3 ms·

I don’t think VC-backed engines can avoid enshittification. Unity is really demonstrating that now. OSS is the only way.

hesdeadjim 3y ago
Depends on who the backers are I guess. Perhaps not the classic kind — like say, convince MS, Apple, and Sony to pony up $10mm each. It’s a good play for them to not be caught in this Unity fiasco and $10mm is a rounding error.
- qwytw 3y ago
  > $10mm is a rounding error And you wont manage to achieve anything with that. Maybe Unity could spinoff its ad business (together with some major liabilities like Ricitelo and other execs) and then MS could buy the engine part.
  - hesdeadjim 3y ago
    $10mm each. $30mm backing and you could get a pretty solid tech base to build a game on. Especially since there are some great new libs out there for things like physics. The Horizon Zero Dawn lead programmer has an OSS MIT engine that is very advanced and less bloated than PhysX.
    - qwytw 3y ago
      > $30mm backing Realistically that would still only be enough to get something you can make a cool looking demo and that only run on desktop. Building a general purpose engine that is suitable for many different workflows and run on pretty much every singe platform like Unity is very trick and takes a lot of time (and trial an error). Dev UX, APIs, platform integration, QA, all the third party packages and infrastructure are much harder to solve than shiny graphics or advanced physics. Whatever you come up with that $30mm is only likely to cover a small subset of use cases.
      - hesdeadjim 3y ago
        v1 you would not attempt to be the be-all-end-all. Target iOS and Android since those are core Unity markets and throw on PC+Switch as the secondaries. $30mm is more than enough when you ditch legacy stuff like anything that isn't a Vulkan/DX11/Metal renderer.
        qwytw 3y ago
        > $30mm is more than enough With the right team it might. Realistically they'd just under promise and undeliver (or not deliver at all). > stuff like anything that isn't a Vulkan/DX11/Metal renderer. That's also not the complicated part.
- mr_tombuben 3y ago
  Traditional VC companies wouldn't work because they'll always enshittify. Even on consumer space, you can see enshittification from MS, Sony and Apple. I really don't see a reason why the companies you listed would need that 2% royalty at all honestly. They already get the 30% from the sales themselves, and could very well financially support the existence of an OSS game engine with no extra royalties. Sony and MS already develop the Unity and Unreal integration for their platforms without charging extra royalties. The devs using the OSS engine also wouldn't be stopped from spending resources on making the engine better for their uses (and in turn, making it also better for everyone), similarly how it works with Linux.
lordfrito 3y ago
Yeah it seems like enshitification during the long tail is the point of the VC model across all industries. Give product away for free, figure out how to screw the install base later on. Can't blame the VCs for trying this model, but they've played society for suckers. We let them get away with this for too long, becoming dependent on their "free" offerings. At this point I'd be willing to get rid of my free stuff altogether and pay a subscription for products I like/use as it would incentivize the companies to add features that benefit me. For example, search on the web is dying. I would absolutely pay money to replace Google with a search engine I trust and that works for me.
- delusional 3y ago
  Try kagi.com. I'm a very happy customer myself.
  - phmqk76 3y ago
    Maybe I’m an outlier, but I blow right past their limits on any reasonably-priced tier. I use my search bar for all sorts of inquiries, serious and frivolous, including basic addition and subtraction. I tried it for a month and found that my usage far exceeded what I was willing to pay, which was about $10 a month. If they can get the costs down, I’d happily subscribe, I think the results were very good. Google’s results have become terrible over the years, it’s hard to fathom how it’s still their cash cow when the product is practically unusable.
    - lordfrito 3y ago
      Search is dying. The quality of search I mean, which doesn't bode well as civilization pretty much runs based on our ability to search the web for commercial/ government / political work. It's a problem. Whoever control search will control what we see hear and read. Dangerous times. Hoping that somebody can build a subscription search that works and returns real competitive-ness to the information marketplace
- aleph_minus_one 3y ago
  > Yeah it seems like enshitification during the long tail is the point of the VC model across all industries. Give product away for free, figure out how to screw the install base later on. It needs two sides for this to work: 1. a company attempting to "fish" customers with this approach 2. customers who fall for this trap, and did not create an emergency/backup plan when the respective company becomes "evil"/untenable. Every company sooner or later becomes "evil" (and be it because of ownership changes because the original founders die or want to retire). Having made no "backup plan" for such a situation to happen is in my opinion gross negligence.
joshspankit 3y ago
Even OSS can be enshittified. Nothing is free from it unless it is legally barred.

