"Fuck you, we're not paying": inside Unity's Runtime Fee fiasco | Hacker News Reader

"Fuck you, we're not paying": inside Unity's Runtime Fee fiasco

mobilegamer.biz

49 pointsVilian9 comments

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> “A lot of the outcry from indie devs was kind of misplaced really. None of them are going to get anywhere near the $1m anyway.”

They still don’t get it. It was never about the terms of the new deal. It was about them changing the deal.

The initial outrage was because people were genuinely scared they would have to start paying a ton of money to Unity. Because that's what Unity initially proposed. $200,000 (the original threshold) really isn't that unrealistic for serious indie developers, and any installation, including reinstallation, and including every load of a website with the web player embedded, would come at a cost. (The web player was explicitly mentioned!)

Unity then published various "clarifications" (read: further alterations of the deal) which made the change less absolutely horrifying, reinstallations wouldn't be counted, the web player wouldn't be counted. The sheer audacity of describing those monumental changes as "clarifications" is grounds for outrage in itself. "Apologizing" for "confusion" instead of admitting fault is extremely disrespectful.

And then we reach the current day, where the change has been watered down to something that's really a lot more acceptable, but the willingness of Unity to just suddenly retroactively invent new taxes for Unity users to pay should be enough to frighten indie developers and established game studios alike.

(What I'm trying to say is, I agree.)

Most game programmers are quite young, or at least the ones on Unity making their own indy game (or the loudest ones online). Essentially I reckon most of them still had that proselytizing mindset that newbie programmers get for their first tool (religious obnoxious-ness). And Unity just pulled a "preacher sleeping with your mom" moment on that community.

"These complaints are foolish and stupid, we only tried robbing their neighbors houses, we didn't even look at theirs. Yet." /s

> One Unity insider told us that a major mobile game publisher – and one of Unity’s biggest clients – met with John Riccitiello himself days after the first Runtime Fee policy was announced. They told him, in the words of our source: “Fuck you, we’re not paying.”

miHoYo perhaps?

I love this phrasing: management-level naivety

A CxO can be pure evil, can be the worst egomaniac, can ignore everry concern for the very thing they sell, can treat their staff and customers horribly. All par for the course. Needed for the job.

But naive? It's probably the biggest 'do not hire' sticker you can put on a CxO. It means you're, at your very core, unable to do the job. Unfit for capitalism.

Hm, I feel it's more-complicated somehow, I mean sometimes companies try for a kind of strategic naivete when they want to "accidentally" accomplish certain things.

"Oh, we had no idea that would happen, how sad, too late to change, can't blame us for not knowing, we had pure and innocent intentions."

Maybe the distinction is who believes them naive, where the important part (for the executive) is whether the board of directors and/or investors can be convinced it is all part of a masterful plan of deniability.

There is a big difference between plausible deniability style naivity where everybody knows the truth, and real naivity.

I've sat in meetings where the magic words 'The minds need to ripen' were code for 'we do exactly what the CxO told us to do, and let them deal with the very predictable consequences'. All kind of politely sounding language was used.

In this text, the world naivity is spoken out loud. It's still a polite thing to say, but very explicit. That's rare enough to make me wonder if someone is trying to character murder the leaders of this company.

Unless something is rotting and a cunning buisness sense is no longer a core requirement. It's enough to be of breeding pure, well connected neo-aristocracy of one of the monopoly houses and families ..

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