Unity will start charging 0.20$ per install

Yes - live, laugh, love. And if you do not have any additional income source and just got your project plan and timetable offset or thrown off the table entirely due to unpredictable licensing changes you're just supposed to live with it and pay the developers with promises of greatness to come until you release something that can put food on the table.

It all sounds easy on paper but running a business in a such volatile and unpredictable industry is for the either most insane or the bravest. Essence of the business is to always roll costs and credits from last project revenue and investors to fuel another project.
Unless you're in big enough position to soften such unpredictable factors (which if you're using Unity and not doing mobile casino games - you likely aren't), you're suddenly put up against a wall to make split second decisions which may cost you the existence of your business and employment of some or all of the staff.

 

Riccitiello wanted to fill the games at EA with p2w microtransactions like paying with in-game currency you bought with real life money to revive yourself in Battlefield so none of this is surprising.

 

So the dev also has to pay when a game re-install takes place?
Or for the x number of machines the user has.
Devs will start limiting number of installs if they continue to use the engine.

Unity would be much better off building the next, better engine, and have a different payment scheme for that.
Backdoor fees on an already agreed contract gets what it deserves.
It might even break laws in some countries.

 

He looks like Stockton Rush... scary.

 

Last 3 years world wide people were locked down, shut out, not working, lost jobs, home and life savings. Same thing happened during dot.com bust, financial crisis, wars, etc...

If you have one point of failure, you should be ready to have a back up plan to survive.

As a developer, you can also literally BLOCK your game to phone home and prevent the fees or use another game engine or bake in the fees to your costs.

You have choices, even HARD choices.

MANY other industries are "dealing" with price increases include food and energy which are basic needs to survival. People who cannot pay for food, lack skill, learning challenged or physical disabled like the elderly need more of our help and sympathy.

This is the free market, learn, adapt and survive.

Go ahead and make excuses or get even. Prove everyone wrong.

 

Unity silently removed their Github repo to track license changes, then updated their license to remove the clause that lets you use the TOS from the version you shipped with, then insists games already shipped need to pay the new fees.

I can imagine the nightmare for any company that uses Unity.

 

Source

 

This s*itshow is fun to watch.

 

I bet Tim Sweeny is rubbing his hands with delight.

 

Yeah, he'll soon get the monopoly he wants. Then we'll be effed completely.

 

UE isn't very good at 2D games though, which a LOT of indie games have.

 

I don't think he cares much, I can't even remember Epic announcing something important for the mobile sector. UE 5.3 had more changes in four months than Unity in years.

 

Developers abandon ship and move to UE5.

 

UE can also be used in mobile games. So if unity goes bust, Epic will be the company that benefits the most.
Now imagine Epic will all that power while fighting Apple.

 

Though their fight is more on a commerce than on a technical level, 5.3 also has improved Apple compatibility.
Honestly, no idea why people crap all over Epic for EGL/Store, the fees on Apple or Steam platform are just absurd.

 

How long before he starts to abuse is monopoly and starts pulling tricks like this?...

 

Probably not too long but realistically this just means a temporary 3-4 year period where everyone will either go back to a competitor and help it build required feature set or just do their own proprietary engines.
In the end history is a loop, we've been here before.

If that were the case, EA could step in by making Frostbite openly licenseable at barely any cost and instantly cut into Epics share if they were to employ expected monopolistic strategies.