Unity is an engine primarily used by mobile app developers; it’s their biggest market. Indie game developers are basically just collateral damage, for this kind of a pricing change.
Mobile apps are all about massive scale (millions of installs) and ungodly amounts of revenue. They’re going after large mobile developers, not small studios. (I’m not saying small studios won’t get affected, I’m saying Unity is focusing on the big dogs - potentially at the cost of pissing off unrelated folk for no financial reason)
The per install costs don’t kick in until you’ve made half a million dollars in revenue, and a certain number of installs.
Also, you literally can’t build these apps with other engines as ad network integrations don’t exist for them. So it’s not like anyone has a choice: it’s Unity demanding to be paid more as they’re the only viable player in the industry.
Makes good business sense, though I think they should increase the revenue point of the free and personal tier to a million as well, just to put the minds of indie devs at ease. No point freaking out unrelated people.
“Good business sense” = they are greedy shits. Fuck them. I wont ever praise any company for cash grabbing. I dont give a fuck if their shareholders get richer.
I would never call such horrifically predatory tactics “good business sense.” It’s abuse of market position and should draw the ire of antitrust regulators, as well as make their product a major business risk for any new projects.
Let’s not forget that Unity recently merged with a malware company, so borderline-illegal predation is their entire business strategy.
Let’s not forget that Unity recently merged with a malware company, so borderline-illegal predation is their entire business strategy.
No, they merged with an *advertising *company - you know, the same companies with which they’re close enough to have plugins for. It’s about business; who you talk to, who you have deals with.
I would never call such horrifically predatory tactics “good business sense.” It’s abuse of market position and should draw the ire of antitrust regulators, as well as make their product a major business risk for any new projects.
It is good business sense. The engine has relatively little value, it’s about what software stacks it integrates with, plus the ease of use for making exports to the two platforms that matter (Android and iOS). There’s a reason Unreal doesn’t even exist in this space, even though it’s technically capable of running on these devices.
Again, this is not the industry you’re thinking of - it’s the mobile industry, which is less about game development and more about having millions in your war-chest (usually from a few VCs) that you can spend on your marketing budget. If you can’t market, you’re dead in the water.
The entire industry is built around ads in games and traditional social media.
Things like this will stop happening if:
A) People become less susceptible to predatory marketing.
B) Another game engine developer decides to undercut Unity while at the same time offering similar platform targets and SDK integrations.
(There’s also a thing to be said about hiring, where all new mobile-game devs learn Unity - as it’s become the de-facto standard for getting a job in this industry. Any new player would need some big names to adopt them first to make a push for people to learn the tools, not hobbyists.)
Barring that nothing will change.
Also, there really aren’t “new” projects in this field - you rarely see scrappy upstarts succeeding in the mobile space, just jaded veterans undercutting their old studios by offering their VCs (or new, hungrier VCs) a bigger cut of the pie. Also, studios with private chefs, massive salaries, and cult-y work spaces that look like adult playgrounds.
@chloyster So if I want to reinstall a game I have to decide if it’s worth making the dev pay more money due to my game reinstall or install on another device? Is that what I’m reading?
The most they’ll have to pay is 20 cents. And that’s only with the 200,000th to 210,000th download for developers who are using the free version of Unity (provided that the developer is also making more then $200k/yr in revenue). After that, the developer will probably get Unity Pro and the download fees will start up at $1 million/yr in revenue and more than 1 million downloads. At that point, I don’t think that the 15 cents to 0.1 cents that will be charged will hurt too badly.
Unless there’s a coordinated effort by a fanbase to install the game over and over again because the game asked you for your preferred pronouns or some nonsense. Or maybe a pirated copy of the game still phones home to Unity and charges the developer. There are a lot of ways this could be problematic.
One Dev have already pointed out that they have a Unity based game due next year they’ve already contracted to game pass, so that’s 20 million odd subs who’ll have access to try the game, where as they didn’t negotiate with MS on the price knowing this clause was coming.
For those on Unity Personal or Unity Plus licenses, the fee will kick in after a project crosses both $200,000 in revenue over 12 months and 200,000 total installs.
It has to cross both the revenue and installs not just not 1.
