It seems there is some legal challenges on its way (heard a game dev "suggesting" it, and another person showing some shabby stuff from unity in its TOU).
But this is not limited to unity, but all game engines/game libraries, because if those "indies" stay "hurt enough" and unity gets away with it, ALL other game engines/game libraries will be able to do the same (aka risks will be too high to use them, unless you are Big).
Some "hurt" and motivated enough game devs will probably move to open source game engines, but this is no magic, those engines are said to be still quite inferior to the big proprietary ones ("not ready"), and they have their own issues.
Since the fee will no longer be applied retroactively (only if you update to the 2024 version) I don’t really see how could anyone challenge this in court.
But this is not limited to unity, but all game engines/game libraries, because if those "indies" stay "hurt enough" and unity gets away with it, ALL other game engines/game libraries will be able to do the same (aka risks will be too high to use them, unless you are Big).
Some "hurt" and motivated enough game devs will probably move to open source game engines, but this is no magic, those engines are said to be still quite inferior to the big proprietary ones ("not ready"), and they have their own issues.