I'm just curious by what foolish agreement you're talking about. I mean, if someone wants to make games and they look at all of their options, and decide it's more efficient to use an existing engine rather than develop their own. And they look at existing options and existing licensing agreements and make a decision on which one to use, start development, and then three or fours years later that licensing agreement is changed to something that becomes unfeasible for them, is that the foolish decision you mean?

ADDED: I also wonder what would happen if say, I dunno, RPGMaker (or something similar) changes their EULA to something similar to this Unity case, what that would mean for all of those folks who sell RPGMaker games. (I don't know how many games on Steam are RPGMaker games, but it seems like a lot to me. Or am I misunderstanding something (again lol).

1 - If the choice was to use an open source engine and the team is capable of modifying its code (if needed) then I don't think it's foolish. There's enough control there.

2 - If the choice was to use an engine that has a license agreement allowing its terms to be modified in the future I think that's foolish UNLESS you truly are fine with any possible changes that could be made.

But when a developer takes option 2 and now complains about the changes they agreed could be done to them then I say they made a foolish decision.

I think the core idea you should understand is that I believe it's a really bad idea (foolish) to agree to have your livelihood depend on a product that can have its terms and rules changed at any time.

ADDED:
As for RPGMaker I *think* that license does not allow for changes to terms and so is likely safer if it meets all your needs.

Okay, but... is there any such job anywhere (in any industry) where people making their livelihood doesn't involve it's terms and rules possibly changing at any time? I mean, I'm trying to understand the core idea, but so far I'm not. Sorry about that. I am dense, as anyone on these forums knows.

Well generally when the terms of your employment change in a way you don't like you can go work elsewhere. Because hopefully you have not bound yourself so much to that one employer that you have no other way of making money except by their grace.

If you have, that's pretty risky. If you are a maintenance man and your boss changes the rules on you, you can quit and do maintenance for someone else.

But I think a game developer that only knows how to make their game with Unity has tied themselves too close to something too risky. Without Unity they now no longer know how to make a game and can't even keep selling their old game. If that's your career that's no good.

Yeah, I guess I'm just incapable of understanding this. I just wonder if someone decides to write books for a living (authors), and to do so they purchase a computer, and OS, and a word processor. The latter two have EULA's that (like most as far as I know) have some sort of language that they can make changes at any time. So, if this author purchases those two software packages and then years later Microsoft (the OS of choice by the author) and/or, I dunno name brands of word processors (i came up using wordPerfect lol.... many moons ago.) that says every time someone opens that book and reads it they are now owed some amount of money and this author goes bankrupt, I just can't say that author was "foolish" or made a bad choice.

And I can't help but wonder what that means for nearly every product or service sold that uses any software whatsoever (with it's accompanying EULA or terms of service) as I am reminded of the argument a tractor producer (John Deere maybe???) made in court that because their tractors included software they created that those who "bought" the tractor didn't really own it. Or at least I think I recall something like that. I'll see if I can find a link or find out I'm misremembering again.

But yeah, I'm just not getting this argument, but I'll keep trying. And I'll see if I can find out whether that court case my mind is remembering was a real thing or some confusion on my part (again).

Okay, I guess I wasn't misremembering that as I found this link immediately.

Here's another. with this headline:

Most products don't have that issue. It's services or "software as a service" that have the issue.

For example:
If you bought a physical DVD you're good. It's a fairly normal product.

But if you subscribe to the NetFlix service that's more risky because your contract with them is really just month to month and they can change the rules on you for the following month if they want to.

But your livelihood does not depend on watching movies so you are probably totally fine with the possibility of NetFlix charging more in the future because you can just cancel the service and move on.

Those two people don't even make games, and hence they would have no use for Unity or any competing product.

(Also, Richard Stallman would definitely not use Unity because it's not open source, not to mention privacy issues, and his stance on such things is well known.)

Of course I'm aware of that :) I don't make games professionally either. My point was that no one is forced to use Unity or even be a game developer.
It's a choice.

But maybe it was confusing to throw them in there.

Most of those games are unfamiliar to me, I know Pillars of Eternity and Superhot though. I have played Superhot and while it is indeed a 3D game, it is a rather simplistic one (by choice, artistic reasons maybe).

Googling fast, Escape from Tarkov seems like a good candidate to assess about the 3D capabilities of the Unity engine, as it apparently is some kind of modern FPS game?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnIQVtEbtLo

I was more thinking like if some pretty recent Call of Duty or Metro game or somesuch, but maybe as you say, Unity is more used for 2D games and maybe isometric games, and is less suitable for competent 3D AAA games?

A good indicator is the company size. 4A and ElectronicArts are by far bigger studios than those who usually use Unity.
They have much bigger budgets and can afford to develop their own engines.

Unity is not meant to compete with idTech, UnrealEngine or the big engines by EA or Ubisoft, no. It is meant for low to medium budget games. It's also not as specialized as engines that are developed for one game. It's a framework to get a game to run quickly without investing too much into graphics programming.
A second focus is the portability to mobile devices.

