> Even the apology misses the most important fact, which is not necessarily the cost of the change itself, but the demonstration that Unity is willing to change terms AFTER you've shipped software using their engine. That's a massive breach of trust as well as a massive risk.
And the obvious fix to that is to put out an announcement saying "Sorry about that, you can trust us, and if you release a game using Unity you can stick with that version of the ToS instead of us being able to foist new terms on you whenever we want forever."
Except.... Unity did that already last time they made company destroying ToS changes, and then just went back on the promise and said they're forcing the new ToS on everyone. So why the hell is anyone supposed to trust whatever apology they put out this time?
Updated Terms of Service and commitment to being an open platform (2019)
Retroactive TOS changes
When you obtain a version of Unity, and don’t upgrade your project, we think you should be able to stick to that version of the TOS.
In practice, that is only possible if you have access to bug fixes. For this reason, we now allow users to continue to use the TOS for the same major (year-based) version number, including Long Term Stable (LTS) builds that you are using in your project.*
> if you release a game using Unity you can stick with that version of the ToS instead of us being able to foist new terms on you whenever we want forever.
IANAL but isn't this how it works by default? If two parties agree to a contract, one party doesn't get to unilaterally change the contract after the fact. The only way they get to change it is if they put some wording in the contract to the effect of "As long as the game runs on the Unity engine, Unity has the right to charge whatever it wants." So it would simply be a matter of removing this language from the TOS.
> Our terms of service provide that Unity may add or change fees at any time. We are providing more than three months advance notice of the Unity Runtime Fee before it goes into effect. Consent is not required for additional fees to take effect, and the only version of our terms is the most current version; you simply cannot choose to comply with a prior version. Further, our terms are governed by California law, notwithstanding the country of the customer.
They're saying "the terms of service say we can add whatever new fees we want whenever we want."
I'm not sure whether the original fee structure that people had agreed to was outlined in the earlier version of the ToS or not. If people agreed to allow Unity to unilaterally change the pricing structure then they may be stuck with it.
But if they need to actually change the ToS to make these fees, then I'm skeptical it would stand up in court (IANAL). They made very definitive public statements that people would be able to use the existing agreements with your current engine version, and saying "you simply cannot choose to comply with a prior version" now can't possibly hold water.
And the obvious fix to that is to put out an announcement saying "Sorry about that, you can trust us, and if you release a game using Unity you can stick with that version of the ToS instead of us being able to foist new terms on you whenever we want forever."
Except.... Unity did that already last time they made company destroying ToS changes, and then just went back on the promise and said they're forcing the new ToS on everyone. So why the hell is anyone supposed to trust whatever apology they put out this time?
https://blog.unity.com/community/updated-terms-of-service-an...
Updated Terms of Service and commitment to being an open platform (2019)
Retroactive TOS changes
When you obtain a version of Unity, and don’t upgrade your project, we think you should be able to stick to that version of the TOS.
In practice, that is only possible if you have access to bug fixes. For this reason, we now allow users to continue to use the TOS for the same major (year-based) version number, including Long Term Stable (LTS) builds that you are using in your project.*
Moving forward, we will host TOS changes on Github to give developers full transparency about what changes are happening, and when. The link is https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/TermsOfService.