Games

I'm not a game dev but I'm a dev so I can easily see how this can affect them.

If you're uninterested that's fine, no need to insult those that do.

Well shit. Some people actually care about the people who produce whatever it is you consume. It's crazy, I know. If the people who are growing the malt for my beer, or processing it, or delivering it, or whatever... are getting screwed over I would be equally concerned. But by all means, continue to be a consumer pacman just gobbling up whatever it is that falls in front of your face. That's what the world is trying to mold you into anyway. Why fight it?

Hi. I'm a brewer. You might not care about malt distribution but maybe you can understand that a lot of breweries run on small margins. If we suddenly have to pay a lot more for malt we will either have to raise our prices or go out of business. Raising prices might also drive us out of business because less people will be inclined to buy our beer. So it does affect you as a consumer, whether you care or not.

If the contractual details of malt distribution were going to affect the quality of beers you were getting then you absolutely would care. Unity's pay scheme will lead to studios shutting down if there isn't pushback. Studios switching to a different engine like Godot will make their games feel different for better or for worse and efforts to help fund these alternate engines will help tip the scale towards that being "for better".

But most importantly of all, this is a company using toxic and predatory practices. Regardless of the industry (yes, malt distributors too), if we don't push back against toxic business practices, then companies in many different industries will see avenues they can take advantage of to make extra money. These ideas don't hang in isolation. If Unity's scheme works, other businesses will learn from it. This is the reality of capitalism. Whatever methods can turn a profit without generating negative attention will be employed. It's in the hands of consumers, competing businesses, and the government to keep those toxic practices in check. I mean, why the fuck are we on Lemmy? Ultimately Reddit's actions are not going to affect the majority of users on their platform. Most of us came here to protest shitty business practices.

I like coffee, but I prefer to source my beans from places I can trust. People lost trust in Unity so they ain’t gonna use the engine anymore. Blown out of proportion? Yeah maybe, but I agree with the core concept

This is not a great comparison tbh. Unity are not distributing a resource, you could rather compare them to a company building the motor for the car you use. Even as the end customer, their product is clearly perceivable and distinguishable from competitors' products. You don't need to build cars to have an opinion on Unity motors and the ethics of their business. And if they fuck every contractor over and abuse their power in the market to retroactively charge additional fees for every time someone starts a car with their motor in it, of course you would be directly hit with the consequences as a customer. Therefore, it is justified to not leave this discussion to car manufacturers, but to 1. let unity motors know that they can go fuck themselves and 2. to support more ethical motor manufacturers in the future by buying cars built with them.