The team at Re-Logic has been watching the recent events surrounding Unity with both interest and sadness. The loss of a formerly-leading and user-friendly game engine to the darker forces that negatively impact so much of the gaming industry has left us dismayed to put it mildly. While we do not personally use Unity outside of a few elements on our console/mobile platforms), we feel like we cannot sit idly by as these predatory moves are made against studios everywhere.
We unequivocally condemn and reject the recent TOS/fee changes proposed by Unity and the underhanded way they were rolled out. The flippant manner with which years of trust cultivated by Unity were cast aside for yet another way to squeeze publishers, studios, and gamers is the saddest part. That this move was wholly unnecessary pushes things into the tragedy category - a cautionary tale the industry will not soon forget.
We do not feel that a simple public statement is sufficient. Even if Unity were to recant their policies and statements, the destruction of trust is not so easily repaired. We strongly feel that it is now equally important to get behind some of the other up-and-coming open source game engines. Lighting some candles in an otherwise dark moment. To that end, we are donating $100,000 to each of the open source engines listed below.
Additionally, we are sponsoring each of these projects with $1,000/month each moving forward. All we ask in return is that they remain good people and keep doing all that they can to make these engines powerful and approachable for developers everywhere.
Godot Logo FNA Logo
Re-Logic has always been supportive of game developers and indie studios that do things the right way. We feel that our actions in this moment are the best way to carry that mission forward - by accelerating and strengthening competing open source game engines, we hope to empower and assist studios that are struggling with how best to proceed given these recent events.
It’s crazy how successful they’ve been off just making and selling a good indie game. They’re still doing free updates AND they can afford a $200k donation?
Terraria is like the anti-modern game. They absolutely refuse to evilly monetize their game at all. The playerbase is almost on their knees, begging them to move on from Terraria and make something else (not because Terraria is bad, but they’ve been at it for over a decade!) and they continue to churn out updates. The fanbase voted for a set of features to appear in Terraria 2, which they then turned around and scrapped, and added it as an update to Terraria. And all their updates are always free. And can’t forget about their amazing mod support.
The playerbase is almost on their knees, begging them to move on from Terraria and make something else (not because Terraria is bad, but they’ve been at it for over a decade!) and they continue to churn out updates
dont worry, im sure update 1.4.5 will be the final final final final final finalfinal update, and then they will move on.
Tbf it takes a significantly smaller team to develop a 2d platforming game like terraria. The overhead for art and design is mush simpler too than something like a Cyberpunk 2077
One of the, if not the best games in the last 15+ years.
I’m not exaggerating. At all. I am not a fan of a vast majority of “popular” modern games and think gaming has been on the decline since the mid-90s. In a massive pile of garbage “AAA” and “modern indie” titles, Terraria is the one shining, beautiful, wonderful spot that just gets gameplay right, with no gimmicks, no BS, no boring intrusive story, nothing but good, solid gameplay.
It’s one of my favorite games of all time. So all this makes me very happy.
Out of curiosity can you define “no boring intrusive story”? Because personally I’m big on storylines, so if they nail that part then that takes the game to a whole other level
I tried playing Terraria but gave up after an hour or so, precisely because I expected at least some kind of story and there wasn’t. It was also very awkward to control with a mouse and keyboard, I think it’s really supposed to be played with a controller. I might try it again now that I’ve got one, and less expectations
In some games storyline matters, in others… not so much. Games with a storyline trend to be less replayable in my experience. One exception I can think of is This War of Mine, that game is really depressing.
Story for me in games should be one that sets up the reason you’re playing the game and that’s basically it. No endless dialog or narrative during the game. Small bits of things that can advance the plot is fine, but most games these days seem to talk endlessly about things.
Terraria has zero of that. You’re in the Terraria world and that’s it. No real story to tell besides what happens in the world (show, don’t tell). It’s fantastic.
It’s time to dust off Terraria and go on a nice run again.
Edit: I will, of course, be first in line to buy any new games they release. They donated $100k to a FOSS project I use and love, thus to me as well indirectly, I can give some of my disposable income back to then.
They came out around peak indie craze, 14 or so years ago. I believe they were just behind Minecraft in terms of success. Total lifetime sales for their game have it outselling Skyrim.
Well, I like playing video games and this will affect the video games I like playing.
I'm not a game developer, but if Unity got everyone to roll over with that TOS change I'm sure that devs would use this as a new justification to increase costs for games or higher subscription fees for services like Gamepass.
It's important to be invested and informed in the things that matter to you.
Yeah, but through like two to three layers of abstraction. I like beer, but I don’t give a shit about the contractual details of malt distribution. Games are still gonna be made, this is just something for people to project their impotent rage at.
I like coffee, but I prefer to source my beans from places I can trust. People lost trust in Unity so they ain’t gonna use the engine anymore. Blown out of proportion? Yeah maybe, but I agree with the core concept
If the contractual details of malt distribution were going to affect the quality of beers you were getting then you absolutely would care. Unity’s pay scheme will lead to studios shutting down if there isn’t pushback. Studios switching to a different engine like Godot will make their games feel different for better or for worse and efforts to help fund these alternate engines will help tip the scale towards that being “for better”.
But most importantly of all, this is a company using toxic and predatory practices. Regardless of the industry (yes, malt distributors too), if we don’t push back against toxic business practices, then companies in many different industries will see avenues they can take advantage of to make extra money. These ideas don’t hang in isolation. If Unity’s scheme works, other businesses will learn from it. This is the reality of capitalism. Whatever methods can turn a profit without generating negative attention will be employed. It’s in the hands of consumers, competing businesses, and the government to keep those toxic practices in check. I mean, why the fuck are we on Lemmy? Ultimately Reddit’s actions are not going to affect the majority of users on their platform. Most of us came here to protest shitty business practices.
