That’s fine. I still feel like we’re not getting nearly as much out of these machines as we could be, another few years without having to worry about stumping out £500 will be nice.
Completely agree. I feel like the ps/xbox are just now (okay maybe up to 6mo ago) been in stock everywhere and it’s actually possible to pick one up at a store without any fuss. We aren’t huge console gamers and still use the first ps4 but have been looking at both the ps5 and Xbox to see if we should upgrade.
I’ve been so happy with the switch, since I haven’t had to worry about a new gen for years and years and it made me use it more and buy more games for it.
Yeah, these "clarifications" plainly contradict what they had told journalists before. They already had clarified that they would charge for all installations, not just the initial ones.
I also wonder what Microsoft thinks of this talk that they will be on the hook for Game Pass rather than the developer studio.
They claim that repeated installs will not be counted. How do they define repeated installs?
It’s worth clarifying - because it’s easy to imagine some script kiddy that hates a certain dev or just wants to mess around, who does whatever they can to make a botnet of false accounts repeatedly installing some free game or demo.
There is nothing to "clarify" - Unity is a toxic, predatory company with toxic, predatory leadership and developers and investors need to get out as quickly as possible.
I'm a little out of the loop. How so? Have they always been said way? Edit: I'm an aspiring dev and want to know as much as I can, and if they're shitty, I wanna know.
They are popular because they were permissive and dead easy to use in… 2008 or so. Indie studios adopted Unity, many went on to great success, and it is now a product with a huge userbase, tons of tutorials, and an industry full of experienced Unity developers.
Unity is successful, entrenched, known, and makes money.
And this is the worst possible situation for a product to be in. The term is “enshittification” and basically means the owners are incentivized to sell out, while new owners are more incentivized to add new ways to extract value than to improve the product meaningfully. This is a death spiral that no products recover from.
It’ll just get worse until in several years all that is left are some patents bought by a patent troll who sues the everliving shit out of anyone still using Unity.
Anyway: Look up Godot. It’s a modern version of what Unity was when it was young and pretty.
Unity has been rent seeking for awhile. In my mind, a big issue is the unity asset store, which apparently is where they actually make most of their money. Unity collects a 30% cut of all sales and imposes pretty restrictive licensing terms. This is annoying, but not a huge deal for things like art assets, but it creates a huge perverse incentive when you look at plugins and tools.
The best way for unity to make money in the business model they’ve created is to add a bunch of seemingly simple but not very comprehensive systems to the engine. Then, rather than refine these features they can wait for 3rd party developers to fill in the gaps with plugins that must be sold on the unity asset store. This allows unity to scoop up a bigger revenue stream on top of the licensing income without having to do any additional work.
NEW - I got a major update from Unity about their new fees
Unity “regrouped” and now says ONLY the initial installation of a game triggers a fee
Demos mostly won’t trigger fees
Devs not on the hook for Game Pass
This is a truly pathetic attempt to save face. Fuck Unity, its now proven definitively that they cannot be trusted for current and future projects. The only thing they’ll learn from this is to not be so loud about these sorts of changes.
Once people know where that is they will remove it and continue install-bombing.
This opens Pandora's box... how do you prove a person installed a game on a device at least once? Fresh windows install, is that a new device? In a Virtual Machine, is that a new device? How do you identify a user as the same person? It goes on and on...
Also on Android theoretically it’s not possible to distinguish new installs from reinstalls unless you’re using some kind of exploit like dummy images with tracking data saved in Pictures like taobao/AliExpress is doing
Apps and games that force a login with a Google account get an immediate uninstall/refund/1-star rating from me
I really feel their first idea was “devs will pay for installs and reinstalls because our bottom line is most priority” then now they are in damage control and try to deny that. Unless they have an agreement with Google/apple that tell them the real numbers of downloads from the store and not just the generic range “50-100k downloads” tag
I give about a year until Unreal does the same, except that they’ll at least have the good graces to waive the fee if games are sold on Epic Contractually Timed Exclusive Games Store.
Looking forward to Godot finally getting the love and recognition it deserves after this, at least.
Yeah, I think it’s pretty likely that the only reason Unreals terms are sustainable at all at this point is that they are funded by vertical integration using Epics infinite Fortnite coffers. Unity has no such safety harness, and has to squeeze everyone for as much money as possible to be profitable. The moment all of Epics deranged fake consumer rights activist PR starts working and devs and customers actually get locked into their ecosystem at scale they will start tightening the screws on everyone.
sigh… isn’t this more or less the same thing that Reddit did with their API fees? look how well that turned out for them.
Unity is an extremely flawed game engine with unsolvable memory management issues. Most game devs choose to go with Unity because it’s cheap, and then end up getting a lot of complaints because of the previously mentioned unsolvable memory issues.
IMO Unreal is the better game engine, in pretty much every aspect. i haven’t checked out Godot yet, but based on all the hype i’m seeing and their prioritizing accessibility, it seems to be a great choice.
Even a full 180 isn’t enough unless they commit to not changing fees for years or something. The trust has already been broken, and they show that changing fees however they see fit isn’t beyond them. That’s terrible for anyone considering Unity as their game engine of choice because it could completely fuck up your business plan half way through.
Unity: YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND! YOU DON’T KNOW THE FULL STORY
Devs: You’re charging us based on how many times a game gets installed and reinstalled, or opened in streaming services?
Unity: Oh so you do have the full story. What’s wrong with that?
Plainly, whoever’s at the head of this doesn’t understand developers or the industry, and is likely refusing to listen to their subordinates.
This honestly sounds like a lot of overhead in development. How does Unity track my installs? Do I have to do anything to my games? Do I have to warn users about privacy related to Unity’s tracking? Does it have to be in my TOS? These are just privacy questions.
Of course your feelings are going to be biased. Anyone being told they’re about to get royally screwed is going to be biased because it’s personal to them
I meant specifically how I feel about making 2D in UE since I am used to Unity. But yeah sudden ass-fucking policy changes are bound to piss people off
Yup, no information on how they actually get that information. The only assumption I can make is that it’s some sort of telemetry in the installer or the engine
You know what would be hilarious? If pirated copies would be counted as valid installs. If the setup just phones home “hey I got installed, bill 20 cents to the dev” without any additional DRM. It’s in Unity best (short term) interest to count pirated installs as valid
I actually cannot figure out where the logic is on this sort of thing (apart from CEOs having big cartoon dollar signs for eyes). You create a product, give it out for free, then get salty when people use your free product and demand payment in retrospect? And not just a ‘commercial licence’ payment, but a cut off the top of every game sold.
I can’t wait for visual effects software companies to start charging James Cameron $0.20 on every ticket sold for Avatar 3.
Or Tesla to start charging their drivers a fee anytime they use their car as a rideshare vehicle… actually I wouldn’t put that one past Emerald Boy.
First of all, punishing devs you don’t like is a slippery slope that opens a lot of people to abuse they don’t deserve. Second of all, I would be very surprised if any of those asset flip games are going to be making $200k. Third, they specifically state in the article you won’t be able to install bomb a dev just because you don’t like them.
axios.com
Aktywne