Yeah, but when they reach that limit, it says it’s gonna cost $0.20 per install. So can I reinstal the game 1 000 000 times to accumulate $200 000 of costs?
Even so, after they hit the limit, if the game costs $20 I can reinstall the game just 100 times so the developer doesn’t get any profit from that sale.
I guess that when they hit it. Reinstalling the game will generate costs so the revenue is now lower than $200 000, so it doesn’t work. But that just means that we can effectively limit the developer to $200 000 revenue.
It’d be some API call regardless, if you can figure it out you don’t even have to actually reinstall it, just call the endpoint correctly. Use a botnet to do it so it’s harder to detect as fake (there are already preexisting solutions for that) and bam, you can probably make at least a dent in their revenue.
Definitely not, they’re huge. They even purchased Weta digital recently (lord of the rings animation company). The’re going nowhere fast. They’re just eeking every little cent they can out of every little crevice of their offerings.
I know bevy and I know that it is certainly far behind Godot. It’s written in Rust though, so that gives it a lot of future potential, compared to Godot especially.
Or, you know, Unreal if you are after making a 3D game. Between that and Godot, I wonder if Unity is just slowly strangling themselves to death? They don’t have much to offer. Perhaps most of what they have is existing tutorials, community and general knowledge of the engine, but if you piss off those people and/or they have to learn something else because you make it harder for them to profit, that could disappear fast.
I love it when companies start hanging up their noose and tying it around their necks. Hopefully they get to the point where they’ll jump from the hill they chose to die on.
Is it another CEO trying to squeeze as much money as possible before abandoning the ship? I mean, from what I read people have already been migrating to Unreal.
That was correct about maybe 5 + years ago. However, particularly the latest 4.x builds, the 3d is top shelf. It won’t beat unreal, but it’s 3d capabilities are better than most people’s ability to use them.
It essentially allows for special closed source builds. These closed source builds can have the engine support for consoles and still be in keeping with Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo’s licenses.
So, basically the console manufacturer gives you the SDK, integration code, etc after you sign their NDAs. After that, you can either use what they gave you to port it yourself to that console, or you can pay someone else for their build.
Hey EU. How about lowering that barrier to entry by pumping a couple of million Euro’s into cold-room reverse engineering the API’s and developing an open source alternative that can be distributed freely.
We’ll invite Sony lawyers, Microsoft lawyers, watch them cope and seethe as their framework is made more open…
…aaaand then realising that a lot more people will take the shot to pay for actual licensing. Go figure.
I’m all for Godot getting better; that said, has Epic, Open3D, or Crytek made similar moves?
(I know Crytek isn’t much of a player currently, but as someone who’s been following them closer in recent years, it really seems like they got their house back in order)
I think epic made their engine more appealing by waiving some Epic Games Store charges for Unreal games. And had a no fee until 1m earnings thing. Not this kind of shit.
I can’t wait to have steam charge me $1 every time I re-download a unity5 game. MS should follow suit and force you to pay $1 a pop for each directx install. Which would actually be more like $80 because it loads every patch and version in order on every install.
Fee per download for a game framework that packaged into the download that they have no part of distributing? I hope this is the most recent example of a successful tech company commiting suicide, it really is the best theme this year.
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All the people here are missing the point.
Unity is an engine primarily used by mobile app developers; it’s their biggest market. Indie game developers are basically just collateral damage, for this kind of a pricing change.
Mobile apps are all about massive scale (millions of installs) and ungodly amounts of revenue. They’re going after large mobile developers, not small studios. (I’m not saying small studios won’t get affected, I’m saying Unity is focusing on the big dogs - potentially at the cost of pissing off unrelated folk for no financial reason)
The per install costs don’t kick in until you’ve made half a million dollars in revenue, and a certain number of installs.
Also, you literally can’t build these apps with other engines as ad network integrations don’t exist for them. So it’s not like anyone has a choice: it’s Unity demanding to be paid more as they’re the only viable player in the industry.
Makes good business sense, though I think they should increase the revenue point of the free and personal tier to a million as well, just to put the minds of indie devs at ease. No point freaking out unrelated people.
Signed: an ex-mobile game developer.
