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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 t

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
It's been my opinion for a while that the $150/mo seat fee, from not all of their users, isn't covering their burn rate, and that they are loosing market share in money marking projects to Unreal. Ideally they would like proper percentages, but since they lack a compelling advantage, they must price lower relative to Unreal. Feel free to prove me wrong with actual numbers (but: 1800 employees in SF ...) @ av, 200k/employee, I make that 360m/yr just on salary :) So, anyhow, I completely agree with this post. And, looking for cashflow and better rendering tech, they buy Weta .... maybe they will pull this off .. but maybe not, also.
- MattRix 5y ago
  I don’t disagree with your post, but it’s worth noting that most of Unity’s revenue comes from Unity Ads and their other services. Software licenses/subscriptions is only a quarter of their revenue.
  - jay_kyburz 5y ago
    The are really going in on all peripherals. Ads, Analytics, Assets, Multiplayer, even Source Control, Build Machines etc etc. It's all terrible right now but they will get there.
- psykotic 5y ago
  Their financials are accessible now that they're a publicly traded company. https://investors.unity.com/news/news-details/2022/Unity-Announces-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2021-Financial-Results/default.aspx https://investors.unity.com/news/news-details/2022/Unity-Ann...
  - silverlyra 5y ago
    > The 2021 full-year GAAP results were impacted by […] a charge of $49.8 million related to the termination of a lease agreement. oof
linspace 5y ago
I'm not a game dev and wanted to have a look at Unity so take my opinion for what it is but when I installed Unity the first thing I wanted was to change the size of the tiny fonts of the IDE in my 4k monitor. Well, it seems you cannot change the fonts. My mind exploded.
- heeen2 5y ago
  on linux: GDK_SCALE=2 GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.5 ~/Unity/Hub/Editor/2020.3.25f1/Editor/Unity
  - linspace 5y ago
    Nice, it works! I knew you could configure scaling system wide but I didn't know you could configure per-application through environment variables.
- glenneroo 5y ago
  Since 2019.3 (at least) under Edit > Preferences > UI Scaling exists to let you adjust icon/text scaling. It defaults to using your desktop scaling settings.
fxtentacle 5y ago
I believe Unity's management is correct here. To venture into new territory is crucial. The revenue from mobile apps is quickly drying up now that we are getting stronger anti-gambling laws. Because let's be honest, mobile games make money by hooking rich gambling addicts. That's why the industry calls them "Chinese Whales" and the "99.9%-ers" who are allowed to play for free so that the actual customers have enemies to crush with their pay-to-win items. That said, I have a very low expectation of Unity-the-company to pull this off successfully.
- Jare 5y ago
  > The revenue from mobile apps is quickly drying up now that we are getting stronger anti-gambling laws Care to elaborate? As in, what sort of legislation is coming up widespread across countries that would harm the revenues of, say, Candy Crush?
  - fxtentacle 5y ago
    "Gaming loot boxes: What happened when Belgium banned them?" https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-49674333 https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-49674333 "Loot boxes 'link to problem gambling'" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-46295317 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-46295317 "Number of child gamblers quadruples in just two years" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46286945 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46286945 "Could Candy Crush Saga be a gateway to gambling?" https://www.smh.com.au/technology/could-candy-crush-saga-be-a-gateway-to-gambling-20140424-zqyj7.html https://www.smh.com.au/technology/could-candy-crush-saga-be-... "How ‘Near-misses’ in Candy Crush Increase Frustration, and the Urge to Continue Gameplay" [..] "some players can, and do spend more than they can afford on these games (Lloyd 2016)." [..] "Tellingly, Candy Crush players often specifically liken Candy Crush to slot machine play to convey its appeal" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5445157/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5445157/

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

It's been my opinion for a while that the $150/mo seat fee, from not all of their users, isn't covering their burn rate, and that they are loosing market share in money marking projects to Unreal. Ideally they would like proper percentages, but since they lack a compelling advantage, they must price lower relative to Unreal. Feel free to prove me wrong with actual numbers (but: 1800 employees in SF ...) @ av, 200k/employee, I make that 360m/yr just on salary :) So, anyhow, I completely agree with this post. And, looking for cashflow and better rendering tech, they buy Weta .... maybe they will pull this off .. but maybe not, also.

MattRix 5y ago
I don’t disagree with your post, but it’s worth noting that most of Unity’s revenue comes from Unity Ads and their other services. Software licenses/subscriptions is only a quarter of their revenue.
- jay_kyburz 5y ago
  The are really going in on all peripherals. Ads, Analytics, Assets, Multiplayer, even Source Control, Build Machines etc etc. It's all terrible right now but they will get there.
psykotic 5y ago
Their financials are accessible now that they're a publicly traded company. https://investors.unity.com/news/news-details/2022/Unity-Announces-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2021-Financial-Results/default.aspx https://investors.unity.com/news/news-details/2022/Unity-Ann...
- silverlyra 5y ago
  > The 2021 full-year GAAP results were impacted by […] a charge of $49.8 million related to the termination of a lease agreement. oof

linspace 5y ago

I'm not a game dev and wanted to have a look at Unity so take my opinion for what it is but when I installed Unity the first thing I wanted was to change the size of the tiny fonts of the IDE in my 4k monitor. Well, it seems you cannot change the fonts. My mind exploded.

heeen2 5y ago
on linux: GDK_SCALE=2 GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.5 ~/Unity/Hub/Editor/2020.3.25f1/Editor/Unity
- linspace 5y ago
  Nice, it works! I knew you could configure scaling system wide but I didn't know you could configure per-application through environment variables.
glenneroo 5y ago
Since 2019.3 (at least) under Edit > Preferences > UI Scaling exists to let you adjust icon/text scaling. It defaults to using your desktop scaling settings.

fxtentacle 5y ago

I believe Unity's management is correct here. To venture into new territory is crucial. The revenue from mobile apps is quickly drying up now that we are getting stronger anti-gambling laws. Because let's be honest, mobile games make money by hooking rich gambling addicts. That's why the industry calls them "Chinese Whales" and the "99.9%-ers" who are allowed to play for free so that the actual customers have enemies to crush with their pay-to-win items. That said, I have a very low expectation of Unity-the-company to pull this off successfully.

Jare 5y ago
> The revenue from mobile apps is quickly drying up now that we are getting stronger anti-gambling laws Care to elaborate? As in, what sort of legislation is coming up widespread across countries that would harm the revenues of, say, Candy Crush?
- fxtentacle 5y ago
  "Gaming loot boxes: What happened when Belgium banned them?" https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-49674333 https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-49674333 "Loot boxes 'link to problem gambling'" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-46295317 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-46295317 "Number of child gamblers quadruples in just two years" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46286945 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46286945 "Could Candy Crush Saga be a gateway to gambling?" https://www.smh.com.au/technology/could-candy-crush-saga-be-a-gateway-to-gambling-20140424-zqyj7.html https://www.smh.com.au/technology/could-candy-crush-saga-be-... "How ‘Near-misses’ in Candy Crush Increase Frustration, and the Urge to Continue Gameplay" [..] "some players can, and do spend more than they can afford on these games (Lloyd 2016)." [..] "Tellingly, Candy Crush players often specifically liken Candy Crush to slot machine play to convey its appeal" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5445157/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5445157/