Certainly Godot is the safer bet (probably why they are surging so much more right now), but Unreal is nowhere near as bad as Threads. Unreal is open source, and the license specifically forbids Epic from making retroactive changes like Unity just did:
The Agreement Between You and Epic
a. Amendments
If we make changes to this Agreement, you are not required to accept the amended Agreement, and this Agreement will continue to govern your use of any Licensed Technology you already have access to.
Unreal is not open source, it’s source-available. Open source generally gives freedoms like redistribution, yet that is explicitly not allowed by Unreal. To get access to the source, you need to agree to a licensing agreement with them.
That said, source-available is a lot better than most proprietary software licenses.
What did I mention that’s not part of the open source definition? Btw, I’m using this one, and only mentioned redistribution, which is the first one:
The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.
The next big part is able derivative works, which is also not allowed as part of the Unreal license AFAIK.
Source-available is just as bad as proprietary as it distracts from the freedom that open source/free software gives. It also undermines open source by confusion which you are trying to clear up right now. Don’t legitimize source-availability
That’s only true if you’re talking about the goals of open source/free software generally.
If we’re just talking about a game engine and releasing games, being able to modify the engine is absolutely critical when optimizing a large game. So having source available is absolutely a very practical thing when using proprietary software.
So it really depends on what you’re concerned about. Source available is just as good as open source in most cases if your goal is to build closed source software. If your goal is to build open source/free software, it’s awful.
I’m pretty sure you can always modify code for personal use, you just can’t always distribute those changes. In the case of a game engine, this would mean you could modify the engine code in development, but you could not release your game with those changes in.
Unreal allows modification and distribution, but only if you’re a licensed user and only for your combined work, but you cannot distribute your own fork of Unreal, aside from a patch set for other developers.
Starfield held my interest for a week. It’s okay, but it’s my least favorite polygon-based Bethesda game besides F76. The aging engine just wasn’t made for a game of this scope. I tried No Man’s Sky and didn’t like it, just not my thing.
I’ve played to 150 on fo76, the funniest thing to me is that npcs were an after thought for 76 and still feel more real than starfields citizens… So odd
Oh man, people are releasing physical copies of new games on retro consoles, right? Is anybody making a game that you can plug into the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge?
I think the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge could be added to any game and it would generate a new level based on the content of it, but I’d love to see someone check!
Except this licencing change removes sustainability from all licencing models except the ones that run subscription models or advertising.
Now they say they aren’t going to impose this crap over any not for profit or for profit that’s earning revenue under 200K. But I have serious doubts that certain scenarios are going to slip through the cracks.
What it is essentially a way to bleed any viral indie game studio dry of their capital, which could force them to declare bankruptcy and sell off their assets.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a way to build a unity game studio.
Game goes viral and reaches the threshold of 200K+ revenue
Every install and reinstall of the game gets charged, costs start to outweigh profits.
Money drains fast with no way to stop it.
Indie company declares bankruptcy due to cash flow issues
Unity demands payment for unpaid bills in assets - gets the ownership of game title as payment.
Unity opens game studio and continues to sell the game, while employing minimal Devs to maintain it.
Bam! they’ve a bunch of viral hits completely for free under their umbrella in a bunch of payments. And because they own the engine, they can make money hand over fist while stopping everyone else from doing the same.
That said I’m sure they have separate payment and licencing deals with big AAA companies. So really it’s only the indie companies that end up with a viral hit that get screwed.
So the other option is that they do not open a game studio and they’re merely just doing big techs dirty work and taking out their competition, while providing IP fire sales for big tech.
That said, once the company goes after a group for failure to pay this money, I wouldn’t be surprised if a legal fight ensued in order to declare the terms of service unenforceable and/or anti consumer and have them nullified or forcibly rewritten/reverted. If that happens I’m sure the EFF or other non profit software foundation will end up providing legal funding and or services. Heck it could end up being a class action.
That 6-step plan is very evil, I love it. Hopefully people will now understand that proprietary software always leads to abuse. Everyone should switch to Godot.
The article links to a story about some YouTubers who went on a rant about the optional pronoun feature, so yeah, I could absolutely see this getting blown out of proportion.
