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Muffi, do games w Unity adding a fee for devs for each time a game is installed, after certain thresholds

Well, guess it’s time to learn Godot.

ICastFist,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

As someone who’s using Godot and giting gud at it, I hope you enjoy it. For programming, you can go with either its GDScript (python) or C#, so Unity veterans shouldn’t have much trouble.

Lemminary,

That’s great to hear. C# has grown on me so much lately! It’s like TypeScript but not sucky.

vitriolix,
@vitriolix@lemmy.world avatar

GDScript (python)

I think GFScript is it’s own language, but looks definitely inspired by Python

Murais, do games w Unity adding a fee for devs for each time a game is installed, after certain thresholds
@Murais@lemmy.one avatar

Oh hey, look.

The former CEO of EA made a greedy, short-sighted decision to fuck over his entire customer base.

I am shocked, friends.

SHOCKED.

obinice,
@obinice@lemmy.world avatar

It’s not that guy that looked like a supervillain every time he got up on stage at E3, is it?

Gestrid, (edited )

Not sure about that, but he is a boss character in not one but two Suda51 games. (Suda51 was apparently screwed over by the guy who was, at the time EA’s CEO.)

Murais,
@Murais@lemmy.one avatar
Skyhighatrist,

Well… not that shocked.

CosmicCleric,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

Way to ruin a comedic moment.

runner_g,
CosmicCleric,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

I get the reference, I love that show, even though Bender may not approve, because I’m just a meat bag.

WuTang, do games w Unity adding a fee for devs for each time a game is installed, after certain thresholds
@WuTang@lemmy.ninja avatar

rule 1: get user by giving free candy rule 2: let’s them build their product, workflow on your tools rule 3: harvest.

Beliriel, (edited )

Rule 4: get fucked by better and cheaper products (Unreal/Godot)
Rule 5: make an obituary presentation on what went wrong (hint: it’s always management)

WuTang,
@WuTang@lemmy.ninja avatar

Unreal engine will probably do the same shit than Unity, Unreal engine might be opensource (not FOSS), I think there’s the same clauses about production royalties.

Even if Godot wins, there’s a cost to move.

Beliriel,

I think Godot will not win simply because Unreal is so much better for 3D games what most comercial games use. I think Godot will become the indie favourite for 2D. Where it goes from there I’m not sure. Is the revenue sharing not enough to carry the game engine? Unreal/Epic is a special case. But is Unity mismanaged so hard? It still has huge market share.

radiant_bloom,

Rule 6: Unreal does the same thing, everyone switches to Godot 😂

Hoomod,

It is management

CEO or whatever used to be head of EA

nogooduser, do games w Unity adding a fee for devs for each time a game is installed, after certain thresholds

Existing games built on Unity will also be hit with Runtime Fees if they meet the thresholds starting January 1.

How can you have a deal in place and just say “you’re giving me more money” and think that that’s ok?

I am altering the deal, pray I don’t alter it any further. - Vader

TwilightVulpine,

Tech companies badly need to get their shit kicked in to stop with this "I have the right to change the terms unilaterally anytime"

Buddahriffic,

This might actually lead to that, depending on what kind of lawsuits arise from this change. Which could mean there will be pressure from others who don’t have a stake in the “unity install fee” game but do have one in the “wants to change terms at a whim” game.

Or maybe it will threaten the “by continuing to use this, you agree” clause instead and open up a path to continue using a previous license agreement if you don’t like a new one.

AeroLemming,

I mean, that can’t be legal, right?

AndreasChris,

I don’t believe that is legal. That’s just absolutely ridiculous.

Syndic, (edited )

I can’t imagine that it is.

If that’s the case then they could simply up the charge next year to $10 to get even more money for doing absolutely nothing. And then to $20 the next year and so forth. There’s no sane court anywhere in the world who would say “Yeah, that sounds reasonable!” and even the less sane ones would think that’s bonkers.

Psaldorn,
@Psaldorn@lemmy.world avatar

Jokes on them, I never finished a unity project.

Tolstoshev,

It used to be illegal. Part of anti-trust was forcing IP owners to license their technology to everyone at a reasonable price. That means that reddit’s API price gouging would also have been illegal and tesla and apple would have had to license their FSD and OS to other hardware manufacturers. This ability to control other companies through abusive pricing and licensing lock-in is classic monopoly violation that the govt has stopped policing.

sirdorius, (edited ) do games w Unity adding a fee for devs for each time a game is installed, after certain thresholds

So this will apply to games that have already been distributed on stores as well? How the fuck is such a change in the terms even legal?

I guess this will mostly impact F2P mobile devs since they will lose most money from installs. The good news is that Godot is more than capable for those types of games.

