I agree that Pitchford is a dick, but I sincerely disagree about the art style comments: I don’t think it’s morally correct to “copyright” (or, reworded: claim exclusivity of) art styles, especially in this context.
I think the two works are completely independent, and Gearbox being inspired by the short film is completely appropriate.
Anything else would be no different (in my opinion) than cases like Roger Dean (the cover artist for Yes’ early albums) suing James Cameron for the floating islands in Avatar.
Squadron 42 is the single player campaign of Star Citizen, that is supposed to launch as a separate game. It's basically a small portion of Star Citizen, but with a story and ending. I'm still not confident; waited too long for that.
I still remember being in college and hearing people in the lab next to me excitedly proclaim that they were able to pay $100 for a rare ship that has X Y Z features including handling, top speed, and fashionable interiors.
They weren’t able to use the ship yet, but oh man was it a great investment for when they’d one day be able to ride them.
So fucking bizarre. But, if you have people out there thinking like my then peers, you’re guaranteed to have a long term stream of income based on loose promises alone.
Really just repackaged Proton, with some ridiculous install requirements including fucking Homebrew.
It’s not even Alpha level software right now. But, just to argue their side: it is meant as a preview for game developers to package their games with right now, and not the general public.
I guess I don’t really like the idea of a large company using a tool like Homebrew, I feel at that point they should write/include their own package manager.
I might be sounding pedantic, so feel free to ignore me if you’re a Homebrew fan, but it just irks me that the package manager is installed via curl’ing a shell script from their github project, and that the entire repo itself is stored on Github.
Even Microsoft has winget; dunno why a company the size of Apple can’t just roll a proper, secure way to distribute packages.
Also, as far as other package managers go, there’s Macports.
Let’s not forget how the bounty hunter missions were completely broken, to the point that you couldn’t even start the quest line at any point in the game. I beat the whole game wondering “what the fuck is that big area in the pause menu that’s still locked?”
Also, you still can’t unlock the third garden on Pyloon’s roof in some saves (mainly mine).
I couldn’t give less of a shit about performance bugs, but the fact that core content in the game is still locked because of fucking trigger bugs is mind bogglingly embarrassing.
Still loved the game, though - my favorite game of 2023 (not saying it was the best of 2023, I just really liked this one).
Monster Hunter Now, the latest free-to-play Pokémon Go-style augmented reality creature-battler from developer Niantic, made in collaboration with Capcom, has officially surpassed 5m downloads in its first week of release on iOS and Android....
Cyberpunk 2077 is getting a mammoth-sized update, titled Update 2.0, tomorrow, September 21, and it promises to be a bit of a game changer. A police revamp, a progression overhaul, a new cybernetics system, vehicular combat, DLSS 3.5—it's vast, and thankfully separate from the Phantom Liberty expansion due next week, so you'll...
They’ve been all in for about half a decade. If you don’t work in mobile, or play a lot of mobile games, you might not have noticed - but basically the most played games on planet earth are made in Unity, and are on mobile.
It’s sad to say this, but their actions this past week have kind of shown us that the folk at Unity don’t even seem to care about other platforms anymore; to the point that they did not even consider them on a basic level while working on their new pricing policies.
They should just either rebrand to a mobile first company, or at least split their products such that those making pc/console games can argue for their own price points and features.
Ridiculous to lump indie devs and mobile companies like hyper casual devs (who can have 5 million+ installs a game, thanks to their low CPIs and marketing optimizations) into the same category.
Unity is mad that mobile game companies acquire millions of users in a few months as they transition from soft launch to global, and then sell their companies for millions - if not billions - of dollars.
They want a cut of that pie, and in true unity fashion, they chose the most inept way of doing that.
If you have developers of games like Cult of the Lamb feeling scared, you did it wrong.
You protect your indies, you protect the people making art with your product. The people who invested 3 million and are making billions in the mobile ads game? That’s your target.
