Unity goes full Unity

[DogsRNice]

I've been trying to learn Godot but motivation is always a major obstacle for me

Edited September 13, 2023 by DogsRNice
it depends on what "it" is

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Looks like the licensable game engine industry is going bonkers again since the Steam Asset Flip trend of the 2010s, and Epic Game Store's exclusivity deals. LET THAT SINK IN!

Edited September 13, 2023 by Wadmodder Shalton

[Murdoch]

27 minutes ago, june gloom said:

Today is the first I've heard of Godot and to be honest I'm loving the dark joy they must be taking in this.

 

If it were not open source, I would be posting that "We're in the money" song. But yeah, they are bound to see an uptake.

[Sonikkumania]

What a bore. I was looking forward to study Unity but what's the point. 

[Caffeine Freak]

31 minutes ago, june gloom said:

Today is the first I've heard of Godot and to be honest I'm loving the dark joy they must be taking in this.

 

I think I'd only heard of them in passing a few times. But yeah, if I ran their Twitter account I'd barely be able to contain my glee right now.

[gibfrag]

Yeah, seems like a good reason to use practically any other engine instead. 

[OliveTree]

its actually astounding how bad of an idea this is

[Kinsie]

This raises a lot of questions, and anytime they've been asked over the last eight hours or so there have been different answers. They somehow didn't expect this backlash - or really any requests for concrete details - and are floundering hard. It's pretty stunning to watch. While a lot of this may end up getting walked back, this has caused pretty much all remaining trust and goodwill Unity had with developers to evaporate into a funny-smelling smoke.

 

 

Thing is, while Godot is good, it's not quite ready for the prime-times that Unity has filled. Remember: Unity isn't just tiny indie games by smol beans with an Itch account and social anxiety, it's also massive AAA colossi like Genshin Impact and first-party games like Wasteland 3 and the Ori series. This effects and screws over everyone, and Godot isn't quite ready to handle all of those use-cases yet.

 

It's also something of a hassle to get set up for mobile export, and there's no console support out of the box due to its open-source nature conflicting with confidential development SDKs. Something is being worked on in that regard, but it seems very much like a work in progress still.

 

3 hours ago, lazygecko said:

No surprise coming from a former EA CEO on record calling developers fucking idiots.

He's also on record back in the EA days suggesting that the Battlefield games should charge your credit card when you reload your weapon. He's a, he's a guy.

[Midway64]

This is why I love Godot, it's free, forever.

You can donate, and I would endorse that, given the effort put by the contributors.

 

And Godot feels really colorful and slick. There's also that.

[kevansevans]

On the topic of alternative engines and languages:
https://heaps.io/

https://steamdb.info/tech/Engine/Heaps/

 

Not as robust as things like Unity or Godot, but Haxe is a mighty powerful cross platform language, and Heaps runs pretty low level.

 

 

Edited September 13, 2023 by kevansevans

[Murdoch]

I wonder if developers could take a class action lawsuit against the company. Presumably there's a clause in the licensing that lets them get away with this, but it does very much seem like a drastic overreach that even if the contract allows them to do it, it might still be contestable in court.

[Edward850]

56 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

Presumably there's a clause in the licensing that lets them get away with this

No clause could be enforceable. Judges typically take to the concept of "you automatically agree to all future changes" terms in contracts about as well as anyone does to tapeworms (you can't agree to a term that wasn't presented to you, so agreeing to it in perpetuity is impossible), so developers will have to explicitly agree to the new terms for it to take effect. Meanwhile the larger studios like Nintendo who already have Unity games in production are going to take a very dim view to suddenly having a new payment model thrusted upon them before signing, and it already sounds like many developers would rather jump ship than re-sign. There's just way too many unknowns in the new terms.

 

How do you even track installs between charity bundles and regular? There's literally nothing that could, you don't know the origin of the key on that side assuming there even is one.

Edited September 13, 2023 by Edward850

[Osmosis Bones]

Eh... real gigachad developers use Scratch anyway

[Panzermann11]

Welp, that's another reason to add on my list on "why I prefer Unreal over Unity".

Edited September 13, 2023 by Panzermann11

[RataUnderground]

Unity has also eliminated Unity plus, which was an intermediate rate of €40 between the free one (which imposes a loading screen with the "made by Unity" logo) and the pro one that costs €2000 per year. I imagine that all these changes are intended to force studios to buy pro licenses, at the risk of being extorted with the installation fine.

[Blzut3]

I guess DRM free physical releases are out with this since I have no idea how you'd track installs of that?

[MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai]

6 hours ago, Biodegradable said:

Good lord, this kind of predatory business move would make even Adobe blush.