“Good business sense” = they are greedy shits. Fuck them. I wont ever praise any company for cash grabbing. I dont give a fuck if their shareholders get richer.
I would never call such horrifically predatory tactics “good business sense.” It’s abuse of market position and should draw the ire of antitrust regulators, as well as make their product a major business risk for any new projects.
Let’s not forget that Unity recently merged with a malware company, so borderline-illegal predation is their entire business strategy.
No, they merged with an *advertising *company - you know, the same companies with which they’re close enough to have plugins for. It’s about business; who you talk to, who you have deals with.
It is good business sense. The engine has relatively little value, it’s about what software stacks it integrates with, plus the ease of use for making exports to the two platforms that matter (Android and iOS). There’s a reason Unreal doesn’t even exist in this space, even though it’s technically capable of running on these devices.
Again, this is not the industry you’re thinking of - it’s the mobile industry, which is less about game development and more about having millions in your war-chest (usually from a few VCs) that you can spend on your marketing budget. If you can’t market, you’re dead in the water.
The entire industry is built around ads in games and traditional social media.
Things like this will stop happening if:
A) People become less susceptible to predatory marketing.
B) Another game engine developer decides to undercut Unity while at the same time offering similar platform targets and SDK integrations.
(There’s also a thing to be said about hiring, where all new mobile-game devs learn Unity - as it’s become the de-facto standard for getting a job in this industry. Any new player would need some big names to adopt them first to make a push for people to learn the tools, not hobbyists.)
Barring that nothing will change.
Also, there really aren’t “new” projects in this field - you rarely see scrappy upstarts succeeding in the mobile space, just jaded veterans undercutting their old studios by offering their VCs (or new, hungrier VCs) a bigger cut of the pie. Also, studios with private chefs, massive salaries, and cult-y work spaces that look like adult playgrounds.
@chloyster So if I want to reinstall a game I have to decide if it’s worth making the dev pay more money due to my game reinstall or install on another device? Is that what I’m reading?
The most they’ll have to pay is 20 cents. And that’s only with the 200,000th to 210,000th download for developers who are using the free version of Unity (provided that the developer is also making more then $200k/yr in revenue). After that, the developer will probably get Unity Pro and the download fees will start up at $1 million/yr in revenue and more than 1 million downloads. At that point, I don’t think that the 15 cents to 0.1 cents that will be charged will hurt too badly.
Unless there’s a coordinated effort by a fanbase to install the game over and over again because the game asked you for your preferred pronouns or some nonsense. Or maybe a pirated copy of the game still phones home to Unity and charges the developer. There are a lot of ways this could be problematic.
One Dev have already pointed out that they have a Unity based game due next year they’ve already contracted to game pass, so that’s 20 million odd subs who’ll have access to try the game, where as they didn’t negotiate with MS on the price knowing this clause was coming.
I guess good luck to the mid-size developers who take service deals, then.
So, can I buy the game once, then keep reinstalling it over and over to fuck the developer up? That’s dumb.
It has to cross both the revenue and installs not just not 1.
Yeah, but when they reach that limit, it says it’s gonna cost $0.20 per install. So can I reinstal the game 1 000 000 times to accumulate $200 000 of costs?
Even so, after they hit the limit, if the game costs $20 I can reinstall the game just 100 times so the developer doesn’t get any profit from that sale.
I guess that when they hit it. Reinstalling the game will generate costs so the revenue is now lower than $200 000, so it doesn’t work. But that just means that we can effectively limit the developer to $200 000 revenue.
It’d be some API call regardless, if you can figure it out you don’t even have to actually reinstall it, just call the endpoint correctly. Use a botnet to do it so it’s harder to detect as fake (there are already preexisting solutions for that) and bam, you can probably make at least a dent in their revenue.
Why didn’t humanity collaborate on a free and open source game engine already? It works with OS kernels, then why not game engines?
Check out alternativeto.net and filter by open source, it’s really useful
It’s called Godot. It is basically on its path to becoming the Blender of game engines.
In that case, this unity price change may be the company giving up, knowing that they will be eaten by open source soon
Definitely not, they’re huge. They even purchased Weta digital recently (lord of the rings animation company). The’re going nowhere fast. They’re just eeking every little cent they can out of every little crevice of their offerings.
