It’s 20¢ per install max so even if that policy is literal it isn’t quite that extreme.
If I release a game for free, and a million people download it (because it’s free), and Unity thinks I’m making money (because they use a predictive model to determine this rather than any kind of hard data), I’m suddenly on the hook for $200,000?
If I released a game in 2015 and forgot all about it and some popular streamer in 2025 plays it and it gets millions of installs all of a sudden, I’m now liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars for a game I may not even have the code and assets for anymore?
If I released a game in 2015 and forgot all about it and some popular streamer in 2025 plays it and it gets millions of installs all of a sudden, I’m now liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars for a game I may not even have the code and assets for anymore?
This part I think has a hard answer: no. Unity’s terms of service are a kind of contract, and you can’t go back and retroactively change a contract on somebody without them agreeing to the changes (and even then, what can be changed and under what circumstances is limited by law). At most Unity can say “these are the terms for Unity engine version x.y.z and onward”, while leaving the old terms intact for older versions of the engine, since updating to the newer engine could be argued to be a form of agreeing to a new contract (though that’s probably a grey area too).
ok but you understand that despite the fact that they can’t, they’re going ahead and doing exactly that anyway? like that’s literally the situation, they’ve clarified that the only version of the licensing agreement is the current one and you’ve agreed to all future permutations of it the second you release something using Unity
your “but they can’t do that!!” protestations are irrelevant
Right, I get that that’s what Unity wants to do, but they’ve also said that they’re exempting small projects and going after bigger ones, which means that if they actually try to enforce this against an actual studio they’ll get a legal challenge that will be pretty black and white against them.
and you’ve agreed to all future permutations of it the second you release something using Unity
WOTC tried to do basically this exact thing by updating the OGL despite everyone already having been using it for years, and they ended up backing down and saying that their terrible update would only apply to new products.
WotC understands that if they destroy their cultural cachet they have no business model. They definitely want to suck more blood from their fans but they have to tread lightly. I don’t think Unity Technologies, and their fired-from-EA-for-ruining-the-business, notorious art hater, sex pest CEO John Riccitiello, have any idea that destroying developer goodwill will ruin them. Or maybe that’s the point! Pump and dump the whole thing.
I believe them completely when they say they’ve had this whole scheme vetted by legal and believe it holds water. All of the big players (Niantic, miHoYo, etc.) won’t be affected, it’s just AA and indie productions that will suffer - the ones who don’t have the money to fight a protracted legal battle with a giant corporate entity. Entire market categories within the Unity ecosystem just became nonviable.
The old contract applied to the unity engine, the new one applies to the unity runtime, it’ll apply to older projects too because they think they’ve found a loophole.
If I release a game for free, and a million people download it (because it’s free), and Unity thinks I’m making money (because they use a predictive model to determine this rather than any kind of hard data), I’m suddenly on the hook for $200,000?
If I released a game in 2015 and forgot all about it and some popular streamer in 2025 plays it and it gets millions of installs all of a sudden, I’m now liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars for a game I may not even have the code and assets for anymore?
Every single part of this is extreme.
This part I think has a hard answer: no. Unity’s terms of service are a kind of contract, and you can’t go back and retroactively change a contract on somebody without them agreeing to the changes (and even then, what can be changed and under what circumstances is limited by law). At most Unity can say “these are the terms for Unity engine version x.y.z and onward”, while leaving the old terms intact for older versions of the engine, since updating to the newer engine could be argued to be a form of agreeing to a new contract (though that’s probably a grey area too).
ok but you understand that despite the fact that they can’t, they’re going ahead and doing exactly that anyway? like that’s literally the situation, they’ve clarified that the only version of the licensing agreement is the current one and you’ve agreed to all future permutations of it the second you release something using Unity
your “but they can’t do that!!” protestations are irrelevant
Right, I get that that’s what Unity wants to do, but they’ve also said that they’re exempting small projects and going after bigger ones, which means that if they actually try to enforce this against an actual studio they’ll get a legal challenge that will be pretty black and white against them.
WOTC tried to do basically this exact thing by updating the OGL despite everyone already having been using it for years, and they ended up backing down and saying that their terrible update would only apply to new products.
WotC understands that if they destroy their cultural cachet they have no business model. They definitely want to suck more blood from their fans but they have to tread lightly. I don’t think Unity Technologies, and their fired-from-EA-for-ruining-the-business, notorious art hater, sex pest CEO John Riccitiello, have any idea that destroying developer goodwill will ruin them. Or maybe that’s the point! Pump and dump the whole thing.
I believe them completely when they say they’ve had this whole scheme vetted by legal and believe it holds water. All of the big players (Niantic, miHoYo, etc.) won’t be affected, it’s just AA and indie productions that will suffer - the ones who don’t have the money to fight a protracted legal battle with a giant corporate entity. Entire market categories within the Unity ecosystem just became nonviable.
The old contract applied to the unity engine, the new one applies to the unity runtime, it’ll apply to older projects too because they think they’ve found a loophole.