I like how the CEO can't be bothered for this, though. Shows real leadership
That the CEO didn't write this is a major indicator that he has or will be fired.
What are they doing? Biding their time?
An open letter to our community
131–140 of 223 posts
Re: An open letter to our community
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does this help anything when they have already demonstrated their willingness to alter terms and retrospectively add fees or alter licensing conditions. They already walked back changes once before saying “Okay you can keep the terms you agreed on your version” and went back on that promise for this clusterfuck. They burned the trust bridge and nothing they _ever_ do or can say will bring that trust back.
Compared to how other companies behave, Reddit for example, it's a good signal to their customers that they've come to their senses and reached a reasonable compromise. Also, a second mistake like this would be devastating, so hopefully Unity will handle changes better from now on.
a second mistake like this would be devastating
According to the GP, this already was their second mistake like this. I'm not in game development and I'm not aware of the first, but maybe someone else can explain what/when their first "mistake" was.
Re: An open letter to our community
#133Dropping this on a Friday with a fireside chat happening in the afternoon on the same day leaves a bad impression. A blog post announcement is ok, but my reading of this is that there is no guarantee that they will not attempt a retroactive change again (ex: their TOS change and removal). This is a step in the right direction, but feels there’s still a long gap to bridge if they want to earn back trust.
Re: An open letter to our community
#134This seems very reasonable actually? Being able to choose 2.5% revenue share (half of Unreal) does not sound bad to me. And very glad they removed the retroactivity of the new fees.
It may be reasonable and this is nothing but an attempt to stop the bleeding. There is no reason to trust them or their leadership again. The fact the CEO wasn't booted immediately shows they still want that style of leadership. The fact the CEO is not the one making this statement shows the fact Unity not interested to hold him accountable. They did this last year making dumb statements about monetization and then p…
Fair points. Not sure if it will ever be possible to get back the trust they destroyed.
Re: An open letter to our community
#135It’s interesting how some complain companies don’t listen to them, and others say that it doesn’t matter if changes are made after (rightful) complaints. I have absolutely no stake in this and I’m sure these aren’t the same people, but it is interesting. From reading the original proposal and this new one, they should’ve gone first with this one. I’m sure unity developers will hesitatingly continue their work.
> It’s interesting how some complain companies don’t listen to them, and others say that it doesn’t matter if changes are made after (rightful) complaints.
That's because many folks recognize that the fundamental problem is not the proposal, it is the mechanism by which that proposal was crafted, refined, and finally approved that is rotten.
Walking back the proposal is fine in the near term, but without drastic change to the fundamentals of the company and its leadership, you'll just end up in the same situation in the future, it is just a matter of when.
Re: An open letter to our community
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
At that level it's often just a big club that you don't get to be a part of because you don't have the right connections. Many CEO's (and execs in general) are not extraordinary people in any sense of the word. I think people underestimate just how often a business leader gets to where they are because of nepotism. Many of the biggest companies in the world operate like a royal dynasty, with children inheriting the l…
It wouldn't bother me so much if not for the fact that they get lauded as geniuses for every innovation coming out of their companies. I've seen dozens of people on LinkedIn claiming that Elon Musk invented self-landing rockets, and they get mad at me when respond with "no he fucking didn't! He hired people to figure that stuff out". So I think "Fine, I guess you could make some kind of transitive argument that he hi…
[flagged]
Re: An open letter to our community
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's amazing to me how very smart people in corporations can convince themselves (and I mean, like really believe it) that the shit sandwich they are serving up is actually filet mignon. It's the whole "it's very hard for someone to understand something when their paycheck depends on not understanding it" issue. I've seen it a few times in person, where I'm like "How the f are we convincing ourselves of this?" 2 reco…
I haven't seen any evidence that anyone smart was involved in this decision. There's been some hints that the actual smart people (devs, customer support folks) were screaming bloody murder that it was a terrible idea, but the execs pushed it through anyway. This is yet another entry in the enormous list of evidence that becoming the head of a company does not require any intelligence. Quite the opposite, apparently.
There are so many things left unsaid, but implied, in this post. I love it.
Re: An open letter to our community
#138Tangential: what other downloadable software makes (or, tries to make) money with "revenue share"?
I'm aware of these not-downloadable-but-is-digital services/stores/platforms that do:
- app stores (Apple takes 30%, Google takes 30%)
- content (YouTube keeps 45%, Twitch takes a cut)
- e-commerce (Etsy 5% transaction fee; eBay takes a %)
- music/podcast (Spotify; SoundCloud)
- e-learning (Udemy; Teachable)
- gaming (Steam takes 30%; Epic takes %12)
- rental (AirBNB service fees; Turo commission on each car rental)
- freelancing (Upwork's sliding fee; Fiverr takes 20%)
But Unity is DOWNLOADABLE software, not a platform/app-store/SaaS. So, why revenue share? Surely most devs just make free-standing/downloadable games that don't tie into any platform-y features?
AFAIK, even Unity Enterprise [0] is just source code, support, 3-year LTS bug fixes, and the only real thing that's platform-y is the build server, which seems to cost extra anyway.
Re: An open letter to our community
#139Tangential: what other downloadable software makes (or, tries to make) money with "revenue share"? I'm aware of these not-downloadable-but-is-digital services/stores/platforms that do: - app stores (Apple takes 30%, Google takes 30%) - content (YouTube keeps 45%, Twitch takes a cut) - e-commerce (Etsy 5% transaction fee; eBay takes a %) - music/podcast (Spotify; SoundCloud) - e-learning (Udemy; Teachable) - gaming (S…
For starters, their number one competitor Unreal.
Re: An open letter to our community
#140Why can't we just come out and say that the agent / capital model is consumer antagonistic and work on fixing it? This is just a symptom, the cause needs to be addressed by the legislature.