• @TheGreatFox@lemm.ee
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    2071 year ago

    According to what Unity reps said elsewhere, they have no way of knowing what’s a bought install, what’s a demo, what’s a charity bundle, what’s a pirated install, and what is someone loading a webpage with a WebGL program integrated (every page view = 1 install).

    Instead, they want to estimate how much people owe them. Using secret methods with no accountability.

    • strawberry
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      841 year ago

      “according to our extensive research, when we multiplied how much we like you by fuckall, you owe us 20000”

      • Beardedsausag3
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        1 year ago

        This is my kind of maths, add on p&p, handling, admin and VAT let’s it call it a nice round milly. No, no questions at this time sorry.

    • @Mikina@programming.dev
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      151 year ago

      Exactly. To me, this explanation sounds like they’ll just magically estimate the numbers without really being able to prove it. And that sucks.

      However, we can be sure that developers will have their own analytics, that are probably way more accurate and they know exactly how many people have played or installed their game. And I’m betting that this number will be a lot smaller than the Unity “estimation”, and people will get even more angry.

  • Yote.zip
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    1621 year ago

    Now I can finally download a game 100000x to bankrupt a game company, just like they always said we could.

    • @kniescherz@feddit.de
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      391 year ago

      Well you would just have to download it once. But install it 1000000 times. Sounds like a lot of work.

      • @remotelove@lemmy.ca
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        121 year ago

        Doesn’t matter. Regardless of what Unity said their “Enterprise” plan was, it doesn’t matter.

        B2B deals just work differently since both companies have more at stake. If a company like EA used Unity, there is no way Unity would want to lose that contract and EA couldn’t afford to drop Unity. Large companies will likely go through a few short renegotiation meetings, if that.

        Plus, lawyers. If Unity even tries to force this on its larger customers, they are going to be hauled into court and most likely lose. When they lose, Unity will likely be liable for court costs as well.

  • Hot Saucerman
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    1 year ago

    It would mean every Unity game was not-so-secretly shipped with code that phones home to the Unity company upon install.

    Either they’ve been egregiously spying on gamers for years (and by extension, game developers using Unity have just been fine with that), or they’re lying through their teeth.

    • @EddyBot@feddit.de
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      311 year ago

      Unity includes telemetry for some time
      I believe you can’t actually disable the telemetry (or Unity intro logo) in the “free” version

      • Hot Saucerman
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        181 year ago

        So then this falls under “devs didn’t care” because it was useful information for them and they didn’t see how it could be used negatively.

        • Mossy Feathers (She/They)
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          161 year ago

          Probably the opposite actually. The devs who utilize the feature probably enjoy having some numbers to look at and analyze. They’re trying to make a game that people enjoy after all; the more info they have on how you’re playing the game, the better. The devs who don’t use it probably aren’t even aware that it exists. Additionally, I’m not sure if it requires a subscription to view the telemetry (the page suggests you have to sign up for it in some capacity), but if it does then it makes sense that devs might believe that it’s something that’s disabled until you manually enable it.

          Personally, I know if I was a dev I’d be checking that shit every day. I like watching the funny numbers go up and down.

  • Thorned_Rose
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    761 year ago

    RED FLAGS!! red flaaags. RED FLAAAGS, get your red flags heeeeere folks 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

    • Kata1yst
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      111 year ago

      Do you have a special going if I need more than one?

      • Thorned_Rose
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        241 year ago

        Red flags are always free. Upfront anyway. You pay for them at an unexpected time in unpleasant ways later. So feel free to have as many as Unity is providing. 😊

        • @ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          21 year ago

          This needs to be adapted into a three part movie (think Creepshow) where a seemingly innocuous vendor selling flags rather than balloons is the “host” and the people who buy red ones get them free…but “You pay for them at an unexpected time in unpleasant ways later.” And all the parts are just FULL of red flags the characters don’t see but the audience does (as per usual in most horror films).

  • Ananace
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    671 year ago

    I love their response to (paraphrasing) “Are you going to do another Darth Vader and alter the deal on us in the future?” - “Oh yes, potentially every year.”

