this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2023
484 points (98.2% liked)

Games

16838 readers
659 users here now

Video game news oriented community. No NanoUFO is not a bot :)

Posts.

  1. News oriented content (general reviews, previews or retrospectives allowed).
  2. Broad discussion posts (preferably not only about a specific game).
  3. No humor/memes etc..
  4. No affiliate links
  5. No advertising.
  6. No clickbait, editorialized, sensational titles. State the game in question in the title. No all caps.
  7. No self promotion.
  8. No duplicate posts, newer post will be deleted unless there is more discussion in one of the posts.
  9. No politics.

Comments.

  1. No personal attacks.
  2. Obey instance rules.
  3. No low effort comments(one or two words, emoji etc..)
  4. Please use spoiler tags for spoilers.

My goal is just to have a community where people can go and see what new game news is out for the day and comment on it.

Other communities:

Beehaw.org gaming

Lemmy.ml gaming

lemmy.ca pcgaming

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works
484
Devs on Unity Runtime Fee: "The trust is gone forever" (www.gamesindustry.biz)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works to c/games@sh.itjust.works
30 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

It's been almost a full week since Unity announced its controversial Runtime Fee, and the developer backlash continues.

Studios around the world have expressed concerns that the new fee – charging them every time their game is installed after January 1, 2024, providing they meet certain thresholds – threatens to jeopardise the health, or even existence, of their business. And despite subsequent statements from Unity, it's still not entirely apparent how badly these businesses will be affected.

"The most ridiculous part of this fiasco is that the full effects of Unity's decision on the business aren't even clear," says Ustwo Games chief creative officer Danny Gray. "We're left astounded that an operation of that size can move forward with such ill-thought-out plans and are now scrambling to make amendments."

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] dudewitbow@lemmy.ml 93 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Pretty much the biggest mistake made due to greed is the decision to retroactively apply thr deals to already existing titles. Its one thing to neuter titles in the future, but another to fuck over everyone whose already committed to using it on a different TOS

[–] conciselyverbose@kbin.social 35 points 1 year ago

Yep. The insanity of thinking you could apply it retroactively to already licensed games was absurd.

If you tied it to a future main version release with features people wanted, you could absolutely get away with some light pushback that's the usual grumbling on price changes, and a lot of developers would suck it up and move to the up to date engine anyways.

But when you try to pull the rug on people for stuff they've already been developing under previous terms, they're going to seriously reconsider, and on stuff they already published makes it extremely hard to justify working with you again.

[–] WalrusDragonOnABike@kbin.social 34 points 1 year ago

Not a lawyer, but I feel like basing the fee on their internal guess on how many installs seems questionable. Surely some major jurisdictions would take issue with that and counting installs from before the new TOS towards the new threshold. Also their contradictory TOS terms at the very least would probably get them an expensive trial, even if they win it.

[–] Hazzard@lemm.ee 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah, that's what burns the business relationship. Because now it's not just "oh, Unity might screw me, and I'm investing in learning what could become a dead platform", it's "even if Unity doesn't screw me now, they could randomly decide to screw me 10 years from now and retroactively charge me a king's ransom". That's the stuff that has a permanent chilling effect on the whole platform.

[–] OscarRobin@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

The reason why Unity refuses to not make it retro-active is because they want money from Genshin Impact etc which already launched. If they don't make it retroactive then the whole point of the change on their end is gone.