Wait, is Unity allowed to just change its fee structure like that? | Confusing, contradictory terms of service clauses leave potential opening for lawsuits.::Confusing, contradictory terms of service clauses leave potential opening for lawsuits.
I have been a developer professionally and exclusively using Unity for 17 years. Yesterday, I installed Unreal Engine. I’m doing as many tutorials as I can this weekend.
I have no faith now that there will be enough studios willing to use Unity to sustain a career based on it.
Godot is in terrific shape should you not wish to give any of your revenue away. Of course I wouldn’t use Godot for a project that requires advanced rendering features or high graphical fidelity.
Godot is also free software; if they tried to do something like Unity then 3rd parties can remove the offending code and even continue development without the them. Unreal is only source available, you ultimately could have the same issue with Unreal in the future.
I don’t mean to be pedantic, but I think you meant Godot is open source. Yeah, I agree.
Open source is the term the Godot website uses to refer to the engine. I’m using the term free software as I think about Unity being proprietary in terms of denying user freedom rather than weighing it up as a business decision.
Ah, free as in freedom, not free as in cost. Gotcha.
“Proprietary Software A is evil. I’m switching to Proprietary software B. I’m sure they won’t eventually fuck me over for money”
Maybe check out an actual FOSS product like Godot
Godot is great, and in 5 years it could be Blender level of capable, but today it’s not at the level that Unity and UE are. and Op is a working professional apparently so they probably need that capability.
It’s not, but there are a LOT of games - particularly in the Indie or small-studio category - that don’t actually need Unity/UE level features either.
Oh sure. But also it might not be obvious what features we are talking about. Unity and ue do a lot of things that are useful for developers, that you won’t see as a player. So you might think that this game doesn’t need to be on unity/ue, but also being on unity/ue halved the development time and costs
Based on their comment, I don’t think they’re the person deciding what engine is used. They work for someone else that has already selected an engine. They need to keep their skills employable first and foremost here.
Hopefully Godot takes off a bit here, I think there’s good room for it to advance with indie devs and maybe use that growth to be able to be more of an alternative to UE sometime afterwards.
The business is about making good games and making money. If Godot can actually support that don’t you think devs would’ve switched to it in droves?
Since it’s FOSS I would assume it’s got no crazy financial legalese to bleed the devs dry. So it stands to reason that the Godot product is simply not ready. Devs are not stupid, if there is a tech that is better and free they’d switch to it in a heartbeat, or at least put it on the table for the next game.
The fact that they haven’t done so says things about Godot itself.
It is possible for things that are objectively better to not be as popular. I’d say Firefox is one example. Linux is another.
Rust is maybe the closest parallel. I’m currently learning rust slowly, but even if I got to the point where I was as comfortable in rust as I am in c++, the code I work with at work will still be c++. Even if my whole team learns rust and agrees that it’s better in every way, we’d still need to take the time to rewrite everything if we wanted to switch. That’s already the case for Python vs Perl. Python is a better language but we still have a bunch of stuff going on in perl because it’s still working so we might as well just keep it for now.
Not that I’m saying Godot is necessarily there right now, just that it’s lack of popularity doesn’t imply its not as good.
According to the other comments on this post, it definitely does not seem like Godot is ready for prime time.
What do they say about “waiting for Godot” again?
Many of the other comments on this post are misinformed and based on past versions of Godot. But Godot has recently had an update that has focused primarily on improving it’s 3D support. I get the impression that many people looked into Godot version 3.x, and never bothered to look any further. It’s true that it’s not as mature as Unity, but that takes time and it will eventually get there. But people are unfairly disregarding, at the moment based on past versions being focused on excellent 2D support but mediocre 3D support.
Tell me you don’t understand how the industry works without telling me you don’t understand how the industry works. OP is learning another technology popular in demand. Like it or not, companies couldn’t care less about free software.
Godot please
Nothing will stop Unreal pulling the same thing
Unreal has explicit licensing terms that forbid them from doing this. Terms which people are going to pay very close attention to.