HawlSera,

I not only expect lawsuits out the ass, but tech lobbyists are likely going to fight against it since basically every game uses Unity now.

whoami,
@whoami@lemmy.world avatar

“F2P game developers are the biggest fucking idiots” - Unity CEO, c. 2022: theverge.com/…/unity-ceo-john-riccitiello-apology…

steakmeout,
MossBear, do games w Unity adding a fee for devs for each time a game is installed, after certain thresholds

Godot.

Jordan117,

Context: godotengine.org

leprasmurf,

Some more context: Godot established the “Godot Development Fund” to accept donations directly (lemmy.ml/post/4815592).

colonial,
@colonial@lemmy.world avatar

Every other engine is smelling blood in the water it seems

SpaceNoodle,

Their tagline is on point.

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA,
@HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world avatar

I only code in Guffman

dublet,

Godot

I’m still waiting.

Cossty,
Raz, do games w Unity adding a fee for devs for each time a game is installed, after certain thresholds

Wanna bet he secretly has a bunch of Epic Games stock?

Lemminary, (edited )

They did sell their thousands of shares before this shit so I wouldn’t be surprised

Raz,

Looks like they know very well what they are doing. This seems illegal, but we all know they get away with it.

AWittyUsername, do games w Unity adding a fee for devs for each time a game is installed, after certain thresholds

We chose this because each time a game is downloaded, the Unity Runtime is also installed," the company explained in adding the fee.

Ok and??

grayman,

Every copy costs them money. Don’t you know how digital copies work?!

Touching_Grass,

Guys they’re artists. They deserve to be paid every time you play any game. You wouldn’t steal a car

Natanael,

starts copies of GTA on a thousand computers

derpgon,

Every copy has to be hand made by routing bits around the copper highway ar ludicrous speeds, and rearrange them manually to form what is called “a game”.

sebinspace,

Like… wow, that’s what the engine is! Fucken doinks.

Chickenstalker,

Firstly, how dare you! Secondly, unity is made from a limited resource, which is whale balls. For every download of unity, a whale loses one of its balls. Think of the whales!

2ncs,

So if Microsoft published a Unity developed game on Windows, Microsoft could easily charge a $0.20 free to the unity team for installing the Unity Runtime on their OS.

Not being completely serious there. Honestly thought, did the CEO not realize if they start doing this, what’s to stop another company from doing that to them. Things like mp3, where developers need to pay a license for, could then be charged in a similar fashion for each install.

Whirlybird, do games w EU watchdog seeking feedback on modified Microsoft-Activision deal

Doesn’t really make any sense at all to investigate it again since nothing at all changed for the EU, and the streaming changes offered for the UK make it more competition friendly.

Kolanaki, (edited ) do games w Unity adding a fee for devs for each time a game is installed, after certain thresholds
!deleted6508 avatar

Oh yeah… I can’t see this being weaponed by the bad side of the consumers.

Game comes out, it does something stupid or just “woke” and pisses people off. They attack the dev by installing more copies. Company goes bankrupt. Dickhead gamers win.

lazycouchpotato,
@lazycouchpotato@lemmy.world avatar

I got some clarifications from Unity regarding their plan to charge developers per game install (after clearing thresholds)

  • If a player deletes a game and re-installs it, that’s 2 installs, 2 charges
  • Same if they install on 2 devices
  • Charity games/bundles exempted from fees

Regarding this being abused by bad actors:

Unity says it will use fraud detection tools and allow developers to report possible instances of fraud to a compliance team

  • @stephentotilo
nature_man,

That clarification makes it even worse, this is obviously an attempt to push free to play or indie games out the window while making major bank.

The fraud detection will not help at all to prevent abuse especially in cases like steam family sharing where other “users” won’t have to pay to install the game!

There’s literally no reason to charge per game install here, the only possible reason is greed

Hildegarde,

The fraud detection is especially bad because they have a financial incentive to ignore, or under-report installation fraud.

nature_man,

Exactly! I’d put money on a group abusing it, admitting to abusing it, and the game devs still being charged in the near future.

BURN,

So basically they’re explicitly condoning it. That’s not just bad, but even worse that they’re doubling down that a delete+reinstall will charge the dev twice.

This will end a lot of indie projects and they’ve basically destroyed their good standing in indie dev circles.

Da_Boom,
@Da_Boom@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

It’s time to chuck unity in the bin. If not Godot, go for unreal… though I would check their requirements beforehand first.

teruma,

Hard to chuck unity in the bin when you don’t use unity.

We’re lucky there are enough other engines on the market at the moment, but eventually someone will need to spearhead a FOSS engine with blackjack and hookers.

NocturnalMorning,

Godot is a FOSS engine.

