Official Unity plan pricing and packaging updates

My patience is almost over. If there still isn't any response next Monday, I will leave.

 

Pure Rust should be faster in theory. CPU pixel draw examples (Bevy) from the link shows about 2M pixels @ 60 FPS.
Tech is nuts.

 

Anyone else think it’s also kinda scummy how they told the news that they closed their town hall because of death threats….

…but never mentioned it was because of their own employee?

They purposely let the media run with the narrative that game devs are upset. I’ve seen so many posts saying, game devs shouldn’t let it go this far!

 

If I refuse to migrate my account (I remember reading somewhere that we were going to be required to do this but can't find it at the moment) because doing so requires acceptance of the new terms, and thus lose access to the ability to use my current editor version, and thus lose the ability to make maintenance updates to games I actively have on storefronts for sale, I believe that may constitute actual harm. Especially when some updates are required to keep the games in good standing with the storefront (a la Google Play). I'd have to confirm that with my lawyer though.

Edit: Found the part about needing to migrate to a new account for continued use:

 

Right…

but they’re also setting the precedent that they can change fees retroactively. Do you think they won’t do that anymore after this week?

 

I have swallowed the pill, I am currently trying to plan ahead, but every time I try to write a post to ask for more details, I stop because of this feeling that the answers will be complete bullshit and that I am a fool for even asking. This is frustrating because you have this truly great product, but it can't be trusted.

Unity, I beg you to publicly acknowledge that you broke the trust of developers and to share your plan to regain brand trust.

 

That's awesome! This port is going to be fun!

 

So they could be waiting to lose access to their editors?

which... at a minimum, would create a loss of productivity for every developer who is prevented from using the editor and is not legally able to accept the new terms...

I can see why you'd have to consult with a lawyer, but also why this would become big and ugly fast, even before the first fees.

 

This is so...Unreal...

 

when a competitor asks you not to do it, that probably means, that there will be war, where both sides lose. this is really good news for devs.

 

Just hope you guys aren't those who would complain about DOTS' boilerplate code or verbosity, because Rust is super-verbose and basically was designed by half-wit monkeys.

 

Yes, it's a very Unreal moment.

I love Tim Sweeney's classy response to the whole fiasco:
https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1702088166029623806

 

It's always the marshalling to and from non ECS type code that gets you. Partly why Unity ECS is still birth since they've more or less given up writing ECS variants of the main systems and we're stuck with 'hybrid' mode.

 

We are already experienced in Rust so no worries there .

 

Yup, sounds like a typical modern Unity feature. Glad I steered clear.

 

None of this is true, but sure, there is not enough fire, let's invent bullshit problems too.

 

Y'know, the Internet throws the term "troll" around haphazardly, but here we have a more traditional definition; an ugly, cantankerous bully who targets anyone they can intimidate, shaking them down for chump change and milk money.
You guys F***ed up so bad. No matter how this shakes out now--it doesn't matter. This decision will reflect poorly on Unity for as long as Unity stays in operation. And, I mean, pull more S*** like this and you may not be in operation for quite as long as you expected. Yeah, your software is hot S***, Unity, but you ain't the only game in town. The more you think on it, the more offensive it gets, to be honest. Which one of you dumb greedy assholes made this call? Whoever you are, good luck sleeping at night for the next few weeks.

 

Yes, I think the majority of us are waiting for next week to take the final decision. Meanwhile I'm enjoying Unreal, tutorials and documentation impress me.

 

AN IMPORTANT QUESTION:

assuming our installs is far above 200k
What if we bought unity Pro when our revenue is getting close to 200K dollars? And how will we be charged after passing 200K dollars? Will it depend on Pro plan solely or we will get charged by the installs that recorded before we upgraded to Pro?

 

after being conditioned by what unity presents as documentation it does not take much to impress me

 

Downloaded Unreal and Godot yesterday, and as I am at the beginning of development, I surely will take a look at one of the engines build with Rust / using Rust as scripting language like Bevy.
The most of theese engines are still in an early stage, but some of them are Data oriented and architectured around ECS.
Godot also has a Rust extension.

 

I'm not sure why this is being conflated with the user id... it seems clear to me that this means that if the editor is offline for 3 days, it will request you login again, not create a whole new account. It's an ops thing. I'm sure they are gathering telemetry, and while some of it will be superfluous data collection for marketing, some of it is also for valid support reasons. There are a lot of tools like this. Personally, I feel like you lose a lot of functionality if you are not online - such as access to packages and assets. for Unity, it also means access to version control and other services they are trying to (understandably) upsell to you.