    • Malgas
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      151 year ago

      Is it just me, or does “we have a proprietary data model that calculates…” sound an awful lot like “we have no actual method of tracking that”?

      • Ananace
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        1 year ago

        To me it sounds a lot like “We don’t really want to answer that question, so here’s a bit of technobabble to ease your mind.”

        I mean, writing your own linked list in C and then summing its values could be considered as having “a proprietary data model that calculates”, but it has basically nothing to do with the question on how they track such things, just hints that they’re not using an existing - and proven - tracking method.

        To clarify; they took the question “How are you tracking installs” to mean “With your tracking data, how are you counting installs”, and then basically answered “We add the numbers together”
        This is a complete non-answer, and it seems to suggest that their actual tracking method is likely unreliable.

        • Echo Dot
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          41 year ago

          What do you bet they have an actually figured that part out yet and were just hoping no one would ask, and then that they’d magically be able to come up with something.

  • teft
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    531 year ago

    Why couldn’t someone set up a script to install, uninstall, and reinstall Unity games on a loop? That would fuck with their numbers hardcore.

      • wolfshadowheart
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        131 year ago

        Right but if it’s something that’s affecting every single creator then why would anyone continue to want to use Unity

        • @Yglorba@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 year ago

          The only reason people will continue using Unity is because they’ve already made )or are in the process of making) a game using it and switching to something else would waste massive amounts of time and effort. Unity is depending on this - this is basically them squeezing everything out of existing customers without regard for long term growth.

          Remember, the whole idea here is that Unity is demanding payments for already existing games. They clearly don’t care about whether people keep using Unity for new games in the future; the executives who made this decision will have cashed out and will be long gone by the time all the existing Unity games in the pipeline are done and things dry up.

          • @hitmyspot@aussie.zone
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            141 year ago

            They will try to sell based on future payments owed, or projected earnings. Then they will be sued by a big guy for breach of contract, having changed the terms without consent.

            Then the money will disappear. Already, the engine will be abandoned. Unity is dead now.

            Foss is available and with the programming community now incentivised to use it, it should do well. That might be their play. They knew the end was nigh.

            • pirate
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              21 year ago

              What’s the best FOSS alternative to Unity that you know of, if any?

              • @hitmyspot@aussie.zone
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                21 year ago

                I don’t develop games but from reading Godot seems ready for mainstream. I use blender for 3d production in industry. It’s also Foss and powerful.

                • pirate
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                  21 year ago

                  Thanks for the thoughts. I stumbled upon Godot in this thread as well. Looks interesting!

    • @ExceedinglyPanWoofer
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      121 year ago

      If I’m reading this right, it isn’t even the real numbers they’re working with. It’s their “proprietary data model.”

  • @nooneescapesthelaw@lemmy.ml
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    501 year ago

    If they could tell an install is pirated then they would lock it down

    They either count all installs as legitimate or pirated copies are not picked up by their telemetry

    • aname
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      161 year ago

      Why would you ever let a pirated copy online anyway

    • @seaturtle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      21 year ago

      On the contrary, I think the incentive would be for Unity to let the pirated install keep existing because that would mean more money they can extort from developers/publishers.

  • @PixeIOrange@feddit.de
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    401 year ago

    All points made in that post are LMAO.

    They estimate the installs. Or least thats what remains between they wont track installs and they have a proprietary data model to calculate them.

    Enshittification takes its course.

    • QuarterlySushi
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      131 year ago

      rofl seriously? Not only will they charge for the installs, but they won’t even use the actual number of installs - they’ll guess? This is the most hilariously stupid business model I’ve ever heard of

    • @dingleberry@discuss.tchncs.de
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      51 year ago

      All this makes a lot more sense with the lens of mobile gaming. Effort required is little, and margins are huge. If players don’t partake in microtransactions, you just bombard them with ads.

      This is the future of Unity. They are counting on devs not even bothering with the whole monetization model and instead expect them to turn on IronSource ads.

    • Fedora
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      1 year ago

      When crackers don’t patch out the phone line, they can.

      Edit: Only in some cases, though. They can detect popular ways to crack games, like Steam DRM stubs. If the game has zero identifiable information about the buyer and no or an unsupported DRM, they’re SOL.

