Unity, You Absolute Morons

[OoOoOoooOOoOoorgle]

https://www.techradar.com/gaming/unitys-plans-to-charge-per-game-install-has-developers-begging-gamers-not-to-download-their-games

Someone in the board meeting went, "Okay guys, how do we make sure that we lose as much trust and market share as possible?"

I might add that since some recent Nintendo titles have been on Unity, this has them picking a fight with a particularly tight-fisted and litigious opponent.

[WhiteKnight77]

isomorphic_projection eredeti hozzászólása:

2 words which don't go well in the same sentence, unity and top games. Unity does not have any top games.

Cities: Skylines is a major game on the Unity engine.

[hypercybermegatron]

miss shapiro eredeti hozzászólása:

this has EA's dirty fingerprints all over it. i believe the unity CEO is a former EA executive.

evil.

CEO decisions driven by shareholders and getting returns for them. Stock price hasn't done well past couple of days, been stagnant for a while anyway. Expect more bad decisions.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/U/

[Табушка]

The funniest (or saddest, if you're a developer who developer any game with Unity) part is where they basically say "yea, we got no way of verifying if a user installed their game on a device multiple times, so we're just gonna charge you for every single install lmao have fun".

Like, they just didn't think of the fact that 4chan trolls exist? Or do they just not know how determined they can be? They will track down someone they don't like just from a single picture that could have been taken anywhere in the world. And now they have the easiest method ever created to quite literally bankrupt any developer they don't like. Cancelling someone has never been easier. Just uninstall and install a game over and over again. You can't make this ♥♥♥♥ up.

But tbh, even if they make it so that devs only get charged for 1 install per device, there would be ways around it, ppl could probably use virtual machines to do so, it's just a flawed idea from the start, and should have never even be proposed, let alone actually be made real.

[kilésengati]

Here's a view on the situation from the corporate media:

https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/unity-discovers-how-real-revenue-struggle-is-2023-09-13/

TL;DR: Oh, poor Unity, struggling with their unethical business practices.

Also, the only competitor worth mentioning is Epic? Journalism!

LMFAO.

UberFiend eredeti hozzászólása:

hypercybermegatron eredeti hozzászólása:

CEO decisions driven by shareholders and getting returns for them. Stock price hasn't done well past couple of days, been stagnant for a while anyway. Expect more bad decisions.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/U/

a high proportion of game CEOs are ex Private Equity; Hedge Fund; Wall Street :profit:

And that's the problem. These people have a numbers fetish. They don't see the people creating and playing the games, they only see numbers. Making money is important, but the videogame industry is no longer about games and community, it's a numbers game only.

The bloke running Unity in particular turned EA from one of the most reputable videogame companies into one of the worst. 'Nuf said.

[ambi]

i wonder if this grubby CEO is colluding with short-sellers on Unity stock. the stock has crashed 80% under his "leadership". it's almost as if it was intentional.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/topstocks/unity-takes-a-big-risk-to-boost-growth-and-profit/ar-AA1gHGxi

Shares of game-engine developer Unity (NYSE: U) have been crushed over the past two years. Since hitting its pandemic-era peak in late 2021, the stock has tumbled a whopping 80%.

[kilésengati]

miss shapiro eredeti hozzászólása:

i wonder if this grubby CEO is colluding with short-sellers on Unity stock. the stock has crashed 80% under his "leadership". it's almost as if it was intentional.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/topstocks/unity-takes-a-big-risk-to-boost-growth-and-profit/ar-AA1gHGxi

Shares of game-engine developer Unity (NYSE: U) have been crushed over the past two years. Since hitting its pandemic-era peak in late 2021, the stock has tumbled a whopping 80%.

Not sure about that, but you should look at EA's stocks under his leadership. xD
There's something to this guy.

[Your_White_Knight]

Tiberius eredeti hozzászólása:

Your_White_Knight eredeti hozzászólása:

So they're going to basically destroy their company to save their company?... not a great plan.

Old Developers are already talking about dropping Unity like a hot rock... new Developers are looking at other Engines with plenty of them out there...

All Unity did was start to burn the bridge they're still standing on, no way back, no way forward.