It might have been poorly communicated. This is why you hire English or Journalism majors (preferably with some side interest in programming) to help with your technical documentation.

 

No one knows how Unity’s proprietary AI model works. You may have to fight them with revenue records.

 

Probably true. I don't understand unit economics, but I understand English and "cheapily" isn't a word.
Zing!

 

My take on it, for whatever it is worth. They evaluate your d/l and revenue on a monthly basis. So let's say you have 500K d/l on your game/app. As long as you didn't cross $200K over you're paying nothing for d/l. Then one month rolls in and you're over $200K. That month they look at the number of d/l you had THAT MONTH and will charge you for those. I would IMAGINE that at this point if you upgrade your license to Pro, your d/l limit will change and your revenue trigger will change (to 1M) and until you reach that you wouldn't be paying. This is just my interpretation of this by the way, it might turn out it works differently.

 

Unigine looks great, have double precision, hi def terrain, VR/AR, photorealistic rendering, projects to any multiple monitor system like the Sphere in Las Vegas or the giant video capsule in the planned Saudi giant cube you can fit 20 Empire State Buildings inside of. You can apparently see 40 miles in VR and it is accurate within Solar System coords. There is a community edition for free and then for the various sdk it is from 1495 to 9995 USD and looks like a pay once to own forever deal. No royalties or install fees for your finished product. Uses Unity style components. Looks as good as Unreal to me. Why is there little buzz about this?

 

A couple of years ago, someone posted about new competition, Flax Engine.

https://forum.unity.com/threads/new-competition.1049945/

Quite some resistance to their 'unfair pricing policy' and how Unity is superior and safer...

 

i wouldn't be surprised, if they started also charge next month/quarter based on previous data and estimations.

 

https://mobilegamer.biz/unity-boycott-begins-as-devs-switch-off-ads-to-force-a-runtime-fee-reversal/

 

I'm gonna get real on how I expect this will affect me:

It's not going to affect my day job one iota, because that's in Unreal.

It's going to profoundly affect my side business, though.

I cannot accept Unity's new terms as offered. For one, as far as I am concerned, they are still bound by the language of their prior TOS. I NEVER downloaded and accepted TOS on a new version of Unity since they updated the TOS on the sly to remove the relevant clause. I checked. I haven't updated anything since last October. (I tend to stay with a version because of how often upgrading breaks random stuff.)

Second, I definitely do not make enough to need to pay any install fees under the currently proposed plan, however, I will not subject my entire catalog of games, all of which are passion projects in one way or another, to ever more adverse terms in the form of future TOS changes, which would be allowed if I accepted the new agreement. That is not a risk worth taking.

Since I cannot accept Unity's new terms as offered, I cannot sign up for a new account when the new service launches in November. So now I have to rush around and stress out and shore up three products with updates in preparation for losing access to Unity, so that I can keep those products alive as long as possible. That gets me about 2 years time on Google Play before the algorithm punishes me for not targeting a recent Android API. So right away I lose the opportunity cost of whatever else I could be doing during the time spent on these updates. It's unacceptable that Unity has caused this emergency that I must respond to.

My solo side business is in a position where, right now, it just barely pays for itself. Ongoing steady sales of my Android App "Vintage Pachinko", which since 2013 has been the best-rated pachinko simulation available on Android, and has always been a straight-up $0.99 pay-for-it-once-and-keep-it-forever deal, pay for things like web hosting and other expenses. Once the last update of "Vintage Pachinko" ages enough to be punished by the Google Play Store algorithm, sales will plummet. At that point, unless, in my free time away from my day job, I manage to land a moonshot game that actually makes decent money or at least replaces that lost income, I will either need to start taking losses and fund my side business out of pocket as a portfolio and prestige project, or fold up entirely.

Should the terms change in the future such that I would need to either pay for pro licenses or pay install fees, this would definitely mean pulling all products from market and folding up.

So tell me, Unity, is this part of the 10% you envisioned these cockamamie new policies affecting?

Salt provided free of charge, this time, though terms of the salt are subject to change with little to no notice and may be retroactively applied. In full effect even where prohibited by law.

 

Honestly, this is some of the best advice on here.

And if you've never done a port between engines before, try it as an academic exercise, learn what the pain points are, and design to avoid those pain points in all your future work.

I have over 100k lines of c# code separated into purely game logic, it runs happily in a command line. My port from Unity to Godot for this code was literally to copy and paste, not a single line needed to be changed.