Ironically Blender also has game engine features, though I don’t think anyone ever used it as such.
Godot was already mentioned. Someone on Mastodon brought up the Bevy Engine as well.
I know bevy and I know that it is certainly far behind Godot. It’s written in Rust though, so that gives it a lot of future potential, compared to Godot especially.
Godot?
In addition to the mentioned Godot, Monogame is available as well.
Godot?
It’s like unity is promoting godot engine in a suicidal way.
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Personally I’m still a fan of GameMaker. Pay for the tool, use the tool, pay literally nothing else even if your game is the next Minecraft.
Downside is it’s 2D only, but that’s fine for my preferences.
Or, you know, Unreal if you are after making a 3D game. Between that and Godot, I wonder if Unity is just slowly strangling themselves to death? They don’t have much to offer. Perhaps most of what they have is existing tutorials, community and general knowledge of the engine, but if you piss off those people and/or they have to learn something else because you make it harder for them to profit, that could disappear fast.
I love it when companies start hanging up their noose and tying it around their necks. Hopefully they get to the point where they’ll jump from the hill they chose to die on.
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Talk about rent seeking behavior.
Is it another CEO trying to squeeze as much money as possible before abandoning the ship? I mean, from what I read people have already been migrating to Unreal.
It would stem the migration from Unreal if they just matched their pricing structure and access to the code base underneath.
It’s not even another CEO, it’s the same old: EA’s former CEO John Riccitiello.
I wonder how people expected anything else…
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GoDot say it louder
Isn’t Godot primarily a 2D tool? Is it really a suitable replacement for Unity?
Have you seen Godot’s releases after 4.0? Particularly the SDFGI feature?
It has 3d
Godot’s 3D is perfectly usable in my experience, it’s been a while since I’ve used Unity though so I can’t tell you how they compare.
That was correct about maybe 5 + years ago. However, particularly the latest 4.x builds, the 3d is top shelf. It won’t beat unreal, but it’s 3d capabilities are better than most people’s ability to use them.
Great to hear!
How’s the performance?
Godspeed Godot, fuck every single tech company enshittifying the whole sector to hell.
Godot’s only issue is the lack of console support, but that’s because they can’t get the licenses as an open source project.
The Godot developers created a new business entity that will facilitate porting games to closed platforms.
I was going to say, I know Cassette Beasts released on Switch and it uses the Godot engine, so there’s no way it doesn’t support consoles.
Also, Sonic Colors on Switch used Godot code in violation of the license, whoops.
They support dual licensing for this very reason.
How does that help if there’s no engine support?
It essentially allows for special closed source builds. These closed source builds can have the engine support for consoles and still be in keeping with Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo’s licenses.
I didn’t know that. How do the developers get access to these builds? Are they sold? Or do they need to build it themselves?
So, basically the console manufacturer gives you the SDK, integration code, etc after you sign their NDAs. After that, you can either use what they gave you to port it yourself to that console, or you can pay someone else for their build.
https://docs.godotengine.org/en/3.2/tutorials/platform/consoles.html
This, right here.
Hey EU. How about lowering that barrier to entry by pumping a couple of million Euro’s into cold-room reverse engineering the API’s and developing an open source alternative that can be distributed freely.
We’ll invite Sony lawyers, Microsoft lawyers, watch them cope and seethe as their framework is made more open…
…aaaand then realising that a lot more people will take the shot to pay for actual licensing. Go figure.
I’m all for Godot getting better; that said, has Epic, Open3D, or Crytek made similar moves?
(I know Crytek isn’t much of a player currently, but as someone who’s been following them closer in recent years, it really seems like they got their house back in order)
I think epic made their engine more appealing by waiving some Epic Games Store charges for Unreal games. And had a no fee until 1m earnings thing. Not this kind of shit.
I can’t wait to have steam charge me $1 every time I re-download a unity5 game. MS should follow suit and force you to pay $1 a pop for each directx install. Which would actually be more like $80 because it loads every patch and version in order on every install.
Fee per download for a game framework that packaged into the download that they have no part of distributing? I hope this is the most recent example of a successful tech company commiting suicide, it really is the best theme this year.