What about unity new pricing model ?

[Darkminista]

hey,

i saw Empyrion was developped on Unity, do you guys saw what Unity chosed to do in the future ?!
I dont know what will happen, but it looks really bad !

https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/12/23870547/unit-price-change-game-development


if they ask Empyrion to pay tons of money, they will kill the game...


i hope they will stop that madness...

[Docsprock]

I think every developer needs to drop Unity like a hot potato.

[Darkminista]

yeah, but re-creating a game on an other game engine is really painfull :c

[Encryption]

Unity is the reason we never had a great motorcycle here. Unity always had this "jank" feeling with entity movements.

I said this over on 7dtd forums and I will say it here too. With the recent updates to UE5 maybe the devs might consider talking to Epic Games about a custom license that would come with premium support to help the devs transition from Unity to Unreal. Maybe then we can finally get some decent wheeled vehicles and much better animations over all. Maybe even bigger planets with the large world coordinate system it has now.

[TwitchyJ]

Answered yesterday by a dev on the official forums.
Obviously it's too early to tell right now, but they don't see it affecting them at all.

With all the years this game has been available, all combined, i think they still wouldn't have hit any of the thresholds yet. So they should be in the clear.

https://empyriononline.com/threads/latest-jerk-move-from-unity.101951/#post-464157

[Darkminista]

oh, i see

let's see how it's going then..

[`KokoJacK_^]

Originally posted by Encryption:

Unity is the reason we never had a great motorcycle here. Unity always had this "jank" feeling with entity movements.

I said this over on 7dtd forums and I will say it here too. With the recent updates to UE5 maybe the devs might consider talking to Epic Games about a custom license that would come with premium support to help the devs transition from Unity to Unreal. Maybe then we can finally get some decent wheeled vehicles and much better animations over all. Maybe even bigger planets with the large world coordinate system it has now.

Switching from Unity to Unreal is not an easy task. The workflow is very different and it would require learning C++, since Unity is C#. Also, Unreal has quite a few drawback from Unity, especially system requirements and less flexibility

[Amrak]

I see the Unity new fees hurting Indie devs that come out in EA for the extra funding through sales. Sounds like Unity is wanting developers to discontinue EA and only sell finished games. Would also effect demos. Having to pay Unity for trying to show your game through a demo to potential customers is a bad move on Unity. Hopefully this will backfire on them. I did see that they are even going to charge for sales/installs after Jan. 1. Again a bad move. They wait 9 months to do this then bill for 9 months of installs? Just wrong and bad business.

[TwitchyJ]

Originally posted by Amrak:

Hopefully this will backfire on them.

It already has and they know it, which is why they are already backpedaling on some of the things they originally said.
However, even if they completely do away with ALL these changes and revert back to the status quo we had, the damage is already done now.

The INSTANT they made that announcement, without a single time informing anyone that changes were coming down the line, they instantly ruined any trust devs can have in them in the future.

The fact that they were also going to apply this to ALL existing games built on Unity retroactively, meant that anyone could suddenly be hit with with a giant bill for an old already existing game.

Changing the terms of a deal after the fact, and then retroactively applying that change to ALL existing and already completed projects, yeah almost nobody in the industry is going to trust them going forward.
Again, at this point it doesn't matter if they 100% remove all the planned changes. That trust is gone now.......

You are going to see a lot more studios building their own dedicated game engines now going forward for sure. That way they know they can't be hit with giant bills years after the deal was made.

[Warlords Welt]

a german news

https://www.xboxdynasty.de/news/unity/ceo-john-riccitiello-verkaufte-bereits-anteile/

translate with deepl:

Even before the announcement of Unity Engine's new payment model, executives were selling their shares.

Just recently, Marc Whitten, president of Unity Create, announced his new payment model for Unity Engine. The company's CEO,John Riccitiello, is now also caught in the crosshairs of the outcry.

As can be clearly seen, the CEO sold his shares in Unity Create back on September 6, barely a week before the announcement of the engine's new subscription model.

Likewise, David Helgason, also CEO of the company, sold his shares on that day. The assumption is obvious that insider trading is being carried out here, which is punishable by law and highly punishable. However, this is pure speculation at this point in time.

After the announcement of the new monetization, however, it can be assumed that the company's share price will drop extremely, since more and more studios will reject the cooperation and some will even delete their games because of it.

Devolver Digital already announced via Cult of the Lamb's official X channel that their game will no longer be available from January 1, 2024.

[Kino]

Very interesting, lists many problems that can arise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQSDsjJAics

i hope the developers will find a way!

[Begebum]

It's absolutely horrible what J.R. as Unity CEO organized here and what the board waved through in an almost brainless manner!
For the professional sector, this madness means at least a stomping of the Unity engine in the near future.
It is absolutely unfortunate how a well-functioning philosophy can be destroyed in a single blow.

