Unity wants 108% of our gross revenue

> Why are you using a broken toy computer not under your control that effectively acts only to hurt you? Euphemistically calling it a "telephone" does not hide the fact you are in an abusive relationship with Microsoft/Apple/Google/Amazon (the 'evil MAGA'). Throw those gadgets away, stop hurting yourself.

Because most users are not looking for a device that is a full blown computer they can fully control. The toy computer they have in their pocket is good enough for them. Heck I'm a dev & power user and the toy computer of a phone I use as my daily driver is good enough for me when I'm chilling on the sofa/lying in bed/out with friends and I just want to query something and I just want/need an "internet consumption device" as I still have my laptop/desktop when I need a full blown computer.

> To the developers: You signed a contract, and now you expect to not have to live up to it?

From what I can tell, it’s more like they have a short term contract they are happy with, but their business model requires them to be able to extend it. They can avoid the new fees ‘simply’ by not letting any user download their Unity games after Jan 1.

But yeah, using free software would avoid this.

I can't imagine arguing or thinking seriously that the majority of computers exist even "effectively" to only hurt us in some way. By computer did you actually mean some sort of antique ball torture device? I won't argue that the companies that control and make these devices aren't evil and responsible for some pretty awful things but it's really odd to argue that most users are "hurting" themselves by using the devices they use.

I promise they would consider having the type of full control and responsibility you're describing as far more harmful and annoying than anything those big 4 could accomplish to them individually.

Unity silently changed the contract a little while back to remove the "we can't change this contract arbitrarily without you agreeing" clause. Which is to say, the terms that most of these devs would have agreed to when they started their current games _was_ one where Unity agreed not to force contract changes onto them.

Which is why it is not unreasonable for the devs to be both pissed off and feeling like they might have legal recourse as well.

The problem here is not using propietary software but building your product/business on top of a contract that can be changed by Unity whenever they feel like squeezing you for more money.

> This is why some of us have been saying, for decades, only to use free software. And to base business models on actual services, not the sale of what can be infinitely and effortlessly copied.

Meanwhile, people like to actually play games.

"I told you so" isn't really helpful, you know.

You also didn't predict this; at best people have predicted the possibility. This decision is not an inherent property of non-free software. Maybe it's inherent to some types of management, but it's not a foregone conclusion. Believing that this is inherent in non-free software is belief that Unity is blameless for making this decision.

I welcome any community of any size to create a good open-source 3D game engine. I've been waiting for a long time for equivalent-quality free alternatives to paid software for multiple disciplines and there are very few, if any.

Turns out that almost no one wants to work for free, and those that do don't seem to understand what makes paid software worth using, because almost all open-source tools like this are little more than toys with very narrow and specific use cases which are fleshed out. the use cases which do have something resembling support are not what I have ever wanted to build, so those feature columns are useless to me, and many others.

This is probably an intentional move by Unity. Low revenue per install is typically a sign of adware/malware or trashy fad products ("punch %POLITICIAN% in the face" kind games). It makes sense why they would not want their engine to be associated with such titles.

What do you use?

Yeah, Unity games seem to famously not run well, and many gamers I know are turned off by hearing a game was made with it. I think we'll see Godot rise in popularity as well.

The first time I tried playing a Unity smartphone game, it made my phone hot. Again, that cemented my decision to just use the Android APIs when writing my own game.

> Unity run like smoldering hot garbage on my brand new AMD AM5 build

This is actually a big problem with games made with Unity. The cheapest license requires you to show the Unity splash screen. The next license up (Pro) allows you to remove this splash screen. As you can imagine, devs using the cheapest license also tend to be lower skilled or new devs and make heavy use of the asset store's free assets. The result is that when you see the Unity splash screen you are likely playing a poorly made game. And when you are playing a Unity game that is made by a professional game studio, you don't know you are playing a Unity game.

This isn't to say all devs using the personal license write bad software, but they do tend to correlate.

I'm not sure if this developer is drawing the same distinction, but Unity seems to count updates to the game on app stores as a new install for those users, as well as things like initiating the web version of a game. So if you have a few million downloads and you push out even a token update a week, I can see the numbers getting that high - at least as far as Unity is concerned.

Or rather, Unity's initial Q&A responses said that. They've half-backtracked and started muddying the waters so I think they actually just didn't think it through at all.

Perhaps they have multiple games? "Our studio focuses in mobile games [emphasis mine] for kids".

They have 100mm installs but 130mm uninstalls, so I don't know if those numbers are reliable.

Lots of discussion on the official post over here earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37481344