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Unity’s pricing is a symptom, not the cause of tougher times for the industry

gamesindustry.biz

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Re: Unity’s pricing is a symptom, not the cause of tougher times for the industry

#41

Post by Macha »

robswc wrote: post #24

This really does seem like suicide. I'm not a game dev though. Is there any reason everyone won't/can't just switch to Unreal Engine? Is this a case where they overstepped or is it like reddit where the only leverage the user base has is illusory?

The economics for in progress games means probably only a few particularly early in development or strong feeling dev teams are going to switch engines mid stream so I think in the worst case unity thinks they have buffer to climb down if needed.

I can't see future projects building on unity with this "we have changed the deal and can do it again" attitude on the other hand.

So I'd put the level of customer power here as more than Reddit users but less than Dungeons & Dragons users.

Re: Unity’s pricing is a symptom, not the cause of tougher times for the industry

#42

Post by paulddraper »

ysavir wrote: post #21

Has there been any explanation, from Unity themselves or anyone else, as to why Unity thinks it deserves a cut based on install count? Do installs have to connect to Unity servers to download something? Anything like that? Everything I've seen so far points to no baser an explanation than Unity realizing it had an avenue of attack and deciding to employ it--and an attack is exactly what it is, a raid on other people'…

"deserves"

Do entities (vendors, suppliers, employees) "deserve" to get paid for their costs? Or for the value they add?

Re: Unity’s pricing is a symptom, not the cause of tougher times for the industry

#43

Post by hx8 »

Airsinner wrote: post #38
starburst wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it could have been planned all along, the damage done seems irreversible. No one is going to propose Unity ever again for upcoming projects even if the fees are actually a much better deal than the competitions (like Unreal 5%). The audacity of asking everyone who have built a game using their engine (completely disregarding the TOS at the time) to be potentially on the hook to receive monthly bills fro…

If Unity is the best by a mile it works.

Unity isn't.

Re: Unity’s pricing is a symptom, not the cause of tougher times for the industry

#44

Post by Hemospectrum »

mcpackieh wrote: post #32
LapsangGuzzler wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but once a dev does hit that threshold, they could very easily be upside down on their income if the app goes viral and gets installed at a much higher rate than the revenue it generates and that's what people are mad about. You could instantly go from 200k revenue to being in the red on developer fees alone.

Indie devs actually selling their game should be fine right? If it's just the devs of F2P / adware crap that will be sunk, then maybe Unity's new pricing policies will be the unexpected savior of gaming. Imagine a world in which we're not racing to the bottom with ad-ridden shovel-ware but instead people try to make the best possible product and sell it for what it's worth... radical. Or maybe I've misunderstood some…

Install bombing is still a problem.

Unity, for all its "clarifications," keeps promising it won't be a problem and then refusing to be transparent about any of the ways it could possibly be less of a problem.

Either they backtrack on this whole lifetime install count scheme or this blows up even more spectacularly when January rolls around.

Re: Unity’s pricing is a symptom, not the cause of tougher times for the industry

#45

Post by robswc »

raincole wrote: post #29
robswc wrote: post #24

This really does seem like suicide. I'm not a game dev though. Is there any reason everyone won't/can't just switch to Unreal Engine? Is this a case where they overstepped or is it like reddit where the only leverage the user base has is illusory?

> Is there any reason everyone won't/can't just switch to Unreal Engine? Switching engines mean to rewrite most of your codebase. Actually if you're 1) not using an additional scripting layer or 2) not willing to lose performance, it means to rewrite about... 100% of your codebase.

That sucks. I mean, going forward would anyone still start projects with Unity? Or is that ship sailing?

Re: Unity’s pricing is a symptom, not the cause of tougher times for the industry

#46

Post by georgeecollins »

ZeWaka wrote: post #6

Not the best article. It basically entirely ignores how this is going to hurt the small/indie developers the most, who are the main reason Unity exists as it does today. Indie games will have lower price points than AAA games, and thus Unity's cut is a larger piece of the ever-shrinking pie. My personal opinion about this whole fiasco is that they'll go back on their original statement to something still quite greedy…

I think you missed the point of the article, which is that the professional game business has grown faster than the market and is likely to consolidate. The article is in gamesindutry.biz, not "indie developer" after all.

Indie devs have lots of choices for engines and Unity doesn't owe them a free engine. Lots of professional developers / publishers use Unity but in my experience that is because Unity is really easy to port across platforms and maintaining hardware compatibility across platforms is expensive work we are happy to outsource.

Re: Unity’s pricing is a symptom, not the cause of tougher times for the industry

#47

Post by BudaDude »

ako wrote: post #8
ZeWaka wrote: post #6

Not the best article. It basically entirely ignores how this is going to hurt the small/indie developers the most, who are the main reason Unity exists as it does today. Indie games will have lower price points than AAA games, and thus Unity's cut is a larger piece of the ever-shrinking pie. My personal opinion about this whole fiasco is that they'll go back on their original statement to something still quite greedy…

Is Godot mature enough to offer Indy games developers an alternative to unity? If not, what is missing?

The biggest issue is no official asset store. The lead developer has mentioned is on the roadmap, but because the company is a non-profit, it's very complicated to start.

Re: Unity’s pricing is a symptom, not the cause of tougher times for the industry

#48

Post by epolanski »

ZeWaka wrote: post #26
gambiting wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It basically entirely ignores how this is going to hurt the small/indie developers the most, who are the main reason Unity exists as it does today. You only start paying if you have 200k installs AND $200k in revenue. Most indie devs never reach anything like those numbers.

True, but it does hurt the indie darlings that 'get noticed,' who showcase the Unity engine as a platform for small developers to make their game. Examples of recent indie games like this: Among Us, Valheim, Phasmophobia, Rimworld, Hollow Knight,... Here's a whole list: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/39750107-Games-Made-W... Other than the 'extremely' popular games, you'd be surprised who surpasses those numb…

How much does it hurts them? What's the cut?

I see this being repeated over and over, but I'm not really understanding, say an indie Dev makes 500k in revenue in one year, how much is it going to unity? If it is anything below 50k it seems to me like a sweet deal for all the things Unity offers to devs.

There's no shortage of free and good game engines out there, but I guess Unity does offer a lot that those free options don't.

Re: Unity’s pricing is a symptom, not the cause of tougher times for the industry

#49

Post by robswc »

ZeWaka wrote: post #39
robswc wrote: post #24

This really does seem like suicide. I'm not a game dev though. Is there any reason everyone won't/can't just switch to Unreal Engine? Is this a case where they overstepped or is it like reddit where the only leverage the user base has is illusory?

Porting is a relatively big issue. Core game systems often intertwine closely with how the engine operates, especially graphics systems like the renderer or particles/effects. It's totally possible though. One of the game projects I help with switched from SFML to Godot to an in-house engine. There's also the 'skilling up' of a dev team. If a studio has developed on Unity for 10 years, switching to Unreal or Godot or…

Makes sense. Is there anything about Unity that would make the community grit it's teeth and take the terms? Or is it all just economics at this point?

Re: Unity’s pricing is a symptom, not the cause of tougher times for the industry

#50

Post by raincole »

robswc wrote: post #45
raincole wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there any reason everyone won't/can't just switch to Unreal Engine? Switching engines mean to rewrite most of your codebase. Actually if you're 1) not using an additional scripting layer or 2) not willing to lose performance, it means to rewrite about... 100% of your codebase.

That sucks. I mean, going forward would anyone still start projects with Unity? Or is that ship sailing?

I'm sure any studio with the resource has assigned some workforce to survey the alternatives.
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