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Unity is offering a runtime fee waiver if you switch to LevelPlay

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Re: Unity is offering a runtime fee waiver if you switch to LevelPlay

#121

Post by WillPostForFood »

__loam wrote: post #82
WillPostForFood wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revenue share is going to be worse for most indie developers - the .20 install fee is only bad for extremely high volume, low ARPU games. Basically mobile F2P. They deserve a different payment option, but switching everyone to revenue share is would be much worse for a typical Steam, $5+ indie game.

The problem with install fees is that it's a potentially unlimited financial risk.

Not unless you are giving away your game for free. Otherwise your limit is some small multiple of sales. They have said demos don't count, webgl doesn't count, piracy doesn't count, etc..

It would be easier if Unity just said they won't charge for installs past the number of sales. But most of the nightmare scenarios people are coming up with are not real.

Re: Unity is offering a runtime fee waiver if you switch to LevelPlay

#122

Post by SXX »

nwallin wrote: post #120
SXX wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not the same. D&D fans can of course shit on WotC and Hasbro, but they would still be D&D fans in the end of day even if changes were not reverted. Fans can't just go and become fans of "free and open source D&D". Individual people are weak and not rational. Majority will always continue to pay for entertainment companies products and bring money no matter how bad they treated by said companies. Think of Disney…

It's a lot easier, I think, to switch from D&D 5E to Pathfinder 2e than it is to switch from Unity to Unreal/Godot or whatever. The stakes are a lot lower, that's for sure.

Yeah you can switch to Pathfinder, but you wont just forget about D&D existence and there still gonna be tons of friends unaware of drama who prefer D&D. Like there is still tons of Star Wars fans who continue bring money to Disney even though they might hate the company.

At the same time gamedev business is still a business and Unity is now unreliable supplier. Today we are lucky, but their ToS and fee changes could literally kill my company overnight in slightly different circumstances. Businesses that not mitigate risks like this go bankrupt really fast so no one sane will ever trust Unity after this rug pull.

Re: Unity is offering a runtime fee waiver if you switch to LevelPlay

#123

Post by ganglandfee »

cratermoon wrote: post #47
belval wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mobile game display ads seem like a very, very low value business to be in Might be much less prestigious than selling games that aren't predatory, but Unity does in fact make a lot more money from selling ads in mobile games than licensing and by a very wide margin. The sad truth is that for every "real gamer", there are 10+ regular mom and pop playing candy crush and buying boosts every other day. > Create Soluti…

So Unity is a digital ad company that gives away a game engine, or sells it at a loss, as a way to sell ads targeted based on what they know about the people playing the game. Ad revenue is in decline across the whole industry, so now Unity is looking to get a bigger slice of the pie by displacing AppLovin as the data harvester/ad provider Aside: I wonder how much user data Unity-based games harvest from mobile devic…

[flagged]

Re: Unity is offering a runtime fee waiver if you switch to LevelPlay

#124

Post by gabereiser »

hutzlibu wrote: post #51
gabereiser wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s quite a few. The biggest one right now is Godot. There’s still MonoGame, Open3D, Unreal, and others. Unity has one thing these others don’t (outside of Unreal) and that’s a healthy asset store. Solo indie devs aren’t necessarily the best artists. We know the math, but lack the eye.

"We know the math, but lack the eye." I do have the eye, but lack the skills in my hand. I can do shiny art, but am so slow compared to an skilled artist. So why should I do their jobs? Blender has also an asset store btw, but not really comparible (yet). But the blender foundation would be a player I would trust to invest in them. I always stayed away from unity and it seems my gut feeling was right.

I’m aware of the various assets stores and anyone who compares them has never used Unity’s. There’s plenty of places to get 3D models. There’s one place to get game ready, rigged, low poly, high quality models and assets.

Every store requires work on the devs part, Unity’s doesn’t (or extremely little).

I also don’t want to give Unity any more money so buying assets from them and porting them isn’t my idea of a good time.

Re: Unity is offering a runtime fee waiver if you switch to LevelPlay

#125

Post by extesy »

SXX wrote: post #119
extesy wrote: post #101

This situation with Unity looks very similar to the recent blunder by Wizards of the Coast attempting to change their license and triggering the exodus of their customers: https://www.ign.com/articles/wizards-of-the-coasts-new-dunge...

