Unity is going to charge for installations of games using their engine

[theRepublic]

Zkuq said:

Chazore said:

This makes me wonder now if lawyers could get involved, because devs signed for these some yrs back, not for what is currently happening now, which will obviously take a hit to their finances, and they did not originally agree to this (because it was never there until recently). 

This is crazy enough that I'm sure this has some legal basis, because there's no way Unity has not considered the legality of this. Probably the original agreement allows changes like these, and Unity has gone through the terms with a lawyer to ensure what they're doing is legal. At least that's the theory - this sounds crazy enough that I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't hold up in court.

Given the way Unity has already backtracked on so much of this, it really seems like they didn't put much thought into it.  It seems like a top down decision that they are trying to make work, but the specifics in implementation are way more complicated than they anticipated.  There is no way that unilaterally changing the contracts with no consideration given to the other party is legal.  I guarantee we are going to see lawsuits about this unless they completely reverse course.  I already heard talk of a class action lawsuit.