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Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

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Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#21

Post by superchroma »

kypro wrote: post #12

I kinda feel bad for Unity. The company is in a bad place finacially. They're burning almost $1 billion a year and they have no good solutions to this. Either they try to increase pricing and piss off their customers, or they cut costs (which they've been doing with mass layoffs) and risk losing ground to other game engineers like Unreal. For years the only thing really holding the company a float was their valuation…

Why feel bad? They're a victim of deliberate bad choices. The buck stops at the top. Nobody told Riccitiello to hit the gas pedal, nor to enrich himself by selling shares prior to a disastrous announcement, he did that all on his own.

I feel much worse for the thousands of developers he's holding a metaphorical gun to with this awful policy, who now have to stress about swapping engines.

Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#22

Post by bsza »

NotGMan wrote: post #4

>> While Unreal engine currently does not have terms like Unity’s, there’s nothing stopping them from doing something similar. In fact if Unity manages to get away with this it seems likely they will follow suit. Unreal has licenses which allow you to use one version of their engine FOREVER and they cannot revoke that license. So the author didn't fully research this. It is true that for NEWER version Epic can change…

> if Godot devs stop working on it

Then others can take it from where they left off, since it’s open source. As long as it has a user base, it is guaranteed to live on. Unlike Unreal.

Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#23

Post by mschuster91 »

0xDEF wrote: post #16
kypro wrote: post #12

I kinda feel bad for Unity. The company is in a bad place finacially. They're burning almost $1 billion a year and they have no good solutions to this. Either they try to increase pricing and piss off their customers, or they cut costs (which they've been doing with mass layoffs) and risk losing ground to other game engineers like Unreal. For years the only thing really holding the company a float was their valuation…

I don't understand their refusal to make games that will make them money and showcase Unity's capabilities. The only reason Unreal engine has so favorable license conditions is because Epic Games earn billions from Fortnite and Epic Games Store.

I'm still sad there hasn't been a new Unreal Tournament since 2007. It's all only Fortnite now.

Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#24

Post by 0xDEF »

mschuster91 wrote: post #23
0xDEF wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand their refusal to make games that will make them money and showcase Unity's capabilities. The only reason Unreal engine has so favorable license conditions is because Epic Games earn billions from Fortnite and Epic Games Store.

I'm still sad there hasn't been a new Unreal Tournament since 2007. It's all only Fortnite now.

They seem to have something in the works: https://www.epicgames.com/unrealtournament/en-US/

Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#25

Post by Fluorescence »

NotGMan wrote: post #4

>> While Unreal engine currently does not have terms like Unity’s, there’s nothing stopping them from doing something similar. In fact if Unity manages to get away with this it seems likely they will follow suit. Unreal has licenses which allow you to use one version of their engine FOREVER and they cannot revoke that license. So the author didn't fully research this. It is true that for NEWER version Epic can change…

> use one version of their engine FOREVER

In an age of locked down mobile OSes and forever changing graphics drivers and such, I don't think "FOREVER" is very long any more.

It's like a perpetual license to a specific version of JetBrains Rider. It's sold as if I own a general purpose tool FOREVER and can opt out of an endless subscription but no, it doesn't mean much at all. It will not work with the next runtime update and past runtimes are obsoleted after a couple of years. They have managed to outsource their subscription lock-in as the release cycles of a third parties while pretending to be holier than thou. If they shipped the volatile parts as open source plug-ins, I would feel differently.

Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#26

Post by pelasaco »

As Game developer myself, and unity user, I was concerned about the new pricing model, however, actually reading the actual changes[1], you see that 99% of the developers are not affected, and in some cases, for those affected, still cheaper to go with Unity than with Unreal: There is a video explaining it well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENoVL68z9PU

For sure an open source solution would be more than welcome, but sounds like impossible, because either those out there are half-backed, or are just finding a way to monetize it too..

[1] https://unity.com/pricing-updates

Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#27

Post by felipesoc »

NotGMan wrote: post #4

>> While Unreal engine currently does not have terms like Unity’s, there’s nothing stopping them from doing something similar. In fact if Unity manages to get away with this it seems likely they will follow suit. Unreal has licenses which allow you to use one version of their engine FOREVER and they cannot revoke that license. So the author didn't fully research this. It is true that for NEWER version Epic can change…

Unity had the same in its license. But they changed it without notifying and when you updated the engine the new license applies even if it's a minor version so Unreal can do the same thing.

Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#28

Post by hahn-kev »

raincole wrote: post #9
NotGMan wrote: post #4

>> While Unreal engine currently does not have terms like Unity’s, there’s nothing stopping them from doing something similar. In fact if Unity manages to get away with this it seems likely they will follow suit. Unreal has licenses which allow you to use one version of their engine FOREVER and they cannot revoke that license. So the author didn't fully research this. It is true that for NEWER version Epic can change…

What if Unreal changes its term? Your answer: you can use the old version. What if Godot stops the development? Your answer: good luck (???)

You can also use the old version, it's not like an old unsupported version of something is any different for open and closed source

Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#29

Post by objclxt »

NotGMan wrote: post #4

>> While Unreal engine currently does not have terms like Unity’s, there’s nothing stopping them from doing something similar. In fact if Unity manages to get away with this it seems likely they will follow suit. Unreal has licenses which allow you to use one version of their engine FOREVER and they cannot revoke that license. So the author didn't fully research this. It is true that for NEWER version Epic can change…

> the fact that they are trying to break the Gplay/Apply monopoly shows that the Epic games leadership are not corporate piranhas like Unity's.

Epic is not doing this out of the goodness of their heart, they're doing it because it is beneficial to them. Epic is a multi-billion dollar corporation part owned by a massive conglomerate.

> BS: in reality it's usually one or two guys who actually do the actual work.

Over the last week, Godot had 32 authors pushing 52 commits. Over the last month it had 135 authors. This is not "one or two guys".

> So if Godot devs stop working on it you're stuck with a project with zero support.

Guess what, if a closed-source company decides to stop working on their product you're also stuck, but now you're even more stuck because you don't have access to the source to make your own changes!

Re: Unity’s new pricing: A wake-up call on the importance of open source

#30

Post by Kiro »

I've been watching a few gamedev streamers port their games to Godot and it's clear that it's not there yet in terms of feature parity. The good thing is that the Godot devs are in the chats, posting (unreviewed) PRs that could be used as workarounds but some major things (profiling?) are miles off still.
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