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Obviously the charge per download attempt was moronic, but unity was already losing hundreds of millions a year. Imo they always needed a revenue share, the li

Obviously the charge per download attempt was moronic, but unity was already losing hundreds of millions a year. Imo they always needed a revenue share, the license model wasn't enough. I believe epic charges 5% for unreal, so it's hardly unheard of. Though doing it retroactively would also be unacceptable.

valianteffort 3y ago
Apples to oranges. Unreal has always been a AAA engine that anyone had access to. But fortnite became their meal ticket and could more than cover any losses incurred by reducing fees considerably. Going down to 5% was an attack against Apple/Google over their 30% fees to increase fortnite revenue. Unity have never been serious competition outside of being easier to pickup for indie developers. Trying to compete with Unreal was their mistake.
- ApolloFortyNine 3y ago
  >Unity have never been serious competition outside of being easier to pickup for indie developers. Trying to compete with Unreal was their mistake. Okay. Any suggestion for how unity could have avoided losing hundreds of millions of dollars? They're a game engine they naturally compete with unreal.
  - kramerger 3y ago
    > Any suggestion for how unity could have avoided losing hundreds of millions of dollars? I dont think it's our job to solve unity's financial problems, but I am feeling generous this morning so here is some pro bono financial advice: Stop adding so much unstable eye candy to unity and focus on the stuff that most devs actually use. Some devs moved to competitors not because of money, but because the editors ridicules startup time and how buggy it was. Thats a pretty good sign of bloat, dont you think?
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    as a former worker, not much would have changed. Unity mostly deals in ads and the "adpocalypse" a few years back hurt Unity as much as any of the other big names in adtech. That loss was unavoidable unless Unity made its own Fortnite. In retrospect the acquisitions were a huge mistake, but that was when the whole industry was operating off of "corner the market first" mentality. That ended suddenly and caused all the tech layoffs of 2023. Hindsight is 20:20, but this was an industry problem, not a unity problem. Tech as a whole needed to shift away from promising explosive growth, but with the AI craze we are still far from doing that.
ffgjgf1 3y ago
You can pick from either rev share or pay per install now. It also won’t be applied retroactively. But I guess not that many noticed this after the initial outcry
- Macha 3y ago
  1. People are aware but the door-in-face negotiating model is hard to forget. Trust is broken for many Devs at both a personal level and a business level. Unity is not able to cancel the plan and pretend it never happened, consequence fee.
- TheCleric 3y ago
  I wasn’t aware they backed down, but they’ve lost enough goodwill that I switched to Godot.

valianteffort 3y ago

Apples to oranges. Unreal has always been a AAA engine that anyone had access to. But fortnite became their meal ticket and could more than cover any losses incurred by reducing fees considerably. Going down to 5% was an attack against Apple/Google over their 30% fees to increase fortnite revenue. Unity have never been serious competition outside of being easier to pickup for indie developers. Trying to compete with Unreal was their mistake.

ApolloFortyNine 3y ago
>Unity have never been serious competition outside of being easier to pickup for indie developers. Trying to compete with Unreal was their mistake. Okay. Any suggestion for how unity could have avoided losing hundreds of millions of dollars? They're a game engine they naturally compete with unreal.
- kramerger 3y ago
  > Any suggestion for how unity could have avoided losing hundreds of millions of dollars? I dont think it's our job to solve unity's financial problems, but I am feeling generous this morning so here is some pro bono financial advice: Stop adding so much unstable eye candy to unity and focus on the stuff that most devs actually use. Some devs moved to competitors not because of money, but because the editors ridicules startup time and how buggy it was. Thats a pretty good sign of bloat, dont you think?
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  as a former worker, not much would have changed. Unity mostly deals in ads and the "adpocalypse" a few years back hurt Unity as much as any of the other big names in adtech. That loss was unavoidable unless Unity made its own Fortnite. In retrospect the acquisitions were a huge mistake, but that was when the whole industry was operating off of "corner the market first" mentality. That ended suddenly and caused all the tech layoffs of 2023. Hindsight is 20:20, but this was an industry problem, not a unity problem. Tech as a whole needed to shift away from promising explosive growth, but with the AI craze we are still far from doing that.

ffgjgf1 3y ago

You can pick from either rev share or pay per install now. It also won’t be applied retroactively. But I guess not that many noticed this after the initial outcry

Macha 3y ago
1. People are aware but the door-in-face negotiating model is hard to forget. Trust is broken for many Devs at both a personal level and a business level. Unity is not able to cancel the plan and pretend it never happened, consequence fee.
TheCleric 3y ago
I wasn’t aware they backed down, but they’ve lost enough goodwill that I switched to Godot.