#i can't share what it was because of gdpr and all that

[mostly-paper-kind]

a thing happened today and turns out it is possible for my imposter syndrome to get worse than it currently is

[treasure-mimic]

So, let me try and put everything together here, because I really do think it needs to be talked about.

Today, Unity announced that it intends to apply a fee to use its software. Then it got worse.

For those not in the know, Unity is the most popular free to use video game development tool, offering a basic version for individuals who want to learn how to create games or create independently alongside paid versions for corporations or people who want more features. It's decent enough at this job, has issues but for the price point I can't complain, and is the idea entry point into creating in this medium, it's a very important piece of software.

But speaking of tools, the CEO is a massive one. When he was the COO of EA, he advocated for using, what out and out sounds like emotional manipulation to coerce players into microtransactions.

"A consumer gets engaged in a property, they might spend 10, 20, 30, 50 hours on the game and then when they're deep into the game they're well invested in it. We're not gouging, but we're charging and at that point in time the commitment can be pretty high."

He also called game developers who don't discuss monetization early in the planning stages of development, quote, "fucking idiots".

So that sets the stage for what might be one of the most bald-faced greediest moves I've seen from a corporation in a minute. Most at least have the sense of self-preservation to hide it.

A few hours ago, Unity posted this announcement on the official blog.

Effective January 1, 2024, we will introduce a new Unity Runtime Fee that’s based on game installs. We will also add cloud-based asset storage, Unity DevOps tools, and AI at runtime at no extra cost to Unity subscription plans this November. We are introducing a Unity Runtime Fee that is based upon each time a qualifying game is downloaded by an end user. We chose this because each time a game is downloaded, the Unity Runtime is also installed. Also we believe that an initial install-based fee allows creators to keep the ongoing financial gains from player engagement, unlike a revenue share.

Now there are a few red flags to note in this pitch immediately.

Unity is planning on charging a fee on all games which use its engine.

This is a flat fee per number of installs.

They are using an always online runtime function to determine whether a game is downloaded.

There is just so many things wrong with this that it's hard to know where to start, not helped by this FAQ which doubled down on a lot of the major issues people had.

I guess let's start with what people noticed first. Because it's using a system baked into the software itself, Unity would not be differentiating between a "purchase" and a "download". If someone uninstalls and reinstalls a game, that's two downloads. If someone gets a new computer or a new console and downloads a game already purchased from their account, that's two download. If someone pirates the game, the studio will be asked to pay for that download.

Q: How are you going to collect installs? A: We leverage our own proprietary data model. We believe it gives an accurate determination of the number of times the runtime is distributed for a given project. Q: Is software made in unity going to be calling home to unity whenever it's ran, even for enterprice licenses? A: We use a composite model for counting runtime installs that collects data from numerous sources. The Unity Runtime Fee will use data in compliance with GDPR and CCPA. The data being requested is aggregated and is being used for billing purposes. Q: If a user reinstalls/redownloads a game / changes their hardware, will that count as multiple installs? A: Yes. The creator will need to pay for all future installs. The reason is that Unity doesn’t receive end-player information, just aggregate data. Q: What's going to stop us being charged for pirated copies of our games? A: We do already have fraud detection practices in our Ads technology which is solving a similar problem, so we will leverage that know-how as a starting point. We recognize that users will have concerns about this and we will make available a process for them to submit their concerns to our fraud compliance team.

This is potentially related to a new system that will require Unity Personal developers to go online at least once every three days.

Starting in November, Unity Personal users will get a new sign-in and online user experience. Users will need to be signed into the Hub with their Unity ID and connect to the internet to use Unity. If the internet connection is lost, users can continue using Unity for up to 3 days while offline. More details to come, when this change takes effect.

It's unclear whether this requirement will be attached to any and all Unity games, though it would explain how they're theoretically able to track "the number of installs", and why the methodology for tracking these installs is so shit, as we'll discuss later.

Unity claims that it will only leverage this fee to games which surpass a certain threshold of downloads and yearly revenue.

