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Comment by drexlspivey | Hacker News Reader

Can Unity make such a change retroactively? If the terms were different when you made your game can they can force a per install fee now legally?

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I've learned that when it comes to contract law, the answer to any question seeking a "can they do that?" is: depends how much they want to spend in court.

Can they write a retroactive clause into a contract? Yes. They can write _anything_ into a contract.

Is it enforceable? Maybe. And the more they're willing to spend, the more it will cost for that answer to be resolved as "no." (and even after all that spending, maybe the answer is "yes.")

Did they write this into the contracts that game devs have already signed? Dunno. Will have to ask the game devs.

This is the US, the only way you find out is by spending millions in a legal battle, during which they might very well disable your game remotely (and get fined for that too after, if you still exist then).

Its like fighting Amazon. They kick you off the affiliate program and to fight you start with arbitration ($2000). And lose your ability for Prime shipping, movies, music and stuff. It's like impossible to fight these big dogs

As a small dog, you're much better off going to arbitration than into an actual courtroom.

Small claims court is surprisingly friendly and accessible to 'small dogs.'

The point is that for a consumer to start the process to attempt a fair and just outcome costs $2000.

Unaffordable justice.

Well, they cannot really disabled it remotely (it's not like that functionality exists in the current code base atm, maybe in future Unity version).

But they could kill your license so you won't be able to build your game using their tool anymore (however you could also just grab a new license under a different name).

What I wonder tho is if they are going to go to the length of asking platform holder like Apple / Google to delist your game and would they actually comply with Unity on this?

> however you could also just grab a new license under a different name

I'm pretty sure there's a term for that: fraud.

Definitely but Unity itself isn't really doing something "legal" here with their extortions, but I guess time will tell with the eventual legal battles.

In EU it's indeed illegal and in 90% of EU countries it won't even go to court. But they can probably force you to not upgrade anything cause of licensing of the new software or if you upgrade they'll make you pay fees from that moment onwards.

But in US im pretty sure it is open for the legal battle that will cost tons of cash for both sides.

It’s legal for a business to business contract in the EU

to unilaterally and retroactively change the pricing model?

I very much doubt it

For a licensing agreement to change the model and price going forward with 90 day notice, why would t it be?

they explicitly said in the contract that the terms that apply are those that were in effect at point you shipped your game

> 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”). The Updated Terms will then not apply to your use of those current-year versions unless and until you update to a subsequent year version of the Unity Software (e.g. from 2019.4 to 2020.1).

Unfair contract terms apply: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/unfair-treat...

What if the contract states that they can?

unfair contract term and is automatically void

Not to be that guy, but do you have a source for this? As scummy as what they're doing is, it's also completely typical for damned near 100% of companies to reserve the right to be scummy. They all have a clause in their terms that states, 'We can do whatever we want, whenever we want, for any reason we want. If you don't like it, your only recourse is to stop using the software.'

I'd love for this to be true, but I've never seen as exclusion or other sort of work-around for EU customers in any sort of terms for this exact condition, so I'd be extremely surprised to find out it's really not allowed in the EU.

Unfair contract terms: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/unfair-treat... IANAL, but in my view Unity violated points 3, 10, 11, 12, 14.

Unfair contract terms in a B2B scenario are generally really hard to enforce/have a high bar to meet.

Probably dependant on country interpretation, but you can try make it to EU level institutions for proper help.

It seems to be pretty easy to get your contract to terminate here in Poland even in case of non-competition clausule so it would be even easier for something like retroactive price change.

"Unfair contract terms" its pretty easy in most cases especially if its something as blant as changing price backward without acceptance of other site.

Also every country can have different interpretation (It is possible that some countries are very limited and you have to try EU level help) In some cases its even illegal to write non-competition into your contract without providing payment for the time of this being in-place ( there were tons of cases when contract was voided by that and I have even one of my contract ended on my account after single lawyer visit cause of this :] )

I would assume Unity won't even try to enforce it in EU.

But ofc. after update its over and games not yet released can most likely be forced to pay.

My understanding is that Unity does not issue a perpetual license. They change their license on Jan 1 and you auto-accept the new license by continuing to use the product. If you don't want to agree then you stop using it by then.

Unreal is a perpetual license which isn't able to be affected the same.

their license was apparently perpetual until April of this year, so you can go back to last year’s build.

> 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”). The Updated Terms will then not apply to your use of those current-year versions unless and until you update to a subsequent year version of the Unity Software (e.g. from 2019.4 to 2020.1).

April 2023 is in calendar year 2023, so that pretty clearly implies you can keep updating until Jan 1 2024 (unless they change their version numbering scheme).

(I am not a lawyer..)

Yes and no. They can't make retroactive alterations to the contract without your consent, but retroactive is more narrowly defined than you would perhaps like (it would apply only to things you've sold, not new sales of games on old engines).

Everything else on top of that requires deeper understanding of the contract law rules of the specific jurisdiction that applies and the very specific wordings of all relevant terms of service, and this is definitely an area of law where if you forget to execute the right magic steps, you can permanently foreclose opportunities for recourse. What opportunities you actually do have, I'm not sure--this is definitely an area where the answer is "talk to a lawyer", not get legal advice from randos on the internet.

I know nearly nothing about law. But I would guess that most courts in world would find this type of change unconscionable. Thus unenforceable. Now not yet released games get much harder. And projects started after the date it was released are likely different.

> But I would guess that most courts in world would find this type of change unconscionable. Thus unenforceable.

Courts aren't moral entities, they decide if things are legal. Your relevant legislature is the source of morality (or lack thereof) in the law.

They are much more moral than you'd think. I've had a judge push my claim to the very end to ensure there were as few people in the court room, then totally rail on the plaintive suing me for wasting everyone's time with absolute bullshit.

Then, after he said his piece and made it clear there better they needed to be quite persuasive, they did indeed lose. They tried to win on a little technicality in the law but as the judge said "that is there for X reason, this is Y. It doesn't even apply, especially with ample evidence that the defendant was attempting to work with them to resolve the issue."

Point is, civil court is usually quite different than criminal court; basically preponderance of evidence vs. reasonable doubt and a judge can say that the evidence is not preponderance enough.

> They are much more moral than you'd think.

They aren't

> that is there for X reason, this is Y. It doesn't even apply

Sounds like he was applying the law and the lawyer was misinterpreting it.

> a judge can say that the evidence is not preponderance enough

And that's not about morality, that's about proving you broke the law.

The moral levers Judges have are in the punishment (within the bounds of the law), not whether to apply the law or not.

If you’ve ever had to be a parent and judge between two siblings, you’d recognize how silly your comment is. All judgements are borne of three choices: to do what is right, to teach a lesson, or some combination of the two. Any judge can say “fuck you, you deserve it” and only a higher judge can overturn it (when there isn’t a jury). Any jury can, interestingly, do the exact same thing. Human rules made for humans can have all kinds of results when judged by humans.

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