Some greedy person thought "they can't do without us, we have them were we want them"

And will find out the answer is "no... not so much"

If you're 3billion$ deep in debts, double downing on scummy practice is not that illogical. Besides, scummy practice has brought this industry lots lots of money

I don't know why you think poor money management is "scummy practices" but yes, it didn't happen over night to loose $3 Billion that probably took years of "well we'll make it up next quarter"... to decided in one announcement "Guess what guys now you owe us 5X more then our product is worth or whatever we just randomly decide you owe us..." is like sinking in quicksand until your neck and then decide to pull a pin on a grenade to "blow me out of this mess to somewhere safe Willie E. Coyote / Acme style"

There just isn't logic to it... it's so out of the realm of logic that it's almost where one looks at the calendar to see if it's not April 1st or a SNL skit...

It's just showing that there are companies out there doing such illogical things that one has to wonder who's in charge and how they got there... how does a company get so far out of touch with reality they might destroy ( at least ) 25% of the gaming industry in one move?

https://youtu.be/H1esRJ9taSY

TL;DR

Unity has basically lowered the Unity flag... and raised the Jolly Roger

And

Unity has basically made Indy games impossible... and helped AAA games win more control


Side note:
Most Developers I've seen are now talking about Godot Engine... expect to hear more of it

[Devsman]

Табушка eredeti hozzászólása:

The funniest (or saddest, if you're a developer who developer any game with Unity) part is where they basically say "yea, we got no way of verifying if a user installed their game on a device multiple times, so we're just gonna charge you for every single install lmao have fun".

Like, they just didn't think of the fact that 4chan trolls exist? Or do they just not know how determined they can be? They will track down someone they don't like just from a single picture that could have been taken anywhere in the world. And now they have the easiest method ever created to quite literally bankrupt any developer they don't like. Cancelling someone has never been easier. Just uninstall and install a game over and over again. You can't make this ♥♥♥♥ up.

But tbh, even if they make it so that devs only get charged for 1 install per device, there would be ways around it, ppl could probably use virtual machines to do so, it's just a flawed idea from the start, and should have never even be proposed, let alone actually be made real.

The suits that make these decisions don't know how the Internet works. Hence the Adult Happy Meal that actually happened like a year ago.

[kilésengati]

Your_White_Knight eredeti hozzászólása:

Side note:
Most Developers I've seen are now talking about Godot Engine... expect to hear more of it

And the next thing you remember is Muse Group buying the entire project, implementing a bunch of unnecessary telemetry, while the community just says: Fork it! ;P

[isomorphic_projection]

WhiteKnight77 eredeti hozzászólása:

isomorphic_projection eredeti hozzászólása:

2 words which don't go well in the same sentence, unity and top games. Unity does not have any top games.

Cities: Skylines is a major game on the Unity engine.

i had it on my wishlist untill a year ago, but i removed it after i came to the conclusion that it was a unity game.

[Your_White_Knight]

kilésengati eredeti hozzászólása:

Your_White_Knight eredeti hozzászólása:

Side note:
Most Developers I've seen are now talking about Godot Engine... expect to hear more of it

And the next thing you remember is Muse Group buying the entire project, implementing a bunch of unnecessary telemetry, while the community just says: Fork it! ;P

Anything is possible... I think we've seen that now with Unity... I wouldn't laugh too hard

Just like with any industry the bigger companies are the more they take over other companies... if Unity pulled this and thinks ( hopefully doesn't ) it can get away with it...

Imagine if someone ~really~ big tries it next?... like Unreal Engine... or NVIDIA... or... Steam

Buy a new computer? Pay for your games again to Steam...

Computer crashes? Pay for your games again to Steam...

The ideas that companies can do anything ~even after~ one purchases something digital in order to get unlimited payment requests... the mind boggles...

[ambi]

Predator Alert

Unity CEO John Riccitiello is an alleged sex pest and has been sued to harassment.

Unity Technologies, the multibillion-dollar gaming engine, is facing a lawsuit from its former VP of global talent acquisition, Anne Evans, who accuses CEO John Riccitiello of sexual harassment. The sexual harassment allegedly took many forms — ranging from making sexist jokes to propositioning her and other employees for sex, to making references to his erect penis and saying, “I want to ♥♥♥♥ you. I want to throw you down on the bed and ♥♥♥♥ you.”

https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/08/former-unity-technology-vp-files-lawsuit-alleging-ceo-sexually-harassed-her/

[dumplingsoup]

🍋 Lemonfed 🍋 eredeti hozzászólása:

so when you download a unity game on steam , does the game even call home with unity to download anything ?

they're talking about runtime ... ain't in most case steam is the one actually distributing the games runtimes ?