So for me, Unity to Godot is a pure UI port (its a 2D-game, so seems quite easy). But its only possible to even consider because of the up-front design decision to separate logic from engine.

 

Time to switch engine! Time and Money wasted.

 

It seems you can mitigate risk by honestly upgrading when you hit the income threshold. Seems using their ads platform can wipe another bunch of fees off the total. The BS is the retroactive adhesion contract nobody agreed to. Who TF they think they are..the IRS??

 

if you haven't checked out stride, it is really decent: https://www.stride3d.net/

 

People still believes that these thresholds are there to stay?

The threshold will not be there next year, or 2 or 3 from now, whenever they decide to complete the Unity honeypot project, everyone will pay for install from the first install.

 

Haha, instead I just tried Godot, and it seems pretty cool, very lightweight but with lots of features, and no endless compiling or domain loading time, I can't even wait to explore more. It's sad that I had so believed Unity is the future, until John Riccitiello throw those trash on us, and told us all is just business.

 

Interesting LinkedIn article from a law firm specializing in helping the gaming industry:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sher...Q/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

It’s clearly early days with Unity's changes to its pricing policies and it may be that the PR backlash will determine what happens next. However, it is far from certain that Unity’s plans will be able to progress even if it doesn’t effect a U-Turn – at least not without significant legal risk.

3 things immediately come to mind:

1. It looks very much like an "abuse of a dominant position" and therefore very likely to engage unfair competition / anti-trust rules on both sides of the Atlantic. It's highly likely that the Competition and Markets Authority (UK), European Commission and Department of Justice (US) would be materially concerned about situations where an undertaking with a dominant position in the market (like Unity) makes unilateral decisions on pricing and conditions where their provision of middleware (especially in mobile) is a vital component to so many gaming businesses. Amongst other things, it may have a devastating impact and chilling effect on games businesses, their ability to continue trading and innovation more generally in the games markets globally.

2. Unilateral price changes in B2B contracts may be subject to the reasonableness test in the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 as rendering performance substantially different to what was expected. It seems clear from the reactions over the last 24 to 48 hours (and Unity’s initial response) that the reasonableness of this new structure can be called into question. (UK)

3. This might also invoke the UK and EU’s Platform to Business Regulation. This generally governs the balance of power between platforms and businesses that rely on platforms to reach end users. Particular concerns include:

a. Giving businesses a reasonable and proportionate notice period to allow for technical and commercial adaptations to proposed changes to terms. Given the magnitude of this change this period should arguably be considerably more than the period given by Unity; and

b. Prohibitions on retroactive changes to terms.

So it is far from clear that these changes will be enforceable / ever actually be able to be implemented in a lawful or legal manner.

We will be watching this space – and of course ensuring that our clients’ interest are protected.

 

this war is good for unreal... it will be bad for competition, not good.
a weeker unity and stronger unreal is NOT good for us.

 

Interesting video from Richard Hoeg, a business lawyer with an interest in gaming:

https://www.youtube.com/live/rGMrebXypJo?si=C_-jqca-q763dc_y

Summary of the video:

Based on the transcript, this video discusses Unity Technologies' controversial new pricing model for its Unity game engine. The key points are:

Unity is changing its pricing model starting January 2024. It will charge developers a "Unity runtime fee" based on the number of times a game using Unity is installed. This impacts developers who previously used Unity for free.

Many game developers spoke out against this, saying it could significantly cut into their revenue, especially for games on subscription services like Xbox Game Pass where install numbers are high. Some threatened to stop using Unity.

Unity defended the change by saying it will only impact successful games with high install numbers. But developers are concerned because Unity will estimate installs using undisclosed methods, and fees could add up from reinstalls, multiple devices, etc.

Competitor Epic Games positioned their Unreal Engine as more developer-friendly following the Unity controversy, touting their revenue share model and guarantees.

Legally, Unity seems covered by the broad rights they reserved to change pricing. But developers may argue detrimental reliance based on older Unity terms promising users could stick to old terms. Practically Unity has lost trust.

After backlash, Unity clarified the fee is only for initial install not reinstalls. But their install tracking methods remain unclear. Unity appears focused on non-game industries now vs games.

In summary, Unity's new pricing caused an uproar among game developers due to distrust around unclear install tracking, perceived unfairness, and detrimental impacts especially for indie developers. Competitors seized the opportunity to market against Unity.