It all comes down to money. While you get better quality products with specialized engines, with Unity you get quick results that look 'ok'. If that's all you want (and in times when the Nintend Switch is the reference for the majority of games, that is the case), then Unity is the way to go.

Bad analogy. The part you fail to understand is that copyright generally involves matters such as copying (or distributing) copyrighted works. In the specific case of Unity, the developer/publisher who sells a Unity based game is distributing software owned by Unity and need a license to do so.

Just as with games being sold by GOG, there are contracts between the parties who hold the rights and who do the distribution. The contracts are rarely set in stone; it would be extremely risky to commit to something for all eternity. Hence all realistic contracts include some kind provision for termination as well as changes to terms. You cannot be forced to accept arbitrary terms, so the usual thing to do is that if you do not accept changes, the contract is terminated and you no longer have a license.

Now, when you sell that book, are you redistributing copies of Microsoft Word? When someone opens that book, are you redistributing copies of Microsoft Word? No and no. Copyright isn't involved, you don't need a license for someone to open that book. So that analogy completely and fully fails.

We could make a better analogy: the writer licenses a typeface for their book, but the terms of the license say that it is not an irrevocable permanent license, and the fees and terms for the font may change in the future. If they don't want to accept new fees or terms, their contract becomes void and they have to stop copying the font (i.e. effectively stop pressing (or selling) new (e-) books with said font in it). This won't bankrupt them, but it is an inconvenience. In the case of a game engine, it is a major inconvenience and developers should think long and hard about what kind of terms they tie their work to.

Was the writer foolish? Yes! If they did not want to end up in this situation, they should have chosen a font that is sold with a lifetime license (or otherwise terms that cannot change).

Wait.... WHAT??? Reaching 200,000 instantly charges you for those 200,000 installs? It's not only the installs above that threshold? If so, then that's actually retarded.

And about the fingerprint, I actually wonder how they'll enforce it. Will the game refuse to start if it can't phone home, e.g., you block the connection?

Well, this has now been going forlong enough, and it is clear that Unity is not going to back down. It is clear that they are locking themsevels into this pricing structure, and will see most indie developers dropping off them as it is no longer viable in the long run, because:

1 - If an indie game is successful, the pricing in the end may end up costing the developer more than they make. Keep in mind that the fee they take will come on top of each sale % given to for example Steam or gOg and any other fees. When an indie game is sucessful, a player who bought the game is very likely to install it more than once, for example getting a new computer or changing hardware, which will cost the developer $0.20 every single time.

2 - It will kill all webbased games, all WebGL and streamed games. In their infinite wisdom, Unity has decided that each time a web based game initiates on a client, it counts as a new install. This means that the developer of a web based game ownes $0.20 each time someone starts a game.

1b / 2b - The two above poits links into the fact that the Unity CEO have statated that developers who do no make "proper" use of microtransactions are not monetizing their games correctly. It is clear that the pricing structures are, shall we say, encouraging miscrotransactions over game sales. It no long matters if a game has a succesffull sale, what matters is the income they can grab in the life time of the game.

3 - Demos are no longer viable. The developers can be fined for installs of a demo, there is some wishy-washy statments that they will not charge of it is "one level demos", but aything more than this will be hit by the fee. Games that for example works on unlocks (i.e. you download the game but part of the game is locked until you pay) is completly out of the window.

(3b - Free games or freemium games are off course pointless to make)

4 - the developr may end up paying for pirated games. There is no clear method to check for piracy. This means that when a Unity game is pirated, not only do the developer not see any income as before, but they will actually end up having to pay Unity $0.20 for each pirated install. The data Unity captures are according to them aggregated and anonymous, so there is no difference between a legit sale and a pirated game being installed. Nor is there a way for a developer to investigate this.

5 - Games may be removed from player accounts. The retroactive fees means that after January, sucessful indie games will be punished and we may see them removed before then. The fees is going to be retroactivly implemented, so the sucesfull games that have been sold before will need to pay the $0.20 fee if their games are installed again. Not sold again, but installed again. For some games, that has been out for a while and sold many copies, they are no longer goig to see many sales, so for the developers this will just be a clear loss. The difference going forward - when a game is removed from sale, they do not tend to remove the game from the buyer (i.e. in Steam or gOg, they still have access to the game). In this new pricing structure, this does not matter. The only way for a developer to protect themselves finacially is to remove the game from player accounts so they can no longer install them.

These are the five major implications that I can see from this.(there are more...) It is clear that after January 1st 2024, Unity is no longer viable for game developers who do not specifically intend to monetize their game in subscription fees or heavy microtransactions. Whe a game lose a player base, the income will dry out quickly and the games may and up costing the developers instead of making an income.

It is not often I say this, but beacuse of this I would say that Unity needs to die as soon as possible. Developers should from now on boycott Unity. There is a problem with developers who have already locked themselves into this ecosystem, and there may be some games just disapearing completely after this. But for the gaming community in general, both for developers and for gamers, this is just not acceptable.