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There's just no way this change is actually gonna happen. Many prominent indie developers have already announced they'll be switching away from Unity for future

by TillE 3y ago

There's just no way this change is actually gonna happen. Many prominent indie developers have already announced they'll be switching away from Unity for future projects, and you have to think that larger studios are drawing the same conclusions. The ship is sinking. Unity will retract this. Switch to revenue share or whatever. They'll eat a huge loss of trust because of this idiocy, but they'll remain a relevant game engine. I just can't see any other scenario.

mholm 3y ago
> but they'll remain a relevant game engine For a little while. The problem is that Unity is a public company, merged with a malware company, and (currently) headed by somebody with no understanding of their own customers. But nobody looking to make games right now is going to start using Unity. Many indie developers are going to transition off, and the major players who still use it are likely going to find that Unity is going to start squeezing them to keep any semblance of profitability. Maybe big games like Genshin/Cities Skylines/Pokemon Go stick with it, but Unity doesn't survive that transition.
- CactusOnFire 3y ago
  I'm not a gamedev, but I am hoping one of the actionable things from this situation is a call to action from the gaming community to put together more open-source game engine platforms, and for them to be more easily sharable. I am sure there are reasons this is difficult, but with so many industries built on open-source compliant tools, gamedev feels like a no-brainer for it as well.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    Unreal is virtually open-source anyway, it doesn't make any sense for anyone to invest the billions of dollars you need to even come close to it.
    - User23 3y ago
      And so far as I’m aware Epic is pretty dev friendly.
Cpoll 3y ago
> they'll remain a relevant game engine I think "loss of trust" is understating it. This is an existential threat for lots of studios, and I can't imagine them placing future bets on the platform.
- gabereiser 3y ago
  This is exactly what’s happening. Studios’ strategies are moving off of Unity. None of the ones I know are going to do any further development in the engine on any future projects. One studio is rewriting their game right now to run on Godot. It’s been the biggest exodus I’ve ever seen.
WillPostForFood 3y ago
Revenue share is going to be worse for most indie developers - the .20 install fee is only bad for extremely high volume, low ARPU games. Basically mobile F2P. They deserve a different payment option, but switching everyone to revenue share is would be much worse for a typical Steam, $5+ indie game.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- deciplex 3y ago
  At least with revenue share the amount you owe is bounded by the revenue you've realized from sales.
  - WillPostForFood 3y ago
    If we are being real, and not assuming abuse, at ~$5 or up, you are going to be better off at .20 install than 5% of revenue.
    - dahdum 3y ago
      $0.20 is the minimum, you pay for every device they install on every time. Anytime they offload and reinstall, you pay again. Every additional device, upgrade, or replacement, you pay again. You’ll also pay then current rates, whatever Unity decides those are. No abuse needed to lose money with this, I’ve probably installed the same games 20+ times over the years.
      - thowfaraway 3y ago
        That's not what Unity is saying - they are saying reinstalls do not count. From their faq: Does a reinstall of an app on the same device count towards the Unity Runtime Fee? No, we are not going to charge a fee for reinstalls. https://unity.com/pricing-updates https://unity.com/pricing-updates
syntheweave 3y ago
They've gotten commodified. It's going to be like being Oracle in a Postgre/MySQL world. You'll have some big legacy customers who just can't switch. But the market as a whole was primed to pack up and leave anyway. Gamedev has high turnover, and what the new kids are going to gravitate towards is what works immediately for them, which Godot superseded Unity on out-of-the-box experiences a long while back, and now has the tutorial content to accompany it. What Unity has in its favor is mostly in the Asset Store, but that's shifted towards being a commodity as well.
- grotorea 3y ago
  I wonder what they are thinking in making this move then. Someone mentioned Genshin as the big legacy customer and someone answered on why it doesn't make sense. So why do they think this is a good move? Is there really enough profit to be made off legacy customers?
  - paulmd 3y ago
    The license pre-October 2022 actually explicitly allows you to continue using older versions of the software under the original licensing terms when you released back then. So there is no money in legacy customers, except Genshin-scale ones. And I doubt those guys are paying up anyway.
    - grotorea 3y ago
      That's even weirder then. Is it like when Blizzard decided they wished they had owned DotA money and enforced new ownership rules for mods for their new games but ended up just getting bad press?
rodgerd 3y ago
> There's just no way this change is actually gonna happen. You under-estimate the degree to which companies can be driven by an exec determined to have their way.

