6 ms·

> Their main users are people who build games for phones and indies, with basically zero usage in the AAA space They don't need to convince their already huge

by Jare 5y ago

> Their main users are people who build games for phones and indies, with basically zero usage in the AAA space They don't need to convince their already huge and already convinced core users, so there's not much point in building big tech demos that apply in that space. The aspirational AAA stuff that Unity puts out does 3 things I think: - convince current indies with big dreams that their investment in unity has long legs if they grow larger and more ambitious. - open up to non-gaming gfx tech sectors: broadcast, movies, simulation, etc. - push their engine to its limits so they know where it hurts the most in places that actual users are not pushing. (it has many known rough edges and areas, but Unity users already report these)

sjmm1989 5y ago
This. I'm just starting to play with Unity, but I am playing with it at all because I can essentially learn along the way with them since they are still releasing things that I just don't quite need yet. This may not make sense to some people, but no offense to them... their opinions don't matter. We are the ones using this, not them.
hyperpallium2 5y ago
They compete with UE, so whatever UE does, they must also, for at least the appearance of parroty. But make no mistake: Unity is the reason Unreal suddenly got cheaper and open source a few years back. Both companies read The Innovator's Dilemma and both know WTF they are doing. BTW Will Epic's ludocrisly, mission-distortingly successful Fortnite, like Wrigleys, cause them to become The Fortnite Company? (similarly will Rockstar become the GTAV Company?)
- pvg 5y ago
  They are more or less the Fortnite company. The Fortnite money printer churns out cash directly into the maw of the Epic Store money incinerator. This might turn out to be a great strategy in the long run but either way, they wouldn't be able to pursue it on this scale without Fortnite.
  - unobatbayar 5y ago
    Epic games states that Fortnite has 350 million accounts and 2.5 billion friend connections. It seems like this is the next step of social networking and I'm sure the connections are much more authentic than Facebook's.
    - Shared404 5y ago
      The "metaverse" is already here - and has very little to do with VR. You'll find it on Steam and Epic and other gaming platforms.
    - Aerroon 5y ago
      >It seems like this is the next step of social networking Many years ago I was playing Runescape and a friend quipped that MMOs are basically Myspace with a game attached to it. And I think he was right. MMOs live and die by the network effect. Runescape had 150 million user accounts something like a decade ago, if not even before that. I'm sure World of Warcraft, Lineage 2, and League of Legends had at least comparable numbers. I think if this were the next step of social networking, then it would have already happened. Perhaps it already did? We just call them gaming communities. If that's the case, then video games have created competing social networks that exist at the same time and aren't just being eaten by the biggest one.
    - yywwbbn 5y ago
      I’d assume most connections for most people on FB are with people they actually know in real life. Surely they must be more ‘authentic’ on average?
      - Shared404 5y ago
        Friend of a friend versus person I play games with a couple hours a week? Easy choice as to which is more authentic.
        yywwbbn 5y ago
        I would still expect that most people on FB have a higher number of ‘authentic’ relations there on average than someone who plays Fortnite has in-game. Unless all of your friends/family play it all the time as well. I guess it depends where do you live, though. Where I’m from Messenger is still the most popular messaging platform so most people (unless they have very strong feelings about FB) have an account.
- luhn 5y ago
  *parity. "Equality, as in amount, status, or value." https://www.thefreedictionary.com/parity https://www.thefreedictionary.com/parity
  - muti 5y ago
    Looked like an intentional wordplay parity: Equality, as in amount, status, or value. parrot: One who imitates the words or actions of another, especially without understanding them. Which fits in with the rest of their comment
- peterhalburt33 5y ago
  They will always be the Unreal Tournament company to me. Unreal and Return to Na Pali are still two of my favorite games to this day. Honestly wish someone would make games like those again.
- DeathArrow 5y ago
  Unreal is a game company which also sell their engine. Unity is just in the business of selling their Engine. The difference is Unreal is eating their own dog food.
  - danuker 5y ago
