And there we go. Unity is walking back it’s install fee for devs. They are making the news of someone attempting something capitalistically crass and getting firmly told, “No.” You know what I mean – they aren’t sad/upset by what they’ve done. They are disappointed they got caught. I’m still not entirely sure how or why they thought this was going to go over well. You can’t take something that’s free and then charge for it, well, I mean you can but then you get this exact reaction. The gamersphere basically said, “Okay, well we don’t have to” and took their toys and went home. And you know what? It worked.
So they are saying they are “making changes” to the policy and we have no idea what that change means at this time. It could literally be a wait and try again later. Regardless, some developers are taking action. Re-Logic – the genius minds behind Terraria – posted on X/Twitter that they were donating money to open-source engines (Godot and FNA). Talk about putting your money where your mouth is.
Legal experts continue to fight about if what Unity attempted in the first place is even possible given the End-User License Agreement (that thing you scroll and skip).
As before, Ars Technica has a really good break down and if you’re still curious you should go check it out.