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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

#161

Post by hutzlibu »

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…

""and anyone who compares them has never used Unity’s"

Blender has also an asset store btw, but not really comparible (yet)."

So .. just what I said?

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

#162

Post by sirwhinesalot »

thowfaraway wrote: post #150
squeaky-clean wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Those are exactly the types of games that would be much worse off under an Unreal style royalty. Cult of the Lamb is $24.99 on Steam Unreal royalty is 5%, so $1.25 per sale Unity is $0.20 So royalty is ~6x more If there was a reasonable way to count installs (I don't think it is technically possible), install fee is much better than royalty for most devs who are not F2P apps.

You're forgetting the Unity subscription fee, the very likely reinstalls, the steam sales discounts and the games that aren't 25 but more like 10-15.

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

#163

Post by turquoisevar »

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…

While $340 million is nothing to sneeze at it would only make up 18% of Unity’s revenue if that’s what they’d make off of ads.

Which makes me wonder where the rest of their revenue comes from, but I’m too lazy right now to go through their financial statements to find out.

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

#164

Post by turquoisevar »

acdha wrote: post #130
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.

I don’t disagree but in this day and age, this kind of uninspired management is all most corporations care for.

The days that, say, a company whose main bread and butter is engineering is seeking out an engineer to lead their company are well and well and true behind us.

Nowadays most companies are looking for a “number go up” guy.

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

#165

Post by ceeam »

ED_Radish wrote: post #151
ceeam wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Cassette Beasts is Octopath Traveler esque 3D and it's been getting pretty rave reviews

Might be 3D-based internally, don't know, but it looks like an isometric pixelated platformer.

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

#166

Post by acdha »

turquoisevar wrote: post #164
acdha wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don’t disagree but in this day and age, this kind of uninspired management is all most corporations care for. The days that, say, a company whose main bread and butter is engineering is seeking out an engineer to lead their company are well and well and true behind us. Nowadays most companies are looking for a “number go up” guy.

Definitely: the kind of people on corporate boards are definitely looking for candidates like themselves. The rest of us should factor that in to decisions and avoid being dependent on companies with warning signs like this unless it’s something easily replaced.

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

#167

Post by grotorea »

paulmd wrote: post #117
grotorea wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what they are thinking in making this move then. Someone mentioned Genshin as the big legacy customer and someone answered on why it doesn't make sense. So why do they think this is a good move? Is there really enough profit to be made off legacy customers?

The license pre-October 2022 actually explicitly allows you to continue using older versions of the software under the original licensing terms when you released back then. So there is no money in legacy customers, except Genshin-scale ones. And I doubt those guys are paying up anyway.

That's even weirder then. Is it like when Blizzard decided they wished they had owned DotA money and enforced new ownership rules for mods for their new games but ended up just getting bad press?

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

#168

Post by gabereiser »

pjmlp wrote: post #156
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.

And being the best game engine with C# as the main language.

best is subjective.

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

#169

Post by stuckinhell »

jsnell wrote: post #26
stuckinhell wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Square enix spent millions on their in house engines (luminous engine). They have a good report on how and why it wasn't a great investment (10 year delays on projects). They've switched to unreal for everything now.

I'm not having any luck finding this. Do you happen to have a link?

https://www.gamezone.com/originals/square-enix-needs-to-tigh...

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

#170

Post by datadrivenangel »

itiro wrote: post #154
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…

During his tenure at EA, Unity CEO previously floated cash micro transactions to purchase in game ammo if a player ran out but could not find any. Generally speaking it’s not hard to argue corporate leadership has lost the fucking plot altogether and are steering everything in to a stone cliff face. Data driven fiat economics and viral media is being weaponized as a mathematical minority hallucinate they are some ess…

It's like the classic startup ideas around "People need to organize their consumption of X, so if we just put in a button allowing them to buy X next to their lists they'll buy it from us!"

Missing the point that most people don't want that.

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