Support NeoGAF

[SirKicksalot]

This must be the Weta acquisition fallout. They bought the tools team, the software and the Weta Digital name and spent two years making the tools public-friendly.
The recent public release came and went like a fart in the wind. Everyone uses Unreal for pre-vis, the Weta tools are useless for real time graphics and nobody's going to use them for post-production because at that point they're hiring an actual VFX house... which is probably using Unreal already.

The rest of Weta Digital is now called Weta FX and they're expanding outside of New Zealand.

 

[Dirk Benedict]

That would probably cost 10x more than Unity taking its share.

Ok, then.. finish the game and throw the next game on another engine? That is if that don't backtrack this. They should be more transparent why they are doing this and how it helps them in the long run. I read someone posted here that they are losing millions per year, with how their business model currently stands?

 

[Yonyx]

John Riccitiello is still around in Unity as CEO after calling some developers f..k..g idiots?

 

[March Climber]

Ok, then.. finish the game and throw the next game on another engine?

In a perfect world this would be a cool thing to do, like swapping a memory card but for engines. Oh well.

 

[ReBurn]

John Riccitiello is still around in Unity as CEO after calling some developers f..k..g idiots?

What he was trying to say then is playing out now. He said developers are idiots if they don't think about monetization during development. I guess this is his way of proving himself right.

 

[Metnut]

I hope they stick to their guns and demand a cut from the subscription services or the developers. Subscription services are a bad trend long term for gaming and i root for anything that makes it harder for them.

 

[laynelane]

Unity clarified aspects of their new policy. I found this bit interesting:

As for Game Pass and other subscription services, Whitten said that developers like Aggro Crab would not be on the hook, as the fees are charged to distributors, which in the Game Pass example would be Microsoft.

I wonder if MS, Sony, etc. are onboard with this and, if not, what could Unity do about it?

 

[Krieger]

The irony of a company called Unity achieving unity by uniting everyone to hate them.

 

[20cent]

Any good game affected by this?

 

[BlackTron]

Any good game affected by this?

The number of games that have been made with Unity engine is huge

 

[BlackTron]

So, this is a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation for Unity?

Well, damn..

Or just come up with an alternate "do" monetization strategy that doesn't charge the developer every time you install a game because some dumb as nails idiot businessman smoking a cigar gave an order

 

[StueyDuck]

Glad people are taking a stand, it was a ridiculous idea from the start.

Geez do modern day "indie devs" write like children though. Some of those "pr/psa" are proper cringe.

There's times where informal writing can work, but as a company you should always be writing formally when talking to the public and your consumers

 

[lyan]

Got to remember Unity is losing a lot of money for years. They are basically subsidizing all the studios making games where the current licensing fees and extra software tool fees (I had to google it) arent enough. Thats why they are adding this 20 cent fee.

By the sounds of it, it seems like before this new fee a studio can use Unity for free as long as you dont hit a certain threshold of sales. But once you hit a higher tier or add on premium services then you got fees. It looks like whatever revenue they get now isnt enough. The company has been losing $100s of million per year for years.

If this new fee isnt a good idea, what other ideas are there to raise more revenue to offset costs while keeping this service widely available for free or cheap for devs?

Or maybe studios were paying adequate amount but Unity over-expanded themselves while pouring dozens/hundreds of engineers for every experimental feature only to abandon it a year later.

 

[Kataploom]

hahahahaha. Get fucked Unity, please go down in flames. Time for all the Indie Unity Devs make the jump/migrate their games to UE5.

So instead of unoptimized Unity games we have even more unoptimized UE games with shader compilation stutter? Sounds reasonable to me lol (lol no)

 

[Kataploom]

Got to remember Unity is losing a lot of money for years. They are basically subsidizing all the studios making games where the current licensing fees and extra software tool fees (I had to google it) arent enough. Thats why they are adding this 20 cent fee.

By the sounds of it, it seems like before this new fee a studio can use Unity for free as long as you dont hit a certain threshold of sales. But once you hit a higher tier or add on premium services then you got fees. It looks like whatever revenue they get now isnt enough. The company has been losing $100s of million per year for years.

If this new fee isnt a good idea, what other ideas are there to raise more revenue to offset costs while keeping this service widely available for free or cheap for devs?

