If they launched with this, I think the community would’ve been fine with it. But IMO the damage has been done, and a lot of indies are going to look elsewhere.
99% of it was them trying to make the new fee structure retroactively apply to already-released products, and the damage there has already been done. The fact that they think they can change the negotiated fee structure after the fact makes Unity a huge liability to use now. No one can ever be sure they won’t suddenly pull a “give us more money or stop selling your game” move sometime down the line.
But there’s also the sketchy (and anticompetitive, and potentially illegal in some jurisdictions) fee vouchers they were using to try to tank AppLovin’s customer base, as well as the silent and sneaky update of their license terms that everyone discovered after the fact. The “apology” makes absolutely no mention of those. And I find that incredibly telling (aside, of course, from the lack of exec team shakeup).
Yeah, in particular them saying now “You will keep the license of the version you use” rings very hollow when they literally showed they can retract that whenever they want ANd get a lawyer to defend that move in no uncertain terms.
Precisely. They’ve already done it, and the people who made that decision haven’t gone anywhere. They will definitely try something similar in the future.
And the backpedaling continues. Here’s hoping the fireside chat actually happens this time.
If they launched with this, I think the community would’ve been fine with it. But IMO the damage has been done, and a lot of indies are going to look elsewhere.
99% of it was them trying to make the new fee structure retroactively apply to already-released products, and the damage there has already been done. The fact that they think they can change the negotiated fee structure after the fact makes Unity a huge liability to use now. No one can ever be sure they won’t suddenly pull a “give us more money or stop selling your game” move sometime down the line.
But there’s also the sketchy (and anticompetitive, and potentially illegal in some jurisdictions) fee vouchers they were using to try to tank AppLovin’s customer base, as well as the silent and sneaky update of their license terms that everyone discovered after the fact. The “apology” makes absolutely no mention of those. And I find that incredibly telling (aside, of course, from the lack of exec team shakeup).
Yeah, in particular them saying now “You will keep the license of the version you use” rings very hollow when they literally showed they can retract that whenever they want ANd get a lawyer to defend that move in no uncertain terms.
Precisely. They’ve already done it, and the people who made that decision haven’t gone anywhere. They will definitely try something similar in the future.