this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2023
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This is of course not including the yearly Unity subscription, where Unity Pro costs $2,040 per seat (although they may have Enterprise pricing)

Absolutely ridiculous. Many Unity devs are saying they're switching engines on social media.

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[–] BetaDoggo_ 95 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Smells like a lawsuit to me. Retroactively devaluing software that they were already paid for.

It's probably a scream test that they'll walk back with something more reasonable in the next few days.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

This happened to a crafting/cutting machine and its software a while back.

The company wanted to start charging once you hit a miniscule upload threshold, forcing you to pay if you wanted to upload more than, say, 20 images per day.

Folks who already owned the machine were furious that they'd essentially be limited out of their own machine, when there was previously no extra charges for use.

The company rolled back their statement and stated that they'd only start charging people who purchased & registered their machines after a certain date. Older users would not be charged.

Even so, after the shit they pulled, people no longer recommend that specific machine/brand/company anymore because of their nonsense.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] Dkarma 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Cricut.

Also you can't even use the machine offline! They force you to use their absolutely terrible software and I have to "calibrate" it myself to make things turn out how it's supposed to! (eg. centered cuts, alignment, etc.)

If I would have known it was this bad, I wouldn't have gotten one in the first place. I make it work but goddamn, so much of it is absolute garbage!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Any chance you've found alternatives to the machine, or its software? I still see these mentioned here & there in crafting discussions as good tools, but I wouldn't want to be dependent on their software even if the machines are good tbh.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I can't vouch for it myself, but I've heard great things about the "Silhouette" machines! Definitely check them out to see if they could meet your needs.

[–] drphungky 3 points 1 year ago

It's crazy there isn't an open source community around it. 3d printing and CNC have been democratized, it's wild that printing and cutting vinyl hasn't.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the pointer! I'll have to give'em a look!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Unity dev here. The Unity seats were always a subscription model, and this new fee system doesn't kick in until January 1st.

So there's no lawsuit, you don't have to renew your subscription if you don't want to though.

[–] BetaDoggo_ 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So if you don't renew your subscription the new tax won't effect you? From my understanding the change was retroactive and effected all previous unity games. If you don't release a new build after the change will the tax still be applied?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They're not gonna be able to charge you if you don't have an active subscription

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

What about charging per download/install after the threshold? It sure sounds like it won't matter if you're subscribed or not, as their announcement mentioned Personal licenses would be charged USD 0,20 per download after the 200k lifetime

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Can you still sell the games you've made on unity if you don't have an active sub or will you have to delist them?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You only need the sub to develop/update it

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That's still pretty awful really. If I have a game that's halfway through development as a developer I am now disincentivized to finish it. They are changing the terms halfway through development.

January 1st isn't exactly a lot of warning.

This would be borderline acceptable if we'd been given 6 months warning not 1 and 1/2 months

[–] PixxlMan 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Don't you need a subscription if you're above the 200k threshold though?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Subscription is only for compiling