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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

#651

Post by numpad0 »

everyone wrote: post #579

How is this tracked though?? It could work like this.. + When you build, Unity secretly adds your Unity account id to the build. + When the game is run for the 1st time it secretly calls home to Unity server with your account id + The server increments # of installs from your account by one.. But couldnt this be overcome by just creating a new Unity account for every build? I really want to know btw. I am a unity dev…

No way you'll be changing bundle id/package name on every store release!

My guess of the original game plan was likely to just print out a list of most installed games, manually work out package names to developers, and pick up the phone at Unity's convenience for negotiation talks, working out disagreements including knocking out dupes and fraudulent counts. That should be technically doable.

The real problems are, most devs just don't have the cash flow to split for $0.20 per install, nor they believe they have leverages to reach into agreement for mutual benefits(special 99.9% discount or whatever), nor any viable paths for making the full amount even as eventuality(just add those banners at the top and bottom of your screen! On the launchers! People love clicking those gifs right!? Ads!), and that total dead end feeling had traumatized developers enough that they had formed impression that Unity is a total showstopper with ropes included.

But the part they cast int to dollar isn't the most problematic part.

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

#652

Post by 0xabe »

DeepYogurt wrote: post #462
linuxftw wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This was my impression: running out of ammo leads to death leads to paying for continue credits.

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

#653

Post by maccard »

chimeracoder wrote: post #564
mabbo wrote: post #563

I think at this point, the real question is who in their right mind would ever build a game in Unity again? I'm sure this will make their company a short term gain in profits, but in very short order no more Unity games will be made . Even if you accept the terms they're proposing, you know damn well they are willing to change the rules at any time at your expense. Unity just became an extinction-level-event liabilit…

> I think at this point, the real question is who in their right mind would ever build a game in Unity again? This is pretty unfortunate, because Unity is partly responsible for the surge of Linux gaming over the last 10 years. Supporting Linux comes nearly for free on Unity (compared to many other engines), and fewer Unity games will likely mean fewer Linux games.

Thankfully due to proton, unreal engine games (and home rolled engines) should just work out of the box too.

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

#654

Post by orliesaurus »

ngc248 wrote: post #440
jakebasile wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least we'll always have the first, best UT.

UT 99 and Quake 3 Arena came out at the same time. But UT with its modes and different game types was just amazing.

as someone who has played so much of these two games: both are incredible games, in their own way - creating/testing maps, the weapons, the movements, the game-modes, the moddability (skins, sounds, etc)...so good

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

#655

Post by maccard »

nugget wrote: post #528
philipov wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the only reason Unity went this route is because they don't want to be seen to publicly break the promise of no revenue ... Not quite. Unity merged with a company that sells mobile ads: ironSource. They are direct competitors of AppLovin, the dominant player in that market. The terms and backroom deals that Unity is offering devs will waive these fees if they use Unity's ad products instead of AppLovin. Thi…

Unity seems to be attempting this in the most deceptive and deceitful way possible, establishing the new Runtime Fee and then offering a temporary 100% "waiver" of the fee if you use their other (presumably inferior) products. As soon as the pressure fades, the waiver will be reduced to 50% and then eventually dropped completely - but of course the new fees will remain. They must think the average game developer has…

> As soon as the pressure fades, the waiver will be reduced to 50% and then eventually dropped completely - but of course the new fees will remain.

I think you've got this wrong. Unity is (multiple really, but for the purposes of this) two products - the engine and unity ads. Unity ads is the money maker, this is an attempt at bridging that gap. Ultimately unity don't care how they pay you, they just want to know that if you're building a successful game off their products, they're going to get paid. They can't do a revshare (because for some insane reason they talked themselves out of that a few years back), so they're left with something that quacks like a revshare, but won't negatively impact their most profitable customers and force them to reconsider.

Ultimately, I think that's as far as they got with the analysis and failed to consider well... everything else.

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

#657

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #560
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and the reason they grew too big is because they took the company public and in that sphere success is measured in growth Why is "growth" always interpreted as "higher headcount" and not "higher profits"? Certainly a company that has continually growing profits without increasing costs would be seen as more valuable than a company that constantly increases their costs with revenue? Does Unity hiring more Engineers…

very generalized answer here but it comes down to: 1. you want to make sure product A is profitable 2. at some point Product A will reach a steady state (in some utopic future, but let's pretend). i.e. Product A will hit a point where its excitement will taper off. 3. How do you get that explosive growth back? New product. But you want to maintain old product. 4. hire more people to work on Product B. Have it launch,…

> 2. at some point Product A will reach a steady state (in some utopic future, but let's pretend). i.e. Product A will hit a point where its excitement will taper off.

> 4. hire more people to work on Product B. Have it launch, big growth!

Why is the answer "hire more people to work on Product B" and not "Move people from A to B and shrink the product A team to focus on bug fixes and security fixes"

I would think that the desire to hire a whole new team rather than move staff is what keeps Zawinski's Law [0] around.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski#Zawinski's_Law

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

#658

Post by wly_cdgr »

mabbo wrote: post #563

I think at this point, the real question is who in their right mind would ever build a game in Unity again? I'm sure this will make their company a short term gain in profits, but in very short order no more Unity games will be made . Even if you accept the terms they're proposing, you know damn well they are willing to change the rules at any time at your expense. Unity just became an extinction-level-event liabilit…

They may just not care about being the game engine of choice for indie gamedevs anymore, or they may even actively want to not be that anymore (as a branding thing). The way Unity positions itself on their landing page is VERY different from what they were doing 5 or 10 years ago, when (indie) games were absolutely front and center (and there wasn't much else, period).

I think being a AA game engine was just one early part of their long term business strategy, and this last move is them ejecting that stage of their rocket as a necessary part of moving on to the next stage of their strategy.

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

#659

Post by matt3D »

TylerE wrote: post #627
gabereiser wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consoles no longer require specialized hardware to develop for. There are test kits for ps5 but you can compile on your PC. Where are you getting your information from? The only requirement is a header or two and a code sign. Godot OSS can’t support consoles because the SDK (those headers) are closed source, but there’s nothing stopping you from implementing the half dozen header functions in Godot source yourself. T…

That is literally from the godot site. https://docs.godotengine.org/en/3.0/tutorials/platform/conso...

I think you're conflating two things.

To paraphrase the docs : You can ship games on consoles, but the tools required to do so will never be included in the open source code.

Eg. Just because you need to buy a tin opener to open your can of beans, doesn't mean you don't have any beans

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

#660

Post by numpad0 »

DeepYogurt wrote: post #462
linuxftw wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think that's a thing in arcade games. There are pay to continue in arcades, and pay to win in regulated gambling that are light on gaming aspect, but never seen one in arcades.

Maybe it's similar to how there are "Dungeons and Something" || "Something and Dragons" but somehow never both?

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