripts to install the same game over and over, people sharing their game libraries with family/friends, those with multiple computers/laptops/tablets.

Unity announced on Sep 17, 2023 that they would not be going forward with this new policy:

We have heard you. We apologize for the confusion and angst the runtime fee policy we announced on Tuesday caused. We are listening, talking to our team members, community, customers, and partners, and will be making changes to the policy. We will share an update in a couple of days. Thank you for your honest and critical feedback.

It's unclear what Unity will do now. Many developers have started looking at an alternative called Godot, and some even plan on canceling their Unity subscription because they have lost faith in the company.