True, but I think it's for a specific term (or period of time). I must confess I'm ignorant about all details and legalities that surround Unity. But just skimming thru the license agreement which dates back to 2013 here: https://unity.com/legal/eula

I see the sentence: "Unity may modify or terminate the subscription term or other Software license offerings at any time"

which to me says you are agreeing that the details or even the term itself can be changed in the future.

There is absolutely no need for Steam to ever institute a server tax.

They were the first, and often best, digital platform in town. In the world, in fact. They've made billions of dollars over the years. What makes you think Gabe would be greedy enough to send people elsewhere?

Sometimes you have to be just greedy enough to make money but not so greedy you "make" money yet cost your company goodwill and longer term investment and retention.

Gabe knows this, and he's one of the original freedom fighters from the 90's. I would never expect him to do something so stupid. The worst thing he's ever done is stand behind the 30% revenue share.
Most states here in the US, as far as I'm aware, have a clause that at minimum you have 10 to 30 days to withdraw from a contract when the terms change.

That's often why if you're here in the US, you will get an email saying "We've updated our Terms and Conditions! If you accept these terms, just ignore this email. If you would like to remove yourself from this contract or situation, take these steps within 30 days"

While it sucks for developers using Unity, as a whole, the gaming sphere has become too reliant on pre built engines, even to the point of CDPR using UE in its new games.

You would think modeling, texturing, and logic programming wouldn't take more than a couple of years, with AI supplementing art development in games now. Seems kind of surreal they've all hamfisted themselves into a handful of commercial engines instead of developing their own.

And don't tell me it's not feasible in this day and age. If Bethesda can do it, anyone can do it. Read that again.

I don't know why there is a discussion about what Unity would have to put into their engine.


Most Unity games call home (Unity Servers) when they start up and when they crash.
They already got the data if you did not blocked them or if you didn't used them on an offline machine...

They are that kind of software, why will never stopp using a software firewall with control over the outgoing connections.



But I start to ask myself, if the problem of the company is more on the spending side, but as a good company they don't care about that but go for income as long as possible.

I mean, for 2022 Unity is said to have 7700 employed (they fired some hundred in 2023 afaik).
Epic, the direct competitor when it comes to engine, and with a store and with an own game development is said to have 2200 employed in 2022.
And CD Project roughly 1200.

Serious question, what do those 7700 people do?
I'm very sure the majority of them aren't engine techs, QA or customer support...

Please don't make hypothetical situations that are completely irrelevant to the case at hand.

The case is this: devs/publishers are selling/distributing the Unity runtime. The only thing that gives them the right to distribute Unity is the license (or the "terms of service" of the service they've subscribed to). Unity has reserved the right to update the terms. If devs/publishers don't accept new terms, they must immediately cease distribution -- they no longer have a license to copy and sell the software.

EDIT: Compare to the situation with GOG selling games. Rightsholder may withdraw their license, unless GOG somehow negotiated an irrevocable one. If that happens, GOG will delist and stop selling the game, and they have no rights to keep distributing the game on the basis that they once had a valid license.

This has nothing to do with software versions.

The WoTC case is also completely different, so I'm not commenting on it in this thread.

The OGL language had some vague language, I would have not used that license myself. It's not surprising that gamers and the game industry would though, because they will never believe that corporations are out to screw you -- despite doing that all the time.

Meanwhile the free & open source software has gone through famous license litigations back in the 90s, everyone knows how it is. Well, some people keep forgetting and keep thinking that it's fine to start pushing proprietary shit.

Of course there have been "incidents": for example, GPL was often applied with the text that it is OK to distribute under GPLv2 or later, but when GPLv3 came out, there was outcry because not everyone liked the terms. You could say that is somewhat comparable to the WoTC case but the FSF never tried to "deauthorize" existing licenses or otherwise change the license of something someone else owns; they legally CANNOT. The "GPLv2 or later" text must have been selected by the rightsholders and if they did that, they should've seen the possibility of a new license coming out with terms they don't like.

I was always sceptical of the OGL and I guess that scepticism proved right. Likewise, I've never chosen "GPLv2 or later." And I don't do license assignment -- I've had to refuse maintainership of a piece of FSF software because they want to do license assignment (i.e. transfer copyright to FSF so they can do anything they wish, including change the license). You can't know exactly what someone is going to do, but you can know exactly what they can and cannot legally do (or what guarantees you have been given). You can prepare for that. Protip, don't do gentleman's agreements. Do black on white. Too bad the game industry is too stubborn to learn the lesson. Even now, how many will just switch to Unreal thinking another corporation won't screw you over exactly the same way the previous one did? Lol, I hope everyone who flocks to Unreal gets rekt. Stupid is not thinknig ahead, not learning the lesson, not managing risk. Because the question of relevance is here whether a game company was stupid enough to bet their livelihood on a proprietary product whose license could change any time. The game company is making that choice (and owning the consequences of it), the employee isn't. Choosing to work with unity is not a choice made by a lone employee! It is a choice made by the company. It's a choice that can screw them over.

