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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

#461

Post by doikor »

bennyschmidt wrote: post #321

Everyone told me "use Unity" "the biggest mistake you can make is building your own engine". How well did that advice age? Nobody needs Unity or Unreal. My most recent game (playshadowvane.com) is built on 100% proprietary technology, I built everything in-house down to the physics. Always ignore mainstream game dev advice, they are just trying to sell you products. Build as much as you can in-house, it's not only be…

Now try to hire 20 level designers and 5 engineers who know how to work with your engine/tools.

Same applies to most software. It isn't that hard to make a new programming language or a http framework. But once you make one finding other people who know how to use it is a pain in the ass.

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

#462

Post by DeepYogurt »

linuxftw wrote: post #425
mnau wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A CEO under who EA introduced lootboxes. A person that proposed that when player runs out of ammo could make an easy instant payment for a quick reload. Unity engine seems to flounder under him, despite rather insane headcount (7,703), acquisition spree laden Unity Technologies with significant debt... I am not impressed, not with his ideas and even less with his results. For comparison, Larry Elisson (Oracle) has di…

Running out of ammo and instant payment sounds a lot like an arcade, which is how video games became commercially successful in the first place.

> Running out of ammo and instant payment sounds a lot like an arcade

Any chance you have an example? I can't recall an arcade game that had you pay per bullet.

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

#463

Post by maccard »

dcow wrote: post #311
maccard wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You wouldn't be able to freely share your modifications for instance. Have you read the unreal engine license agreement? [0]. Section 3.a covers modifications [0] https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/eula/unreal

Section 3.a covers products you’ve made with the licensed technology. I don’t see any language about modifications to the licensed technology. Edit: I see some language covering this further up.

I used to work for Epic so I have some inside knowledge, but modifying the engine and sharing it with other licensees (via the UDN forum usually) Its actively encouraged too.

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

#464

Post by prox »

jwells89 wrote: post #353
tapoxi wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Their biggest marketplace (blendermarket) also directly contributes to the the Foundation as well.

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

#465

Post by omoikane »

swalsh wrote: post #229

I wish game development wasn't so monolithic. You're either all in on Unity, or all in on Unreal, or all in on GoDot. They are designer forward, code later. Each has a marketplace of sorts, but in my experience it's substandard. Compare that to web development (different beast I know, but there's no reason gaming can't be more componentized). Web development is so simple these days because I spend most of my time glu…

> I wish game development wasn't so monolithic.

If you are thinking about why the game engines aren't broken down into finer reusable components (e.g. one module for rendering and another for physics, etc.), it probably has to do with how these things are tightly integrated, and how every game engine has a different design philosophy on how the world should be organized. The different organizations might also mean that you have to design the games to fit a specific game engine, which is unfortunate.

Maybe you are lamenting why the marketplaces or asset stores are so closely tied to the game engines? For some plugins, they have to be tailored to the specific engines. But for arts and sounds, there are many free and paid options to choose from, although not necessarily of the same quality and cost as one might get from the asset stores that are sponsored by the game engines (e.g. Unreal Megascans).

There are still various tools associated with game development (e.g. Blender for 3D, your favorite text editor for scripting), and those aren't tied to specific game engines.

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

#467

Post by lowbloodsugar »

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…

>hinges on the premise that Epic ... is willing to burn their bridge with developers for questionable increase in profit

Bahaha. Epic would eat their own grandmother if it got them an increase in profit. You better hope the Epic never becomes the only game in town, because then you will see what happens to who takes home what revenue.

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

#468

Post by RobKohr »

jwells89 wrote: post #356
intelVISA wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Mentioning a tweet without quoting it is kinda annoying. It isn't like it could be that long.

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

#469

Post by lotsofpulp »

Iulioh wrote: post #403
miragecraft wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the insight. So I guess the conclusion is that Unity was fucked pre-IPO?

The fact that the CEO was slowly selling millions of shares was an indication

I would expect any CEO to continuously sell shares as they are awarded. Diversifying investments is a very recommended and common investment choice.

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

#470

Post by doctorpangloss »

Vt71fcAqt7 wrote: post #460
doctorpangloss wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that you're writing stylized speculations but in my experience in the games industry, every single point is wrong. It is the most upvoted comment because it touches on a bunch of first-principles-know-nothing boogeymen, but so it goes with Hacker News nowadays. You can keep reading to find out why, or whatever, my dog in this race is (1) I use Unity (2) I don't think they're going to change anything about these…

>Ultimately there's no alternative to Unity right now as an engine. How can you say that when unreal exists? They are dominant in PC and even used in many large mobile games.

They simply serve very different audiences of both developers and end users. Their coexistence is evidence of how different they are from one another, not how fungible they are.
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