Apparently, it’s dubiously legal (i.e.: nothing technically against established licensing orthodoxy, though still sufficiently experimental that it could cause a new legal precedent to be set if successfully challenged).
But basically here’s the gist:
To sell games made with Unity, you need to have a license
The license comes with terms and an expiration date
When the license expires, you can choose to either stop selling the game or get the newest version of the license
The newest version of the license has these per-user fees attached
In short: copies you’ve sold are sold – Unity can’t ask for a cut of those. You can keep selling copies for as long as your current license lasts, but after that you either have to shelve the product or agree to give Unity a cut of each sale moving forward. Unfortunately for Unity, even if legal, they will struggle mightily actually enforcing their fee structure – captive customers are notoriously difficult to bill efficiently. That 4chan meme at the top of the comments illustrates the gap quite nicely: money isn’t going to magically materialize in their bank accounts when the install button gets clicked. They’re going to have to work their asses off for those quarters.
Apparently, it’s dubiously legal (i.e.: nothing technically against established licensing orthodoxy, though still sufficiently experimental that it could cause a new legal precedent to be set if successfully challenged).
But basically here’s the gist:
In short: copies you’ve sold are sold – Unity can’t ask for a cut of those. You can keep selling copies for as long as your current license lasts, but after that you either have to shelve the product or agree to give Unity a cut of each sale moving forward. Unfortunately for Unity, even if legal, they will struggle mightily actually enforcing their fee structure – captive customers are notoriously difficult to bill efficiently. That 4chan meme at the top of the comments illustrates the gap quite nicely: money isn’t going to magically materialize in their bank accounts when the install button gets clicked. They’re going to have to work their asses off for those quarters.
Source: Moon Channel