    Unreal getting paid only when a user makes money [1] also compounds the dog-fooding. I believe that is how a company should be run - align your interests directly with the users'. With Unity, the price per seat means only people who leave will send a signal, which will be too late. They are not incentivized to make day-to-day work efficient, which is why there are a million small bugs. [1] - https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/faq https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/faq - "This license is free to use and incurs 5% royalties when you monetize your game or other interactive off-the-shelf product and your lifetime gross revenues from that product exceed $1,000,000 USD."
    - yywwbbn 5y ago
      Licensing their engine is just a side business for Epic and I’d bet on average their not getting anything even close to 5% (all their bigger clients should have custom agreements). But that’s fine for them since they’re making loads of money from Fortnite with much less effort (than you would need to make anything similar from just a game engine). I’m not sure how the overall quality compares, but I’d expect Unity’s users to be way more critical even if it had more bugs just because of all the indie/small developers who’d fall below the 1mil threshold for Unreal but have to pay for Unity.
    - hyperpallium2 5y ago
      I agree $40 per month for Plus (<$200,000 pa sales) seems steep for someone just trying out selling something, discouraging all those young hopefuls.
fendy3002 5y ago
> - open up to non-gaming gfx tech sectors: broadcast, movies, simulation, etc. This is a big one, and I guess will be true in the near future if not already. If their tech is easy / common enough, some sites will benefit greatly from this, such as virtual museum / zoo, better google street view interface, virtual space exploration and physics demonstration for educational purpose, etc.
- hackernewds 5y ago
  They have explicitly stated in earnings calls and their strategy documents that their focus is not only on gaming, but also owning the toolsets of the metaverse
cyber_kinetist 5y ago
These core users (indie developers) aren't "convinced" anymore, they're starting to be skeptical of Unity's management of their engine. Since Unity has failed to fix so many bugs and left too many half-faked features abandoned, they are starting to think Unreal is a much more stable choice in the long term. Gamedevs value engine stability and workflow improvements far more than just shiny graphics and new features, because at the end of the day the most important thing is how you can actually ship a game without problems, not how it would look good in trailers. Also, Unreal has enough money to burn (from Fortnite) to venture off into new spaces. Unity is taking far more of a risk here, since these indie gamedevs are still the main revenue flow (especially considering that Unity sells their engine in a monthly seat-based system rather than a revenue sharing model like Unreal). If these core users move away and investors become skeptical that Unity's going to make money (they're still burning tons of investor money every year without significant revenue), what we're going to see is a total disaster.
- jay_kyburz 5y ago
  I don't know why you are getting down voted, I don't necessarily agree with everything you said, but I thought It least it contributed to the discussion. I'm a full time Unity dev, but have many years of Unreal experience, and we occasionally look at what Unreal is doing now. To be honest, I just don't want to code in Blueprints or go back to C++. If I were building a multiplayer game, or a big open world game, then I might be convinced to give up C#, and go back to Unreal. With regard to management of the engine, I think there have been some less than optimal decisions, (URP vs HDRP, Multplayer, DOTS) but its really a huge project I hate to criticize because I'm not sure I would have done anything differently.
  - rosenjcb 5y ago
    "Coding" in Unity and UE4 simply isn't fun. UE4's C++ macro abomination is bad but I find that 90% of the value in amateur game development is in the art content. Since I'm not an artist, I've simply given up game dev as a hobby.
- ByersReason 5y ago
Fomite 5y ago
We're currently using Unity as part of an epidemic simulator.
ahthat 5y ago
Get them while they’re young
joshspankit 5y ago
> They don't need to convince their already huge and already convinced core users I actually disagree with this on a much broader level: I think that every company should continue to convince their core users. 1. Their core users are always considering alternatives 2. The people using their competitor’s products will see how well you treat your core users and may look at their current company and see the lack of it. It’s like when a company chases new customers by giving discount after discount but never once offering a discount to great long-term customers. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the people who’ve carried your company.

