• bloopernova@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    56
    ·
    1 year ago

    I could imagine that there’s some very angry and confused developers who might feel violent towards unity right now.

    Not that threats are the answer, just that I could see people might feel their livelihood is threatened.

    • Serdan@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      46
      arrow-down
      9
      ·
      1 year ago

      I think threats are perfectly fine when CEO’s who are completely disconnected from reality destroy your livelihood so they can get a slightly larger bonus next quarter.

      • Hot Saucerman@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        46
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        They deserve to be afraid when their decisions easily ruin lives.

        They act like the results of their decisions aren’t their responsibility.

        They’ve been allowed to run wild with their greed for far too long and now they have taken the masks off.

        They cruelty is the point, they want us hurting and disorganized. They start shitting bricks when people organize.

        • Holyginz@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          10
          ·
          1 year ago

          I’m just saying, they are the ones making it so the peaceful options don’t work/are ignored. If that’s how they are going to be then it’s time for torches and pitch forks. Play stupid games win stupid prizes.

        • Ubermeisters@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          Why do you think they wrecked Twitter and fb and reddit? Curious to see what they do to take mastodon/lemmy out.

      • PuppyOSAndCoffee@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        12
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Nah, Unity is a monetization company pretending to be a game platform.

        even their enterprise pricing model is fucked:

        100k = $12.5k 300k = $18k 500k = $10k 1M = $10k

      • mo_ztt ✅@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        20
        ·
        1 year ago
        1. There’s a big difference between “start charging money for their software in a way you disagree with” and “destroy your livelihood.”
        2. I’m gonna take you at your word that it sounds like you’re saying threatening violence against the Unity management is okay. So even in the case of genuinely abusive and damaging companies (Nestle, Shell Oil), I think changing the rules so they’re answerable to a justice framework is a way better way to go, as opposed to abandoning the justice framework and hoping nothing bad will happen. MLK and Gandhi came to this understanding when faced with a lot more evil systems than the Unity developers. Basically, there is an answer, but if the problem is that they hold the power and they’re abusing it, taking the contest in the direction of a more power-based and less justice-based dynamic is tempting but it definitely isn’t gonna get you the results you want. It’s just gonna make things worse.
        • atrielienz@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          “But under the changes announced today, Unity Personal and Unity Pro users will pay fees if they hit $200,000 in revenue in a year and 200,000 lifetime installs. For anywhere from one to a million installs, those users will pay 20 cents per install. “It’s a price increase.”

          If I have a mobile game selling for $1 on the apple store for instance and it uses Unity, and has has a million downloads/installs I then owe Unity $200,000 for an app that I didn’t even make $500,000 on because app stores like apple’s charge a 30% cut, sales exist, and it says installs which may mean a person buys the app once and installs it on more than one device. But that doesn’t in any way directly affect my livelihood as a developer or anything. Right?

          • Ubermeisters@lemmy.zip
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            But there are commercial entity, it’s their right to do so, with thebway thebcurrent laws and market is setup. “The free market will remove them from the equation if they’re not offering an attractive product at an attractive rate, in the face of competitors offering such”… in theory. In practice, I say fuck em. Stop using unity. Stop playing games made in unity. Let them die. A better offering will appear when they are off the table.

              • Ubermeisters@lemmy.zip
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                3
                ·
                edit-2
                1 year ago

                Not all replies to you are a direct representation of what you’re hoping people are going to fixate on. That’s not in your control. You may not realize this but we are all equally sentient and have our own thought processes. The rest of us aren’t NPCs…

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            AFAIK, the retroactive nature of it doesn’t apply to already released games, but to games released with the new license terms. So if you released that mobile game last year, you wouldn’t need to pay $200k or whatever next year. However, if you release that same game next year, you would have to retroactively pay that $200k once the downloads exceeded the stated max.

            So the solution is: don’t use Unity next year, especially if you’ll be selling a game for $1. It sucks since in-progress games would have to be reworked, and Unity should suffer for that, but it shouldn’t ever come to threats of violence.

