We apologize for the confusion and angst the runtime fee policy caused
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In any case, I think it's more a story about hubris and miscalculation. Even the apology misses the most important fact, which is not necessarily the cost of the change itself, but the demonstration that Unity is willing to change terms AFTER you've shipped software using their engine. That's a massive breach of trust as well as a massive risk. What's preventing them from announcing next September that new installs will incur an even larger cost or that the thresholds will be lowered.
And the obvious fix to that is to put out an announcement saying "Sorry about that, you can trust us, and if you release a game using Unity you can stick with that version of the ToS instead of us being able to foist new terms on you whenever we want forever."
Except.... Unity did that already last time they made company destroying ToS changes, and then just went back on the promise and said they're forcing the new ToS on everyone. So why the hell is anyone supposed to trust whatever apology they put out this time?
https://blog.unity.com/community/updated-terms-of-service-an...
Updated Terms of Service and commitment to being an open platform (2019)
Retroactive TOS changes
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.
In practice, that is only possible if you have access to bug fixes. For this reason, we now allow users to continue to use the TOS for the same major (year-based) version number, including Long Term Stable (LTS) builds that you are using in your project.*
Moving forward, we will host TOS changes on Github to give developers full transparency about what changes are happening, and when. The link is https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/TermsOfService.
IANAL but isn't this how it works by default? If two parties agree to a contract, one party doesn't get to unilaterally change the contract after the fact. The only way they get to change it is if they put some wording in the contract to the effect of "As long as the game runs on the Unity engine, Unity has the right to charge whatever it wants." So it would simply be a matter of removing this language from the TOS.
> 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.
https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-plan-pricing-and-packa...
They're saying "the terms of service say we can add whatever new fees we want whenever we want."
I'm not sure whether the original fee structure that people had agreed to was outlined in the earlier version of the ToS or not. If people agreed to allow Unity to unilaterally change the pricing structure then they may be stuck with it.
But if they need to actually change the ToS to make these fees, then I'm skeptical it would stand up in court (IANAL). They made very definitive public statements that people would be able to use the existing agreements with your current engine version, and saying "you simply cannot choose to comply with a prior version" now can't possibly hold water.
If this were just a skirmish between Unity and microtransaction-heavy mobile game publishers, then there would be legal battles, but all in all they would rather pay a per-install fee than rewrite their games from the ground up. But every small and mid-sized developer and publisher feels like they were considered fodder for this battle, and their goodwill is why the big guys chose Unity in the first place.
And a $1M annual revenue threshold might as well be nothing - that barely feeds a two-pizza team! It would be as if Github made every open source repository with more than 5 regular contributors pay per git pull. Absolutely absurd.
Maybe if they actually promised something exciting in Unity 2024, they could change the contract there and entice people to join. But that's another historical pain point for the company. What's the last actually shipped feature that really excited developers? HDRP? I sympathize with how they went about it, but they underestimated how much people wanted some sort of migration strategy. DOTS thats still floundering on what it wants to be 5+ years into development, and also a shakey target?
This covers more of the shenanigans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOCTSp_U-KI
Apologies for a video link but that's all I have.
The difference is that these customers potentially can defend themselves with lawsuits and switching to a competitor.
The problems arise when some cowboy executive comes in and reads the letter of the law without regard for the spirit of the law and starts thinking they can get away with radical innovations that destroy the stability of the business ecosystem. Business partners in a contract may grant broad leeway conditioned on the trust that it will not be abused, but now that trust has been destroyed, how can you continue to do business with such a counterparty?
This is the second time they've tried to change the terms retroactively, and this time they broke their promise to not try it again.
I don't make games but if I start then I'll probably use Godot or GDevelop. They both use the MIT license and I feel like that one is decidedly non-bullshittey.
I don't think anything it says would hold up to true legal scrutiny but it's been great for a non-lawyer like me.
"What do you mean people are live-streaming engine swaps"
Did the execs expect blowback? How much was expected? Did they estimate X% of users fleeing would be ok? Or had they just been sniffing their own farts the entire time?
They’re changing how they’re deploying it. They’re not changing the policy.
> We have heard you. We apologize for the confusion and angst the runtime fee policy we announced on Tuesday caused. We are listening, talking to our team members, community, customers, and partners, and will be making changes to the policy. We will share an update in a couple of days. Thank you for your honest and critical feedback.
> Sep 17, 2023 · 11:13 PM UTC
See also the much longer "apology" yesterday:
1) Announce changes that are even harder to stomach than the bad ones you have planned.
2) Wait for fallout.
3) Backtrack and say "we're listening".
4) Roll out the bad (but not that bad) plan you had in mind the whole time.
5) Customers will be annoyed but relieved.
It's right in the enshitification playbook.
It was a confusion? I feel like people understand what the change was about, and was vocal about how horrible they think that this change is and its consequences.
This may be a little unfair given ChatGPT is trained on humans writing for other humans; on the other hand, corporations having clichéd stock phrases when they attempt apologies, is itself a cliché because it happens often enough.
> We have heard you. We apologize for the confusion and angst the runtime fee policy we announced on Tuesday caused. We are listening, talking to our team members, community, customers, and partners, and will be making changes to the policy. We will share an update in a couple of days. Thank you for your honest and critical feedback.
Let's break that down.
* DARVO - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO
You might say "Gas lighting" or "Deflection" in colloquial terms, and then understand the 2nd sentence:
> We apologize for the confusion and angst the runtime fee policy we announced on Tuesday caused.
That is saying that we are confused, and experiencing angst. As if we do not appreciate or understand the harmless thing. It's an apology at first, but then simultaneously degrades the audience as "confused", as if the audience did not understand the message.
Nextly, we see:
> We are listening, talking to our team members, community, customers, and partners, and will be making changes to the policy.
Take note the ordering of the 2nd list, and the weird run-on of the first list into the second. They are "Listening" and "Talking" to... The author of these words seems to the type of mind who wants to emphasis the fakeness first, but then minimize the reality last. Read that as "we are not listening, and will be talking to...", and the 2nd list goes the same way, pretty much ignore all the stuff up-front, and look at the last part where is says "partners". Full translation: "We are talking to our Partners, while monitoring dissident employees (some of whom called in bomb threats to the SF office earlier this week), identifying defectors in the influencer community, and auditing belligerent customer accounts likely to evade the licensing.
> Thank you for your honest and critical feedback.
Again, look at the last part of the writing... the writer does that, they probably mentally compartmentalize the bad news, and mention last. We are reading a not so masterful manipulator, somebody not quite proficient in their personality disorder, whatever that might be... Borderline, Sociopath, Narcissist, or whatever....
Taken together and projecting that forward a couple of years, the company is dead.
They are not in it to make a good product, or foster good will, those are just unfortunate hurdles in the quest to bring money to the shareholders.
Love their use of the word "confusion" here, like "you guys just don't understand how this is actually good for you!"
And the policy caused you to get all confused and angsty, not Unity.
Both word choices are very "it's not me, it's you" gaslighting.
But it all started here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37481344
Like maybe the roll out was mucked up by some middle-managers and didn't get a proper review?
Or some newbies in management didn't understand 'install' versus 'purchase'.