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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

#351

Post by Rovoska »

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…

Only on hacker news will you find someone feeling bad for a company, of all things.

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

#352

Post by alexvitkov »

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 spent like 6 billion on acquisitions that don't help make their core product better. Literally just don't do that and you'd be in the green right now.

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

#353

Post by jwells89 »

tapoxi wrote: post #344
cyanfrog wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminds me. How is blender able to stay free. How is their approach different?

Blender is nonprofit and funded by donations and grants. The closest analog to this in the game engine space is Godot.

Blender is also managed exceptionally well for a FOSS project, systematically polishing up rough edges and paying close attention to the needs and desires of its userbase which no doubt inspires larger donations from more donors than FOSS projects usually have.

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

#354

Post by sigmoid10 »

miragecraft wrote: post #340

The logic that Epic and Unreal Engine will do something similar as Unity doesn't track for me. The argument hinges on the premise that Epic, who operates their own game store and is courting developers aggressively with generous revenue split, is willing to burn their bridge with developers for questionable increase in profit; in addition it presumes that the plain old revenue share model that Unreal Engine utiltizes…

I don't think this is a problem of company structure. It's solely a problem of bad management. If they had listened to their users or their own developers, or any remotely sane person with some touch of reality, then this wouldn't have happened. But if you hire the former CEO of EA - a guy with no low level industry experience and who left his last job because of poor financial performance - then this whole fiasco seems like it was inevitable.

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

#355

Post by binarymax »

miragecraft wrote: post #340

The logic that Epic and Unreal Engine will do something similar as Unity doesn't track for me. The argument hinges on the premise that Epic, who operates their own game store and is courting developers aggressively with generous revenue split, is willing to burn their bridge with developers for questionable increase in profit; in addition it presumes that the plain old revenue share model that Unreal Engine utiltizes…

Epic/Valve are privately held now, but if you build a team and game series on a proprietary platform, you are at the whim of the platform owner. It might be a low risk now given they are looking to scoop up teams ditching Unity, but nobody knows what will happen in 2 or 3 years.

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

#356

Post by jwells89 »

intelVISA wrote: post #42
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…

The Unreal thing is that Unity has/had ~8,000 employees last year. Sounds like an awful lot for a mobile game engine.

Between Unity’s headcount and acquisitions it’s hard to not be reminded of the dril candle tweet.

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

#357

Post by whatyesaid »

grotorea wrote: post #199
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?

Maybe Godot is similar enough where you'd be able to consider this. Otherwise this move is more harmful in the long term of Unity and it's about future games and not current ones. Long term matters more, always.

It may also make AAA invest away from Unreal as it looks like a monopoly now.

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

#358

Post by _chu1 »

saltymug76 wrote: post #281
_chu1 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have never thought in a million years iOS was considered a large gaming platform.

Millions of kids and their sticky iPads would like a word.

My mindset is stuck in 2008 so you're probably right

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

#359

Post by troupo »

ensignavenger wrote: post #260
flohofwoe wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK in Germany the TL;DR is that if there's anything in the EULA which violates "German Civil Code (BGB)", then either parts or all of the EULA are invalid. I remember that in Germany an EULA cannot prohibit reselling the software to somebody else, or making your own backup copy (kinda tricky nowadays though where everything is just a "service").

"AFAIK in Germany the TL;DR is that if there's anything in the EULA which violates "German Civil Code (BGB)", then either parts or all of the EULA are invalid. " There is nothing unique about German law here. The same is true in the USA and most other countries. If a EULA or any other contract (whether agreed verbally, signed physically, digitally, or via a "click") violates the law, it can be considered invalid/unen…

There are multiple reasons why an EULA may be viewed as unenforceable in the EU due to unfair terms: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/unfair-treat...

Interestingly, Unity runs afoul of many of those.

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