            • atrielienz@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              That’s actually fair. But the point is that the popularity of a game could tank a developer with this business model. It could also affect past profits and purchases specifically because of the bit about downloads. It doesn’t differentiate between a user who’s downloaded a paid app on 6 different phones, 1 phone, 1000 phones. So if I for instance paid for I dunno Plants vs Zombies one time, the developer releases it with an update patch, I and then downloaded it onto every phone I have had since then or will have in the future that could be 10,.15, 20 downloads over my lifetime. What if I have a work phone? They’re not saying they can’t implement this even with old games. I don’t think they meant retroactively. I think they mean new installs of old games that have updates.

              • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                1 year ago

                I guess I’d have to read through the contract, but generally these things only apply to games released after the new terms take effect, but updates to games released prior. So the dev would be fully aware of the policy at the point of releasing the game.

                Unity seems to be catering to games with a recurring revenue model (ads, microtransactions, etc), and discouraging other revenue models, and I think most developers will recognize that with this pricing model.

                So I don’t think Unity is trying to screw already released games, they’re just trying to limit their appeal to a certain type of game revenue model.

          • mo_ztt ✅@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            4
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            If software you use changes their pricing in a way that, in three month’s time, because you made only $500k last year and your game uses a freemium model such that you get a shitload of installs but don’t necessarily draw revenue from every install, so that that 20c per install adds up to the fact that you’ll be losing money come January, should you threaten the people at that software company with death? At that point, I think no.

            If instead of that, they do something more akin to what Reddit did to the Apollo devs, and change the pricing such that they don’t have time to adjust, lie about it, and publicly defame the devs, basically make it literally impossible for the company to stay in business, should Christian have threatened to kill spez? I think no.

            If instead of that, they destroy your whole industry, so that you literally can’t work as a software dev anymore, at your game company or any other or in any other software-related industry, and you have to retrain yourself to something totally different, should you threaten them with death? At that point I think it’s a little more of a tactical decision rather than a moral one, because they are crossing that line into “Fuck the system this is wrong” territory, but I would still argue that literally waging war on them wouldn’t accomplish as much as trying to get your democratic government to address the issue some other way.

            If instead of that, they created an economic system so that it was impossible for you to get any job, software or otherwise, except back-breaking physical work with a high chance of maiming or killing you, and you still got starvation wages, should you threaten them with death? At that point, maybe; that’s the point we were at in the late 1800s and it’s hard to say it was wrong to fight a small war about it. At that point it’s more about tactics, and the workers in the 1800s didn’t have a tiny fraction of the democratic power you do, so they went to literal war and for the most part it worked in the end.

            If instead of that, they ruined your economy and your government, made it so you had no voting rights, could be abused or killed by members of the government of a different racial group who were all super racist against you, so you had the starvation wages and the unsafe labor conditions and also unsafe conditions outside of work and no way out economically and no real democratic way to address the situation, is it appropriate to threaten them with death? At that point, definitely not. Again, blacks in the US and Indians in British India faced that situation, and they decided the only way out was through nonviolent resistance.

            Again, I’m not trying to tell you to do nothing. I’m saying death threats are a silly and unproductive thing to do in this case. Somewhere here I posted a video of a guy in Walgreens who felt the policeman was being unfair and got super loud about it to resolve the situation. Death threats, in this situation, I think are gonna have pretty much that level of effectiveness.

            • atrielienz@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              If your whole rant is about the death threats I think you missed the point. Because I wasn’t making a point about the death threats. I was pointing out that this particular business model they’re introducing could literally cause the creator of a game to go broke trying to pay it depending on the popularity of their product. That’s broken. And Unity should have known it was broken. And saying they’ve had credible death threats after announcing this plan is to me the same as what Spez did with Reddit after he did the AMA for his API increase and expected no backlash.

              I will say this though. I’d rather have death threats that no one follows through with that are “credible” and change a company’s behaviour than have to riot in the streets. Rioting causes a lot of collateral damage to people and places that are not involved. Historically though, the elite create systems where violence slowly but surely becomes the only avenue for change. I’m not saying this is one of them. I am saying this is capitalism and the reason everything is the way it is in the world right now. Rich people wanting to get richer at the expense of poor people.

