The developer of superb action-roguelite Cult of the Lamb has threatened to delete the game on January 1 amid a row with game engine company Unity.
One of the really fun details about this fiasco is a few years back, after they had made a big PR fuck up like this, Unity stated they would make their Terms of Service version-bound. If you had Unity 2019 and continued to use it forever, you would only have to abide by the ToS for that version. Put simply, they could not retroactively apply new changes to you.
…Guess which segment got quietly removed last year!
Put simply, they could not retroactively apply new changes to you.
Sounds like they could though?
Jokes aside, this is another in a recent string of “let’s pretend our ToS are legally binding documents as fool-proof as the law” actions by major companies because … well, who’s stopping them?
That’s the part I don’t get. If I bought it in 2020 or whenever that was in the license, how can they decide to violate the license on the software you bought?
It’s one thing of you go into the agreement knowing about the fees, but enforcing them retroactively against your own license agreement sounds like you’re asking for a lawsuit.
I would think their public statements would significantly hurt the ability to do this, even if developers “agreed” to the terms without that clause.
I straight up don’t think they could legally do it either way. But if they made public statements specifically addressing this particular thing, it has to significantly weaken their case.