Unity reveals plans to charge developers per game install - plans revoked and CEO fired, lol

[Artyoan]

I'm surprised their share price is only down 7%. I'm guessing investors expect them to rescind. Even still, damage of perception is done. They're looking to pick pockets in some way that they would entertain something this ridiculous.

 

[Axioms]

https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/1701771831361802652

He's right. There rando clarifications are out of control.

 

[volklore]

They say fees are retroactive so I don't get it. Does that mean if you have unity games as a dev you will have to pay some shit for every install since they started tracking installs ?
Is that even legal?

 

[Lord_Potato]

Somebody needs to go full Elon on that company.

You mean, fire the people who actually do important stuff and then, when shit starts falling apart, beg them to come back?

 

[Aemar]

They have 7000 employees

What the fuck do they do?

Diversity hires most likely. And they do what diversity hires do most of the time:

 

[Trithne]

They say fees are retroactive so I don't get it. Does that mean if you have unity games as a dev you will have to pay some shit for every install since they started tracking installs ?
Is that even legal?

By retroactive, they mean that it will apply to games that were made using unity where the agreement between the devs and Unity did not feature this clause.

They not will charge for installs performed prior to 2024, but they will charge for installs after 2024, even if your game came out in 2013.

This is, of course, legal horseshit.

 

[Dickie]

They have 7000 employees

What the fuck do they do?

Diversity hires most likely. And they do what diversity hires do most of the time:

Those days at work when you gotta take a break from your coffee break in the game room to take a wine break on the roof.

 

[Lord_Potato]

They say fees are retroactive so I don't get it. Does that mean if you have unity games as a dev you will have to pay some shit for every install since they started tracking installs ?
Is that even legal?

By retroactive, they mean that it will apply to games that were made using unity where the agreement between the devs and Unity did not feature this clause.

They not will charge for installs performed prior to 2024, but they will charge for installs after 2024, even if your game came out in 2013.

This is, of course, legal horseshit.

It only takes one dev to go to court with Unity and win for this scheme to collapse.

 

[Modron]

In the meantime start downloading your indie itch.io games before developers pull them off that store front.

 

[:Flash:]

Does anyone know how much EA stock Riccitello still has?
Perhaps it's a plan for EA to acquire Unity?

This reminds me of Stephen Elop coming to Nokia from Microsoft, then deciding to kill MeeGo in favour of Windows Mobile, riding the stock price down and then selling Nokia to Microsoft (of which he still held a lot of stock).

 

[Star Citizen]

lmao

 

[Jaesun]

I just can't see this in any way legally binding, you can't just suddenly change your terms of use without an agreement. If I am understanding this correctly. Will just have to wait for the first lawsuit in 2024 challenging this. Or possibly the EU will step in. Or possibly a complaint filed with the SEC.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Remember kids, CEOs make millions and millions of dollars each year because they're just so good at their jobs they make their companies even more profit than they cost.

 

[Orud]

You mean, fire the people who actually do important stuff and then, when shit starts falling apart, beg them to come back?

You can point and laugh at many decisions that Musk made concerning 'X', but reducing the headcount from 7500 to below 1500 isn't one of them. They had 1000's of devs and still hardcoded all the goddamn server locations for pitty sake.

How he went about it, sure, that was a shitshow. But it was known Twitter was a bloated overpriced piece of garbage for years. I still stand firm in my beliefs that besides Musk's ineptitude, a lot of what's coming out of Twitter is just the dirty laundry from before Musk.

 

[Alienman]

Ahh, I love the smell of PR disaster in the morning.

Thanks Unity!

 

[flyingjohn]

full Elon on that company.

That needed to happen a long time ago. These are the last years financials:
282 million in 2020, 533 million in 2021, and 921 million in 2022, all losses. Mostly attributed to a lot of acquisitions that led to more employees and didn't generate any real profit.

 

[Alienman]

Got to ask, since this is supposed to be retroactive. Does that mean that every version of Unity has some kind of hidden tracker?

 

[Blutwurstritter]

A classic EA-CEO April fool's joke. Retarded, expensive, not funny and in September.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[sebas]

You can point and laugh at many decisions that Musk made concerning 'X', but reducing the headcount from 7500 to below 1500 isn't one of them. They had 1000's of devs and still hardcoded all the goddamn server locations for pitty sake.

How he went about it, sure, that was a shitshow. But it was known Twitter was a bloated overpriced piece of garbage for years. I still stand firm in my beliefs that besides Musk's ineptitude, a lot of what's coming out of Twitter is just the dirty laundry from before Musk.

Musk's problem is that he started talking, he's the same asshole that got Tesla or SpaceX going so he's definitely capable as a business man (ie. just one step bellow The Devil). If he wouldn't have bought into the cult of self, it'd be a different story. Twitter still being able to operate after slashing 75% of their workforce just shows what an inept CEO they had before. One that walked out with how many billions? Yeah, fuck capitalism. Too bad the alternatives are famine and genocide.

 

[Fedora Master]

 

[racofer]

Is that even legal?

 

[4249]

Interesting to see if they'll backpedal and by how much. Kind of feels like an attempt at a door-in-the-face technique, but going full retard with it and not realizing how fucking stupid they were with this.

 

[AdamReith]

You'd think they'd wait until somebody made a good game with their software before pulling this kind of shit.

 

[Orud]

You'd think they'd wait until somebody made a good game with their software before pulling this kind of shit.

I guess they forgot that Daggerfall unity is free (and doesn't qualify for the new fees).