Correct, the stores (like Steam, App Store, Google Play, etc) will host the game on behalf of the game company. So there isn't a cost to Unity for that. They probably do have some kind of calls though for them to gather metrics on all games that people download & play.

[dumplingsoup]

Chalupabaras eredeti hozzászólása:

dumplingsoup eredeti hozzászólása:

Game-dev here, hope my response is helpful/ insightful for a lot of you.

To respond to a lot of people's comments, Unity built games makes up for like 35-40% of all games made. So there's a pretty high chance one of your top games is built with Unity, and so this game WILL effect you.

A lot of Unity's moves here will effect a lot of smaller games/ game studios (those using Unity Free and Unity Plus). So this move will greatly effect the indie market to develop their games. If they have any success with a small game they built, they'll have to start paying for installations, which when you're a small indie studio, every cent counts. This will also cost successful games more money as well.

Now a lot of you are saying "well, just use Unreal", it's not as easy to switch platforms as one might think. Almost every developer I know uses LOTS of different packages in their game to help with everything from visual assets, any game that uses networking will have some kind of package installed, there's state machines, and more. You'll likely not be able to have all of the same packages going from Unity to Unreal. Last point here is, Unreal uses C++ as their main language while Unity uses C#. It's very easy to go from Unreal/ C++ to Unity/ C#, but the reverse is MUCH harder and requires re-writing a lot of your code.

What does this mean for you gamers? You'll probably see less indie games when this change goes live. Very inexpensive games/ free games will likely start charging more.

Really disappointed with Unity on this move, it was some dumb executive who doesn't really understand the gaming eco-system and saw an easy move to make more money in the short run while hurting the company in the long run (that's a WHOLE other discussion). I hope community backlash makes them re-think this move. As for my team/ studio, we'll be looking at alternatives (like Unreal), because Unity just keeps spiraling out of control.

Last thoughts, I get that Unity needs to make money, you can't run a company without profit. Unity has tried quite a few things in the past to increase revenue but haven't had a lot of luck. There was hope Microsoft might buy them (which depending on how you look at it could've been good/bad). They went public and tried to raise money that way, but their valuation has been a rollercoaster to say the least. I know for a fact Unity has a lot of fat to trim in their organization, and they could likely cut costs by 1/3rd or more by becoming lean again, but they've gotten so big and bureaucratic with a lot of middlemen wanting to take a cut of the pie without really contributing that that'll never happen under current leadership.

Game buyer here, hope my response is helpful and/or insightful to you, Game Developer.

Unity's free subscription version prohibits a dev from selling any games on any platform, at any price. These games are easy to spot, as they come with a intro splash screen that clearly shows the "Made with Unity" logo.

There's been a considerable number of devs who have churned out free-version Unity games on the Steam platform with an actual listing price (usually between $0.49 and $1.99 USD). Many of those games are either unplayable, inoperable, buggy as hell or have run unauthorized programs like cryptominers.

Easy to exploit, easy to install payloads, easy to deploy and easy to make a lot of money on platforms that rubberstamp everything. You can call it what you like, we use the kid-friendly term "shovelware" and it's a much bigger insult than microtransactions and lootboxes.

You tell us to "think of the indies". You tell us to "think of the developers". You tell, tell, tell, but you don't listen to a word we say about how bad the quality of the games are. You're not the ones who have to fix our machines when your games deploy malware. You're not the ones who have to deal with the LACK of indies because the AAA's that produce dumpster fires like Overwatch 2 and Starfield need awards they don't deserve.

If Unity's new policy change is true then those devs should prepare for a tsunami of installs by the Steam community. In terms of payback for all the crap we've had to put up with in silence over the past several years -- like Hearthstone, Bobby Kotick and censorship -- I can't think of a better example of "get woke, go broke."

Do you not think game developers are also gamers?
You're blaming all bad games/ services on the entire developer community. That's a big stretch that I don't think is fair. There's bad actors at work here and that's not okay, does that mean the entire developer community should have to pay a price for that? Steam could do a heck of a lot more when letting games go on their platform. Running more tests on ghost mining, looking into apps that call for system functions and flagging that would be a good place to start. So let's start addressing that where it makes sense.

Back to the Unity problem, there's some big publishers on here that have no problem with Unity adding additional charges, but I know a ton of game developers that have gambled to build a fun idea by quitting their jobs and pouring their life savings into it. To be honest with you, a lot of them fail. And this logic will only make more of them fail faster.