#1 Because of the associated uncertainties, software developers cannot create a reasonable risk assessment or proper cost calculation for projects.
Even a first-year accountant knows that investors need planning certainty. Why should a developer invest time and money in this engine if Unity ends up lining other people's pockets?
The developer/distributor is supposed to pay up to 20 cents per installation of a prog if the Unity engine was used - ridiculous!
It is still completely unclear what counts as a 'billable' installation and how the Unity runtime is supposed to call home to provide the necessary information.

#2 Trust! After this insane step, the trust in this wonderful engine has been significantly destroyed!
Even if the completely ill-conceived TOS are withdrawn (IMO Unity's only change), the damage remains.
Professionals will at best treat Unity with a pinch of pliers, because not only do they have to live with an incalculable financial risk, they also have to expect to receive suddenly changed and retroactive terms and conditions.

In my opinion, the reason for this is one thing above all else: GREED!
Unity should never have become a publicly traded company...

[TwitchyJ]

This isn't just turning into an issue for the developers either.
This is an issue for the gamers themselves as well, and going forward some will be less likely to even want to purchase games built on Unity.

Think about it.
When Unity retracted and clarified some things they claimed they will be able to tell legitimate installs from illegitimate, they will know a first install from a subsequent install even if 100% of everything was scrubbed, etc, etc.
There is a lot more snooping and prodding of our systems being done by Unity than some may have realized, or at least there will be after these changes are made live.

I'm not personally a doom and gloom person on this just yet.
I'm just pointing out that this is just another layer of trust issues they may have created here.

Not only will certain developers avoid Unity going forward, some gamers will as well.

[Maya]

Originally posted by `KokoJacK_^:

Originally posted by Encryption:

Unity is the reason we never had a great motorcycle here. Unity always had this "jank" feeling with entity movements.

I said this over on 7dtd forums and I will say it here too. With the recent updates to UE5 maybe the devs might consider talking to Epic Games about a custom license that would come with premium support to help the devs transition from Unity to Unreal. Maybe then we can finally get some decent wheeled vehicles and much better animations over all. Maybe even bigger planets with the large world coordinate system it has now.

Switching from Unity to Unreal is not an easy task. The workflow is very different and it would require learning C++, since Unity is C#. Also, Unreal has quite a few drawback from Unity, especially system requirements and less flexibility

I won't pretend that I'm an expert on the matter, so I'm trying to understand from what I read and heard on Youtube, and from what you say, that developers who had used Unity for several years are stuck.
What I don't understand is what agreement is written previously determined that Unity can follow through on its decision.
I guess popular games like "Call of Duty" and "7DTD", "Pokémon" if they sold 200,000 copies have to pay a lot of money, even for previous years.
Sadly, it seems that Indie developers have no choice but to introduce DLC and microtransactions.
Just like big billion-dollar gaming companies are doing these days.
These indie small companies that create great games, without DLC and microtransactions, are often better than their AAA games, which I guess is competition that raises the game standard.
It wouldn't surprise me if Unity succeeds , then every other game engine will do the same.

[Amrak]

Originally posted by TwitchyJ:

This isn't just turning into an issue for the developers either.
This is an issue for the gamers themselves as well, and going forward some will be less likely to even want to purchase games built on Unity.

Think about it.
When Unity retracted and clarified some things they claimed they will be able to tell legitimate installs from illegitimate, they will know a first install from a subsequent install even if 100% of everything was scrubbed, etc, etc.
There is a lot more snooping and prodding of our systems being done by Unity than some may have realized, or at least there will be after these changes are made live.

I'm not personally a doom and gloom person on this just yet.
I'm just pointing out that this is just another layer of trust issues they may have created here.

Not only will certain developers avoid Unity going forward, some gamers will as well.

I agree! Invasiveness of EOS/Epicgames is why I avoid them. Now with Unity stating they will know means deeper snooping,, oh wait it is called gaming analytics,,, snooping.
I personally do not uninstall/reinstall any game. I know there are many that do, but you should not unless you can not get it to work at all. Even then look over your PC specs.
From what I read, is Unity going to charge for every reinstall? That is just asinine!

I think the most that will be hurt is the indie dev that puts out Demos to help promote their games. Because they are small they fall in the .20 cents a pop range, if I read that right. So all those Demos that has come out since Jan, 1 will be charged and the demo is free for a game that has not came out in EA yet. It will hurt devs and customer alike. How does a dev estimate how many times a game will be downloaded then carry that to the customers in the price. Prices are going up as is making the buyer more conscientious of what they buy. Now it will get worse.

What happens if Unity goes broke and closes down?

[prophesied]

All the more reason to start branching out, rely on resilience through diversity.
In the process of copying the source and attempting to bring it into another engine to fix the physics, you would escape the downfall of an engine that has sold out and might go the way of the dodo.