Unity’s new “per-install” pricing enrages the game development community | Fees of up to $0.20 per install threaten to upend large chunks of the industry.::Fees of up to $0.20 per install threaten to upend large chunks of the industry.

  • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    When capitalism runs out of places to grow/metastasize, it will consume itself.

    And it has been for years, in every sector. People try to blame everything but the cause.

  • Thann@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    This is why we as consumers must demand open source software

    • PHLAK@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      While I’m a huge open source advocate this has little to do with open vs closed source software.

      • tabular@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The issue of having to put up with software changes you dislike is solved when you (or 3rd parties) have the freedom to change the software in ways you like.

        It is my hope that people see this as very much a proprietary vs free software issue. I hope this leads to further introspection; it’s bad when an engine mistreats them (game devs) so maybe they should give software freedom to their users too.

      • Thann@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        This has everything to do with FOSS.

        If a company can get away with pulling the rug on you, they will.

        Once you’ve heavily invested in using a a piece of software, the company behind it has leverage over you, but if you could pay for updates to that software from another company, the original company has no leverage over you.

        The only reason these companies refuse to release the source code is because they are planning on fucking you over in the future. As consumers we need to demand open source products to prevent this sort of abuse.

    • TurnItOff_OnAgain@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Not downloads. Installs. They also count re installs. So if you. Install a game, play it, remove it, then install again later that is an additional charge to the dev.

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        If I’ve read this right, they don’t count re-installs on the same hardware, so just “I don’t want to play this anymore” uninstall -later- “I want to play this again” reinstall won’t count as two installs. But reinstalls of the same license on different hardware does, so “I just bought a game! Let’s play it on my aging gaming PC” installs I just bought a new gaming PC, let’s see what that game looks like on high graphics settings installs again does count as two installs and the studio will…bewilderingly…be charged twice for that one sale.

          • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            You’re not the first to consider that possibility. It seems possible to grief a studio by repeatedly installing games in virtual machines and running up their Unity bill.

            The question of “what about pirated games” has also come up. Are developers going to be charged per install of pirated games? Unity’s answer to this has been an LTT brand “Trust me, bro.”

    • Korkki@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Plus on top of all the other subscription fees.

      it’s not even really about the money, even if it will fuck the devs and ruin projects and lives, but the breach of trust and a mark that more shit is probably on it’s way if this goes through. Unity owns a ecosystem that many people depend on and now they really start squeezing. It’s not right.

      This is why things that act as commons should be either nationalised or replaced with free software.

      • ???@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I agree. This dipping of fingers into the pockets of devs errodes trust.

      • panachemidi@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Plus on top of all the other subscription fees

        False. This 200k number assumes you would stay on Unity Personal, which breaks EULA anyway since you’re required to buy Unity Pro once you have more than 200k in revenue and funding.

        The real cost for 1M installs, under Unity Pro, would be 62k$, to which you’re adding 2k annually for every seat of Pro you need, that’s it. Again, this assumes you’re making upwards of 2M$ annually. As soon as your game falls back under that, there’s no runtime fees anymore.

        Compare with Unreal, where as soon as your game made 1M$ revenue over its lifetime, you’re on the hook for the 5% revshare perpetually. Over time, there’s loads of situations where that will stay more expensive.

    • Ms. ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Not necessarily. It depends on the Unity license being used and it scales based on installs. So higher tier license and more installs makes each additional install cheaper. But if they are using the free license, it stays at 20c per install no ‘discount’ at any install counts. It is a bit convoluted: https://unity.com/runtime-fee