Unity Claims PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Will Pay Its New Runtime Fee On Behalf Of Devs

The fact that these decisions are coming down from the ex-CEO of EA Games, who was the CEO when EA was voted “Worst Company in the World”, just makes all this even more entertaining to watch.
GamePass and probably most cheap sales are all going up in flames because Unity has hired a demon to lead them into oblivion.
- The fact that these decisions are coming down from the ex-CEO of EA Games . . . .
  This guy speedrunning the enshittification game. Oceangate needs to build another sub, stat.
- Microsoft learned never to leave an EA exec at the wheel ten years earlier, with the disastrous launch of the Xbox One. You know, the all seeing, all knowing, all credit card charging privacy invader with its hooks permanently sunk into the internet, and a camera you couldn't cover, like it was some motherfucking episode of Max Headroom. Allow me to say, "Fuck you, Don Mattrick, and the DRM and surveillance-laden horse you rode in on."

Right. Here's how it works: Your game is on Gamepass, and a user installs it. Now instead of Microsoft paying you $0.15, then you paying Unity $0.10, Microsoft will just pay us directly the $0.10, and you still get your $0.05! See, it's a great deal! Everybody gets their money and you don't even have to deal with the Unity costs! Please, don't go!!
- Good business model. I hope Gamepass wil also limit number of game user can install, like, pick only 4 in 100 or so

Nintendo is gonna lawyer up at the speed of God before they'd pay unity a fucking cent.
- You're assuming Nintendo ever lawyers down
- I'm sorry, but I'd be more terrified of Microsoft. A company worth more than nations, (current market cap puts it about the 10th richest country in the world), and who routinely tells other companies to pony up - and they do (look up a software audit if you want to see a corporate shakedown).
  
  Sorry to nitpick, but I see the comparison of a company market cap with country GDP a lot and it's a pet peeve of mine lol. Market cap is the value of the company, while GDP is equivalent to the total "revenue" that a country's economy generated that year. So a better comparison would be 2022 Microsoft revenue vs 2022 GDP of a country.
  
  Nintendo looooves to sue people over so many things though

Will they tho?
It’s unclear if Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are aware of this particular change in policy, and whether they’d be willing to comply with Unity Technologies.
- Going into a legal dick measuring match with 3 of the most hardcore litigious corps in the tech world.
  Sounds smart.
  
  Nintendoss lawyers right now:
- If they aren't already paying royalties to Unity on behalf of the devs, then I can almost guarantee they won't be paying royalties in the future. If they are doing that, then the devs might want to double check their revenue, because that may mean that Unity's been double-dipping on royalties (taking royalties from distribution through Sony, MS and Nintendo, and then taking them again directly from the devs).
- It’s like when CDPR said everyone could get refunds for CP2077 without talking to the stores first, then were shocked when Sony removed it from the PlayStation Store.
  
  Technically, CDPR being based in Europe were just informing people of their stuatory right to a refund within the first 14 days of any digital or online purchase. This highlighted that Sony have been managing to skirt that legislation with their policy's and not having a proper refund system in place so they threw a wobbler and took the game down. CDPR were in the right, legally speaking, with that one.
  
  Yep, although at least that was a pro-consumer move on CDPR's part. It's very understandable why Sony wasn't happy about it, but it wasn't a shady move on CDPR's part. Whereas the same definitely can't be said for Unity right now.
- He could be the kind of person who writes things down on his vision board, then sends his thoughts out into the universe to make them come true. Like Elon.

Yeah, because Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo are companies who would never pass those costs back to the devs or down onto consumers. They'd totally bite the bullet on Unity's new royalty...
Unity are out of their minds if they think this is at all a good move. All they're going to do by pushing devs away and pissing off the major distributors is inspire the creation/adoption of a competitor.
- That’s what happens when your CEO is an ex EA exec who thought that charging battlefield players a dollar to reload their gun was a good idea
- Oh I don't think they imply they will cover the costs. More like the only ones to know exactly the installs will be them, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo , and that's why is done this way. Also to simplify the billing as well they already pay them for putting the game in their respective stores in one way or another.
  Of course they could put a remote call that notified back to them in the game engine... and probably will work this way for PC, but probably the console companies might not be too happy about it.
  
  Afaik the engine already phones home for telemetry, that's why they're able to count installs retroactively.

And Mexico was going to pay for that southern boarder wall...

Nintendo? Like fuck they will
- Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft Lawyers united... that's an enemy you don't want to fight. Each department alone is scary enough. All three of them? Now, that's something you want to be on very solid ground for.
  