Well shit. Some people actually care about the people who produce whatever it is you consume. It’s crazy, I know. If the people who are growing the malt for my beer, or processing it, or delivering it, or whatever… are getting screwed over I would be equally concerned. But by all means, continue to be a consumer pacman just gobbling up whatever it is that falls in front of your face. That’s what the world is trying to mold you into anyway. Why fight it?
Oh please get over yourself. If you consume games you are already actively supporting the screwing over of people in like five different industries the world over. This price hike in one piece of software is just your “thing” to get righteously mad about this week.
This is not a great comparison tbh. Unity are not distributing a resource, you could rather compare them to a company building the motor for the car you use. Even as the end customer, their product is clearly perceivable and distinguishable from competitors’ products. You don’t need to build cars to have an opinion on Unity motors and the ethics of their business. And if they fuck every contractor over and abuse their power in the market to retroactively charge additional fees for every time someone starts a car with their motor in it, of course you would be directly hit with the consequences as a customer. Therefore, it is justified to not leave this discussion to car manufacturers, but to 1. let unity motors know that they can go fuck themselves and 2. to support more ethical motor manufacturers in the future by buying cars built with them.
Hi. I’m a brewer. You might not care about malt distribution but maybe you can understand that a lot of breweries run on small margins. If we suddenly have to pay a lot more for malt we will either have to raise our prices or go out of business. Raising prices might also drive us out of business because less people will be inclined to buy our beer. So it does affect you as a consumer, whether you care or not.
Except it becomes your problem if beer suddenly starts getting priced higher and higher and higher over time to the point where you can’t afford it anymore?
I read today that about half the games are made with unity, imagine if most of those pulled the games you purchased so it can’t be installed again. That is a huge hit to gaming.
Well they obviously won’t. It’s always the same with these things, they either come to terms, or the producers will pay up, or the reports are overblown or whatever. Just like reddit didn’t lose half its userbase after the API switch, or Youtube doesn’t crumble because everyone throws a fit when they add another commercial slot and swears to move to “pipetube” or whatever (lol). But thank god we’re all really really invested in something that is essentially corporate politics.
It’s not corporate politics if it’s going to have an effect on the end users. You’d be surprised at how big of an impact this will have, if they don’t backpedal this and cancel it entirely, and even if they do it could still an impact.
7 Days to Die, Escape from Tarkov, Wasteland 2, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, Cities: Skylines, Dungeons 3, Cult of the Lamb, Endless Space 1 and 2, Outerwilds,
Yeah? Even ignoring how the results of this will determine how companies try this is the future (because they WILL), this shit is like classical Greek drama, watching someone fall because of their hubris.
And another 100k and 1k monthly to the FNA engine. I wasn't aware of that engine until today, but it looks like I have a couple of games that run on it.
Seriously though, whilst the budget they can give to Godot and FNA is small compared to what other, bigger devs/publishers could give, I find their commitment remarkable and very much in-line with their goal of empowering developers and gamers alike
Considering FNA and Godot, $100K is gonna do wonders to both projects, specially with the additional $1K
They might even better afford to have developers working full-time at the engines, or deal with stuff like infrastructure, licensing, hosting and other costs
True! Considering Godot and FNA’s current size this is indeed going to catapult them to a different league, which I guess is what Re-Logic was setting out to do :P
Epic donated $250,000 in 2020, Kefir donated $120,000 in 2021. Godot Devs started W4 games and raised $8.5m of which their goal is to support Godots growth.
$100,000 is nice and will allow them to continue but it’s not “league changing” money or anything for them.
You‘re forgetting that this doesn‘t only come with money, but also free press, which is sometimes worth more as it would expose more people to Godot‘s existence, any of which may potentially donate :P
Up to 87 hours warts and all. Have played through some great quests. Also found plenty of bugs and annoyances, but overall it’s great. The random procedural quests are a nice addition, a call back to Daggerfall. The space combat is an ok addition. Bases are the big waste of time here, but you don’t really need to do one. There are lots of nice shoutouts to your character after doing certains quests, including NG+. (Few things that don’t make sense, and they could’ve pushed it farther -
spoilerlike does it makes sense to join the Crimson Fleet in the Razorleaf, better to have cut out that questline for that play thru IMO
) Overall quite satisifed and i’m enjoying it a lot. I can see getting to 100 hours easily without mods.
I just talked to a guy who was facing away from me, well his head was looking at the wall while his body was pointed at me. It was…disconcerting…(and amusing!)
An unexpectedly candid response as far as these things go… though I guess that’s just how Phil Spencer usually is. I appreciate the deliberate choice to avoid double-speak even though he’s basically blanket declining to discuss the topic.
A stand-up move from Re-Logic. You love to see it when the people at the helm of a lucrative publisher are industry stakeholders rather than the all-too-common quarterly cash extractor types[^1].
[^1]: Yes, I am all too aware that such seemingly altruistic gestures can be calculated PR moves in disguise. I certainly understand that this move will earn them (as a publisher) brownie points with various indie studios who may just so happen to be seeking publisher funding in the wake of an expensive mid-project engine switch. Such is the way of the world; sometimes a move can be simultaneously altruistic and good business.
You love to see it. Putting their money into these open source engines will hopefully give those devs a better work-life balance and enable them to do even greater things. 🤘
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