Unity goes full Unity

[scalliano]

On 9/24/2023 at 1:39 AM, AmethystViper said:

And just like that, the Switch port of BallisticNG gets shitcanned thanks to the Unity fiasco.

Gutted about this - I was kind of hoping we'd eventually get a physical release. Thankfully VonSnake has confirmed that PC development will continue, but I'm guessing that the 2 planned expansions will be the last.

[Cacodemon345]

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/09/oldest-unity-game-developer-group-breaks-up-over-lack-of-trust-in-the-company/

[RetroAkaMe]

Surprised DW is talking about this lmao

[RetroAkaMe]

6 minutes ago, Cacodemon345 said:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/09/oldest-unity-game-developer-group-breaks-up-over-lack-of-trust-in-the-company/

Also that's just sad. Unity's greed is going to ruin much more devs down the line if too many people come back to unity after this.

[magicsofa]

29 minutes ago, RetroAkaMe said:

Also that's just sad. Unity's greed is going to ruin much more devs down the line if too many people come back to unity after this.

 

Huh? Who is coming back?

[Biodegradable]

6 hours ago, RetroAkaMe said:

Surprised DW is talking about this lmao

 

Is it? We all love video games here and this is bad for video games. Makes sense to me!

[kevansevans]

6 hours ago, magicsofa said:

 

Huh? Who is coming back?

 

It's an inevitability that people will return to using it. Outrage culture never lasts if what people get outraged about stays around. I learned this while I was a moderator on r/pcgaming, every single "bad thing" that happened would blow over in a matter of months until it was merely reminisced about. There are people who have not heard a word about Unity who will eventually discover Unity, and there are a group of people who trust Unity after they've retracted their bad decisions. Mark my words, unless Unity actually bows out as a company or stops making engines, they'll recover just fine. The majority of people always get over it.

Edited September 26, 2023 by kevansevans

[LoatharMDPhD]

13 minutes ago, kevansevans said:

 

It's an inevitability that people will return to using it. Outrage culture never lasts if what people get outraged about stays around. I learned this while I was a moderator on r/pcgaming, every single "bad thing" that happened would blow over in a matter of months until it was merely reminisced about. There are people who have not heard a word about Unity who will eventually discover Unity, and there are a group of people who trust Unity after they've retracted their bad decisions. Mark my words, unless Unity actually bows out as a company or stops making engines, they'll recover just fine. The majority of people always get over it.

// Ah the Ebb and Flow of VaporWare...

[Lucius Wooding]

10 minutes ago, kevansevans said:

It's an inevitability that people will return to using it. Outrage culture never lasts if what people get outraged about stays around. I learned this while I was a moderator on r/pcgaming, every single "bad thing" that happened would blow over in a matter of months until it was merely reminisced about. 

 

There's some truth to this, but only as it pertains to consumers. The people getting screwed here aren't the consumers, it's the indie developers. Not only are people more loyal and sympathetic to them, the devs themselves don't forget. All the indies will go over to Godot or other tools because it's the only way they can guarantee their livelihood, and also there's no reason for them to trust Unity ever again to not pull the football out from under them. 

 

Most likely Unity will get bought out or simply get browbeaten back into line by big game companies with their lawyers. Consumers have had no reason whatsoever to care about game engine licenses until now and it doesn't matter whether consumers will come around on Unity. The mainstream outrage will probably die out, since most people don't know what Unity is. But I think their actual customers, the indie devs, will never forgive them. The big devs aren't really affected too much by this because they have several options for recourse.

[Obsidian Plague]

On 9/26/2023 at 6:15 PM, kevansevans said:

Mark my words, unless Unity actually bows out as a company or stops making engines, they'll recover just fine. The majority of people always get over it.

An extra fee on top of the fees you'd already be paying them? Yeah, no, unless they cut that practice, I highly doubt it.

[june gloom]

On 9/26/2023 at 7:15 PM, kevansevans said:

 

It's an inevitability that people will return to using it. Outrage culture never lasts if what people get outraged about stays around. I learned this while I was a moderator on r/pcgaming, every single "bad thing" that happened would blow over in a matter of months until it was merely reminisced about. There are people who have not heard a word about Unity who will eventually discover Unity, and there are a group of people who trust Unity after they've retracted their bad decisions. Mark my words, unless Unity actually bows out as a company or stops making engines, they'll recover just fine. The majority of people always get over it.

 

This is a deeply cynical, and in my estimation wrong, take. While gamers who aren't devs (i.e. the kind of people who get pressed about how rain works in Starfield) will likely eventually shrug their shoulders and play a Unity engine game, most devs -- who, like everyone else, gotta eat -- will probably not be using an engine by a company that they cannot trust not to change the rules on them just to suck away profits.

Edited September 29, 2023 by june gloom
just noticed I got a game name wrong

[DNSKILL5]

Unity mostly sucks anyways, mostly, so it’s for the best devs move on to other engines and give unity the virtual finger indefinite. 