The company doesn't NEED to use Unity. They chose to use unity, that's where their screwup starts.

The employee NEEDS to use Unity if the company demands that. But the employee isn't making that choice, so it is not the employee's problem, nor is it their stupidity. I think my employer is stupid for betting so hard on microsoft's garbage software, and I do run it because my employer needs me to, but it is the employer that should be berated for making the choice, not the lone employee who doesn't get to choose.

I don't understand what is so hard about this.

The way this was orignally announced there was *no* way to sever the contract for games that already released because it was per installation (even a reinstallation) rather per sale paired with an installation. That means you cannot exit the agreement by ceasing distribution. I dunno how you think that's defensible (it's not even legal in many countries where you explicitly cannot alter a contract without knowledge or consent and you can't write a contract to waive that )

And it's already been picked up by a satire site.
https://hard-drive.net/hd/announcement-were-gonna-start-taking-a-few-cents-from-our-writers-when-someone-reads-their-article/

That must be some random gamer's interpretation, not a lawyer's.

There is no way a company can force you into a contract. There's no way they can enforce contractual fees if you do not have an active contract and are not violating any of the rightsholders' exclusive rights.

I believe it is still per installation -- the way the fee is calculated, that is. But obviously the fee cannot apply if you have no contract with unity and are not redistributing their copyrighted software.

So yes: you could sever the contract all along. Accept the terms or stop selling the game, very simple.

A page or two back I even posted a screenshot of the existing terms which say "By continuing to access or use the Offerings after we have provided you with notice of a modification, you agree to be bound by the modified Terms. If the modified Terms are not acceptable to you, your only recourse is to cease using the Services."

The package distribution text has similar terms.. "This License may be modified or updated; upon any such modification or update, you will comply with the terms of the updated License for any use of any of the Work under the updated License." Cease use if you don't agree with new terms.

I would imagine that such text is not technically necessary to include in the terms because one party unilaterally changing the contract without an opt out should be illegal anywhere. But who knows, maybe there are some weird edge cases?

Taken by the letter it was even more worse.

Basically Unity gave themself the right to charge for new installations of software made with Unity for like forever.
Means, in 100 Years, when the company has been defunked for like 90 years, and when the rights situation is something even GoG would refuse to even touch, with the original holders being dead for like 50 years.

*Somebody* has to pay Unity some money when some random guy is installing the game from his grandfathers pile of shame account, when the game qualified somewhen in the past for that kind of payment (like 100 years ago).

Or better, somebody has to pay whoever is now the legal entity in charge of the Unity contracts.


That is something even Disney didn't try to pull off.

Oh man, that was a fun read. THANK YOU for the link. I'm still laughing. (Laughter - It's the Best Medicine... well according to Reader's Digest many, many, many, many, many moons ago). I used to grab my Grandmother's Reader's Digest every time I visited her just to go to that page.

How thick are you really?

If the terms allow you to redistribute but only under certain conditions (among which is the acceptance new terms), then by ignoring those conditions you are violating copyright.

And distributing copyrighted software as a business, without the right to do so, is a good way to get in deep shit.

No. You'd be in violation of the contract. You can't follow only the parts you like and ignore the parts you don't. The agreement explicitly says it can be modified. You have to agree to all parts of the license not just some of it.

That's why the devs are now upset. They understand they are stuck with the change if they want to continue selling software using Unity.

The agreement was always bad. They now just have a concrete example of why it's bad to drive the point home if they didn't realize it before.

1ft lead. But that's fine.

The terms and agreements have to all be present in the package when released, much like when you read a contract or you read some of the government statues, they include all definitions and all references within the document, you don't look outside it to make it make sense.

Yes i agree in following all the parts of the contract of the version of unity i downloaded. Oh that doesn't include the 20 cent junk.

Believe it or not, you usually include the license with the download. So if i made a program with GPL, i'd include the GPL license... and that's the license you follow and honor, not some other 3rd source.



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Alright got an idea. What if a game dev makes a game... Goes bankrupt, but people still own the game and download off steam and reinstall. Who pays the 20 cents per install now?

Except that, that far in the future, the software (specifically the version of Unity in use at the time, as well as the game in question) should be out of copyright.

If Disney gets involved, you know they will push it off another 20-40 years if Mickey Mouse might possibly go public domain. They want to perpetually own everything forever.