Unity's Pricing Policy Wakes the Nintendo Legal Machine
Description
This is a three-panel meme that humorously depicts the anticipated reaction of Nintendo's legal team to Unity's controversial pricing changes in 2023. The top panel has bold white text stating, 'THESE NINTENDO GAMES WERE DEVELOPED WITH Unity', and below it are images of popular Nintendo titles like 'Pokémon GO'. The second panel uses a cartoon template from Woody Woodpecker, where a sleeping vulture (with the Unity logo) is being approached by a badger (labeled 'LAWYERS') who is being pushed by Woody Woodpecker (labeled 'Nintendo'). The third panel is an extreme close-up of the vulture (Unity) being violently shaken awake by the crazed, bloodshot-eyed badger, now labeled 'LAWYERS OF Nintendo'. The meme's technical context is rooted in the September 2023 controversy when the Unity game engine announced a new 'Runtime Fee,' which would charge developers based on the number of times their game was installed. This policy would have been incredibly expensive for a company like Nintendo, which has many high-performing games built on the Unity platform. The humor comes from the juxtaposition of this corporate decision with Nintendo's well-known reputation for having an exceptionally aggressive and powerful legal department. The meme perfectly captures the game development community's reaction, predicting that Unity had just 'woken a sleeping giant' and would face a ferocious legal battle for a policy widely seen as hostile to developers
Comments
20Comment deleted
Unity's plan to charge per install was a bold revenue strategy. They just forgot to factor in the cost of a C&D delivered by a flock of Nintendo lawyers, which apparently has a base fee of one soul and scales with engine market share
Pro tip: before you list a first-party Switch hit in your Unity marketing deck, allocate some sprint points for handling SIGKILL-by-cease-and-desist
Unity discovering that retroactively changing license terms for Nintendo's games is like trying to implement a singleton pattern in production - technically possible, but the lawyers will ensure you only get to try it once
When your game engine powers a hit Nintendo title but you suddenly remember Nintendo's legal team has a 100% critical hit rate and considers 'fair use' a mythical Pokémon that doesn't exist in their Pokédex. Unity's runtime fee model looks positively gentle compared to what happens when Nintendo's lawyers decide your licensing terms need 'clarification.'
Shipping a Unity game on Switch was fine - until marketing used the word “Nintendo”; suddenly our worst GC pause wasn’t garbage collection, it was General Counsel
Unity solves frame pacing; Legal solves phrasing - type “Nintendo” in the launch notes and you’ve just shipped a cease‑and‑desist to production
Unity powers Pokémon GO: Gotta pay runtime fees before Nintendo's lawyers C&D your Pikachu spawns
But can someone actually sue unity for this? Comment deleted
They will sue unity if unity tries to take extra money from them Comment deleted
Legally, Unity can change the terms of their license, but they need to give some notice period to devs so they can choose between accepting the new terms or stopping using their product. However, making backwards changes to start charging for games developed (set any random number here) years ago is - probably - against their license. Devs and lawyers will need to work together on this. Comment deleted
Let’s just wait a bit and see what all those lawyers of gaming companies will come up with 🤓 Comment deleted
It's definitely an interesting study case, but I have no doubt many devs will now move to other engines. This wasn't a very wise move from the Unity team Comment deleted
It's time for Godot to shine Comment deleted
Honestly, I only started to hear about Godot after Unity made this silly move. Unreal seems to have much power. Yet, it is also true that Unreal is supposed to be an engine for real-time, constantly changing games and events, while Unity (and Godot?) might be better-suited engines for not-so-high-demanding adaptation. Comment deleted
well unreal is a awesome engine, but the thing about it is its not well suited for small and indie games. it also use C++ as the programming language, for some its a good thing and for other a bad thing... Godot in other hand have its own python like language, its simple and easy to pickup so small game developers can start working on it easier, in other hand it also support C# mono, so the transition between unity and Godot can be even smoother... unreal also is mainly a 3D engine, but Godot could be more suitable for 2D and small 3D games. Comment deleted
That's what I heard so far. Comment deleted
Lets go Yakuza Comment deleted
honestly Godot only needed a push for becoming more popular, and unity gave it to it 😃 Comment deleted
Let's see if the time is generous with Godot Comment deleted
I hope... Comment deleted