by Jare 5y ago

sjmm1989 5y ago

This. I'm just starting to play with Unity, but I am playing with it at all because I can essentially learn along the way with them since they are still releasing things that I just don't quite need yet. This may not make sense to some people, but no offense to them... their opinions don't matter. We are the ones using this, not them.

hyperpallium2 5y ago

They compete with UE, so whatever UE does, they must also, for at least the appearance of parroty. But make no mistake: Unity is the reason Unreal suddenly got cheaper and open source a few years back. Both companies read The Innovator's Dilemma and both know WTF they are doing. BTW Will Epic's ludocrisly, mission-distortingly successful Fortnite, like Wrigleys, cause them to become The Fortnite Company? (similarly will Rockstar become the GTAV Company?)

pvg 5y ago
They are more or less the Fortnite company. The Fortnite money printer churns out cash directly into the maw of the Epic Store money incinerator. This might turn out to be a great strategy in the long run but either way, they wouldn't be able to pursue it on this scale without Fortnite.
- unobatbayar 5y ago
  Epic games states that Fortnite has 350 million accounts and 2.5 billion friend connections. It seems like this is the next step of social networking and I'm sure the connections are much more authentic than Facebook's.
  - Shared404 5y ago
    The "metaverse" is already here - and has very little to do with VR. You'll find it on Steam and Epic and other gaming platforms.
  - Aerroon 5y ago
    >It seems like this is the next step of social networking Many years ago I was playing Runescape and a friend quipped that MMOs are basically Myspace with a game attached to it. And I think he was right. MMOs live and die by the network effect. Runescape had 150 million user accounts something like a decade ago, if not even before that. I'm sure World of Warcraft, Lineage 2, and League of Legends had at least comparable numbers. I think if this were the next step of social networking, then it would have already happened. Perhaps it already did? We just call them gaming communities. If that's the case, then video games have created competing social networks that exist at the same time and aren't just being eaten by the biggest one.
  - yywwbbn 5y ago
    I’d assume most connections for most people on FB are with people they actually know in real life. Surely they must be more ‘authentic’ on average?
    - Shared404 5y ago
      Friend of a friend versus person I play games with a couple hours a week? Easy choice as to which is more authentic.
      - yywwbbn 5y ago
        I would still expect that most people on FB have a higher number of ‘authentic’ relations there on average than someone who plays Fortnite has in-game. Unless all of your friends/family play it all the time as well. I guess it depends where do you live, though. Where I’m from Messenger is still the most popular messaging platform so most people (unless they have very strong feelings about FB) have an account.
luhn 5y ago
*parity. "Equality, as in amount, status, or value." https://www.thefreedictionary.com/parity https://www.thefreedictionary.com/parity
- muti 5y ago
  Looked like an intentional wordplay parity: Equality, as in amount, status, or value. parrot: One who imitates the words or actions of another, especially without understanding them. Which fits in with the rest of their comment
peterhalburt33 5y ago
They will always be the Unreal Tournament company to me. Unreal and Return to Na Pali are still two of my favorite games to this day. Honestly wish someone would make games like those again.
DeathArrow 5y ago
Unreal is a game company which also sell their engine. Unity is just in the business of selling their Engine. The difference is Unreal is eating their own dog food.
- danuker 5y ago
  Unreal getting paid only when a user makes money [1] also compounds the dog-fooding. I believe that is how a company should be run - align your interests directly with the users'. With Unity, the price per seat means only people who leave will send a signal, which will be too late. They are not incentivized to make day-to-day work efficient, which is why there are a million small bugs. [1] - https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/faq https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/faq - "This license is free to use and incurs 5% royalties when you monetize your game or other interactive off-the-shelf product and your lifetime gross revenues from that product exceed $1,000,000 USD."
  - yywwbbn 5y ago
    Licensing their engine is just a side business for Epic and I’d bet on average their not getting anything even close to 5% (all their bigger clients should have custom agreements). But that’s fine for them since they’re making loads of money from Fortnite with much less effort (than you would need to make anything similar from just a game engine). I’m not sure how the overall quality compares, but I’d expect Unity’s users to be way more critical even if it had more bugs just because of all the indie/small developers who’d fall below the 1mil threshold for Unreal but have to pay for Unity.
  - hyperpallium2 5y ago
    I agree $40 per month for Plus (<$200,000 pa sales) seems steep for someone just trying out selling something, discouraging all those young hopefuls.

fendy3002 5y ago

> - open up to non-gaming gfx tech sectors: broadcast, movies, simulation, etc. This is a big one, and I guess will be true in the near future if not already. If their tech is easy / common enough, some sites will benefit greatly from this, such as virtual museum / zoo, better google street view interface, virtual space exploration and physics demonstration for educational purpose, etc.

hackernewds 5y ago
They have explicitly stated in earnings calls and their strategy documents that their focus is not only on gaming, but also owning the toolsets of the metaverse

cyber_kinetist 5y ago

These core users (indie developers) aren't "convinced" anymore, they're starting to be skeptical of Unity's management of their engine. Since Unity has failed to fix so many bugs and left too many half-faked features abandoned, they are starting to think Unreal is a much more stable choice in the long term. Gamedevs value engine stability and workflow improvements far more than just shiny graphics and new features, because at the end of the day the most important thing is how you can actually ship a game without problems, not how it would look good in trailers. Also, Unreal has enough money to burn (from Fortnite) to venture off into new spaces. Unity is taking far more of a risk here, since these indie gamedevs are still the main revenue flow (especially considering that Unity sells their engine in a monthly seat-based system rather than a revenue sharing model like Unreal). If these core users move away and investors become skeptical that Unity's going to make money (they're still burning tons of investor money every year without significant revenue), what we're going to see is a total disaster.

jay_kyburz 5y ago
I don't know why you are getting down voted, I don't necessarily agree with everything you said, but I thought It least it contributed to the discussion. I'm a full time Unity dev, but have many years of Unreal experience, and we occasionally look at what Unreal is doing now. To be honest, I just don't want to code in Blueprints or go back to C++. If I were building a multiplayer game, or a big open world game, then I might be convinced to give up C#, and go back to Unreal. With regard to management of the engine, I think there have been some less than optimal decisions, (URP vs HDRP, Multplayer, DOTS) but its really a huge project I hate to criticize because I'm not sure I would have done anything differently.
- rosenjcb 5y ago
  "Coding" in Unity and UE4 simply isn't fun. UE4's C++ macro abomination is bad but I find that 90% of the value in amateur game development is in the art content. Since I'm not an artist, I've simply given up game dev as a hobby.
ByersReason 5y ago

Fomite 5y ago

We're currently using Unity as part of an epidemic simulator.

ahthat 5y ago

Get them while they’re young

joshspankit 5y ago

> They don't need to convince their already huge and already convinced core users I actually disagree with this on a much broader level: I think that every company should continue to convince their core users. 1. Their core users are always considering alternatives 2. The people using their competitor’s products will see how well you treat your core users and may look at their current company and see the lack of it. It’s like when a company chases new customers by giving discount after discount but never once offering a discount to great long-term customers. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the people who’ve carried your company.