              • mo_ztt ✅@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                I was pointing out that this particular business model they’re introducing could literally cause the creator of a game to go broke trying to pay it depending on the popularity of their product. That’s broken. And Unity should have known it was broken.

                Yeah, agreed.

                Rioting causes a lot of collateral damage to people and places that are not involved. Historically though, the elite create systems where violence slowly but surely becomes the only avenue for change. I’m not saying this is one of them. I am saying this is capitalism and the reason everything is the way it is in the world right now. Rich people wanting to get richer at the expense of poor people.

                Yeah, 100% agreed. That’s why I keep talking about real economic injustice and how I feel about it, even though I think applying those tools to this specific situation is way unnecessary.

                If your whole rant is about the death threats I think you missed the point. Because I wasn’t making a point about the death threats.

                I think you may be the exception then. We’re talking under a headline about death threats, and the reason I was a little salty about it was that it seems like there are a bunch of people here who genuinely think death threats are a good response to this situation, and to me that’s pretty nutty.

                If I’m reading this message from you right, we’re pretty much in agreement: This is a sorta shitty situation, and sometimes genuine economic injustice demands radical solutions, but at the end of the day this is a pretty minor issue.

                I will say this though. I’d rather have death threats that no one follows through with that are “credible” and change a company’s behaviour than have to riot in the streets.

                You do realize that this is exactly how these MAGA hard-core faithfuls think, right? “Well if you’re going to run your bakery / social media company / election in a way I don’t like, I’ll threaten to kill you, because at the end of the day if you change your behavior that’s justified”? You kinda lost me again with this one.

                • atrielienz@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  I don’t agree with the Maga statement. Mostly because from what I have seen they actually are frothing at the mouth for violence.

                  • mo_ztt ✅@lemmy.world
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    1 year ago

                    Some are, yes (the Oathkeepers and etc). A lot of them aren’t, though – they’re just making death threats that are “credible” to change someone’s behavior, and a lot of them actually use that exact logic that this is a better way than rising up and having actual violence (with the implication that that’s what’ll happen if the threats don’t change the behavior). But that’s all good with you, right?

                    I’m just trying to be a jerk about it, I’m just taking you at face value about the things you’re supporting. If that’s offensive, I think you should stop supporting them.

        • Holyginz@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          That only works if there is a path already in place to do these things and a willingness to take that path. People are sick and tired of trying to go through “official” channels to fix things when it’s obvious those channels are designed in a way that completely works against them. Yes, this potentially could destroy the livelihood for some and if threatening waste of oxygen management that cares nothing for others is the only path to create change, than it’s a great time to be a vendor selling pitch forks and torches.

          • mo_ztt ✅@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            … which is why I made that sorta non sequitur about MLK and Gandhi, and why I say down below that you need to read history. There are a wide range of examples of people attempting to overcome all kinds of injustices, with all kinds of means violent and nonviolent and every place in between, including ones where the system was wayyyy more stacked against them than they are in the current modern day United States as pertains to a software company changing its pricing.

            Honestly I’m not even saying you’re wrong necessarily about this being an unfair or bad thing or an injustice. I don’t know enough about Unity to have any idea. I just think if you’re talking about violence against the company’s employees because this crosses the line so far into some kind of landscape where any means are necessary, you need to get some perspective about this specific situation, and read into some examples of how what you’re recommending plays out as a solution to economic injustice.

        • PuppyOSAndCoffee@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          I have mixed feelings about upvoting you because point 2 is a wall of text and hard to read /s ;)

          You are correct however.

          The real key is realizing that any subscription based platform has the potential of jerking you around.

          However given the sheer volume of impacted developers and the easily calculated uh class action Value, I am sure there is a predatory pricing lawsuit in there somewhere.

          Another approach might be to form a publisher coop who can negotiate a better price on behalf of its members. That too likely will sour at some point.