Only games that meet the following thresholds qualify for the Unity Runtime Fee: Unity Personal and Unity Plus: Those that have made $200,000 USD or more in the last 12 months AND have at least 200,000 lifetime game installs. Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise: Those that have made $1,000,000 USD or more in the last 12 months AND have at least 1,000,000 lifetime game installs.

They don't say how they're going to collect information on a game's revenue, likely this is just to say that they're only interested in squeezing larger products (games like Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, Fate Grand Order, Among Us, and Fall Guys) and not every 2 dollar puzzle platformer that drops on Steam. But also, these larger products have the easiest time porting off of Unity and the most incentives to, meaning realistically those heaviest impacted are going to be the ones who just barely meet this threshold, most of them indie developers.

Aggro Crab Games, one of the first to properly break this story, points out that systems like the Xbox Game Pass, which is already pretty predatory towards smaller developers, will quickly inflate their "lifetime game installs" meaning even skimming the threshold of that 200k revenue, will be asked to pay a fee per install, not a percentage on said revenue.

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Hey Gamers!

Today, Unity (the engine we use to make our games) announced that they'll soon be taking a fee from developers for every copy of the game installed over a certain threshold - regardless of how that copy was obtained.

Guess who has a somewhat highly anticipated game coming to Xbox Game Pass in 2024? That's right, it's us and a lot of other developers.

That means Another Crab's Treasure will be free to install for the 25 million Game Pass subscribers. If a fraction of those users download our game, Unity could take a fee that puts an enormous dent in our income and threatens the sustainability of our business.

And that's before we even think about sales on other platforms, or pirated installs of our game, or even multiple installs by the same user!!!

This decision puts us and countless other studios in a position where we might not be able to justify using Unity for our future titles. If these changes aren't rolled back, we'll be heavily considering abandoning our wealth of Unity expertise we've accumulated over the years and starting from scratch in a new engine. Which is really something we'd rather not do.

On behalf of the dev community, we're calling on Unity to reverse the latest in a string of shortsighted decisions that seem to prioritize shareholders over their product's actual users.

I fucking hate it here.

-Aggro Crab - END DESCRIPTION]

That fee, by the way, is a flat fee. Not a percentage, not a royalty. This means that any games made in Unity expecting any kind of success are heavily incentivized to cost as much as possible.

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A table listing the various fees by number of Installs over the Install Threshold vs. version of Unity used, ranging from $0.01 to $0.20 per install. END DESCRIPTION]

Basic elementary school math tells us that if a game comes out for $1.99, they will be paying, at maximum, 10% of their revenue to Unity, whereas jacking the price up to $59.99 lowers that percentage to something closer to 0.3%. Obviously any company, especially any company in financial desperation, which a sudden anchor on all your revenue is going to create, is going to choose the latter.

Furthermore, and following the trend of "fuck anyone who doesn't ask for money", Unity helpfully defines what an install is on their main site.

While I'm looking at this page as it exists now, it currently says

The installation and initialization of a game or app on an end user’s device as well as distribution via streaming is considered an “install.” Games or apps with substantially similar content may be counted as one project, with installs then aggregated to calculate the Unity Runtime Fee.

However, I saw a screenshot saying something different, and utilizing the Wayback Machine we can see that this phrasing was changed at some point in the few hours since this announcement went up. Instead, it reads:

The installation and initialization of a game or app on an end user’s device as well as distribution via streaming or web browser is considered an “install.” Games or apps with substantially similar content may be counted as one project, with installs then aggregated to calculate the Unity Runtime Fee.

Screenshot for posterity:

That would mean web browser games made in Unity would count towards this install threshold. You could legitimately drive the count up simply by continuously refreshing the page. The FAQ, again, doubles down.

Q: Does this affect WebGL and streamed games? A: Games on all platforms are eligible for the fee but will only incur costs if both the install and revenue thresholds are crossed. Installs - which involves initialization of the runtime on a client device - are counted on all platforms the same way (WebGL and streaming included).