  We'll call them The Objectors

You can just see the panic coming out of Unity.
They thought they’d be able to slip this change through and people would just pay it. They were expecting a big payday, not a storm of bad press and angry people.
- Also now Deva are gonna be skeptical of proprietary game engines. It's too big of a risk to develop on anything proprietary now that this is on the table as a thing that could happen. Change won't ahppen overnight but expect FOSS game engines to start getting big
  
  Or back to it was in ye olden days where every studio has its own proprietary game engine.

No they won't! There's no way any of the big console manufacturers will ever agree to those terms, ESPECIALLY Nintendo. Microsoft would just buy Unity out before paying that ransom. You be smokin' some bigtime crack, Riccitello.
- Microsoft would just buy Unity out before paying that ransom
  Maybe that's the plan lol
  
  TBH that would explain the decision. Pump up the projected revenue numbers right before an acquisition and exit.

PlayStation, Nintendo and Xbox claim "no the fuck we won't..."
- They'll just increase all prices by $1, and call it a day.

I wonder how they’d enforce that exactly since none of those companies are likely to have a contract with Unity that says they’d pay anything like that. Their distribution contracts are with the studios… and the studios, if they keep their subscriptions would be the ones contracted with Unity. Good luck telling MS or Sony that your little indie company bound them into a contract with your engine vendor.

By the definition of “distributor” this would include Steam, GOG, Epic, etc. as well.
- In before one of them starts stripping or firewalling the phone-home code. What's Unity gonna do? Valve hasn't signed any contracts with them!
  
  I don't want another attack vector for some hacker on my computer. That phone home code will be the second coming of the Sony rootkit.
  
  This sounds like it would mean charging Valve money for the privilege of using Valve's own infrastructure every time a player installed a Unity game after a major PC upgrade/reinstall or after uninstalling that MMO they dumped every other game in their library try out.
  Steam could probably bake a ban on software that uses installation trackers into their developer/publisher ToS, or ban the collection or transmission of Steam user data related to installations, or something similar.
- Apple has Unity games in Apple Arcade I’m sure; which is like “iCloud GamePass”. So add another behemoth with almost more lawyers than money.
  
  Lmao, Unity is not going to get away with this.
  
  Apple also brought Unity onboard for Vision Pro development. They are absolutely going to roll over Unity.

I wonder if it's purposeful sabotage at this point. You can't be that stupid and still be paid millions of dollars to do your job can you?
Capitalism is truly amazing if it can happen.
- See: a certain owner of a (much less than) $44 billion social media company.
  
  Well he was trying to sabotage Twitter, he just fucked up and ended up holding the reins of the company he undermined.
- The CEO of Unity did sell off most of his own stock in the company shortly before the original announcement. It's an open-and-shut case for insider trading charges if ever I had heard one.

Good luck doing that too Nintendo. They're professional dicks

Fastest way to have all traces of your engine scrubbed from realty.

Because picking a fight with some of the world's biggest companies is the best form of damage control...
- I'd like to watch them try to send an invoice to these companies.
  Most likely they won't ever try, it's just a blatant lie because they have no grounds to even attempt it. They have a deal with the gamedev studio, not the platform owner.
  
  They have a deal with the gamedev studio, not the platform owner.
  They don't even have that because they're trying to back date this shit, and you're very much not allowed to do that. Otherwise what's the point in even having contracts?

Oh, so is this the result of some negotiation with them, or are they just saying random shit again?
- They are trying to make a power play against these companies to strike out a deal due to their market share
  A problem I see with it is that games that push console sales are made on Unreal (or internal engine) not Unity
  However the amount of negative press is overblown as they are starting far in order to give things up during negotiations. And despite saying it’s only charged on first install; I’ve seen people claim it will bankrupt devs
  I support devs switching from Unity to Godot but I feel like in a year’s time it won’t really matter as people are more likely to get hired for Unity
  
  However the amount of negative press is overblown as they are starting far in order to give things up during negotiations. And despite saying it’s only charged on first install; I’ve seen people claim it will bankrupt devs
  It's charged on ever reinstall, not only on the first.

Meanwhile, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony:

Listen peasants, if you don't like the freeholder fees we charge, then surely Lord Microsoft will shelter you on his lands as a serf, and pay your fees on your behalf.
- Wrong!

Actually...consumers end up paying for it. Companies will just increase prices as when the Government taxes them.
- Companies will just increase prices whenever they can get away with it
  Fixed that for ya.
  
  Also valid. Yeah

Weirdly they don't mention Steam...
- Steam is just a storefront, not a publisher. And traditionally Valve only publishes their own games. While Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony are more broad game publishers. Imagine Casio trying to charge the watch store for every time you look at the time in the watch you bought there. Complete bonkers.
  