Kolanaki,
!deleted6508 avatar

But does it have the blackjack and hookers? 🤔

ICastFist,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

I’d make my own branch with BJ and hookers, but both GCC and Clang failed to compile :(

NocturnalMorning,

I’m sure somebody somewhere has made both of those games in Godot. Lol

teruma,

Oh, fantastic. Good to know, thanks!

carpelbridgesyndrome,

So once a game stops selling it had better hope its player base dries up and stops reinstalling it? The way that is phrased makes it sound like you could net lose money over the long term if sales decline and people keep reinstalling it

Da_Boom,
@Da_Boom@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

Also, what counts as an install? Ive seen many unity based games that don’t have an installer and just run standalone? Would a standalone game count as already installed? Is it a first run thing in that case? Honestly this, and the additional clarification raises more questions than it answers?

pinkdrunkenelephants, do games w Unity adding a fee for devs for each time a game is installed, after certain thresholds

Welp, guess it’s time to uninstall Unity

SamboT,

That’ll be $10.

pinkdrunkenelephants, (edited )

You know, at some point Microsoft and Apple are going to enable developers to charge people to uninstall software, and that’ll be the driving force that finally forces the public to adopt Linux en masse.

I_LOVE_VEKOMA_SLC,

Nothing is ever going to not happen as much as this.

pinkdrunkenelephants,

Oh, I hope you’re right.

redcalcium, do games w Unity adding a fee for devs for each time a game is installed, after certain thresholds

I’m sure this will give a boost to Godot development.

lycanrising,

as someone who was reasonably deep with unity, the alternatives really are quite thin - Godot is a big contender or otherwise it’s time to pick up some Rust game development

stevedidWHAT, (edited )
@stevedidWHAT@lemmy.world avatar

Is Rust a game engine?

I’m familiar with the coding language but I wasn’t aware of any game engine stuff outside of developing your own

cheesemonk,

There are several projects to build a game engine in rust. The one I hear about most is Bevy. No experience with any of them personally

stevedidWHAT,
@stevedidWHAT@lemmy.world avatar

Thanks for sharing, I’ll check it out. Games in rust could help that whole endeavor in finding insecurities and whatnot even faster with game hackers and whatnot too

ICastFist,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

Stride might be worth looking into if you’re going for 3D stuff, it uses C#

nix,
@nix@merv.news avatar

Godot has Rust support with GDextensions

stevedidWHAT,
@stevedidWHAT@lemmy.world avatar

GODOT SQUUUUUUAAAAAD

MossBear,

It already has. The Godot Developer Fund went up by $4,000 yesterday alone.

Lemminary,

Ngl, I did visit their site right after reading the news. My next project will be using it. I hope it catches wind with this!

drphungky,

Ha, yeah my immediate thought was imagining a situation like:

Godot Developers who have not yet read the news: “Huh. Why do we have 1000 new pull requests today?”

clutch, do games w Unity adding a fee for devs for each time a game is installed, after certain thresholds

Unity going the way of Reddit

Architeuthis,
@Architeuthis@awful.systems avatar

Enshittification

Once [a company] can make more money by screwing its customers, that screw-job becomes a fait accompli.

bighi,

Capitalism, yay!

HawlSera, do games w Unity adding a fee for devs for each time a game is installed, after certain thresholds

And that’s why we need more than one standard

smileyhead,

deleted_by_author

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  • HawlSera,

    Play an AAA game in the past… 10,000 years?

    smileyhead,

    deleted_by_author

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  • CosmicCleric,
    @CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

    Popular does not mean standard

    Depends if you mean generally considered by the public, or specific to an organization that definds standards.

    I think we both know he meant the former, even though you replied to him like he was saying the latter. AKA, “Ackshully…”

    HawlSera,

    It kinda… does

    Walop, do games w Unity adding a fee for devs for each time a game is installed, after certain thresholds

    So… If the Unity’s secret spyware and algorithm suddenly decides to count an update as a new installation, you suddenly get slapped with a huge bill. Especially if you release multiple small patches and your whole player base is counted multiple times.

    Natanael,

    Also piracy lmao

    Zacryon, (edited )

    According to the article only installs on new devices are counted.

    Furthermore this only takes efrect after a certain threshold of revenue and installs.

    Walop,

    The clarification on Xitter states deleting and reinstalling is 2 charges, the same as installing to 2 different devices. twitter.com/stephentotilo/…/1701679721027633280?s…

    Not_Alec_Baldwin,

    That’s madness.

    Imagine the player outcry being too just uninstall and reinstall games over she over to punish the devs.

    dan1101,

    Yeah as petty as some people are over games I can see a developer pissing them off and a bunch of players banding together to uninstall and reinstall games over and over. They could even script it. Bad idea all around.

    CosmicCleric,
    @CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

    This, so much of this.

    WoW players doxxed the devs (lots of pizza was ordered) once, as they were pissed over real IDs being introduced to the account for the game.

    Ktanaqui,

    Except that that is a back pedal on their part and their FAQ plainly says they actually have no way of tracking what is a new install versus a re-install; which is why they decided to count all installs to begin with.

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