And, what I personally consider to be the most suspect claim in this entire debacle, they claim that "lifetime installs" includes installs prior to this change going into effect.

Will this fee apply to games using Unity Runtime that are already on the market on January 1, 2024? Yes, the fee applies to eligible games currently in market that continue to distribute the runtime. We look at a game's lifetime installs to determine eligibility for the runtime fee. Then we bill the runtime fee based on all new installs that occur after January 1, 2024.

Again, again, doubled down in the FAQ.

Q: Are these fees going to apply to games which have been out for years already? If you met the threshold 2 years ago, you'll start owing for any installs monthly from January, no? (in theory). It says they'll use previous installs to determine threshold eligibility & then you'll start owing them for the new ones. A: Yes, assuming the game is eligible and distributing the Unity Runtime then runtime fees will apply. We look at a game's lifetime installs to determine eligibility for the runtime fee. Then we bill the runtime fee based on all new installs that occur after January 1, 2024.

That would involve billing companies for using their software before telling them of the existence of a bill. Holding their actions to a contract that they performed before the contract existed!

Okay. I think that's everything. So far.

There is one thing that I want to mention before ending this post, unfortunately it's a little conspiratorial, but it's so hard to believe that anyone genuinely thought this was a good idea that it's stuck in my brain as a significant possibility.

A few days ago it was reported that Unity's CEO sold 2,000 shares of his own company.

On September 6, 2023, John Riccitiello, President and CEO of Unity Software Inc (NYSE:U), sold 2,000 shares of the company. This move is part of a larger trend for the insider, who over the past year has sold a total of 50,610 shares and purchased none.

I would not be surprised if this decision gets reversed tomorrow, that it was literally only made for the CEO to short his own goddamn company, because I would sooner believe that this whole thing is some idiotic attempt at committing fraud than a real monetization strategy, even knowing how unfathomably greedy these people can be.

So, with all that said, what do we do now?

Well, in all likelihood you won't need to do anything. As I said, some of the biggest names in the industry would be directly affected by this change, and you can bet your bottom dollar that they're not just going to take it lying down. After all, the only way to stop a greedy CEO is with a greedier CEO, right?

(I fucking hate it here.)

And that's not mentioning the indie devs who are already talking about abandoning the engine.

[Links display tweets from the lead developer of Among Us saying it'd be less costly to hire people to move the game off of Unity and Cult of the Lamb's official twitter saying the game won't be available after January 1st in response to the news.]

That being said, I'm still shaken by all this. The fact that Unity is openly willing to go back and punish its developers for ever having used the engine in the past makes me question my relationship to it.

The news has given rise to the visibility of free, open source alternative Godot, which, if you're interested, is likely a better option than Unity at this point. Mostly, though, I just hope we can get out of this whole, fucking, environment where creatives are treated as an endless mill of free profits that's going to be continuously ratcheted up and up to drive unsustainable infinite corporate growth that our entire economy is based on for some fuckin reason.

Anyways, that's that, I find having these big posts that break everything down to be helpful.

[theanxiousghostartist]

TMAGP 26 SPOILERS

(theories and reactions)

Sorry this is late, I didn't have time to listen to the episodes last night 😭

Pre - Case (Sam, Celia, and Alice):

Celia classified the case as "dog?" Idk, it's been bothering me (like it was with Sam) because it had no cross-reference whatsoever. Putting that aside, this scene, it felt like Celia was manipulating Sam a little bit? Like the tone she had while asking Sam what he was worried about felt werid. It could be just me but idk.

Yay! Establishing and respecting boundaries about the Institute! /pos

Helen tried to eat Celia, so it makes sense that she would bring a big knife to their meeting. "It is remarkably easy to buy an axe in Central London."

Also, can we take a moment to appreciate the word "Magnussing?" It was very clever on Alice's part, and I have a feeling that will become a new word in the language of the OIAR.

Case (Chester):

This case is Eye-related, mainly because of [Error], but it also feels like the End a bit? Not just because Rumins's father and Jarrod died, but when Rumins's father died - so did his love of running and his relationship with Jarrod.

