this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2023
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They're going to back off on this and replace it with something bad but not as horrible. This is testing the water, and opens the door to charging everyone money every time you install a game, not just devs.
Have an install saved on your external and want to install it next week? You'll get charged for it as of you didn't already pay for it.
Games you have in your steam/gog backlog? Get charged again for it when you decide to play it.
I guarantee there are investors/publishers/whoever hitting themselves right now screaming "why didn't I think of that?".
I'd pirate the fuck out of everything if that happens.
The second Steam charges me for an install... Back to the high seas.
Not even about the money.
That's part of the problem; they aren't charging you for the install, they are remotely tracking that you've done so and then billing the dev for it.
If you grab a cracked version, did the person cracking that game also remove the install telemetry, or did they just make it functional? Can you be sure?
In many cases, the dev would still be billed for you installing the game you didn't even pay for. Unity has no incentive to ensure each install is legitimate, as they profit from failing to catch that.