by TillE 3y ago

mholm 3y ago

> but they'll remain a relevant game engine For a little while. The problem is that Unity is a public company, merged with a malware company, and (currently) headed by somebody with no understanding of their own customers. But nobody looking to make games right now is going to start using Unity. Many indie developers are going to transition off, and the major players who still use it are likely going to find that Unity is going to start squeezing them to keep any semblance of profitability. Maybe big games like Genshin/Cities Skylines/Pokemon Go stick with it, but Unity doesn't survive that transition.

CactusOnFire 3y ago
I'm not a gamedev, but I am hoping one of the actionable things from this situation is a call to action from the gaming community to put together more open-source game engine platforms, and for them to be more easily sharable. I am sure there are reasons this is difficult, but with so many industries built on open-source compliant tools, gamedev feels like a no-brainer for it as well.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  Unreal is virtually open-source anyway, it doesn't make any sense for anyone to invest the billions of dollars you need to even come close to it.
  - User23 3y ago
    And so far as I’m aware Epic is pretty dev friendly.

Cpoll 3y ago

> they'll remain a relevant game engine I think "loss of trust" is understating it. This is an existential threat for lots of studios, and I can't imagine them placing future bets on the platform.

gabereiser 3y ago
This is exactly what’s happening. Studios’ strategies are moving off of Unity. None of the ones I know are going to do any further development in the engine on any future projects. One studio is rewriting their game right now to run on Godot. It’s been the biggest exodus I’ve ever seen.

WillPostForFood 3y ago

Revenue share is going to be worse for most indie developers - the .20 install fee is only bad for extremely high volume, low ARPU games. Basically mobile F2P. They deserve a different payment option, but switching everyone to revenue share is would be much worse for a typical Steam, $5+ indie game.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deciplex 3y ago
At least with revenue share the amount you owe is bounded by the revenue you've realized from sales.
- WillPostForFood 3y ago
  If we are being real, and not assuming abuse, at ~$5 or up, you are going to be better off at .20 install than 5% of revenue.
  - dahdum 3y ago
    $0.20 is the minimum, you pay for every device they install on every time. Anytime they offload and reinstall, you pay again. Every additional device, upgrade, or replacement, you pay again. You’ll also pay then current rates, whatever Unity decides those are. No abuse needed to lose money with this, I’ve probably installed the same games 20+ times over the years.
    - thowfaraway 3y ago
      That's not what Unity is saying - they are saying reinstalls do not count. From their faq: Does a reinstall of an app on the same device count towards the Unity Runtime Fee? No, we are not going to charge a fee for reinstalls. https://unity.com/pricing-updates https://unity.com/pricing-updates

syntheweave 3y ago

They've gotten commodified. It's going to be like being Oracle in a Postgre/MySQL world. You'll have some big legacy customers who just can't switch. But the market as a whole was primed to pack up and leave anyway. Gamedev has high turnover, and what the new kids are going to gravitate towards is what works immediately for them, which Godot superseded Unity on out-of-the-box experiences a long while back, and now has the tutorial content to accompany it. What Unity has in its favor is mostly in the Asset Store, but that's shifted towards being a commodity as well.

grotorea 3y ago
I wonder what they are thinking in making this move then. Someone mentioned Genshin as the big legacy customer and someone answered on why it doesn't make sense. So why do they think this is a good move? Is there really enough profit to be made off legacy customers?
- paulmd 3y ago
  The license pre-October 2022 actually explicitly allows you to continue using older versions of the software under the original licensing terms when you released back then. So there is no money in legacy customers, except Genshin-scale ones. And I doubt those guys are paying up anyway.
  - grotorea 3y ago
    That's even weirder then. Is it like when Blizzard decided they wished they had owned DotA money and enforced new ownership rules for mods for their new games but ended up just getting bad press?

rodgerd 3y ago

> There's just no way this change is actually gonna happen. You under-estimate the degree to which companies can be driven by an exec determined to have their way.