That company seems to be bleeding money for some wrong reason and we probably will never know

 

[DGrayson]

Silksong is using Unity isn't it. No way they're gonna drop that game around the time this goes into effect.

 

[Team Andromeda]

Unity needs money sadly.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

Is there an alternative for Unity aside UE?

The problem with Unity is that they are unable to find a way to generate proper profit. Not sure how they can change that as the most pricey development is taken over either by UE or custom engines. And I think Epic generates a lot of revenue from Fortnite, more than from UE licensing.

So instead of unoptimized Unity games we have even more unoptimized UE games with shader compilation stutter? Sounds reasonable to me lol (lol no)

UE zealots are crazy.

 

[Hudo]

Is there an alternative for Unity aside UE?

The problem with Unity is that they are unable to find a way to generate proper profit. Not sure how they can change that as the most pricey development is taken over either by UE or custom engines.

Godot has made some big improvements the last couple years. And it's a solid engine and very easily hackable (much easier than the other two). But the problem is that it's open-source, which also means that you don't get people who are paid to provide support but rather if you got a problem, you hope that someone in that community finds the time to maybe address it. And as a game dev, you want a reliable support infrastructure, which is what Unity and Unreal can provide (and need to provide because, at least with Unreal, there are a lot of fucking problems with that engine as soon as you go into adding custom stuff).

 

[Maestr0]

Isn't the CEO of Unity the ex-CEO of EA, because it tell a lot of thing.

 

[March Climber]

So instead of unoptimized Unity games we have even more unoptimized UE games

I think one of the biggest endgoals with UE is for nearly anyone with an artistic idea being able to create a game without having to worry about backend, optimization, etc. I think one day it will be a fully realized version of the concept behind Dreams engine.

When it comes to Unity I’m not so sure about their future, especially given their current conundrum. I would hope if they continue to exist, that they work on improving many aspects so that UE doesn’t outshine them in attraction. This news isn’t helping.

 

[The Cockatrice]

gaf should charge its users for every shitpost. EviLore

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

 

[theStartupSound]

I don’t understand the piracy aspect. I get, that when you are installing it on consoles or through steam, that these are readable statistics. But pirated games?

How do they want to track these installs? And do they really want to track them or is this just a made up argument from the dev side?

 

[HL3.exe]

What a mess, I can see the arguments and agree with the F2P and pirated exe's that fucks dev over bigtime.

Pivoting your team to new tech is risky and takes a lot of R&D resources away from actually developing new games. What a cluster fuck Unity introduced.

Unity should make their licensing deal more attractive and not punish devs when their game suddenly hits big.

 

[ShadowNate]

Damn, that's such an aggressive shift from Unity.

I can't think why they thought this was a good idea, that wouldn't raise a multitude of issues and a huge pushback from game developer and publishing studios.

 

[64bitmodels]

But the problem is that it's open-source,

being open source prevents anything like this from ever happening to godot though.

 

[Belthazar]

Thanks for giving all the users to godot you dimwits

Godot isn't really an option until they release a reliable way to port to consoles without having to hire a third party

 

[Reaseru]

And they want to charge MS and Sony instead of the game creators, if the game is on Gamepass or Plus....holy crap. Goodbye Unity on both consoles....

 

[violence]

Soon it will be one engine to rule them all

 

[Buggy Loop]

Unity must be on the brink of bankruptcy to make a drastic move like that.

They’re dead I think

 

[Hudo]

being open source prevents anything like this from ever happening to godot though.

Yeah but it's also the main reason why big game devs aren't using Godot. They need to have the certainty that they can rely on people for support, which is what companies can provide. And that is what you actually pay Unity and Epic for.

 

[Hudo]

Unity must be on the brink of bankruptcy to make a drastic move like that.

They’re dead I think

It's at least a concerning move by Unity. I hope they pull through, though. It would suck hard if Unreal doesn't have any competition (other than in-house engines, of course).

 

[rabbity-thing]

Could someone a bit more lawyerly than myself explain how this is even possible for existing games? Wouldn't there be a contract for the original licensing of the engine for use in a game? I'd imagine it doesn't include that Unity can unilaterally make a change as drastic as deciding to start charging the dev on a per-download basis.