 

That is awesome! This is how to do it, folks! Vendor lock-in is ALWAYS bad! Do whatever you can to protect yourself and your game logic from vendor lock-in.

 

This monetization scheme could be like a cancer. if it doesn't stop here it could infect other industries as well. We joke now about Microsoft charging 20 cents per every time someone reads your word doc or pdf, or adobe charging 20 cents every time your exported image loads on a webpage or for each instance it appears in a magazine...

but no joke it *will* happen if Unity doesn't die as a corporate entity over this.

 

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023...d-to-just-change-its-fee-structure-like-that/

Wait, is Unity allowed to just change its fee structure like that?

Confusing, contradictory terms of service clauses leave potential opening for lawsuits.

KYLE ORLAND - 9/15/2023, 11:06 AM

Pray I don't alter it any further...

Unity’s new “per-install” pricing enrages the game development community

If you were developing a Unity Engine game on Monday, you did so with the general understanding that you wouldn't be charged additional royalties or fees beyond your subscription to the Unity Editor software itself. If you were developing that same game on Tuesday, you were suddenly subject to shocking new terms that would impose charges of up to $0.20 per install (starting next year) after certain per-game revenue and install thresholds were reached.

This change led to a firestorm of understandable anger and recrimination across the game development community. But it has also led some to wonder how such a massive change is even legally possible. Can Unity just unilaterally alter the fee structure its developers were relying on, even for development projects that were started (or even completed) under completely different legal terms?

The answer, it seems, depends on how you interpret some seemingly contradictory clauses that have appeared in various Unity terms of service in recent years.

Unity: We can do what we want

To be clear, Unity says its new fee structure won't apply to any game installs made before the newly announced structure goes into effect on January 1. But in an FAQ, the company suggests that games released before 2024 will be liable for a fee on any subsequent installs made after the new rules are in effect.

"Assuming the game is eligible and distributing the Unity Runtime, then runtime fees will apply," the FAQ reads. "We look at a game's lifetime installs to determine eligibility for the runtime fee. Then we bill the runtime fee based on all new installs that occur after January 1, 2024."

That might be surprising for developers that released a Unity game back in, say, 2015, when Unity CEO John Riccitiello was publicly touting Unity's "no royalties, no F***ing around" subscription plans. Now, even developers who paid $1,500 for a "perpetual license" to Unity back then could theoretically be subject to additional per-install fees starting next year (provided their game is still generating sufficient revenue and installs).

Unity has yet to respond to a request for comment from Ars Technica, but a spokesperson outlined the company's legal argument in a forum thread after reportedly "hunt[ing] down a lawyer":

Our terms of service provide that Unity may add or change fees at any time. We are providing more than three months advance notice of the Unity Runtime Fee before it goes into effect. Consent is not required for additional fees to take effect, and the only version of our terms is the most current version; you simply cannot choose to comply with a prior version. Further, our terms are governed by California law, notwithstanding the country of the customer.

Read through old legal documents with me

Broadly speaking, the general legal agreements signed by all Unity developers give some support to this position. At least as far back as 2013, the Unity EULA has included a broad clause that says the company "may modify or terminate the subscription term or other Software license offerings at any time."

While Unity eventually worked things out with SpatialOS maker Improbable, the development community was justifiably worried that future ToS changes could impact their projects. To calm things down, Unity announced a new "commitment to being an open platform" that included an important protection against any further sudden ToS changes. As the company wrote in the announcement blog post: "When you obtain a version of Unity, and don’t upgrade your project, we think you should be able to stick to that version of the ToS."
On a GitHub page that Unity set up to track those kinds of ToS changes, that promise was given a translation into legal jargon (emphasis added):

Unity may update these Unity Software Additional Terms at any time for any reason and without notice (the “Updated Terms”) and those Updated Terms will apply to the most recent current-year version of the Unity Software, provided that, 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”)

On the surface, this section would seem to suggest that a game released before Unity's new terms go into effect could stick with the older, install-fee-free ToS that existed at the time the game was released. The only potential hitch would come if you wanted to update the project to a later version of Unity; in that case, as the ToS states, "your use of any new version or release of the Software will be subject to the Updated Terms applicable to that release or version."

What's more, this 2019 version of the ToS was explicit about including a "non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free right" to "distribute the Unity Runtime as an integrated part of your Projects" under certain broad conditions. That would seem to disallow the kind of "Unity Runtime fees" the company soon plans to charge for Unity game installs—at least for old, un-updated projects that decide to stick with the old ToS.