          Or just pay the license fee while determining how to exit the platform if it isn’t generating revenue … or stick with it if it works.

          • mo_ztt ✅@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Yeah, that too. I mean at the end of the day it’s a software company changing its pricing. I’m addressing this from the perspective of “If we take it as granted that this is an economic injustice, what’s the right way to address it,” but from the POV of Indians working at the salt factory or miners in the late 1800s having gunfights for their right to strike, they’d laugh their asses off at what’s being called “injustice” here.

        • mo_ztt ✅@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          WTF, I honestly hesitated to post this, because I felt like “We shouldn’t threaten the Unity management” was so obvious that I felt ridiculous taking it seriously enough to break down the reasons. But the votes clearly indicate that that’s not the consensus.

          All I can say is, y’all need to study history a lot more than you have. I get that you feel justified in your viewpoint, but there’ve been a lot of people who felt justified in their viewpoint who then got proper fucked up because of it.

          • Holyginz@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            If people did it your way we would still have slavery and women wouldn’t be able to vote or hold jobs. There comes a point where the people preaching the reasoned approach are simply helping the oppressors. I’m not saying people should go out making death threats, but expecting people who’s livelihoods are threatened by greed to shut up and martyr themselves or go through broken channels that don’t work is stupid and not going to happen.

            • mo_ztt ✅@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              3
              ·
              1 year ago

              expecting people who’s livelihoods are threatened by greed to shut up and martyr themselves or go through broken channels that don’t work is stupid and not going to happen.

              So, I’m actually specifically not telling you that this whole thing is ridiculous and you should just be a good citizen and get back in line. If you look back over my posts you’ll see that I’m addressing it more than anything from a perspective of “If you want economic justice, what is the most effective way to get it?”

              This guy wanted to be treated and talked to respectfully, and to understand what was going on and feel safe in the situation he was in. Those are 100% reasonable things to want. Would you say that the way he went about pursuing those things got him the result that he wanted?

              • Serdan@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                edit-2
                1 year ago

                He seems terrified.

                Notice how the cops try to get him to accept a search of his car? That’s them hoping they can find something to destroy this man’s life. They have absolutely zero reason for the search. The issue is a busted break light. They should just ticket him for that instead of wasting time and resources on their antagonistic bullshit.

                • mo_ztt ✅@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  1 year ago

                  Okey dokey, let’s talk.

                  Antagonism level of the cops here: 3/10, I have some notes

                  Antagonism level of the suspect: 12/10, dude is literally SCREAMING at and totally ignoring the totally legal and reasonable behavior of the cop who’s just trying to conduct a traffic stop on him

                  I get that both the cop and the big dude are basically just scared and reacting poorly out of fear. Two particular things really pissed me off from the cops’ side: At the end they can’t seem to understand, or don’t want to understand, that they’re fucking up his shoulders. There’s no urgency to standing him back up, and he’s understandably upset because he’s in a lot of pain, and he seems pretty ready at that point to work with them, if they show him a little calm and empathy or just back off and let the medically qualified hospital staff deal with him. And, in the beginning, the whole situation was escalated by the initial cop, who clearly seemed scared and unsure and didn’t do a perfect job and specifically requested an uncalled-for violent response just because the guy was yelling and being unreasonable (“step it up” basically means “I am in a physical fight right now and may lose, drop everything you’re doing and come in guns blazing,” it’s one of the highest-priority calls you can make and clearly didn’t apply to the situation he was in).

                  Two separate times in my life, I’ve seen cops deescalate situations where someone was yelling or arguing heatedly in their faces, and it went fine and no one got arrested. They can do it if they’re good at the job. But, that doesn’t mean you can just refuse to participate in a traffic stop, wander off somewhere else and keep conducting your personal business, start SCREAMING aggressively at the police in a Walgreen’s when they try to talk to you, and have an expectation that it’s all on them to make sure it turns out well, otherwise that’s unfair. IDK what ultimate outcome he realistically expected from what he did other than getting violently arrested once more cops arrive. And yeah, at that point, they’re going to look for whatever they can charge you with and aim to fuck up your life.

