Some developers are seriously considering de-listing their games from online shops when the Unity Runtime Fee kicks off at the start of next year, meaning some titles built on Unity could end up being temporarily — or permanently — unavailable. Here's what developers are saying about the Unity Runtime Fee on social media, and what games could be impacted.
Cult of the Lamb did come out and say they weren’t serious about delisting.
Telling people to purchase their game because they’re delisting it, then coming out later and saying, “haha jk” is kind of shitty.
Cult of the Lamb has always been shitposty with their marketing. It would be a little silly to take them seriously immediately and buy on the spot.
That does seem to be their excuse. It crosses a line when they make a call for action that benefits them monetarily and “it’s just a prank, bro” is just deflection for not great behavior, imo.
Nah dude, don’t be so eager to jump on people’s throats like this. They were being sarcastic about a difficult situation that they and many other indie developers might have to deal with, that in January 1st they might be sent a massive bill over a deal that they never agreed with.
If your conclusion here is Cult of the Lamb/Massive Monster/Devolver is being greedy rather than Unity, you are missing the point. Unity is the one actually making it so that the most sensible decision for many smaller developers barely making ends meet will be to delist before January 1st.
Sometimes people become so cynical that they go back around at losing perspective by always assuming the worst out of everything and everyone, that’s not great.
I think you are misunderstanding what I’m saying. I do believe they were just joking around and being sarcastic, I don’t think they were intentionally trying to fleece people for money. But when you’re running a studio and you make a call for action saying “we’re going to pull the game so buy it now!” and just expect people to somehow know you’re kidding, well, that isn’t very responsible or professional. That’s my point. I’m not sure why you’re defending them, here. It’s not the end of the World or anything, but it’s not great behavior, either.
Here we go back around to where I started with. They always been silly with their marketing. They also said they would sacrifice their players and they both have beef and flirted with Angry Birds. Nobody would take that seriously.
A quirky indie studio going “welp, better pack up and leave next year” at the Unity situation just seems par for the course. No reason to jump the gun unless they confirm that later.
I’m defending them because I think you are making too much of an issue out of it.
This, jumping on massive monster is definitely victim blaming. The real massive monster is unity