Having the scumbag of a CEO in the headline may have been a mistake. Riccitiello sold the least shares in the recent transaction history of the company. Also, I don’t know where you get your "retaining over 3000000 shares’ from. The source says Riccitiello sold all his shares in his possession.
The article mentions two others:
Tomer Bar-Zeev who sold 37.5k shares on 1st September, for around $1.4m. Shlomo Dovrat, meanwhile, sold 68k shares on 30th August for around $2.5m.
Bar-Zeev sold 37500 shares of ~1300000 owned on automated sell. That’s a factor of ten and a fair bit away from 2k sold from 3 mil, but that might be normal. It was automated, after all.
Dovrat’s transaction is mostly the same, roughly double the shares sold and roughly double the shares owned. However, it was not automated.
I believe the article mentioned them because they sold the most, but they clearly weren’t taking the amount retained into account. The third most sold, however, by Robynne Sisco was a sell of 25768, retaining 14700 (sold ~64%).
There are a fair number of other sells, but if the Bar-Zeev and Dovrat sells don’t look suspicious, nothing else will stand out.
What does seem a little odd- and I have no idea if this is at all unusual- is that in the last twelve months, more shares have been bought than sold (net shares almost 10,000,000), and in the last 3 months more shares have been sold than bought (net shares almost 3,500,000). In the last 3 months, the number of insider traders is a little over 1/3 of the amount of insider trades over the last 12 months (under the assumption it should be about 1/4). All of the insider buys seem to be the options granted for working for Unity. I assume it isn’t too odd for the board of directors to sell and never buy, but they have increased selling a fair bit in the last 3 months, and it seems specifically the last two weeks.
More confusing accounting that I’ve never learned, and probably never will.
At first I thought it was because of direct/indirect ownership. But what is the point of “5. Amount of Securities Beneficially Owned Following Reported Transaction(s) (Instr. 3 and 4)” being 3mil with no transaction, but the 2000 stock transaction showing they owned none? I see nothing on the form or in the definition showing that direct or indirect ownership show be reported differently. They are all owned by the ‘reporting person’. But clearly this is all me just not being able to read how they filled it out.
I agree $80k is nothing to $100mil, I do believe that if they have 3mil of securities, then it doesn’t matter, no matter how high or low the securities are worth. I disagree with the idea that automation makes it not suspicious, though. If the stocks were all automatically sold off, then the company devalues itself afterwards, it has the same intent and outcome as any other insider trading.
Ok, so the report is on the person (CEO in this case). Only directors and certain executive levels are required to report.
Table I shows ‘non-derivative securities’ (regular stock). The CEO holds in their own name 3 million+ shares. No transaction was reported for those, but they have to be listed.
The CEO’s spouse aquired 2000 shares at a cost of $1.425 each. After this transaction, they had 2000 shares total (column 5).
They then sold those shares for $40 each. After, they weren’t holding any stock, so column 5 shows 0.
The CEO financially benefits from this, so the transactions are listed on their form, as (I) for indirect. If the spouse also had a position within Unity which required reporting this would be listed on their own SEC form as well.
Billboard trees and lack of fog, detailed reflections and shadows were tradeoffs of last gen that at that time weren’t as perceivable as they are now, when compared side by side. I wonder what the next gen would look like? Accurate RTAO, RTGI, RTR and no ghosting artifacts? It definitely feels like we’re near the end phase of graphical fidelity. I mean we can improve infinitely but it’ll come at extremely diminishing returns and insane amounts of pixel peeping.
Maybe the focus would shift towards realistic animation blending and pixel accurate collision physics once everything is path traced and uses photogrammetry. Thanks for listening to my ramblings.
Just watched a video about FaZe Clan. Used to be a relatable gaming group mostly on Call of Duty during the early rise of online gaming content— some of the first to use capture cards to record gameplay and upload raw footage or cut compilations on YouTube. Far as I understand people liked them because they were relatable but as the money started flowing they became highly corporate and influencer-like, getting streamer houses and stuff like that, and so people started noting a disconnect and stopped caring. FaZe has been clawing to stay relevant for a years now so it’s kind of interesting to see where they’ll go from here.
Tbh the only reason I’ve got an ounce of care about FaZe is because their CSGO team is pretty cool. The “clan” itself is just this weird baggage that comes with the name.
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