[dumplingsoup]

kilésengati eredeti hozzászólása:

dumplingsoup eredeti hozzászólása:

Game-dev here, hope my response is helpful/ insightful for a lot of you.

To respond to a lot of people's comments, Unity built games makes up for like 35-40% of all games made. So there's a pretty high chance one of your top games is built with Unity, and so this game WILL effect you.

A lot of Unity's moves here will effect a lot of smaller games/ game studios (those using Unity Free and Unity Plus). So this move will greatly effect the indie market to develop their games. If they have any success with a small game they built, they'll have to start paying for installations, which when you're a small indie studio, every cent counts. This will also cost successful games more money as well.

Now a lot of you are saying "well, just use Unreal", it's not as easy to switch platforms as one might think. Almost every developer I know uses LOTS of different packages in their game to help with everything from visual assets, any game that uses networking will have some kind of package installed, there's state machines, and more. You'll likely not be able to have all of the same packages going from Unity to Unreal. Last point here is, Unreal uses C++ as their main language while Unity uses C#. It's very easy to go from Unreal/ C++ to Unity/ C#, but the reverse is MUCH harder and requires re-writing a lot of your code.

What does this mean for you gamers? You'll probably see less indie games when this change goes live. Very inexpensive games/ free games will likely start charging more.

Really disappointed with Unity on this move, it was some dumb executive who doesn't really understand the gaming eco-system and saw an easy move to make more money in the short run while hurting the company in the long run (that's a WHOLE other discussion). I hope community backlash makes them re-think this move. As for my team/ studio, we'll be looking at alternatives (like Unreal), because Unity just keeps spiraling out of control.

Last thoughts, I get that Unity needs to make money, you can't run a company without profit. Unity has tried quite a few things in the past to increase revenue but haven't had a lot of luck. There was hope Microsoft might buy them (which depending on how you look at it could've been good/bad). They went public and tried to raise money that way, but their valuation has been a rollercoaster to say the least. I know for a fact Unity has a lot of fat to trim in their organization, and they could likely cut costs by 1/3rd or more by becoming lean again, but they've gotten so big and bureaucratic with a lot of middlemen wanting to take a cut of the pie without really contributing that that'll never happen under current leadership.

For the sake of themselves and gaming as a whole, I hope game devs will manage to switch to FOSS engines like Godot ("indie" engine) and O3DE (CryEngine-based AAA engine) eventually. Nobody claims its easy, but it might be necessary to escape these engine dev tyrants. The worst thing that could happen with those FOSS engines is engine devs no longer publishing them under a FOSS licence, which wouldn't affect already existing games at all and surely would lead to fork waves.
According to their own numbers, Godot games already makes up ~20% of game jam entries, with the rest probably mostly Unity. O3DE is managed by the Linux Foundation and receives massive funding from the industry.
But I think it's the same issue as with Adobe in the media design world. Everybody complaining Adobe being a tyrant, but barely anyone dares to switch to FOSS alternatives, or even just those that offer perpetual licencing, instead paying out of their arse just to keep around the evil they know.

Man, I sure love these media firms that require even interns to know Adobe software, despite it simply being too bloody expensive for anyone that isn't making money through it. I even heard some say: "Just pirate it then!" Mate, I wouldn't even pirate Adobe software.

Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at 🃏 eredeti hozzászólása:

Every time I recommended Godot to anyone on the forums who said they wanted to know how to make a game, the volunteer moderators would just delete the topic.

lolwut? Why though?

Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at 🃏 eredeti hozzászólása:

I already looked this up yesterday :
https://www.google.com/search?q=Godot+export+options
This reddit topic was the most succinct and informative :
https://www.reddit.com/r/godot/comments/fhcqg7/can_i_export_godot_games_to_console_like_nintendo/
...but to summarize further, you can plug in the SDK that any console company provides you after you sign an NDA with them (which you'd have to do anyways even if a game-engine advertises native support), then you can export to any mainstream console with Godot.

Apparently at most it requires you take a couple extra steps, but chances are, you would have had to take those steps with the other engines anyways.

Absolutely proprietary! :installgen2::installgen2::installgen2:

Jokes aside, good to hear that, I guess. Shame though console manufacturers are so close-fisted about their SDKs. Signing NDAs is quite a restriction on life even.

I know a lot of studios are looking into this :)