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Unity Software Inc S-1

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Re: Unity Software Inc S-1

#281

Post by _bz2r »

abj wrote: post #95
johnfn wrote: post #33

I'm quite bearish on Unity in the long run. Unity to me seems like a team with a fantastic marketing department to contrast with a much weaker engineering department. I've tried to use Unity off and on for years and every time I spend time learning it, I regret it. I'm a full-time React developer, and the difference in engineering culture and best engineering practices between Unity and React is massive. The Unity ex…

> I'm quite bearish on Unity in the long run Unity definitely seems like it has lost sight of what made the engine rise to prominence in 2010-2015. > I've honestly wondered a lot why Unity is successful at all Unity was the least painful way to develop your hobby game and have it run on multiple platforms for people (artists, new game devs) who reasonably didn't want to leave a GUI. > Why is it so hard to make a good…

> Unity definitely seems like it has lost sight of what made the engine rise to prominence in 2010-2015.

What made the engine rise to prominence in 2010-2015, in your view?

Re: Unity Software Inc S-1

#282

Post by abj »

_bz2r wrote: post #281
abj wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm quite bearish on Unity in the long run Unity definitely seems like it has lost sight of what made the engine rise to prominence in 2010-2015. > I've honestly wondered a lot why Unity is successful at all Unity was the least painful way to develop your hobby game and have it run on multiple platforms for people (artists, new game devs) who reasonably didn't want to leave a GUI. > Why is it so hard to make a good…

> Unity definitely seems like it has lost sight of what made the engine rise to prominence in 2010-2015. What made the engine rise to prominence in 2010-2015, in your view?

It was easier to learn than the alternatives (UDK, any of the Java engines) and consistently added clearly useful features.

Jump to 2019, their networking solution, UNet is abandoned. Multiplayer is a perhaps a top feature developers/players want. A great open source library called Mirror picks up the slack, but Mirror wasn't made by Unity.

As other commenters have mentioned, easily compiling to iOS made it a clear winning choice for game app development.

Re: Unity Software Inc S-1

#283

Post by tutino »

drawkbox wrote: post #252
MrLeap wrote: post #19

I use Unity every day at work. This is a mixed bag for me. Unity gives google a run for their money when it comes to abandoning old features / letting them rot. The editor is kind of crashy, launch times get unwieldy fast. Sometimes there's subtle differences between build version and running in the editor, and solving the disparity is a death march. All that said, it's still one of my favorite environments to work i…

Unity is great and really took the mantle from Flash/Director back in the day. Unity is also a big part of why mobile games have taken off, that combined with the ability of anyone to publish to mobile stores and more. The problem is definitely churn and shaky foundations. Unity has a "version 2" problem, the "second-system effect" is a major tenant of Unity engineering which sucks [1]. I really wish they locked down…

I couldn't agree more,

> It seems much of what Unity changes is driven by announcements, marketing/finance over what engineers want.

That's my exact feeling about Unity, it reminds me of Windows, 3DSMax, and many other software where the mentality is basically : let's pile up every shiny features on top of each other to attract more companies & people.

Unity is a big mess. There is no coherence, no planning, no step back on what they are doing.

Sure on the short term users don't care. You can get the latest shiny features that will make your game look cool.

Unity is great when you have a deadline and you want to quickly get something working by throwing a few asset store components together and then adding nice looking effects on top of it. It's messy but it looks good and your boss is happy.

But building whole games on top of this Tower of Pisa gives a very unsatisfactory feeling of not doing clean code.

I think Godot vs. Unity is going to be the same story as with Blender. Short Term, marketing and shiny features win but on the long term doing your own coherent way without caring about the competition wins.

Uni / Work is forcing me to use Unity, but I'm going Godot whenever I am allowed to choose the engine

Re: Unity Software Inc S-1

#284

Post by hunterloftis »

tempsy wrote: post #21
kaesar14 wrote: post #4

"We have experienced rapid growth. Our revenue grew from $380.8 million to $541.8 million for the years ended December 31, 2018 and 2019, respectively, representing year-over-year growth of 42%, and from $252.8 million to $351.3 million for the six months ended June 30, 2019 and 2020, respectively, representing period-over-period growth of 39%. We generated net losses for the years ended December 31, 2018 and 2019, a…

But growth is already slowing from 2018-2019 vs 2019-2020 period. 40% YoY growth for SaaS is par for the course, and the revenue figure is a bit light. Not necessarily a home run in the public markets though if there's a time to do a tech IPO it's now given the frothiness of the market.

I've heard this term used a few times now - a "frothy market," or a "frothy startup," but I'm not familiar with it. What does frothiness mean in terms of markets?

