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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

#131

Post by squeaky-clean »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #63
vore wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A per-installation fee model is bonkers: of course Unity is allowed to charge for their product, but if your margins are already pretty thin, it's pretty hard to budget for a per-installation fee – not even per sale!

How many apps are successful enough to meet the revenue thresholds (over $1mil), but are sub $1 ARPU, and aren't ad revenue driven? I'm sure there are some, but that's going to be a small number, and there likely can be some carve out for them.

Those thresholds are just the point when you'll be net negative. There's still a large range above that ARPU where you're making less money than before or with a different engine. Cult of The Lamb has already announced they will delist their game, and the Slay The Spire dev team have announced they're halting development on their new game to port it to a new engine.

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

#132

Post by squeaky-clean »

sph wrote: post #75
vore wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A per-installation fee model is bonkers: of course Unity is allowed to charge for their product, but if your margins are already pretty thin, it's pretty hard to budget for a per-installation fee – not even per sale!

How do per-installation fees work in the case of piracy? Will game studios have to pay for pirated installs? And if a user installs a game twice, do they have to pay the fee twice? Forget review bombing, now people can hate install a game.

Hopefully pirates are kind enough to strip whatever install-tracking code Unity includes when crack the DRM.

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

#133

Post by johnnyanmac »

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.

The stakes are lower and I think that's why these companies get away with it with consumers. Many consumers will never know as long as it doesn't hit them with a paywall. But when serving other businesses, they know and will NOT forget (because they will literally be hit with a paywall).

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

#134

Post by johnnyanmac »

ceeam wrote: post #105
lux wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Godot Engine is coming along nicely https://godotengine.org/

Sadly I haven't seen a (semi)professional, serious, 3D game made in Godot yet.

Sonic Color's remaster. But it's not a good example when talking about stability. I feel half of it is on the engine and half on the fact that they were porting a Wii game to modern consoles (despite being gen 7, the Wii had ancient techniques for lighting and textures. Which is where many issues of the port came from).

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

#135

Post by sobellian »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #129
sobellian wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Right, I'm in agreement. I didn't downvote you.

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

#136

Post by johnnyanmac »

gabereiser wrote: post #124
hutzlibu wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

well I guess that's my personal issue. my projects weren't going for low poly so that's probably where Unity's asset options just fall off a cliff for me.

Granted, I was off the unity train for over a year for personal reasons, but it still helped get me into industry.

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

#137

Post by bradleyishungry »

sitzkrieg wrote: post #67
Renaud wrote: post #36

Wondering if Microsoft shouldn't have bought Unity, It could have made sense, because of its focus on developer, because of its interests in gaming and because it's a huge showcase for C# and .Net as many of the features of unity could have been folded into regular .Net or there could have been an opportunity to have a '.GameNet' version, maybe.

on the flip side they kinda left XNA out to dry despite basically being the unity before unity in some ways for indie devs

Eh xna and monogame together are still fine. Celeste was made with it

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

#138

Post by johnnyanmac »

Zhyl wrote: post #90
everyone wrote: post #79

I've been a pro Unity dev, as an employee and then a freelancer running a small team doing contracts for 10 years. I think this was in the back of my mind for a long time but yesterday a switch just flipped in my head and I decided Unity are just not to be trusted anymore, the company has lost all credibility and I never want to use Unity for another project. I'm learning Godot atm.

It seems everyone is switching to Godot.

I hope it happens for real this time. I remember last year's kerfuffle when they merged/aquired Ironsource.

Either way, I want to get in on the early Godot waves while I can.

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

#139

Post by johnnyanmac »

doublerabbit wrote: post #4

What I'd like to see is that this fiasco encourages studios to produce their own engines rather than using the pre/existing selection. I'd happily wait another 5-7 years for a new game on a new engine then have a new game in two years that feels identical to others. And then open-source it and let the creativity roam free.

Games haven't had that "dell identical" issue for years on end. Would you really believe Hollow Knight, Genshin Impact, and Pokemon Brilliant Diamond were all made on the same engine?

>And then open-source it and let the creativity roam free.

Well now you're just hoping for the moon. Many studios do indeed have their own engines in house, but I believe CryEngine is the only one that eventually became open source (over a decade, an aquisition, and two forks later).

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