"Our terms of service provide that Unity may add or change fees at any time... Consent is not required for additional fees to take effect."
Unity spokesperson

Both the "keep your old ToS" and "royalty free runtime" clauses continued to appear in Unity's "Editor Software Terms of Service" through an October 23, 2022 update, suggesting that unupdated projects made on Unity 2022.x and Unity 2021.x LTS (or earlier) might be able to keep the fee-free legal structure they were built under. But then, with little notice, an April 2023 Editor Software ToS update removed that safety valve entirely.

A note at the top of that April version mentions that the new version includes an update to a section on "modification of terms." In practice, that "update" meant the "keep your old ToS" clause introduced in 2019 was simply deleted wholesale and not replaced. In addition, the "royalty-free runtime distribution" clause was updated to indicate that such distribution was "subject to payment of applicable fees," quietly laying the legal groundwork for this week's install-fee announcement.

Unity also seems to be going out of its way to eliminate at least some extant signs that its previous "Software Terms of Service" were any different. That promised GitHub page tracking ToS changes no longer works, though identical forks of GitHub still capture the old language (Internet Archive snapshots suggest the GitHub removal happened sometime after July 2022). An older "Software Additional Terms" document with the "keep your old ToS" clause intact, dated March 2022, is still available on the Unity site as of this writing.

A second ToS?

The April update is bad news for developers who unknowingly used the latest version of the Unity Editor since then, seemingly subjecting themselves to the new rules in the process. But projects created under older versions of the editor (and terms of service) might still be shielded by the old "keep your ToS" clause, right?

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. That's because the Unity Editor Software ToS (which has been getting lots of attention on Reddit and elsewhere) is supplementary to a wider Unity Terms of Service document that applies to all users of Unity's products and services.

Those superseding terms are much more liberal regarding Unity's rights to "modify the Agreement at any time and without prior notice," full stop. And there's no sign of the "keep your old ToS" clause here, either:

By continuing to access or use the Services after we have provided you with notice of a modification, you indicate that you agree to be bound by the modified Terms. If the modified Terms are not acceptable to you, your only recourse is to cease using the Services. (emphasis added)

In other words, if you don't want to be subject to the new rules, these overarching Unity terms suggest your only way out is to stop using Unity's services altogether (which seemingly includes distributing the Unity Runtime needed to install and play your game in the first place). What's more, these overall terms explicitly allow Unity to "increase, modify, or add new fees and charges for any of the Services from time to time by posting such changes to the Site or within the Services Panel" with at least 30 days' notice.

"Your continued use of such Software and/or Developer Service after the effective date of any such change means that you accept and agree to such changes, as applicable," the updated ToS reads.

"...if the Updated Terms adversely impact your rights, you may elect to continue to use any current-year versions of the Unity Software..."

Unity's Software Editor ToS, January 2019

The oldest version of this general Unity ToS I was able to find archived dates to January 2022, so it's not entirely clear how long this superseding language has been in effect. But the similar language in the 2013 EULA suggests this is not an entirely new legal protection for Unity.

Interestingly, that January version of the overarching ToS also includes a sentence specifically noting the different clause letting you ignore changes to the software ToS. The current general ToS eliminates that sentence and explicitly says "for the avoidance of doubt" that its modification rules also apply to "the Additional Terms" (i.e., the Software ToS).

We’ll see you in court?

So what do all these changing and seemingly contradictory ToS clauses mean in practice for a working Unity developer? The answer isn't totally clear.

"Certainly in the black and white language [in] the contract as it sits today, it appears that [Unity] are covered," game industry attorney Richard Hoeg said in an excellent YouTube livestream analyzing the legal issues here. "But there are questions of timing and older versions, especially for games that have been made and finalized a while ago, well before this change was made."

Where Unity might run into some legal exposure, Hoeg said, is in the apparent conflict between the overall ToS (which Unity says you are subject to as long as you use its services) and the Software ToS (which until recently said you can keep using an older version if you don't update your game). "That's an ambiguity that... we try to avoid first and foremost when we're writing contracts in legal land," Hoeg said.

In general, this ambiguity would usually be resolved with the more general ToS overriding the "additional" Editor Software Terms, which are considered ancillary in legal parlance. At the same time, Hoeg said a developer could argue that they had reasonably relied on the ancillary language in the Software terms, including the clause that would conceivably let them keep those terms even in the case of future changes.

"Someone could have looked at that and said, 'Yes, I'm going to invest my time and efforts,' and by changing that without making it known and then changing the fee structure here in September of 2023, it's possible you might bring a claim," Hoeg said.