The line "...if I took my eyes off him, something truely awful would happen." reminded me of Graham in TMA, the person that told his neighbor to keep watching and was later taken by the Stranger (specifically a Not-Them). Maybe Rumins is Eye aligned?

Jarrod's statememt (or at least the fragment we get) "They're coming now and getting close and when I slow and when I stop they will catch me and they will hurt me." makes him seem like he was a victim of a fear before [Error], as he is forcibly giving a statement. Perhaps he was a victim of the Hunt (his running reminds me of prey running from a predator)?

[Error] is an Archivist!!!! (Annabelle Cane theory fell through, but failed Archivist theory still stands lol)

Post Case (Alice and Gwen):

Alice realizing that [Error] is from the Archives!!!

I really like the Alice/Gwen back and forth here, even if it was a small bit. You can really see how each character shines through here!/pos

Post Case (Helen):

Helen is getting a section dedicated to her because something feels off with her.

Helen yay!!!!!!!!!!! (She is my favorite character from TMA so I am so happy)

Helen feels like she's reading off a script? IDK how to put it, but it feels like she's trying to manipulate Sam and Celia with a facade. When they start talking about the Institute, her voice lost it's softness, and it feels more real. I might be reading into this way too much, though.

She seems to have a good amount of information on the Institute. I wonder if she will have a reoccurring role...

Institute requirements - big basement, security options - what was the Institute doing? What kind of experiements were they partaking in?

Helen hasn't had contact with the Institute in 20 years, and she assumes all contacts are out of date, and she can't share them because of a GDPR. She could be hiding something. I wonder if she's had contact with Gertrude since she was firm about nor giving up contacts. Maybe she wants to try to steer them away from information, like Gertrude?

She is giving Celia and Sam real estate information that relates to the Institute, violating her GDPR... She is most definitely manipulating them in some way. We know that she wants to be featured in the documentary, but I wonder if there's more.

Also, her laugh - it is very reminiscent of the distortion. It says so in the transcript, lol. I wonder if this is a different path for her, sort of like Gerry. With Gerry, instead of being traumatized, he's happy. Maybe with Helen, she feels more in line with the Spiral as time went on. So instead of being forcibly turned into the Distortion, could this be a path where she slowly Becomes on her own? It would be cool to see how the Distortion could come to be, without forcing someone to it's heart.

Post Case (Sam and Celia):

Sam is worried because he and Alice let out [Error], which is to be expected, but Celia? It feels like she's more disappointed here, not knowing how to outplay [Error], since they don't act like Jon. It's a bit suspicious on her part.

Celia is very nervous around Helen, which makes sense because, again, Helen tried to eat her.

Sam and Jack are so cute, I love his little impression of Helen!

Celia said she felt like they were being watched - perhaps [Error] is on to them?

The Celia and Sam scene - where they flirt and kiss - it felt wrong to me? This could be because I'm demi romantic and sex - adversed ace, but it didn't feel right. Sam is awkward during their conversation and seems uncomfortable at first, while Celia is not. It feels like Celia is manipulating him again. She's trying to get closer to Sam and pushing him further down the Magnussing route in order to figure out how/why she is in the TMAGP universe.

I might add more to this later, because I feel like I'm missing things....

Overall though, I really liked the case and the character interactions, especially with Helen and Alice/Gwen!

