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Unity's oldest community announces dissolution

farewell.bostonunitygroup.com

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Re: Unity's oldest community announces dissolution

#81

Post by musicale »

kdottt wrote: post #5

"More importantly, we've seen how easily and flippantly an executive-led business decision can risk bankrupting the studios we've worked so hard to build, threaten our livelihoods as professionals, and challenge the longevity of our industry. The Unity of today isn't the same company that it was when the group was founded, and the trust we used to have in the company has been completely eroded." Profoundly sad, and c…

> Have never seen a company so quickly and completely just throw away all of their public good will.

Over the past year Docker and D&D/Wizards of the Coast come to mind...

Re: Unity's oldest community announces dissolution

#83

Post by maccard »

SolarNet wrote: post #56
TylerE wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To play devil's advocate... Unity isn't close to profitable, and never has been. At some point money has to be made or the lights get turned off.

> Unity isn't close to profitable, and never has been This isn't really true though, their core business is and was profitable if you exclude all the of acquisitions junk, stock shenanigans, and loans to pay for it they have been doing. It just didn't have the margins expected of a public company and so they did all that other junk to pump those numbers.

> This isn't really true though, their core business is and was profitable if you exclude all the of acquisitions junk, stock shenanigans, and loans to pay for it they have been doing.

"We're profitable if you ignore all the things we're spending money on"

Re: Unity's oldest community announces dissolution

#84

Post by sebzim4500 »

bastardoperator wrote: post #74
soulbadguy wrote: post #9

like getting blood from a stone... Most of those open-source companies turn "evil" stories (like IBM/redhat ) seems to follow the same pattern. IMO, there is a limit of the amount of value one can extract from those venture. Trying to increase revenue beyond a certain limit will always result very bad outcome. But i also think it's a lesson for the gaming industry. Why is something as core are a game engine, not some…

Why would I even want to build a game if I'm going to have to give between 4-8% of everything I make to steam and unity? I completely understand why nearly every AAA studio builds their own client and game engine, it's cheaper in the long run.

Surely steam takes way more than 8%?

Re: Unity's oldest community announces dissolution

#85

Post by all2 »

musicale wrote: post #81
kdottt wrote: post #5

"More importantly, we've seen how easily and flippantly an executive-led business decision can risk bankrupting the studios we've worked so hard to build, threaten our livelihoods as professionals, and challenge the longevity of our industry. The Unity of today isn't the same company that it was when the group was founded, and the trust we used to have in the company has been completely eroded." Profoundly sad, and c…

> Have never seen a company so quickly and completely just throw away all of their public good will. Over the past year Docker and D&D/Wizards of the Coast come to mind...

What happened with Docker? (WotC have been killing goodwill for years at this point, but I guess the MtG folks have a bad case of Stockholm Syndrome.)

Re: Unity's oldest community announces dissolution

#86

Post by follower »

jameshart wrote: post #36
miohtama wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why it is good to build on the top of open source solutions

Great advice… Unless you’re a game studio who wants to ship on PlayStation and Switch some day. If you want to build on an engine that lets you target proprietary platforms your options are, in practice, limited.

That would be an issue with e.g. GPL-licensed game engine but not an Open Source licensed one (e.g. MIT).

Obligatory relevant Godot-related links:

* https://docs.godotengine.org/en/4.1/tutorials/platform/conso...

* https://godotengine.org/article/godot-consoles-all-you-need-...

* https://w4games.com/2023/08/06/w4-games-unveils-w4-consoles-...

Couple of Godot-based games available on console:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassette_Beasts#Development / https://godotengine.org/article/godot-showcase-cassette-beas...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_Colors#Reception_2

Re: Unity's oldest community announces dissolution

#87

Post by amrocha »

cableshaft wrote: post #64
amrocha wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are open source tools banned on playstation and switch?

Not banned, just that every build platform has to be supported and not every open source project prioritizes each platform. Godot, for example, doesn't support console builds, only working with a third party to facilitate porting to those platforms (that may change in the future now that they're getting a lot more support from the community after all this).

Gotcha, so it's not that open source isn't possible, the industry just needs to invest in community support for an engine

Re: Unity's oldest community announces dissolution

#88

Post by follower »

cableshaft wrote: post #64
amrocha wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are open source tools banned on playstation and switch?

Not banned, just that every build platform has to be supported and not every open source project prioritizes each platform. Godot, for example, doesn't support console builds, only working with a third party to facilitate porting to those platforms (that may change in the future now that they're getting a lot more support from the community after all this).

> Godot, for example, doesn't support console builds, only working with a third party to facilitate porting to those platforms

For the full nuanced details I've listed the relevant links here:

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37649430

Re: Unity's oldest community announces dissolution

#89

Post by mindslight »

brookst wrote: post #49
yoyohello13 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Good will" is an asset just like any other to be spent when the time is right. Sometimes a company will make the wrong bet and accidentally go out of business. Far more often there is a ton of backlash, their reputation goes in the tank, then they spend the next couple years building good will back up until the majority of people forget all about the past transgressions. Meanwhile the unpopular decision makes stacks…

But isn’t that as it should be? Just like you never step in the same river twice, you never do business with the same company twice. Staff and executives change over time, and companies shift for better or worse. Should we hold grudges against brands for things totally different people did 10? 20? 50? years ago? That seems weird to me. Unity specifically deserves loss of trust and all the pain they get. But in 5 year…

> Should we hold grudges against brands for things totally different people did 10? 20? 50? years ago? That seems weird to me.

You've inverted the sense here, by treating reputation as something based on default trust and exceptional "grudges". What has really happened is that they've destroyed the exceptional positive reputation they spent the past decade and a half building. A new reputation can certainly be built over the next decade, but for now they're mostly back to the default state of deserving no trust.

Re: Unity's oldest community announces dissolution

#90

Post by JohnFen »

nwiswell wrote: post #61
brookst wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn’t that as it should be? Just like you never step in the same river twice, you never do business with the same company twice. Staff and executives change over time, and companies shift for better or worse. Should we hold grudges against brands for things totally different people did 10? 20? 50? years ago? That seems weird to me. Unity specifically deserves loss of trust and all the pain they get. But in 5 year…

If you drink from a river and get cholera, would you drink from that river again in the future? It might be fine! Maybe on that particular day, somebody with cholera had just taken a shit upstream, and the bacteria are totally gone now. But it's still a useful prior, and that's the case here with whom you choose to conduct business. I think it's a question of burden of proof. You'd ordinarily not worry too much about…

> If you drink from a river and get cholera, would you drink from that river again in the future?

No. Further, I'd stop drinking untreated water from all rivers. (Just answering your hypothetical. I spend a lot of time in the wilderness and wouldn't drink untreated water from a river or lake to begin with.)

This effect, though, has happened with software for me years ago. Enough bad actors exist that I've reached the place where I trust very few software houses (and I trust exactly zero SV-style companies). Not that all of those rivers are polluted, of course, but that it's impossible to tell which ones are and which ones aren't by looking at them.

I would never dare to start a business that depended on any of them. The risk is simply too great.

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