Dont give them ideas, they already charge for uninstaling their fucking programs.

Edited September 13, 2023 by MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai

[Murdoch]

51 minutes ago, Edward850 said:

How do you even track installs between charity bundles and regular? There's literally nothing that could, you don't know the origin of the key on that side assuming there even is one.

 

My thoughts precisely. That would be a logistical nightmare. 

[MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai]

4 hours ago, Mr. Freeze said:

 

We are all Waiting For Godot on this day. 

Hehe, nice reference

[Biodegradable]

4 minutes ago, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

Dont give them ideas, they already charge for uninstaling their fucking programs.

 

Only if you do it before the renewal date, but it's still bullshit.

[Azuris]

6 hours ago, scalliano said:

Aside from the spyware issues (inevitable for anything like this to work) there is also the issue that as an end-user I am now actively hurting the developers of a game I own.

 

As for Doom, it was Nerve who did the Unity ports, and even then it's a Bethesda-published game, Microsoft can eat that cost no problem. This is an overt attack against independent game development, and if Unity gets away with it, you can bet your arse other middleware providers will follow suit.

 

I am pretty sure big Companies handle out own Deals with Conpanies as Unity, Steam and else, they have an whole different Dimension of Pressure they can do.

 

For their new Rule, how do they now how often someone installs a Game with an offline Installer as from Gog?

And when a Download gets interrupted (why ever) will it count as two Times, as you press two Times on Install.

And what is the Difference between installing it and moving Data from one Folder/Drive to another?

Oh and so on Gog it could ne free, as downloading the Installer doesn't mean you actually will install the Game.

 

There are Reasons that no one has such dumb Rulesets.

 

EA tried with "You can only install the Game three Times, after you have to call our Support" (i got that News after ordering some of those Games, i cracked them).

 

Coming back to my Entry, this will mostly hit small Developers, as they do not have the Weight to push Unity out of such Agreements.

 

 

[MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai]

Now that I think about, couldn't the CEO done this on purpose to destroy Unity?

Because this move feels so obviously idiotic, that you have to wonder if there were some background deals where a company with rival engine (Epic?) payed the guy to sabotage his competition. I think that would be more likely version this time, then moronic greed, especialy since some of you pointed that he offloaded his shares from his own company!!!

 

Also holy mother effin shit for Nightdive and their System Shock Remaster, now you guys can feel even more justified for spending additional years on the game when you switched from Unity ;).

 

[Major Arlene]

7 hours ago, scalliano said:

there is also the issue that as an end-user I am now actively hurting the developers of a game I own.

 

This part precisely. I am way too aware of how much blood, sweat and tears go into dev work and this model actively punishes success of devs and the needs of end-users

Edited September 13, 2023 by Major Arlene

[Bridgeburner56]

1 hour ago, Edward850 said:

No clause could be enforceable

According to Unity's legal team (which I trust as far as I could spit them), it's built into the licensing agreement. Remember this is under 'murican jurisdiction as well which is notoriously pro corporation.

 

[Edward850]

That seems highly problematic and I suspect hasn't actually been fully tested. Sure, you can change fees of a typical ongoing subscription, but changing how the license even works isn't in the same ballpark. How does that even apply to games already shipped? How can it? For that to be allowed any business could effectively change their cost mechanism entirely and hold existing projects using it to ransom.

 

I get the distinct impression they may have actually changed too much in this case for it to be applicable,  though it remains to be seen if anyone challenges it or if studios would rather just drop the whole thing like a hot potato. They are up against some very large studios on this one after all, I don't see this ending in Unity's favor.

[Blzut3]

Yeah it leaves a lot of questions for lawyers to figure out.  I personally doubt they can change the license on already shipped builds (my understanding is the current license is royalty free?), but they probably have the right to stop issuing new engine licenses (i.e. no new builds can be made under the old royalty free terms).  In effect your options would be to terminate use immediately or accept the new scheme.  I would guess they can still require you to carry out your commitment period though, but would be interesting to see what lawyers make of that.

[Captain red pants]

I have multiple hard drives and I move stuff around constantly. Will that count? What If I restore a game from steam backup? I do that a lot. Am I going to bankrupt an Indy dev with my OCD?

I don't think I can handle that responsibility

[june gloom]

Screencap is real, I took it myself. I don't think Unity's plot will ever get that far, but it's shown quite the chilling effect.

[lokbustam257]

Is there a ongoing trend of corporation shooting themselves in the foot recently? Like there's twitter, and now this.

[natashanightmare]

Another good reason to play Doom in a sourceport instead of the UNITY version 

Edited September 13, 2023 by natashanightmare