Is this even a common pricing scheme for engines? Cause if it's not common, it seems like a really dumb thing to do on their end. They'd get a lot less hate if they just said it would only apply to new games being released with Unity. But then they'd lose a lot of future development with no upside.

Like, I know these people making these decisions probably went to business school and I definitely did not, but how can anyone be this dumb? This is so clearly a bad idea that will get them a ton of bad press and will likely cause them lots of future revenue. Even if they go back on their decision, the trust will simply not be there for new developments shopping around for engines.

 

[V1LÆM]

Soon it will be one engine to rule them all

and in the darkness bind them!

 

[Dane]

Ever since they hired Riccitiello who began EA's downfall and went public I knew it was a matter of time, they even merged with an adware company right?

 

[Bernoulli]

 

[Punished Miku]

Isn't the CEO of Unity the ex-CEO of EA, because it tell a lot of thing.

That sure explains a lot.

 

[Portugeezer]

Why is Unity struggling to make profit?

The per unit cost destroying sub deals seems like a poorly conceived policy since devs dont usually get paid on subs per download.

OK, but let's not act like it'd impossible to negotiate sub deals with this new fee in mind. The sub issue could be resolved.

 

[Eotheod]

Oh yay, even less competition in the engine space now. As much as I love that Unreal is the go to engine for its technical leverages, it's still not good being gripped by the balls of a company that could do anything and fuck your career over. Despite not using Unreal at all when we made games, instead opting for Unity with it's easier pipeline, this decision is idiotic and only seeks to hurt the creators and the company.

What Unity really needs to invest in is the brand itself. It needs to reinvent what it means for creators, because the stigma of being the engine for all those garbage mobile games or cheap knock offs has really tarnished it.

 

[Punished Miku]

Why is Unity struggling to make profit?


OK, but let's not act like it'd impossible to negotiate sub deals with this new fee in mind. The sub issue could be resolved.

Assuming Sony and MS want to pay extra for sub games just from this one engine. I don't know if they'd go for that. Maybe? They might view it as a slippery slope they don't want to endorse.

 

[GymWolf]

Developers united against unity

 

[skit_data]

That whole fee per install is probably the stupidest thing I've ever heard of, like what the actual fuck were they thinking?

 

[Robb]

Unity right now:

I’m not surprised by this at all. I’d probably do the same and just switch to another engine entirely.

 

[Little Mac]

Silksong is using Unity isn't it. No way they're gonna drop that game around the time this goes into effect.

 

[vkbest]

So they are applying retroactively, so they will make a ton of money only from Mihoyo games (Genshin impact and Honkai Star Rail)

 

[skit_data]

Silksong is using Unity isn't it. No way they're gonna drop that game around the time this goes into effect.

 

[FearlessBelgian]

It is not illegal ?

 

[dorkimoe]

Just do what every other company does and shift the cost to the consumer. /s

 

[Clear]

Normally I'm all in on supporting devs... however in this case I'm not entirely sure the meltdowns are actually warranted.

The fees charged are pretty miniscule outside of mass volume cases, and if you're using a third-party engine I don't think its unreasonable for devs to actually pay something for it. I mean, I agree that its ill-thought out in terms of how poorly worded the new system is in terms of describing situations where exclusions* are warranted, such as charity bundling, demo's etc.

That being said, it is a decent deterrent for situations where the dev is actively gaming Unity's system to line their own pockets. Its bad for asset flippers for instance so they can't just shit out zero-effort trash without paying for the only part of the work that is of value. Similarly it appears to close a loophole wherein devs can sell a game as f2p and attempt to make cash from aggressively predatory monetization that the middleware provider has no share in.

I know I'm probably going to get roasted for this, but fuck it. I think a lot of modern indies simply do not understand how easy they have it compared to devs of yesteryear. Sure, kick Unity to the kerb if you don't like the deal, but given these payments don't kick in til over a million units and go from $0.15 per install down to $0.005 on the "emerging market monthly rate" it doesn't seem that extreme versus the cost of rolling your own multi-platform engine and tool-chain.


*The unity page specifically mentions discretionary exclusion is possible.