A fresh report into Unity's hugely-controversial decision to start charging developers when their games are downloaded …

A fresh report into Unity’s hugely-controversial decision to start charging developers when their games are downloaded has thrown fresh light on the situation.

MobileGamer sources say Unity has already offered some studios a 100% fee waiver - if they switch over to Unity’s own LevelPlay ad platform.

The report quotes industry consultants that say this move is an “attempt to destroy” Unity’s main competitior in this field: AppLovin.

  • LazaroFilm@lemmy.worldEnglish
    591·
    1 year ago

    There should be a law against offering something for free for a long time, until many other businesses rely on it then make it pay to a point of breaking all those businesses. It’s one thing changing the price of a product that’s customer facing but if you market to other businesses that’s not okay. I guess it’s up to businesses to look in the contract for a clause that states that the product will be free forever or that they need X time warning before making it pay.

    • geosoco@kbin.socialOP
      243·
      1 year ago

      Tech companies wouldn’t exist. It’s literally most of their business plans.

    • hddsx@lemmy.caEnglish
      36·
      1 year ago

      I disagree. If you state that it’s free until X bench make and you make the change after that benchmark it’s fine. If you don’t, then users should be able to seek compensation

      • Buffalox@lemmy.worldEnglish
        151·
        1 year ago

        The vast majority of “new” tech companies operate at a loss.

        This is a bullshit hypothetical that has no relevance for Unity. Unity is a well established company, that has been very successful after they revised their model to be more Indie friendly. This is a money grab attempt pure and simple. And it’s a money grab that is so bad it might actually kill Unity.

        • jaaval@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          Unity technologies has never made a profit since it was founded. It’s still a company aiming at growth by burning money. Their losses have only increased since they went public.

      • MrCharles@lemmy.worldEnglish
        8·
        1 year ago

        My problem with it is not monetizing; it is the changing of your monetization to affect games that were sold under a different model. If this was just the new TOS, ok fine. It would suck, but it’s their right to make whatever shitty monetization they want. But retroactively inflicting this on games? Shocking the development world with only a few months warning when game development takes years? No, that is not ok.