"according to our extensive research, when we multiplied how much we like you by fuckall, you owe us 20000"

Exactly. To me, this explanation sounds like they'll just magically estimate the numbers without really being able to prove it. And that sucks.

However, we can be sure that developers will have their own analytics, that are probably way more accurate and they know exactly how many people have played or installed their game. And I'm betting that this number will be a lot smaller than the Unity "estimation", and people will get even more angry.

Well you would just have to download it once. But install it 1000000 times. Sounds like a lot of work.

We have come full circle. Hurray?

Does EA use unity...

Unity includes telemetry for some time
I believe you can't actually disable the telemetry (or Unity intro logo) in the "free" version

Do you have a special going if I need more than one?

Is it just me, or does "we have a proprietary data model that calculates..." sound an awful lot like "we have no actual method of tracking that"?

They don't care. That would fuck the creator instead.

If I'm reading this right, it isn't even the real numbers they're working with. It's their "proprietary data model."

Why would you ever let a pirated copy online anyway

rofl seriously? Not only will they charge for the installs, but they won’t even use the actual number of installs - they’ll guess? This is the most hilariously stupid business model I’ve ever heard of

When crackers don't patch out the phone line, they can.

Edit: Only in some cases, though. They can detect popular ways to crack games, like Steam DRM stubs. If the game has zero identifiable information about the buyer and no or an unsupported DRM, they're SOL.

Firewall your pirated games

That was my thought as well, since they count installs and not use count of bought copies directly from a platform.

What if people create cracks for legit purchased games, e.g. on Steam, which only removes the Unity tracking part?

A simple Firewall rule which "fixes it" for all games installed on a machine might work as well?

I believe it might be similar or the same procedure for every game using Unity. We might see this popping up at some point.

I would place my bets on unity. It has tougher competition imo

Proprietary software A is bad. Long live proprietary software B!

(Or maybe check out Godot)

Nah, unity is/was a good engine. The reason why it has a bad reputation is for the same reason that Game maker used to have a bad reputation. Almost everyone who's learning how to make games uses Unity because it's easy to use, is extremely well documented, and has a massive store full of add-on scripts, programs, model sets, etc. As such, all the poorly optimized games and 0-effort asset flips end up being made in unity (though I've seen some unreal games that make even the most poorly optimized Unity game look good). The result? Even though there are a number of high-quality, highly-regarded games that use unity, it has a reputation for being a shitty engine.

Don't believe me? Keep an eye on Godot or Unreal. If unity sticks to their new license, then it's highly likely that one of those engines will become the new "newbie engine" and gain a reputation for being shitty.