Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

ramatak.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 733 posts

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

#191

Post by 40yearoldman »

pdpi wrote: post #164
objclxt wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

> Epic is not doing this out of the goodness of their heart Tim Sweeney founded Epic and wrote the Unreal engine himself. John Riccitiello’s whole career is in management. Even if they’re both entirely motivated by profit, they have different perspectives on how to get there. Also, Unity is a public company, while Epic is private. Even though Tencent owns a considerable share of the company, Sweeney still holds over…

Eh. Part of apples brand is “doing the right thing” and “being the good guy”. I would wager Apple’s brand would be hurt more by not being a green company. ROI is more complicated than simple fist level cost. Going green and doubling down on recycling has generated a much larger ROI than doing nothing.

Further more, Tim is bound by law to do what is best for the shareholders. Simply put, if Tim favored environmental concerns over profit he would be removed.

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

#192

Post by spacebanana7 »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #94
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…

> and they have no good solutions to this Bought by Apple or Microsoft maybe?

Unity seem like a very valuable acquisition target. Any of the American or Chinese big tech companies could put Unity to good strategic use plus a few medium sized tech companies like Adobe and Sony.

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

#193

Post by wccrawford »

supermatt wrote: post #126

Is Godot feature comparable with unity? Why would someone choose unity over godot?

Until recently, Godot was practically unusable for 3D. They're still actively adding features that other engines already have. It also exports for consoles, where Godot doesn't.

Having said that, I've been looking at it recently and it looks like it has everything I need. I'm definitely going to try it out before deciding between it and UE5.

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

#194

Post by jorvi »

pdpi wrote: post #164
objclxt wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

> Epic is not doing this out of the goodness of their heart Tim Sweeney founded Epic and wrote the Unreal engine himself. John Riccitiello’s whole career is in management. Even if they’re both entirely motivated by profit, they have different perspectives on how to get there. Also, Unity is a public company, while Epic is private. Even though Tencent owns a considerable share of the company, Sweeney still holds over…

The same Tim Cook that tries to make iPhones as unrepairable as possible? :)

Don’t fall for feelgood greenwashing.

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

#195

Post by ChoGGi »

RugnirViking wrote: post #133
Ekaros wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems quite a lot. Compared to game development teams with their own engines which they have kept modern while releasing games...

How many such game development companies actually are there? I see a lot of aging engines out there, and companies that jumped to unreal, but I have by no means broad knowledge

Off the top of my head, there's Larian Studios (bg3), and Haemimont Games (ja3).

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

#196

Post by Pannoniae »

40yearoldman wrote: post #191
pdpi wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Epic is not doing this out of the goodness of their heart Tim Sweeney founded Epic and wrote the Unreal engine himself. John Riccitiello’s whole career is in management. Even if they’re both entirely motivated by profit, they have different perspectives on how to get there. Also, Unity is a public company, while Epic is private. Even though Tencent owns a considerable share of the company, Sweeney still holds over…

Eh. Part of apples brand is “doing the right thing” and “being the good guy”. I would wager Apple’s brand would be hurt more by not being a green company. ROI is more complicated than simple fist level cost. Going green and doubling down on recycling has generated a much larger ROI than doing nothing. Further more, Tim is bound by law to do what is best for the shareholders. Simply put, if Tim favored environmental c…

"Further more, Tim is bound by law to do what is best for the shareholders."

This stupid meme needs to die already. There is no such obligation, he only has a fiduciary duty to not trash the company and spend the earnings on cocaine. "companies are legally forced to maximise profit" has never been true and this piece of misinformation has been going around for ages now.

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

#197

Post by nottorp »

ThatPlayer wrote: post #136
nottorp wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. It doesn't have to be illegal, merely immoral. > 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.…

Releasing on a store is not immoral. Is not releasing on GoG what you believe to be immoral? Even GoG has paid for exclusives, they charge store fees like everyone else. They're a business too at the end of the day. That sounds like an unfinished feature to me then. Why are you playing games forever that aren't entertaining?

> Why are you playing games forever that aren't entertaining?

Did I say I play endless games? I said free to play games have to be endless to get you to pay.

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

#198

Post by Already__Taken »

raincole wrote: post #18
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.

Because to make the next Fortnite takes not just a lot of money, but luck . What if they made a game and it flopped (a techinically impressive game can definitely flop)? People will be like "oh see Unity engine is so bad, even the game from the first party doesn't sell".

but why aren't they investing in successes as they find them. There was loads of room to invest in ksp1 to try and get a chunk for themselves.

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

#199

Post by grotorea »

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…

> They have no moat

How easy is for a studio to change engine? Isn't that a decent moat?

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

#200

Post by qwytw »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #47

This is written based on my quite poor understanding of the game business. I am sincerely wanting to learn more about how it works and how the new license structure impact developers. My questions below might be idiotic. (but not intentionally so) I have no idea how many apps reach above 200.000 installs total or $200.000 income per year. How common is it for apps to meet the minimum requirements when the fees kick i…

> reach above 200.000 installs total or $200.000 income per year

No developers/companies who made more than $200k per year (overall revenue of the company, not per game) were even allowed to the use the Personal/Plus tiers and were required to upgrade to pro (which has 1 million install/revenue limits).

I don't think the itself cost would be unreasonable for at least 90-95% of all developers and if you average it out across everyone the proportion of revenue Unity get's would be still pretty low (not much more than 1% or so).

Most people seem to be upset because how they applied these changes retroactively on currently released games and because the whole model seems way to convoluted and not really thought trough.

Post reply on HN