• kaitco@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • reflex@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      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.

    • ArugulaZ@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      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.”

  • radix@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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!!

    • hahattpro@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Good business model. I hope Gamepass wil also limit number of game user can install, like, pick only 4 in 100 or so

  • scala@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • Endorkend@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Going into a legal dick measuring match with 3 of the most hardcore litigious corps in the tech world.

      Sounds smart.

    • stopthatgirl7@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • NuPNuA@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        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.

      • loobkoob@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • stopthatgirl7@kbin.social
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          It’s more, you gotta let your partners know before you announce something major. The reason Sony had to pull it was because they only allow refunds after a certain point on defective games, and they can’t sell a game they know is defective. So the only way they could do blanket refunds is if the game is labeled defective, which means they can’t sell it. Giving Sony a bit of a heads up might’ve meant they could have changed their policy, which would have been better long run for consumers.

          • loobkoob@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Oh absolutely, I agree! I just wanted to point out that CDPR’s move was at least well-intentioned so it’s harder to judge them poorly for it. But you’re right that communication is important in these situations.

    • SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      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.

  • Lolman228@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Nintendo is gonna lawyer up at the speed of God before they’d pay unity a fucking cent.

  • Th4tGuyII@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • kautau@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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

    • XTornado@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      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.

    • Chariotwheel@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      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.

  • stopthatgirl7@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • Uranium3006@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      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

  • ArugulaZ@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • lester@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Microsoft would just buy Unity out before paying that ransom

      Maybe that’s the plan lol

      • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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        1 year ago

        TBH that would explain the decision. Pump up the projected revenue numbers right before an acquisition and exit.

        • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I think they even played that plan wrong. All MS has to do is announce that unity games won’t be allowed on game pass anymore and the value of unity will drop. It’s probably already in freefall with few new games from this point onwards targeting it.

  • bouh@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.

      • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        Well he was trying to sabotage Twitter, he just fucked up and ended up holding the reins of the company he undermined.

    • TrashJack@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

    • colonial@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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!

      • Hiccup@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        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.

      • TotesIllegit@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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.

    • 4am@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      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.

  • Savaran@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Because picking a fight with some of the world’s biggest companies is the best form of damage control…

    • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        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?