      • @laylawashere44@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        71 year ago

        The thing is that most Unity games don’t even have DRM in the first place. At most most will have the Steam DRM which is trivial to bypass. And Unity Games released on GOG will be especially at risk.

      • genoxidedev1
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        61 year ago

        Idc about anything right now I’m hungry af and the only thing I was able to read was crackers fml

      • @ce_@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        11 year ago

        and how exactly is unity going to know whether it was gotten legitimately or not? the only way the developers wouldn’t get charged is if crackers patched it out

        • Fedora
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          11 year ago

          But you’re also correct that the developers don’t get charged when crackers patch out the phone line.

        • Fedora
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          11 year ago

          They can’t detect everything, but let’s look at Steam as an example. If the game detects Steam DRM, then the game knows that they should’ve bought the game on Steam. They can check whether the Steam DRM is a stub and therefore a crack, or get your local Steam account ID and cross-check whether you bought the game with a Steam API.

    • Nankeru
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      1 year ago

      That was my thought as well, since they count installs and not use count of bought copies directly from a platform.

      What if people create cracks for legit purchased games, e.g. on Steam, which only removes the Unity tracking part?

      A simple Firewall rule which “fixes it” for all games installed on a machine might work as well?

      I believe it might be similar or the same procedure for every game using Unity. We might see this popping up at some point.

  • Echo Dot
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    1 year ago

    Oh it’s our fault for being confused is it, ok.

    What a jackass.

    Oh and look at that they are 100% going to increase the price on you down the line.

  • Jaysyn
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    251 year ago

    Which company will become insolvent 1st, Twitter or Unity?

    • Mossy Feathers (She/They)
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      81 year ago

      Nah, unity is/was a good engine. The reason why it has a bad reputation is for the same reason that Game maker used to have a bad reputation. Almost everyone who’s learning how to make games uses Unity because it’s easy to use, is extremely well documented, and has a massive store full of add-on scripts, programs, model sets, etc. As such, all the poorly optimized games and 0-effort asset flips end up being made in unity (though I’ve seen some unreal games that make even the most poorly optimized Unity game look good). The result? Even though there are a number of high-quality, highly-regarded games that use unity, it has a reputation for being a shitty engine.

      Don’t believe me? Keep an eye on Godot or Unreal. If unity sticks to their new license, then it’s highly likely that one of those engines will become the new “newbie engine” and gain a reputation for being shitty.

      • @Mikina@programming.dev
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        I disagree. I’ve been/am working on several pretty large projects in Unity (some of them sold hundreds of thousands copies), and especially once you start porting to consoles, the experience goes to shit. Their support is vague, documentation is plainly wrong in some places - I’ve once spent few days figuring out how to use a documented and explained feature, only to find out later that there’s a closed few years old bug on their issue tracker that it’s actually not supported, and the documentation only does not explains it very well. (The feature was multiple hits per single Raycast in jobs, here are the docs. According to the bug resolution, only one hit per ray is supported, and the docs only don’t explain it very well. The docs are still the same.)

        You also inevitably run into issues that you simply don’t have in other engines - it’s closed source. You have no idea how is something implemented, or whether something isn’t working because you are doing it wrong, or if it’s Unity bug/fault. In Unreal, if something doesn’t work, you can always just check the engine code, and either fix it yourself, or better understand why it’s not working. If you need to slightly modify some engine behavior, you’re out of luck with Unity - you have to resort to ugly hacks that sometimes work, but usually at a cost. In Unreal, you just modify the engine code and be done with it.

        Trusting Unity with any feature is also a gamble. Have you started developing a multiplayer game on Unet? Tough, we don’t want to support that anymore. But, we will create a better multiplayer system, just wait for it! Then they removed Unet, and the new networking relacement is widely regarded as pretty much unusable - or at lest it was last time I checked. Thankfully, there are a few amazing open source networking addons.

        In general, while Unity is an ok-ish game engine for smaller hobby projects (but for that, Godot is better), it’s really an awful and frustrating experience once your project size grows and you need to build bigger games, or if you start porting your games to consoles.

        And it’s also really apparent from the way they communicate and threat you company that they don’t give a fuck and only want your money.