cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/5555641
Developers of indie puzzle game Orgynizer have claimed that Unity said organisations like Planned Parenthood are “not valid charities” and are instead “political groups.”
In a blog post, the EU-based developer LizardFactory said the plans to charge developers up to $0.20 per install if they reach certain thresholds would cost them “around 30% of the funds we have gathered and already sent to charity.”
As Unity clarified the runtime fee will not apply to charity games, LizardFactory reached out to the company to clarify their game would be exempt from the plan.
However, Unity reportedly said their partners were not “valid charities” and were viewed as “political groups.”
Profits made from the game go directly to non-profit organisation Planned Parenthood and C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, Michigan.
“We did this to raise money for a good cause, not to line the coffers of greedy scumbags,” the developers wrote in a blog post. “We have been solid Unity fanboys for over ten years, but the trust is scattered all over the floor.”
The developers are considering a move to open-source game engine Godot, “but we will have to recode our entire game because we refuse to give you a dime,” they wrote. “This is a mafia-style shakedown, nothing more, nothing less.”
Today, Unity responded to the ongoing backlash and apologised, acknowledging the “confusion and angst” surrounding the runtime fee policy.
The company has promised that changes to the policy will be shared in “a couple of days.”
“Charity” should be a question answered by “do they have a registered charity number?”
What’s considered a charity will differ country by country.
planned parenthood is political yadda yadda yadda, but a children’s hospital?
It’s a registered 501c3. Whatever anybody’s opinions, it’s a legal charity.
Calling PP a political org is too obtuse a message to view this response as a simple mistake or miscommunication. Unity is apparently run by conservative hacks and I hope they collapse.
The anti-Planned Parenthood rhetoric is the political part, not that they’d ever admit it. The children’s hospitals though? That’s new to me, and downright malevolent. Like Texas/Florida levels of evil right there.
Right wing groups in the US made Planned Parenthood a political issue. It doesn’t make it a political organization.
I feel sorry for Unity because I want them to be profitable and all that. However, they have a greedy prick for a CEO and one of the dumbest change rollouts I’ve seen (Twitter has been crazy bad lately too) at this scale. It wipes away any empathy for them and makes you yearn for their collapse.
It’s absolutely not a charity.
Aight, hope they’re ready to lay in their grave now. It’s over.
Idk why anyone trusts peddlers of proprietary bullshit
For real dude it’s really hard to feel bad for 2d game devs when an open source solution has been around for years.
It’s like the whole xitter situation. Why would you want to stay on a platform that so obviously doesn’t want you there? bUt MaStOdOn Is HaRd 🙄 grow up, move on, stop investing in capitalists ideas that only benefit you when it benefits them.
This is victim blaming. These devs already made those games and released them before Unity made these decisions.
I can understand Planned Parenthood maybe, heavily disagree, but whatever.
But a children’s hospital? How could that ever be classed as a “political group”?
What a joke.
Depends what Childrens Hospital it is. Shriners? Sure, that’s a charity. Mayo Clinic - Children’s Wing? Definitely not a charity.
I mean one of them isn’t.
Yeah screw Michigan and it’s awful children.
I mean Planned Parenthood is explicitly NOT a charity. It’s an ineffective Political Action Committee that spent decades bilking donations and wasn’t even able to codify roe v wade. They don’t deserve shit. Hospitals in the US are also explicitly not Charities. They may be non-profits, maybe, but they don’t run on donations, they expect payments from patients for services rendered. There is no world where those examples of the failures of a Capitalist society should be considered a charity.
There’s a PAC of the name but Planned Parenthood proper is a 501©(3).
Except they’re literally a charity.
