this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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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.
If it included identifiable information then yeah it would be a breach. This is just using a mac address most likely that will also if they do it right will be hashed client side so even if a bad actor could do something with that info they won't actually get it anything from it anyway.
Then we just fall back to the issue of them not being able to identify installs, reinstalls, bad actors spoofing the source etc..
If they could track installs properly they would have solved piracy already
Well they've mainly said (recently) that they'll count new device installs, but not reinstallations on the same device. Which i believe. It's the whole, exemptions of charity sales and pirate copies is where they're spouting bullshit, or is PR/ higher ups making quick premises to placate without the engineers saying that that's possible, but now they've got to find a way. Which I don't think they will without heavily bloating the runtime into super shitty DRM realms
Couldn't they just add another ToS checkbox to click when installing the game?
TOS is given through the publisher who would be bound by GDPR by all sorts of regulations about storing that stuff.
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.
Unity hasn't been very profitable, for most of its users it's completely free. I don't blame them for needing money to improve the engine, but not like this
How do they track installs then?
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.
I'd assume they'd amend the contract to require that a tracker be added to the binaries of the game. Or something.
This is basically like if John Deere started following everyone around so they could charge a farmer 1 cent every time you bite into a vegetable you bought at Walmart.