Not to mention that Epic gets their money from Fortnite, not necessarily the engine. They have no reason to squander their goodwill like that.
On top of that - if you want to release on a console, you need to write all the console-specific code yourself. This is quite a lot of work, especially for an indie developer.
Godot is a great start, but it’s got a long way to go before it’s a commercial-ready engine.
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Hey unity specialist programmers, if you want to boost your career out of this, learn another engine asap focusing on “how to do cool things I could do in unity in the other engine” and then market yourself as a “unity exit programmer” that specializes in converting projects from unity to different engines.
Your expertise still has value, you just need to pivot its direction.
Edit: extra word removed
That’s one of the smartest things I read all day (outside of the Rust book and sdl2 doc :p)
There’s discussions about stopping the teaching of Unity in Universities too.
Damn, I hadnt even thought about that. A class on Unity right now would be only a month in, and those professors are probably agonizing over whether to continue teaching a course on an engine that might not even be a relevant skill by the time the semester is over, or desperately try to switch gears and teach something completely different. I don’t envy that decision, prepping a new course in the middle of a semester is a nightmare
Lmao holy fuck. First I’ve heard about it. If that’s true, not only is that a very sensible choice for universities to make in this context, but also a pretty clear indicator to the entire industry that Unity has become a platform that is no longer feasible or acceptable to work with… and the industry is already reaching that consensus of its own accord.
Meanwhile wall st seems to be out of touch and unaware the industry is currently turning on unity because this article was released yesterday, bullish on unity. https://invezz.com/news/2023/09/15/unity-stock-price-forecast-bank-of-america-analyst/
Honestly the only way they could possibly give this recommendation is if they understand literally nothing about either the industry in which Unity operates or the legal implications of what Unity kicked off last week
Time to short the stock?
Lmao if this turns into a reverse GME that’d be hilarious.
I’m shorting $U. This is not investment advice. I just don’t like the stock.
Link?
Zelda?
Donkey?
Psycho Mantis?!?
Shawn!
Jason
Well excuse me princess
That might be surprising for developers that released a Unity game back in, say, 2015, when Unity CEO John Riccitiello was publicly touting Unity’s “no royalties, no fucking around” subscription plans. Now, even developers who paid $1,500 for a “perpetual license” to Unity back then could theoretically be subject to additional per-install fees starting next year (provided their game is still generating sufficient revenue and installs).
This reminds me of a story from earlier this year from Wizards of the Coast, publishers of Dungeons & Dragons (and subsidiary of Hasbro). It hinged on exactly the same semantics.
The short version is that, in 2000, Wizards of the Coast released D&D under the “Open Gaming License (OGL),” which gave third parties explicit approval to make and sell their own material using most of the D&D content, under a perpetual license. Cut forward 23 years, and lots of major publishers got their start making D&D supplements, and continue to use the OGL because (a) it’s a cover-your-ass license in case they tread into a legal gray area, and (b) allows them to open up their own content to third parties. Plans for an update OGL leaked, with predictably dogshit terms that I won’t get into right now, but essentially killed the license as anything anyone would want to use. The malicious part was that they would be “de-authorizing” the OGL 1.0a, because while it was a perpetual license, that didn’t make it irrevocable.
(IIRC, it’s also a legal argument based on case law established after the OGL was written. Not a lawyer, though.)
Predictably, there was a huge backlash. WotC backtracked, and even gave up ground by releasing a bunch of stuff under the Creative Commons. However, the OGL is still dead, because third parties can no longer trust that WotC (or Hasbro) won’t try this ratfuckery again. (Sound familiar?) Lots of products were subtly rewritten to no longer need the OGL, and several publishers worked on an industry license amusingly called the Open RPG Creative License, or ORC.
The thing is, D&D’s going to survive this a lot better than Unity. The business model was to sell D&D and D&D supplements, they only indirectly benefited from third-party material, and people are still going to make D&D stuff because it’s D&D. Unity’s entire business model relies on licensing, so if people stop using it… that’s it.
Or be like me and abandon D&D outright in favour of Pathfinder.