It is not the same. D&D fans can of course shit on WotC and Hasbro, but they would still be D&D fans in the end of day even if changes were not reverted. Fans can't just go and become fans of "free and open source D&D". Individual people are weak and not rational. Majority will always continue to pay for entertainment companies products and bring money no matter how bad they treated by said companies. Think of Disney…

To clarify my analogy: D&D == gaming, WotC/OGL == Unity, Pathfinder == Unreal. You can still work in the "gaming" domain, but switch from Unity to Unreal. Similar to how some D&D tabletop studios are switching from OGL to Pathfinder while staying in "D&D" domain.

Re: Unity is offering a runtime fee waiver if you switch to LevelPlay

#127

Post by squeaky-clean »

belval wrote: post #30
Pulcinella wrote: post #3

This really does seem like Unity is destroying their business for pennies. Mobile game display ads seem like a very, very low value business to be in and I would imagine rates are going down all the time. Unity may manage to wipe out AppLovin by burning down the rest of their business, but winning king-of-the-hill on top a pile of ashes does not seem to be a high value position. Edit: It's as if Unreal wants to be ki…

> Mobile game display ads seem like a very, very low value business to be in Might be much less prestigious than selling games that aren't predatory, but Unity does in fact make a lot more money from selling ads in mobile games than licensing and by a very wide margin. The sad truth is that for every "real gamer", there are 10+ regular mom and pop playing candy crush and buying boosts every other day. > Create Soluti…

I wish they'd go the way of Epic and make an actual game with their engine. Maybe they could make some extra income if they made anything good.

They've tried a few times and given up each time. It's pretty embarrassing when they've done things like released a fully featured multiplayer FPS demo that doesn't actually work out of the box and has a custom editor tool manager, custom scene loader, and custom networking layer that were never merged into mainline unity. Meanwhile they still have no official stable networking module. The old functional one was sunset and the new ones are still in beta.

https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/FPSSample

> This project is based on Unity 2018.3

> NOTE: Due to a bug in Unity 2018.3, you have to take the following step right after the initial import: 1 Search for Firstperson_Projection in the Project search field. Select the 4 shaders, right click and reimport them. 2 If you have script compile errors related to entities, you need to remove and re-install the entities package.

> One day soon we will remove this note and there will be cake.

> Once the editor is ready, open the Project Tools Window by navigating to FPS Sample > Windows > Project tools.

> Keep this window docked as you will use it a lot. From here you can open the levels, build assetbundles and build standalone players.

https://github.com/UnityTechnologies/open-project-1

> Note: As of December 2021, Open Projects and Chop Chop are not in development anymore.

Re: Unity is offering a runtime fee waiver if you switch to LevelPlay

#128

Post by WillPostForFood »

deciplex wrote: post #72
WillPostForFood wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revenue share is going to be worse for most indie developers - the .20 install fee is only bad for extremely high volume, low ARPU games. Basically mobile F2P. They deserve a different payment option, but switching everyone to revenue share is would be much worse for a typical Steam, $5+ indie game.

At least with revenue share the amount you owe is bounded by the revenue you've realized from sales.

If we are being real, and not assuming abuse, at ~$5 or up, you are going to be better off at .20 install than 5% of revenue.

Re: Unity is offering a runtime fee waiver if you switch to LevelPlay

#129

Post by WillPostForFood »

sobellian wrote: post #93
WillPostForFood wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revenue share is going to be worse for most indie developers - the .20 install fee is only bad for extremely high volume, low ARPU games. Basically mobile F2P. They deserve a different payment option, but switching everyone to revenue share is would be much worse for a typical Steam, $5+ indie game.

IMO the problem is more the arbitrariness of the change than the specific fee structure. It applies to games that are already in development, it applies to games that already shipped . Even if it's strictly legal to pull that rug (I have my doubts), no one wants to build a business at another company's whim. Everyone is wondering if Unity just turned X% of their customers into sharecroppers, who's the next Y%? For in…

Would it be any better of it there was retroactive revenue share? I agree it is shittily rolled out, but things like the retroactivity are the issue, and the ability to actually count install. Not the install fee itself. I am responding to the "it should have been rev share" mentality, which is totally grass is greener.

Re: Unity is offering a runtime fee waiver if you switch to LevelPlay

#130

Post by acdha »

Pulcinella wrote: post #3

This really does seem like Unity is destroying their business for pennies. Mobile game display ads seem like a very, very low value business to be in and I would imagine rates are going down all the time. Unity may manage to wipe out AppLovin by burning down the rest of their business, but winning king-of-the-hill on top a pile of ashes does not seem to be a high value position. Edit: It's as if Unreal wants to be ki…

Their current CEO is one of those generic executive types with a background selling snacks, sporting supplies, and private equity investments. His prior game industry experience was running Electronic Arts so well that the board forced him to resign. This does not sound like the path to anything other than short-term “number go up” management.
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