                  (Edit: And – one of the very first things they do once the situation is stable is go to try to check on his cuffs to make sure they’re not too tight. When they try to do that, he just starts screaming aggressively at them again and they give up, but one of the first things on their mind is trying to make sure he’s ok, which they in no way had to do.)

                  What outcome would you suggest that the cops do in this situation? Just leave, or let him leave, or what? You say they should have just ticketed him, but that was literally what the first cop was trying to do and it looks to me like big dude was 100% ready to just get back in his car and leave without accepting the ticket.

                  • Serdan@lemm.ee
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    1 year ago

                    Okey dokey, let’s talk.

                    Judging by the yt comments, you’re subscribed to a channel that caters heavily to racists, so I don’t have high hopes here.

                    Antagonism level of the cops here: 3/10, I have some notes

                    Called in backup. Put victim on ground in handcuffs. Tried to search his car without cause. Harmed the victim needlessly.

                    Antagonism level of the suspect: 12/10,

                    Literally walked away to avoid conflict.

                    I get that both the cop and the big dude are basically just scared and reacting poorly out of fear.

                    Only one of them is armed with a lethal weapon and regularly assaults people. The cop is actively pursuing conflict, whereas the victim is avoiding it.

                    Two particular things really pissed me off from the cops’ side: At the end they can’t seem to understand, or don’t want to understand, that they’re fucking up his shoulders. There’s no urgency to standing him back up, and he’s understandably upset because he’s in a lot of pain, and he seems pretty ready at that point to work with them, if they show him a little calm and empathy or just back off and let the medically qualified hospital staff deal with him.

                    I see absolutely no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt. It’s their job. They regularly have people in a position like that. They were hurting him intentionally.

                    And, in the beginning, the whole situation was escalated by the initial cop, who clearly seemed scared and unsure and didn’t do a perfect job and specifically requested an uncalled-for violent response just because the guy was yelling and being unreasonable (“step it up” basically means “I am in a physical fight right now and may lose, drop everything you’re doing and come in guns blazing,” it’s one of the highest-priority calls you can make and clearly didn’t apply to the situation he was in).

                    What you’re saying here is that the first cop was fixing to get someone killed. 3/10 though.

                    But, that doesn’t mean you can just refuse to participate in a traffic stop, wander off somewhere else and keep conducting your personal business, start SCREAMING aggressively at the police in a Walgreen’s when they try to talk to you, and have an expectation that it’s all on them to make sure it turns out well, otherwise that’s unfair. IDK what ultimate outcome he realistically expected from what he did other than getting violently arrested once more cops arrive.

                    He was afraid. Justifiably so, given that the cop acted in a way that could have gotten him killed. The generous reading here is that you’re making excuses for gross incompetence. Why?

                    And yeah, at that point, they’re going to look for whatever they can charge you with and aim to fuck up your life.

                    Why should we just accept that as a given? That’s not their job.

                    What outcome would you suggest that the cops do in this situation?

                    You’re ignoring the long history of systemic abuse that plays into this. To improve that, it is the party favored by the power imbalance who must go above and beyond.

                    Do you think the cops in that video acted with excellence?

                    Actual reasonable approach: follow the man in. Don’t keep making demands of him to stop, etc. Just keep up and explain to him that you’re going to ticket him for a broken break light, and if he accepts that you’ll be on your way. If he refuses, instruct him to get it fixed asap and take down his number plate so you can send the ticket in the mail. Cars usually have several brake lights. One of them being broken really isn’t a big deal.

                    Just leave, or let him leave, or what?

                    Not the worst outcome, but I know you’re horny for some JUSTICE.

    • DrownedAxolotl@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’ve heard it’s actually employees sending the threats, not developers. Unsure if it’s true, but if it is, it just goes to show how much of an awful boss Riccitiello is.

    • mo_ztt ✅@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      6
      ·
      1 year ago

      It’s probably one guy from 4chan who leaves the house twice a year and has been “working on” his game for the last 15 years.