hesdeadjim 3y ago

Depends on who the backers are I guess. Perhaps not the classic kind — like say, convince MS, Apple, and Sony to pony up $10mm each. It’s a good play for them to not be caught in this Unity fiasco and $10mm is a rounding error.

qwytw 3y ago
> $10mm is a rounding error And you wont manage to achieve anything with that. Maybe Unity could spinoff its ad business (together with some major liabilities like Ricitelo and other execs) and then MS could buy the engine part.
- hesdeadjim 3y ago
  $10mm each. $30mm backing and you could get a pretty solid tech base to build a game on. Especially since there are some great new libs out there for things like physics. The Horizon Zero Dawn lead programmer has an OSS MIT engine that is very advanced and less bloated than PhysX.
  - qwytw 3y ago
    > $30mm backing Realistically that would still only be enough to get something you can make a cool looking demo and that only run on desktop. Building a general purpose engine that is suitable for many different workflows and run on pretty much every singe platform like Unity is very trick and takes a lot of time (and trial an error). Dev UX, APIs, platform integration, QA, all the third party packages and infrastructure are much harder to solve than shiny graphics or advanced physics. Whatever you come up with that $30mm is only likely to cover a small subset of use cases.
    - hesdeadjim 3y ago
      v1 you would not attempt to be the be-all-end-all. Target iOS and Android since those are core Unity markets and throw on PC+Switch as the secondaries. $30mm is more than enough when you ditch legacy stuff like anything that isn't a Vulkan/DX11/Metal renderer.
      - qwytw 3y ago
        > $30mm is more than enough With the right team it might. Realistically they'd just under promise and undeliver (or not deliver at all). > stuff like anything that isn't a Vulkan/DX11/Metal renderer. That's also not the complicated part.
mr_tombuben 3y ago
Traditional VC companies wouldn't work because they'll always enshittify. Even on consumer space, you can see enshittification from MS, Sony and Apple. I really don't see a reason why the companies you listed would need that 2% royalty at all honestly. They already get the 30% from the sales themselves, and could very well financially support the existence of an OSS game engine with no extra royalties. Sony and MS already develop the Unity and Unreal integration for their platforms without charging extra royalties. The devs using the OSS engine also wouldn't be stopped from spending resources on making the engine better for their uses (and in turn, making it also better for everyone), similarly how it works with Linux.

lordfrito 3y ago

Yeah it seems like enshitification during the long tail is the point of the VC model across all industries. Give product away for free, figure out how to screw the install base later on. Can't blame the VCs for trying this model, but they've played society for suckers. We let them get away with this for too long, becoming dependent on their "free" offerings. At this point I'd be willing to get rid of my free stuff altogether and pay a subscription for products I like/use as it would incentivize the companies to add features that benefit me. For example, search on the web is dying. I would absolutely pay money to replace Google with a search engine I trust and that works for me.

delusional 3y ago
Try kagi.com. I'm a very happy customer myself.
- phmqk76 3y ago
  Maybe I’m an outlier, but I blow right past their limits on any reasonably-priced tier. I use my search bar for all sorts of inquiries, serious and frivolous, including basic addition and subtraction. I tried it for a month and found that my usage far exceeded what I was willing to pay, which was about $10 a month. If they can get the costs down, I’d happily subscribe, I think the results were very good. Google’s results have become terrible over the years, it’s hard to fathom how it’s still their cash cow when the product is practically unusable.
  - lordfrito 3y ago
    Search is dying. The quality of search I mean, which doesn't bode well as civilization pretty much runs based on our ability to search the web for commercial/ government / political work. It's a problem. Whoever control search will control what we see hear and read. Dangerous times. Hoping that somebody can build a subscription search that works and returns real competitive-ness to the information marketplace
aleph_minus_one 3y ago
> Yeah it seems like enshitification during the long tail is the point of the VC model across all industries. Give product away for free, figure out how to screw the install base later on. It needs two sides for this to work: 1. a company attempting to "fish" customers with this approach 2. customers who fall for this trap, and did not create an emergency/backup plan when the respective company becomes "evil"/untenable. Every company sooner or later becomes "evil" (and be it because of ownership changes because the original founders die or want to retire). Having made no "backup plan" for such a situation to happen is in my opinion gross negligence.

joshspankit 3y ago

Even OSS can be enshittified. Nothing is free from it unless it is legally barred.