[Murdoch]

11 minutes ago, june gloom said:

 

This is a deeply cynical, and in my estimation wrong, take. While gamers who aren't devs (i.e. the kind of people who get pressed about how rain works in Starbound) will likely eventually shrug their shoulders and play a Unity engine game, most devs -- who, like everyone else, gotta eat -- will probably not be using an engine by a company that they cannot trust not to change the rules on them just to suck away profits.

 

I agree with this and other comments to this effect. Comparing players who are so able forget the controversy of the week to a business who, if they are in any way competent, will fully research things before committing to developing a product or service is completely incorrect. The two are not even remotely comparable.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Murdoch

[Caffeine Freak]

Update: Riccitiello is out. 

 

Quote

 

James M. Whitehurst, meanwhile, will be appointed interim CEO, president, and member of the board, and lead independent director of the Unity board Roelof Botha has been appointed chairman. The board will commence a search process with find a permanent CEO.

 

Unity said Riccitiello will continue to advise the game engine maker "to ensure a smooth transition." Today's announcement did not specify why Riccitiello was stepping down, but in a statement, he said it's "been a privilege to lead Unity for nearly a decade and serve our employees, customers, developers and partners, all of whom have been instrumental to the Company’s growth."

 

 

 

Crazy little personal theory (this is totally unresearched on my part, so I could be completely wrong): I wonder if Riccitiello saw the writing on the wall at some point months back and knew the board and investors were itching for new blood in the leadership role of Unity, and so he decided to push the install fee policy through as a last-gasp middle finger before they could oust him. Pretty simple spite logic: if you get wind that they're going to toss you overboard from something you've worked on, try to make sure to piss on it first so no one else will want to swim near it after you're gone.

 

It's the kind of logic that would also fall in line with him selling huge chunks of his shares just prior to the announcement last month. But I really don't know. Just a guess.

Edited October 9, 2023 by Caffeine Freak

[june gloom]

That gives the benefit of the doubt to the board that they don't deserve. I think it's significantly more likely that he was getting ready to retire anyway and the board saw an opportunity for him to push through a hostile policy that the board didn't care if it was popular or not because profit is the sole motive for anything execs and their ilk do, Riccitiello already had a reputation, and since he was on the way out they made him into a willing sacrificial lamb. It's easy to just get everyone to blame him and him alone, leaving the heat off of the investors left to steer the company off the cliff while they extract as much profit as possible in the meantime.

[Dark Pulse]

1 hour ago, Caffeine Freak said:

Crazy little personal theory (this is totally unresearched on my part, so I could be completely wrong): I wonder if Riccitiello saw the writing on the wall at some point months back and knew the board and investors were itching for new blood in the leadership role of Unity, and so he decided to push the install fee policy through as a last-gasp middle finger before they could oust him. Pretty simple spite logic: if you get wind that they're going to toss you overboard from something you've worked on, try to make sure to piss on it first so no one else will want to swim near it after you're gone.

 

It's the kind of logic that would also fall in line with him selling huge chunks of his shares just prior to the announcement last month. But I really don't know. Just a guess.

It's way more likely he's the fall guy.

[Kinsie]

Worth noting that the new CEO is a Private Equity Ghoul who works for the Elon-linked Private Equity Ghouls who bought their way onto the board of directors. So if you're expecting a sudden change for the better, well,

 

 

[Cacodemon345]

19 hours ago, Kinsie said:

Worth noting that the new CEO is a Private Equity Ghoul who works for the Elon-linked Private Equity Ghouls who bought their way onto the board of directors. So if you're expecting a sudden change for the better, well,

 

 

 

4 words: Former Red Hat CEO. Whether he will be good or not is going to be the real question.

Edited October 10, 2023 by Cacodemon345

[scalliano]

Like clockwork.

[Lila Feuer]

It's like puking on a pile of shit!

[Jerem]

still saw a number of devs using unity in ludum dare. Comparatively the general consensus among my networks have been to phase it out.

[magicsofa]

2 hours ago, Jerem said:

still saw a number of devs using unity in ludum dare. Comparatively the general consensus among my networks have been to phase it out.

 

The fee wouldn't have applied to these games anyway (unless you managed to make over 200k with your jam submission).

[Jerem]

Correct!

[Panzermann11]

A bad reputation, ex-EA CEO, merging with a malware company, and now this. Every year, it's always the reminders why I'm proud with Unreal.

 

People tend to associate Unreal with photorealistic graphical capabilities and well-recieved games like BioShock, Borderlands, Mass Effect, Gears of War and most importantly, its eponymous game series and give it a lot of praise. Unity, however... they think mostly of low-quality shovel-ware games and jump into the conclusion that Unity is bad. Unreal's pricing model seems pretty fair from what I read, but Unity... god-damn. If anything, this serves to make Unity's reputation a lot more worse.

 

Plus, UE seems to be more popular than Unity and much more older, dating back. Unreal started life off from the titular FPS in 1998, while the first use of Unity is from an obscure Mac game from 2005 and that was the only game Unity has made, compared to Epic's Unreal and Gears of War series.

Edited November 24, 2023 by Panzermann11