Re: Unity Software Inc S-1

#285

Post by tutino »

OneGuy123 wrote: post #40
johnfn wrote: post #33

I'm quite bearish on Unity in the long run. Unity to me seems like a team with a fantastic marketing department to contrast with a much weaker engineering department. I've tried to use Unity off and on for years and every time I spend time learning it, I regret it. I'm a full-time React developer, and the difference in engineering culture and best engineering practices between Unity and React is massive. The Unity ex…

Comparing a web library to game engine is a bit of a stretch. Unity is very nice to develop actually. It's a lot more simple than UE4 for example, but UE4 is much better suited for more complicated games, but then again, Subnautica is made in Unity, so Unity is very flexible. Neither is "bad" or "worse". Unity is obviously not perfect, but video game engines move and change all the time, that is the nature of the vid…

It may be your opinion, but after having used Godot I think Unity is horrible to develop with.

It all depends what you are looking for in a game engine. If you want to be fast at having something nice looking on your screen , then yes Unity + asset store is great.

If you care about clean code, maintainability, elegence of concepts, abstractions, architecture, long term, etc. then Unity is very bad for that.

> video game engines move and change all the time, that is the nature of the video game industry.

No, a fast moving field is not an excuse for having a messy architecture, half abandoned features , a unintuitive UI, no planing, and puting all your budget in shiny features and marketing instead of long term robustness and coherence.

Look at Blender, they maintained coherence in fundamental concepts, architecture and UI over time yet they are in the top most amazing 3D softwares (and now 2D with grease pencil)

Re: Unity Software Inc S-1

#286

Post by tutino »

spyke112 wrote: post #41
johnfn wrote: post #33

I'm quite bearish on Unity in the long run. Unity to me seems like a team with a fantastic marketing department to contrast with a much weaker engineering department. I've tried to use Unity off and on for years and every time I spend time learning it, I regret it. I'm a full-time React developer, and the difference in engineering culture and best engineering practices between Unity and React is massive. The Unity ex…

Why on earth would you compare Unity to React?

Not comparing Unity to React. Comparing Unity's culture, management and engineering to the ones of React.

Re: Unity Software Inc S-1

#287

Post by gloryless »

johnfn wrote: post #33

I'm quite bearish on Unity in the long run. Unity to me seems like a team with a fantastic marketing department to contrast with a much weaker engineering department. I've tried to use Unity off and on for years and every time I spend time learning it, I regret it. I'm a full-time React developer, and the difference in engineering culture and best engineering practices between Unity and React is massive. The Unity ex…

sorry mate, most of these complaints come from a bunch of misunderstandings, mostly "this is not how I'd do things." Worse is saying you come from web then explaining why this engine running a completely different domain is "bad." Think you don't understand why web is the way it is and how many levels of complexity you're missing.

Re: Unity Software Inc S-1

#288

Post by caymanjim »

reaperhulk wrote: post #94
caymanjim wrote: post #60

There's no mention of Apple here, but I suspect the timing of this is directly related to Apple threatening to cut off Epic's SDK access due to the fight over app purchase fees. This was almost certainly in the works already, but now they need to accelerate it.

In my experience it is exceedingly difficult to meaningfully accelerate the timelines on publishing an S-1. There are too many lawyers, financial audits, investor roadshow schedules, et cetera. This is likely pure coincidence.

I was confused and mixed up a story about Apple blocking Unreal Engine, thinking that Epic owned Unity. I figured they had been playing the long game, preparing a Unity IPO to launch in case Apple tried to block it.

Re: Unity Software Inc S-1

#289

Post by JamesSwift »

tikhonj wrote: post #163
xex70 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AAA here. Actually, it is a stretch, because you’re expecting an entirely different discipline of software development to reflect the trends, knowledge, and assumptions of your discipline. We are a CryEngine shop but I’ve used Unity extensively for MVP pitches, spec work, and side projects. I also left the Web vertical to do this so I still have context from your side as well. I took the time to read what you’ve writ…

Game programming isn't —or at least shouldn't be —so different from other fields that fundamental software engineering principles do not apply. It seems like discarding criticism just because it comes from outside the immediate industry is going to lead to an insular culture and get in the way of any real change or progress. Doubly so for an industry that still has high-profile, highly funded projects (Battlefield V,…

Sure theres similarities, but game programming is usually at the bleeding edge of computing compared to most other areas. Its like saying engineering a space craft isn't/shouldn't be different than engineering a car. Sure, there's overlap, but the fundamental requirements differ so much that a lot of it is _not_ applicable.

I'm not a game developer, but I like to keep an eye on how its done specifically because it is fundamentally different from how I typically do things in SAAS / mobile app land. Its a good way to get a broader view on development, and I learn new things _constantly_ by looking at game development.

Re: Unity Software Inc S-1

#290

Post by Gibbon1 »

fxtentacle wrote: post #277
Gibbon1 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potential advantage to Unity is it was developed from the ground up to do all that. Unlike the browser.

Potential advantage to using a browser is that it actually works. Unlike Unity. But in the end, Electron or Unity doesn't matter, both are equally bloated.

Problem with the browser is it's optimized around countering network latency and security issues. All those optimizations are essentially worthless when running a native application.
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