161–170 of 242 posts
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Yes, xbill and tuxracer are my favorite games too.
Or, just one single example: Tears of the Kingdom.
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The fee isn't revenue-based, it's install-based - and not based on hard numbers. Also, demo installs apparently count against that threshold https://twitter.com/necrosofty/status/1701717971016790508 (their original reply https://twitter.com/unity/status/1701689241456021607 )
The fees don't kick in until you get to a certain number of lifetime installs. Once you start paying the install fees the price per install drops quite rapidly too. The fees are also PER-GAME so one popular game wont cause your new game to cost a bunch immediately. It sounds way less bad than what people are making out to be (still not free, but should anything be?)
...but it's not really very clear is it? They've done their best to make it simple, with multiple examples in the FAQ, but fundamentally, what they're introducing is a very very complicated scheme.
Multiple rates, multiple tiers.
> All determinations, calculations of installs, and revenue related to the Unity Runtime Fee will be made by Unity in its sole discretion.
Ouch, expensive. Don't worry:
> Qualifying customers may be eligible for credits on the Unity Runtime Fee based on the adoption of Unity services beyond the Editor, such as Unity Gaming Services or Unity LevelPlay.
How much?
> please contact your account manager for ad monetization
Got a problem with that? Not what you were expecting?
> Unity may also waive all or any part of the Unity Runtime Fee in its sole discretion. As we implement this program, customers may see an invoice for an amount less than the full number of installs (or for $0) to help with the transition.
> We recognize that users will have concerns about this and we will make available a process for them to submit their concerns to our fraud compliance team.
Some amount. With some discounts. Based on your subscription, maybe? Or maybe you just get credits?
...
I mean, trivially, yeah, sure. Did you make more than $200000 in the last year? Probably not. So, you probably don't care, and this doesn't have anything to do with you.
However, it's really a bit shit to go from a predictable fee to an arbitrary rolling fee which you can't easily predict; and you can't, because despite all their examples, they've really failed hard at two things:
1) How much will it cost?
Not, you tell me later how much it will cost. Not, I get a surprise bill I can't afford in a month. Me, without you input, calculate how much it will cost. How much will it cost? It's pretty clear to me that the answer to this is who the heck knows?
They decide what an install is.
They decide how many installs you had.
They decide how much of a discount to give you.
They decide how much to charge you.
They decide how to deal with any disputes.
Does that sound cool to you? It doesn't really seem cool to me.
2) When will the rates / terms / values change?
There's no rules. They decide that too.
Published a game today? Well, in a year maybe it'll cost more than it costs now per install. Maybe not. Who knows?
...
It's easy to say, 'its no big deal'; but unpredictable pricing is very very bad. They've totally messed this up by making it too complicated and too bespoke.
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Also worth noting that the unity fee only takes effect once you're making a pretty large amount of revenue, so most devs will be unaffected. Still shitty and I'm glad I made the switch to Godot a few months ago, but not as bad as people are making it out to be.
Revenue isn’t profit. So if you build a toy game and it takes off without a solid business and pricing plan you could be stuck and have to shut it down. Seems like that makes Unity is a very bad place to start.
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Also worth noting that the unity fee only takes effect once you're making a pretty large amount of revenue, so most devs will be unaffected. Still shitty and I'm glad I made the switch to Godot a few months ago, but not as bad as people are making it out to be.
The fee isn't revenue-based, it's install-based - and not based on hard numbers. Also, demo installs apparently count against that threshold https://twitter.com/necrosofty/status/1701717971016790508 (their original reply https://twitter.com/unity/status/1701689241456021607 )
200k revenue is a higher mark, but far from a high mark. Especially for mobile games. those mobile packs can go up to $100 a pop, so if you got 2000 purchases, every free customer is costing you.
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"Can you develop and ship a non-trivial game with it, ideally on multiple platforms, without spending loads of time debugging the internals of the engine?"
What does "non-trivial game" mean? Also what does "spending loads of time debugging the internals of the engine" mean? I have worked on small and large (AAA) games with both custom and 3rd party engines and all of them needed a lot of time both profiling (to make things faster) and debugging (to avoid/fix[0] bugs) the engine internals. Where is the threshold where that time is "loads"? Without being specific on the r…
> Projects written in C# using Godot 4 currently cannot be exported to iOS
With unity or unreal it's one click as long as you're using a Mac.
https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/export/expo...
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It's also catastrophic for services like Game Pass where the developer gets a flat fee regardless of how many people install the game. You can take a flat fee that seems reasonable based on an expectation of 100k installs, but then your game turns out to be a smash hit and it gets a million installs. Now you're on the hook for a massive amount of money to Unity but the money you got is barely enough to cover it, if i…
That situation sounds horrible, is that actually a thing? Why didn’t the industry protest these business models in the first place?
they always have and always will. But revshare and ESPECIALLY residuals (tangential to this topic) are costs that the elite will fight to the grave to not give out.
Indie devs are simply taking that gamble and unironically working for exposure. profits are razor thin in games and the market is fickle, so it's much preferable to have a guaranteed minium than to negotiation revenue/profit shares. if they become "too successful" they simply need to use that newfound exposure to negotiate a better deal next time.
About time. What makes a game unique in spirit is its engine.
What an absurdly facile perspective. While it's true that developers like Valve develop games only to take advantage of or exhibit new engine developments and Minecraft's revolutionary voxel engine likewise enabled a game that could not be built otherwise, you seem to be suggesting that eg all UE games throughout the last thirty years are undifferentiated "in spirit" because they share an engine. What an insult to wr…
As someone said, to the extent they have managed to do it -- and many have -- it was not because of engines like unity but despite them. I imagine all those people would have been happier if the engineers had made a custom engine for them (and quick).
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Game consoles.
What about them? Which one do you want? https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/platform/co... Godot can't include game console-specific code because its open-source license is incompatible with the various game console API licenses. But that doesn't mean you can't have have your Godot game on a console.
>Imagine releasing a game for 99 cents under the personal plan, where Steam takes 30% off the top for their platform fee, and then unity takes 20 cents per install, and now you're making a maximum of 46 cents on the dollar. Not only that, but with this predatory practice of taking any percent (steam, apple) or fix dollar value, makes just having a game up a potential liability. If you need to refund anyone you are re…
Frankly speaking - there’s a lot of comments similar to this in tech, especially when espousing the solutions that crypto may offer for these “problems” that are built on ignorance or misunderstanding of how the industry actually operates.
Having been in more discussions about “disrupting games” than I can count, almost every one of them was driven by outsiders with zero appreciation.
While Steam’s fees are on the higher side, the depth of publisher features offered by steamworks is incredible and are likely saving average developers the fees many times over
Facebook famously had the illusion that if you made distribution free, you could dislodge game developers from Steam (see FB Gameroom). Educating people on the 999 other reasons why developers choose steam , was painful.