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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

#71

Post by ekianjo »

chii wrote: post #41
TMM2K wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're contradicting your own points. If it is not a problem that Unreal can change their license for next versions because you can use the old one (which is now unsupported and not worked on) that is fine. For Godot, if we were to stop developing it (and I'd like to note that Godot is one of the most active projects on Github right now) you would still have the version you have now. What is the difference between Ep…

> Except that with Godot at least you could work on it yourself if you wanted to. let me play the devil's advocate - unreal's source is available (despite it not being actual opensource licensed). This means if Epic ever abandons unreal, you could theoretically also just make the changes you need to support whatever your project required - as long as you didn't distribute those changes (except perhaps the run-time? N…

Source available means you cant do shit at the end of the day before going in legal trouble

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

#72

Post by scarface_74 »

Fluorescence wrote: post #25
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 up…

What’s the alternative? That they keep giving people updates free forever after they buy it?

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

#73

Post by j-bos »

isilofi wrote: post #10
makomk wrote: post #2

Much as I love open source and the Godot engine, this seems more like a wake-up call on the importance of corporations not being able to unilaterally, retroactively change contracts in ways that impose new charges and violate existing contractual commitments that others have relied on. If they can do that then open source doesn't offer much real protection.

It is a wakeup-call also to do due dilligence and risk management when entering contracts. And yes, clicking "agreed" in the installer is very often a contract that you should run by your legal advisors. Or at least think very hard about. _Some_ kinds of Open Source might help there, since _some_ open source licenses are very easy to comply with and very business-friendly. On the other hand, all the game studios now…

>clicking "agreed" in the installer is very often a contract that you should run by your legal advisors.

The law often makes use of the reasonableness standard. I'm hard pressed to believe that carefully reading the hundreds of TOS and EULA's hoisted upon us is reasonable.

If you're reading my comment you must have read the TOS/EULA for ycombinator, firefox (or chrome), your wireless or ISP, the keyboard app on your phone, odds are you have an email, perhaps a google account, remember the OS licence. Ever listened to a music streaming service, watched youtube? Messaged using an app? Banked online? Have some managed passwords? Like games, how many? For the common people, what about social media?

That's about a dozen "contracts" and that's lowballing it, multiplied by each update to the "agreement" (pray they don't alterate further) multiplied by the requirement to also read and acknowledge the privcy policy. All this for services that have become when not essential ubiquitous and constantly shift under you. You'd need 8 figures to run that by a lawyer, or a part time job to carefully consider. That's not a reasonable arrangement.

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

#75

Post by thenerdhead »

TMM2K wrote: post #51
thenerdhead wrote: post #38

> By using an open source engine you can be sure that whatever that “next thing” is, the engine won’t keep you from taking advantage of it. Nor would the engine be able to dictate your monetization strategy for you. We really ought to separate the fact that "open" does not always mean "free" here. Especially given that it is fairly straight-forward to change licenses on a whim. Imagine you wake up one day and suddenl…

That's not possible with something that is open source. If it has a "dual license" that means you can pick which license to apply. You just pick the one that doesn't make you pay.

There are a number of projects doing this today with dual-license models(Permissive/Commercial). I'm not a lawyer and have no idea if they hold up in court/can be enforced but it absolutely is a thing today.

https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/5599/any-succ...

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

#76

Post by Archipelagia »

Archipelagia wrote: post #70
phkahler wrote: post #60

Why not charge $1 for your game? Problem solved. If you're making a game with a fancy commercial engine I would hope what you're offering is worth a buck. Let's get some quality in this world.

The difference in conversions between free and $1 is not a matter of price. The hard part is getting someone to pay in the first place. That's why a model of free game with paid addons/extras/pay-to-win/etc. works so well – once someone already tried your game and gets invested in it, they're more likely to spend anything.

And in mobile gaming there's also the matter of looking for "whales". Basically, while majority of people will never spend anything, there's a minority willing to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars. Then, the difficulty comes from showing your game to enough people to find whales.

(Whether that model is ethical in the first place is a whole different matter. I don't think it is, so maybe eliminating it will be a net positive in the world.)

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

#77

Post by Fluorescence »

scarface_74 wrote: post #72
Fluorescence wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 up…

What’s the alternative? That they keep giving people updates free forever after they buy it?

I gave you the alternative: plug-ins that could be maintained by the community. They already have the module system but all the version sensitive .net features are in the core.

For Unreal, I don't think there is a solution to closed platforms if it requires a large/sophisticated team to maintain compatibility. We can only point out that any notion of "forever" is a fiction - you have got in bed with a commercial dependency you may come to regret if they choose to change the rules.

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

#78

Post by dkersten »

TMM2K wrote: post #59
troupo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Guess what, if a closed-source company decides to stop working on their product you're also stuck Isn't Unreal's source open?

You can access the source code to unreal engine when you get a license, but the terms are not by any stretch of the imagination open source. You wouldn't be able to freely share your modifications for instance.

> when you get a license

I was going to comment that it’s viewable by anyone on their GitHub, but you are correct: you have to be part of the Epic GitHub organisation to access the repo. Getting access is easy, but you do have to agree to their licensing terms to do so. So yes, what you said.

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

#79

Post by ThatPlayer »

nottorp wrote: post #55
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 Epic games leadership are not corporate piranhas like Unity's. the Epic games leadership are bribing developers for exclusivity, including kickstarters where i was promised steam or gog the Epic games leaderhip makes money from free to play grinding/gambling simulators the Epic games leadership also comes from Tencent that made all their gaming money before trying to get into the western market from asian gacha…

Bribing implies an illegal act. Giving money in exchange for goods and services is completely normal: I don't bribe a restaurant for food. Exclusivity is just a way of competing for games, a sign of a good competitive market.

Kickstarter is kickstarter. Half of them probably don't fulfill all their promises. That's the risk you're taking, and why it's not a preorder.

Epic don't have gambling. They've even removed gambling from Rocket League after purchasing them too.

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

#80

Post by TMM2K »

thenerdhead wrote: post #75
TMM2K wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not possible with something that is open source. If it has a "dual license" that means you can pick which license to apply. You just pick the one that doesn't make you pay.

There are a number of projects doing this today with dual-license models(Permissive/Commercial). I'm not a lawyer and have no idea if they hold up in court/can be enforced but it absolutely is a thing today. https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/5599/any-succ...

These are a little different. So these "dual licensed" products work like this:

You get a GPL version of the code, which is free and nobody can charge you for, ever.

If you want to use the software in a way that is not GPL compatible you can opt for the other, paid for, license.

This works in some cases, but in the case of Godot (assuming we were to do something like this) is the MIT license, which already gives you the rights to do whatever you want.

And even in the GPL case, if the other license terms became too odious you could simply switch to the GPL version, and not pay.

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