  But when Microsoft has in its store a game by Rockstar published by Take Two isn't it the same thing?
- Because Valve also has several attorneys on the payroll and I imagine they're also looking into how to dodge this, or to counter Unity.

Somehow this cost will be pushed to us gamers
- Not sure about costs in this shitty ass economy but there's going to be delays up the wazoo now.
- It may cost more than money, if the games can’t be converted to a new engine…

Waiting to see if Unity games will get yanked from those platforms.
- They already are. They're being yanked all over.
- I would assume their console export options are due to some kind of agreement with console manufacturers, as they keep their dev agreements under heavy NDAs. I wonder how this will play out.
- if how fast

No, they won't. Unity has an agreement with the devs not the platform holders
all that will happen is that unity games won't appear on subscription services

So this is why we go ps plus and xbox game pass prices go up :D xd
- People keep telling me that PC gaming is expensive and yet I pay no subscription fees and have plenty of choice for which storefront to purchase from so game prices tend to stay low outside a few exceptions.
  
  I just recently locked in 3 more years of game pass ultimate for $180. That's $5 a month to play 100+ games on console or PC. Granted, much of the catalog is games I already own or games I'm not interested in, but if I play just one full priced game a year from game pass it is paying for itself. Most recently that would be Starfield, and when I got bored after a couple hours there was no pressure to "get my money's worth". I simply uninstalled and moved on.
  I realize game pass prices are going up and this deal won't be available forever, but this is my 2nd time around already so the last several years of console gaming have been cheap as shit.
  
  I used to make comments like this and stopped a month ago because peeps hated me saying this or got argumentative with me. Look at you now! LMAO

Mares eat oats and does eat oats.
Ya gotta love when a corp realizes they’ve stepped in it and starts trying to create an escape route. I’m more than a little surprised that Unity’s board of directors haven’t taken the CEO’s head on a platter yet.

That cost will be passed on to the studios
- Who'll pass it on us.
  
  You see, making games is so expensive nowadays. So, now the starting price will be $80 and there will be a convenience fee for every install. No, it doesn't matter that the game doesn't use Unity, we will charge it anyways, just in case.

Aren't there enough FOSS gamw engines out in the wild to keep indie authors and small companies working without concern for this kind of crap?
Contributing with a cash amount to have work done on any engine would be cheaper and more useful for all parts involved than having to deal with these vampires.
- There is a viable open source competitor, godot. The issue is that for many developers who have invested years into their current project, moving engines midway is a ton of effort that might break them financially.
  
  Viable, yes, but I don't think Godot currently matches up to Unity in terms of capability. I do think this will very much get an impetus going for people & studios to invest into Godot's development, though.
- There is at least godot
  
  And some pretty well known recent indie games have been made in Godot, like Cassette Beasts.

So what your saying is games and consoles could have been cheaper this whole time?

Unity is delusional. They're behaving like a despot. Down with unity!

I think they would do Hostile Takeover to Unity

Lol at this point I wonder if it's easier for Microsoft to just buy Unity like their other studios they've been buying. Then they get free installs and charge out to Nintendo/PlayStation.

Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo will see you in court Unity.

Next week: Microsoft acquires Unity

Yet another wanton feudal lordship seeking its rent.

Out of your goddamn mind, Ricey Boi.

When are they gonna tell Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo?

Roflmao.

Haha

Feeling pretty good STILL about my decision not to buy any consoles in the last 20 years. PC, my heart is yours.
- How will this effect me buying games discounted on Steam?
- Newsflash the Unity drama as a whole still affects the PC market
  
  How does this effect me buying discounted games on Steam?
- This reaction is like getting upset with Mexico for supporting the wall after Trump baselessly claimed Mexico would pay for it.
  
  I might agree if I could figure out the analogy you're trying to make.

Charging Playstation: They have been quite naughty ever since they released the PS4 (and not in the good way), so a few millions in cash is kinda like karma to them.
Charging Xbox: Game Pass, Backwards Compatibility, Series S, allowing you to legally install emulators in their consoles... If there's a gaming giant that's pro-consumer, it's them (second only to Steam, obviously), they don't deserve it.
Charging Nintendo: TAKE IT ALL
- I love gamepass/Xbox’s BC commitment but I’m not going to call Microsoft “pro-consumer” lol
  
  I'd call it, sucking up to the player base to regain market space lost during the last generation. I'm not too proud to take advantage of their desperation.
  
  Oh not Microsoft as a whole oooohhh no.
  But their Xbox division is pretty cool 😎👍
- Really bad policies that will set even worse precedents are not a punitive measure against companies you don’t like.