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OSS Game Engines are increasing their stars on GitHub due to Unity's missteps

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Re: OSS Game Engines are increasing their stars on GitHub due to Unity's missteps

#181

Yeah, and everyone will be back to Unity in a month. People need to make a living, y'know. They need to make games/assets NOW, not in 3 years once those engines are ready. For example, I see my Twitter timeline full of people slowly realizing that Godot is not Unity 2, and complaining about the UX, GDScript, C# and performance problems. So, they either have to live on that hill and contribute to Godot (And sometimes…

Yep, Unity wants 4% from me if that’s what they change? So be it. I can’t use Unreal for my studio and Godot is a pile of garbage for anything serious. Unity knows this. https://sampruden.github.io/posts/godot-is-not-the-new-unity...

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Re: OSS Game Engines are increasing their stars on GitHub due to Unity's missteps

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's both rent-seeking. But I can't help but feel you're willing to twist the facts to defend Unity. I'll list some facts for the readers: 1. The 4% cut is a rumor at this point. It's not confirmed. 2. Unity didn't just announce a 4% cut at the first place. They announced a fee per install. It's an unprecedented business model. No other semi-popular game engine does that, ever.

I'm not defending Unity, I'm just not defending Valve/Steam (also App Store, Play), which is a much, much bigger drain on revenue. The Unity pricing structure is complicated and badly managed. The fees were previously uncapped, and it allows for edge cases where the fees look like they could exceed revenue. It causes problems for givaways, bundles and Gamepass deals. Still, for many situations the math works out so U…

I think it's easier for people to rationalise a simple cut of each sale rather than a fee for each "unique" installation. In the first case you can calculate that percentage easily in a spreadsheet and account for it in your business. In the second case it's totally unknown how to budget for. Should you assume 1, 2, 5 installs per purchase? How much of your revenue does that account for?

People would rather have a higher fee that is certain than a lower but uncertain fee (of course no fee would be best).

Re: OSS Game Engines are increasing their stars on GitHub due to Unity's missteps

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And that led to many technological marvels, like RollerCoaster Tycoon by Chris Sawyer, to name one. Game engines for modern AAA games are too big and complex to be just one person these days. > Now innovation in game engines seems to be stalled, as big ones are just looking how to push more ads, instead of more polygons This is just nonsense. Unreal 5 shipped with Nanite and Lumen for 'more polygons', and have been…

Can you make a 3D isometric perspective game easily in Unreal? Can you do it in Unity? Do you have to fight against the scene graph or whatever they use high level to do that?

In both cases, that's literally just a flag for the in-game camera.

Re: OSS Game Engines are increasing their stars on GitHub due to Unity's missteps

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's both rent-seeking. But I can't help but feel you're willing to twist the facts to defend Unity. I'll list some facts for the readers: 1. The 4% cut is a rumor at this point. It's not confirmed. 2. Unity didn't just announce a 4% cut at the first place. They announced a fee per install. It's an unprecedented business model. No other semi-popular game engine does that, ever.

I'm not defending Unity, I'm just not defending Valve/Steam (also App Store, Play), which is a much, much bigger drain on revenue. The Unity pricing structure is complicated and badly managed. The fees were previously uncapped, and it allows for edge cases where the fees look like they could exceed revenue. It causes problems for givaways, bundles and Gamepass deals. Still, for many situations the math works out so U…

The baffling thing is that the new monetization scheme seems especially designed to destroy the freemium/mobile market, which is exactly the market they've been so actively courting the last few years.

If you told me that Unity was going to try and monetize through some strange approach, I would have guessed that the scheme would have favored the freemium approach, not turned it into an extremely risky gamble.

Re: OSS Game Engines are increasing their stars on GitHub due to Unity's missteps

#186
post #35
post #33

Had an audible chuckle the other day when I saw humble bundle's current massive Godot sale. Hopefully with this increased attention we can draw new programmers to gamedev with an approachable language like python.

> approachable language like python Python doesn't really scale though and it's fine only for simple games/scripting (on top of a game mainly built with another language). If you're serious about game development you'll have to switch to C# or C++ eventually. Also I don't see how C# is not "approachable" (C++ is another manner). If you're serious about programming you'll have to figure out static typing at some point…

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Re: OSS Game Engines are increasing their stars on GitHub due to Unity's missteps

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's retroactive. https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-plan-pricing-and-packa... Q: Are these fees going to apply to games that have been out for years already? If you met the threshold 2 years ago, you'll start owing for any installs monthly from January, no? (in theory). It says they'll use previous installs to determine threshold eligibility & then you'll start owing them for the new ones. A: Yes, assuming the ga…

It isn't. Look at the words you quote: "Then we bill the runtime fee based on all new installs that occur after January 1, 2024." The new installs are new instances of the Unity runtime. I'm really sorry they are screwing you but words have meanings, and this is not retroactive. One legal scholar writes: "A retroactive statute is one that operates as of a time prior to its enactment. A retrospective statute is one th…

This is retroactive. The license is accepted via the Unity engine. The games include a Unity runtime and this fee applies to new copies of all existing games. How is this not retroactive? The games were bundled with the runtime in the past. Plus the new license applies to all previous versions of the Unity engine that have already been installed. This is 100% retroactive.

Re: OSS Game Engines are increasing their stars on GitHub due to Unity's missteps

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you make a 3D isometric perspective game easily in Unreal? Can you do it in Unity? Do you have to fight against the scene graph or whatever they use high level to do that?

In both cases, that's literally just a flag for the in-game camera.

Yeah but how about infinite tiles dynamically loaded, for example, like in any ARPG?

I have no idea, just thinking FPS roots means they're designed for discrete levels.

Re: OSS Game Engines are increasing their stars on GitHub due to Unity's missteps

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't. Look at the words you quote: "Then we bill the runtime fee based on all new installs that occur after January 1, 2024." The new installs are new instances of the Unity runtime. I'm really sorry they are screwing you but words have meanings, and this is not retroactive. One legal scholar writes: "A retroactive statute is one that operates as of a time prior to its enactment. A retrospective statute is one th…

"One legal scholar"?

https://www.canlii.org/en/commentary/doc/1978CanLIIDocs18

Re: OSS Game Engines are increasing their stars on GitHub due to Unity's missteps

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't. Look at the words you quote: "Then we bill the runtime fee based on all new installs that occur after January 1, 2024." The new installs are new instances of the Unity runtime. I'm really sorry they are screwing you but words have meanings, and this is not retroactive. One legal scholar writes: "A retroactive statute is one that operates as of a time prior to its enactment. A retrospective statute is one th…

This is retroactive. The license is accepted via the Unity engine. The games include a Unity runtime and this fee applies to new copies of all existing games. How is this not retroactive? The games were bundled with the runtime in the past. Plus the new license applies to all previous versions of the Unity engine that have already been installed. This is 100% retroactive.

They say that the new licence does not apply to existing installs. However, those installs are counted for determining if you cross the new sales threshold. That is a prospective change.

You're complaining that the licence for runtime instances should be locked to the one that was in existence when you wrote the game (using the editor). This is entirely reasonable, but not a right you have under the old or the new licence. They could change it again!

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