I understand the controversy, especially in light of the recent Reddit bullshit. But I don’t think I understand the tech.
For the sake of it, let’s focus only on games that are paid for, installed on a system (or downloaded using Game Pass), and do not involve a multiplayer element. (Hollow Knight, Cuphead, etc)
Is there some ongoing resource use (on Unity’s end) when people download or play these games? Like, when I play Hollow Knight, my system isn’t connecting to Unity to use their servers to run the game on my home system, is it? When I download a game to my system, an I downloading the engine separately from the software, thereby using Unity’s servers?
As abhorrent as the Reddit API change was, at least they were charging for the ongoing consumption of some digital resource (Reddit data). Unless I’m misunderstanding something, this just seems more like trying to collect a residual after the fact.
No, there are no costs for Unity in this situation. The way they’ll need to track installs is with the unity runtime, which gets packaged with games made using Unity.
This is what economists call “rent-seeking”, where companies seek to extract more profit by charging subscriptions, rather than introducing desirable products. Adobe, AutoCAD, Microsoft Office, and the Reddit API are all high profile examples of rent-seeking.
Unity Revenue reporting has always been “self-reported” by users. If they think you’re lying and aren’t on the right license they send the complkance team to make sure you’re giving enough. Unity has no way of knowing installs because as you said it doesn’t connect to Unity.
You don’t download anything separately, the runtime is included with the game.
The runtime could be updated with a phone home feature to track the install
No because this goes against GDPR. They aren’t allowed to have anything identifying users “phoning home” without explicit consent/logging into a launcher.
Is there some ongoing resource use (on Unity’s end)
Nope. The engine is part of the game once compiled. So all hosting and bandwidth cost goes to steam/gog/whoever is selling the game.
They are just trying to get more of that sweet viral game money.
They can’t really… unity itself doesn’t have an installer so not sure how they could track ‘installs’ reliably, the installer is added by the developer. If they add tracking to the library that (a) creates issues for people using app stores as now you have to declare you’re tracking people, and that can be grounds for rejection (you need a watertight privacy policy at the very least, and ‘we send it to a company in the US’ isn’t going to fly), and (b) not all apps are installed over the internet, or given internet access. 3d visualisation is more than games.