[digitaliafm]

For 2018, my personal challenge has been to focus on addressing some of the most important issues facing our community -- whether that's preventing election interference, stopping the spread of hate speech and misinformation, making sure people have control of their information, and ensuring our services improve people's well-being. In each of these areas, I'm proud of the progress we've made. We're a very different company today than we were in 2016, or even a year ago. We've fundamentally altered our DNA to focus more on preventing harm in all our services, and we've systematically shifted a large portion of our company to work on preventing harm. We now have more than 30,000 people working on safety and invest billions of dollars in security yearly. To be clear, addressing these issues is more than a one-year challenge. But in each of the areas I mentioned, we've now established multi-year plans to overhaul our systems and we're well into executing those roadmaps. In the past we didn't focus as much on these issues as we needed to, but we're now much more proactive. That doesn't mean we'll catch every bad actor or piece of bad content, or that people won't find more examples of past mistakes before we improved our systems. For some of these issues, like election interference or harmful speech, the problems can never fully be solved. They're challenges against sophisticated adversaries and human nature where we must constantly work to stay ahead. But overall, we've built some of the most advanced systems in the world for identifying and resolving these issues, and we will keep improving over the coming years. We've made a lot of improvements and changes this year, and here are some of the most important ones: For preventing election interference, we've improved our systems for identifying the fake accounts and coordinated information campaigns that account for much of the interference -- now removing millions of fake accounts every day. We've partnered with fact-checkers in countries around the world to identify misinformation and reduce its distribution. We've created a new standard for advertising transparency where anyone can now see all the ads an advertiser is running to different audiences. We established an independent election research commission to study threats and our systems to address them. And we've partnered with governments and law enforcement around the world to prepare for elections. For stopping the spread of harmful content, we've built AI systems to automatically identify and remove content related to terrorism, hate speech, and more before anyone even sees it. These systems take down 99% of the terrorist-related content we remove before anyone even reports it, for example. We've improved News Feed to promote news from trusted sources. We're developing systems to automatically reduce the distribution of borderline content, including sensationalism and misinformation. We've tripled the size of our content review team to handle more complex cases that AI can't judge. We've built an appeals system for when we get decisions wrong. We're working to establish an independent body that people can appeal decisions to and that will help decide our policies. We've begun issuing transparency reports on our effectiveness in removing harmful content. And we've also started working with governments, like in France, to establish effective content regulations for internet platforms. For making sure people have control of their information, we changed our developer platform to reduce the amount of information apps can access -- following the major changes we already made back in 2014 to dramatically reduce access that would prevent issues like what we saw with Cambridge Analytica from happening today. We rolled out new controls for GDPR around the whole world and asked everyone to check their privacy settings. We reduced some of the third-party information we use in our ads systems. We started building a Clear History tool that will give people more transparency into their browsing history and let people clear it from our systems. And we've continued developing encrypted and ephemeral messaging and sharing services that we believe will be the foundation for how people communicate going forward. For making sure our services improve people's well-being, we conducted research that found that when people use the internet to interact with others, that's associated with all the positive aspects of well-being you'd expect, including greater happiness, health, feeling more connected, and so on. But when you just use the internet to consume content passively, that's not associated with those same positive effects. Based on this research, we've changed our services to encourage meaningful social interactions rather than passive consumption. One change we made reduced the amount of viral videos people watched by 50 million hours a day. In total, these changes intentionally reduced engagement and revenue in the near term, although we believe they'll help us build a stronger community and business over the long term. If you're interested in reading more about these changes, I've written extensively about our work on elections here (http://bit.ly/2ERRLSL) and content governance and enforcement here (http://bit.ly/2EUXLLw). You can also read about our research on well-being here (http://bit.ly/2BuTz2Z). I've learned a lot from focusing on these issues and we still have a lot of work ahead. I'm proud of the progress we've made in 2018 and grateful to everyone who has helped us get here -- the teams inside Facebook, our partners and the independent researchers and everyone who has given us so much feedback. I'm committed to continuing to make progress on these important issues as we enter the new year. I'm also proud of the rest of the progress we've made this year. More than 2 billion people now use one of our services every single day to stay connected with the people who matter most in their lives. Hundreds of millions of people are part of communities they tell us make up their most important social support. People have come together using these tools to raise more than $1 billion for causes and to find more than 1 million new jobs. More than 90 million small businesses use our tools, and more than half say they've hired more people because of them. Building community and bringing people together leads to a lot of good, and I'm committed to continuing our progress in these areas as well. Here's to a great new year to come. - http://bit.ly/2F36eLV