A developer who wanted to pursue that kind of claim in court could argue using the concept of promissory estoppel, or the "notion that you can't just change the deal if somebody else relied upon it," as Hoeg put it. "You made a promise to a party that you were going to give them the Unity tools that they weren't going to have to pay money [for], and they spent four years of their life in investment, in education, learning the Unity toolset and getting ready to build a game, and then you change the pricing right at the end," Hoeg said by way of hypothetical argument.

While Hoeg said he might be personally amenable to this type of argument, it could be a tough, technical claim to make in an actual court. It's the kind of argument where you basically "throw yourself on the concept of justice and hope that things turn out all right for you," as Hoeg put it.

"A lot of the time these contracts are going to be written in such a way that the companies have broad authority to do what it is that they will do, and you will wind up in a position of trust."

Attorney Richard Hoeg

That might be the kind of legal argument some Unity developers are preparing to make, though. Indie developer Xalavier Nelson, Jr. told Axios that "some of the most significant developers in the space using the engine" are considering a class-action lawsuit over the changes, following a Tuesday social media post suggesting the same.

"I can't see how that is legal," Cult of the Lamb developer Massive Monster told PC Gamer. "They absolutely have lawsuits coming their way."

In the end, though, this kind of potential legal wrangling is only necessary when the usual conventions of business partnership break down entirely. "A lot of the time, these contracts are going to be written in such a way that the companies have broad authority to do what it is that they will do, and you will wind up in a position of trust," Hoeg said. "As lawyers, we're not in the 'trust me' business. You, as a business person, as the client, have to determine whether you have a sufficient trust or closeness with your business partner to believe that they're going to hold things relatively the same..."

KYLE ORLAND

Kyle Orland has been the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica since 2012, writing primarily about the business, tech, and culture behind video games. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He once wrote a whole book about Minesweeper.

 

I already filed a report with the CMA but I doubt I'm the only one. Far bigger devs here would likely have voiced concerns!

 

Not sure how it will be done. If I was the one implementing this I have no idea how I would do it. Their estimates of d/l without an accurate system sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen. Revenue is one thing, it's trackable (they would still need to ask). What I mean you file taxes, have revenue, expenses, it's all accounting and it needs to add up. Downloads though, I can see that being challenged in court, very messy.

 

That is my understanding, they need to confirm this, which is what I expect they will be doing next week. More clarifications from them are required. I agree with you, I've never seen any company do something like this. I always thought, worst case scenario, if licensing changes I'll just stay on current version and come up with a plan going forward, but this retroactive thing... never seen anything like it.

Edit: And yes, I've read the same thing. Supposedly going with their ADs can wipe anywhere from 80-100% of the fee. That's more hearsay though and they don't officially state these numbers anywhere.

 

From the article:

While Unity eventually worked things out with SpatialOS maker Improbable, the development community was justifiably worried that future ToS changes could impact their projects. To calm things down, Unity announced a new "commitment to being an open platform" that included an important protection against any further sudden ToS changes. As the company wrote in the announcement blog post: "When you obtain a version of Unity, and don’t upgrade your project, we think you should be able to stick to that version of the ToS."

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023...d-to-just-change-its-fee-structure-like-that/

 

What's more, this 2019 version of the ToS was explicit about including a "non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free right" to "distribute the Unity Runtime as an integrated part of your Projects" under certain broad conditions. That would seem to disallow the kind of "Unity Runtime fees" the company soon plans to charge for Unity game installs—at least for old, un-updated projects that decide to stick with the old ToS.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023...d-to-just-change-its-fee-structure-like-that/

 

Another thing that is going to factor in testing the grandfathered TOS thing is their plain-language presentation that is still to this day in their blog and was never updated to reflect the April changes.
Plain as the nose on my face, their stated intention "When you obtain a version of Unity, and don't upgrade your project, we think you should be able to stick to that version of the TOS." It was absolutely their intent to give us this right.

Definitely gathering this all up for the lawyer.

 

Anyone contemplating continuing to use Unity is crazy. The legal and financial hazard you're signing up for is nowhere near worth it. I don't care if you're talking about prior versions of the TOS, using their ads platform to reduce the fees, whatever. They've already shown they're willing to totally disregard business norms and test the boundaries of legality to try to claw revenues away from devs. You're getting into bed with a rabid wolverine. I get that it's a lot of hard work and expense to migrate away from them, but it's the only decision that makes any sense.