Shponglefan wrote on 2023-09-17, 12:13:
This depends on to the extent such terms can be enforced though. There are times when companies have tried to enforce a term of an EULA and then lost in court (Vernor v. Autodesk comes to mind).
The whole runtime fee thing makes me wonder how Unity is able to enforce it in the first place. Can Unity somehow prevent games from running from companies that don't pay? Are they going to start taking game development studies and publishers to court if those companies don't pay?
It'll be interesting to see what the ultimate ramifications of this are.
AFAIK of pretty much every service I use the provider reserves the right to amend TOS/EULA when needed, as well as the right of final interpretation.
The problem people were complaining is that Unity wants to apply this change retroactively. That is, taking devs' data before the changes take effect into consideration (especially, lifetime install count). Not sure how many devs have already reached said threshold by the time the Runtime Fee takes effect (so they risk being billed by Unity immediately starting with 2024 for new installs).
Q: Who is charged the Unity Runtime Fee? […]
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Q: Who is charged the Unity Runtime Fee?
A: The Unity Runtime Fee will be charged to the entity that distributes the runtime.
Q: Will developers be charged the Unity Runtime Fee for subscription-based games?
A: No, in this case the developer is not distributing it so we’re not going to invoice the developer on subscription-based games (e.g. Apple Arcade, Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Plus, Netflix Games, etc.)
I'm not sure what does the entity that distributes the runtime mean in this context. The developers themselves, or the app stores on which the games are provided for download/install? From what the FAQ mentions about subscription services (Game Pass, etc.), I suspect it might be the latter, though I could not find a clear answer of this question from the current FAQ at the time of writing this. This so-called "Runtime Fee" change has raised too many questions that the FAQ is constantly being updated.
Q: Does a reinstall of an app on the same device count towards the Unity Runtime Fee? […]
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Q: Does a reinstall of an app on the same device count towards the Unity Runtime Fee?
A: No, we are not going to charge a fee for reinstalls.
Q: Do installs of the same game by the same user across multiple devices count as different installs?
A: We treat different devices as different installs. We don’t want to track identity across different devices.
Regardless, someone has to be the one bearing that cost. A worst case scenario, however, would be that Google, Apple, etc., will start charging users a few cents for every new device install so as to cover the cost the app stores would have to pay for Unity, which in turn provides Unity a more accurate number on valid installs... Well, it's up to Unity to explain this further in detail...
PS: Someone in the Unity forum actually asked ChatGPT about "charging per install per device" and ChatGPT appeared to be against this idea.
UPDATE (Sep 24): It seems Unity published an open letter on Sep 22nd and overhauled the page, so for now the concerns I've been having after reading the initial version may not happen in the immediate future... but who knows...
Namely the fee no longer applies to older supported Unity versions and no longer applies to the free tier (Personal and Plus), only Pro and Enterprise. Devs are to self-report their initial engagements and revenues (with existing data) so hopefully no changes on telemetry...
Will see how this development continues...