Nice! I do love me some Pathfinder. When I want a superheroic high-fantasy game, I’d run Pathfinder over 5e without the slightest hesitation.
I decided to cut this bit for space (and I already ran long!) but part of the fallout of WotC’s shenanigans was that other publishers got a LOT of business. Paizo sold out of something like eight months of inventory in a matter of weeks, Goodman Games had similar record sales, and tons of others noticed a bump. D&D was synonymous with tabletop RPGs for a lot of people, but the backlash to the OGL changes put a huge dent in that market domination. I’ve never seen so many people talk about branching out and trying something new.
Play stupid EA CEO games, win stupid EA CEO prizes.
Complete corporate collapsed. IT’S IN THE GAME!!!
I hope that the Unity CEO feels as accomplished, and prideful as EA’s.
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Your game looks like a lot of fun :\
Is there a way for me to pirate it and hand you(r team) the money? I really don’t want to give unity an inch
Thank you! We’re working hard to bring it to fruition.
You actually bring up a really interesting point. Back in the day we would have to hack the unity editor in a way that unlocks the dark mode because they had that feature behind the unity pro paywall…(I know…)
I do wonder now if someone will come up with a similar hack to bypass or manipulate the identifier used for the runtime fee. Hopefully Unity will come to their senses like they did with offering free dark mode to all users after their big IPO
Maybe somebody will come up with a Unity-to-Godot converter that will handle most of the legwork.
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Thanks for the link! While on the surface that looks to be a 1:1 port, the sad reality is making games requires loads of tooling behind the scenes that Godot just doesn’t have fleshed out yet. Things like Unity’s Shader Graph, Visual Effects Graph, and the new 1.0 release of Unity DOTS are a few good examples. As much as I really want to make the switch, the sad reality is I wouldn’t be able to make as good of a 3D game on that platform.
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The people will find a way!
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Game looks awsome, just wishlisted!
Thanks homie. Building games is hard as hell, so comments like this are truly appreciated. It’s rewarding to see the hard work paying off.
Can you port it to Godot?
Unfortunately Godot isn’t nearly ready for the type of 3D experience we’re creating. I’m keeping a close eye on it and when open source solutions are on par, I’ll absolutely make the switch. Thanks for your question!
This looks hella cool, just added to my wishlist. I hope this whole Unity bullshit doesn’t mess your plans up too much!
Thank you vladmech! It shouldn’t do anything but make it a less profitable endeavor in the long run. That said, I had 2 of my team members just today question whether they wanted to continue working with the engine. So if I start losing talent over this shit, then we’ll really be in a pickle. Thankfully we’re so close to having something sellable that they’d be just as crazy as Unity recently if they bounced.🤞
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Isn’t fraudulent to change the terms of the deal after you’ve agreed to a contract? How are the new fees enforceable at all?
“I am altering the deal, pray I don’t alter it any further.”
Credit cards seem to have been doing this for ages. So have employers.
One of the most important things in a tool line this is long term stability. Unity just showed anyone intending to use their engine they are not a stable choice. I wanted to use unity for a recent project and found unreal engine terms more acceptable for my use case before these changes. Now there is no competition.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
This change led to a firestorm of understandable anger and recrimination across the game development community.
But in an FAQ, the company suggests that games released before 2024 will be liable for a fee on any subsequent installs made after the new rules are in effect.
Now, even developers who paid $1,500 for a “perpetual license” to Unity back then could theoretically be subject to additional per-install fees starting next year (provided their game is still generating sufficient revenue and installs).
Unity has yet to respond to a request for comment from Ars Technica, but a spokesperson outlined the company’s legal argument in a forum thread after reportedly “hunt[ing] down a lawyer”:
Broadly speaking, the general legal agreements signed by all Unity developers give some support to this position.
At least as far back as 2013, the Unity EULA has included a broad clause that says the company “may modify or terminate the subscription term or other Software license offerings at any time.”
The original article contains 420 words, the summary contains 163 words. Saved 61%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Open source software, love it or…eventually be miserable
Everything is allowed if you have enough money