How they could be this inept is astounding…
Also, I’ll echo the other commenter’s statement in saying the article is very well written. They just weren’t able to really answer the “why” portion very well. John Riccitiello wasn’t wrong when he said this plan wasn’t designed to affect 90% of their customers - but it also doesn’t mention how that remaining 10% makes more than that 90% combined.
These companies can’t port to Godot as it doesn’t support the software stacks they use and the platforms they target (mobile).
With the size of the players involved, it’s much more likely they go to Cocos2D in the short term, and that something new pops up in the long term to act as a proper Unity replacement.
Unity has announced dramatic changes to its Unity Engine business model which will see its introduce a monthly fee per game install beginning on 1st January next year - a move that has already send shockwaves across the development community....
Unity is an engine primarily used by mobile app developers; it’s their biggest market. Indie game developers are basically just collateral damage, for this kind of a pricing change.
Mobile apps are all about massive scale (millions of installs) and ungodly amounts of revenue. They’re going after large mobile developers, not small studios. (I’m not saying small studios won’t get affected, I’m saying Unity is focusing on the big dogs - potentially at the cost of pissing off unrelated folk for no financial reason)
The per install costs don’t kick in until you’ve made half a million dollars in revenue, and a certain number of installs.
Also, you literally can’t build these apps with other engines as ad network integrations don’t exist for them. So it’s not like anyone has a choice: it’s Unity demanding to be paid more as they’re the only viable player in the industry.
Makes good business sense, though I think they should increase the revenue point of the free and personal tier to a million as well, just to put the minds of indie devs at ease. No point freaking out unrelated people.
Let’s not forget that Unity recently merged with a malware company, so borderline-illegal predation is their entire business strategy.
No, they merged with an advertising company - you know, the same companies with which they’re close enough to have plugins for. It’s about business; who you talk to, who you have deals with.
I would never call such horrifically predatory tactics “good business sense.” It’s abuse of market position and should draw the ire of antitrust regulators, as well as make their product a major business risk for any new projects.
It is good business sense. The engine has relatively little value, it’s about what software stacks it integrates with, plus the ease of use for making exports to the two platforms that matter (Android and iOS). There’s a reason Unreal doesn’t even exist in this space, even though it’s technically capable of running on these devices.
Again, this is not the industry you’re thinking of - it’s the mobile industry, which is less about game development and more about having millions in your war-chest (usually from a few VCs) that you can spend on your marketing budget. If you can’t market, you’re dead in the water.
The entire industry is built around ads in games and traditional social media.
Things like this will stop happening if:
A) People become less susceptible to predatory marketing.
B) Another game engine developer decides to undercut Unity while at the same time offering similar platform targets and SDK integrations.
(There’s also a thing to be said about hiring, where all new mobile-game devs learn Unity - as it’s become the de-facto standard for getting a job in this industry. Any new player would need some big names to adopt them first to make a push for people to learn the tools, not hobbyists.)
Barring that nothing will change.
Also, there really aren’t “new” projects in this field - you rarely see scrappy upstarts succeeding in the mobile space, just jaded veterans undercutting their old studios by offering their VCs (or new, hungrier VCs) a bigger cut of the pie. Also, studios with private chefs, massive salaries, and cult-y work spaces that look like adult playgrounds.
It’s okay to stop playing a game after you’ve played enough of it to understand it isn’t for you.
I think I had about 10~12 hours played of Diablo 4 before I noticed it wasn’t for me and stopped. Still enjoyed what little I played of it, but wasn’t motivated to continue.
Borderlands is failing already. (www.eurogamer.net)
Hades II - Sign Up for the HADES II Technical Test - Steam News (store.steampowered.com)
New Game Announces Release Date And Also Shutdown Date In Same Tweet. (www.kotaku.com.au) angielski
Love Live! School Idol Festival 2 Miracle Live has announced both its launch date and the date the game will shut down in one Tweet.
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Space sim Squadron 42 is "feature-complete" and gunning for Starfield's lunch with massive new video (www.rockpapershotgun.com) angielski
Squadron 42 is the single player campaign of Star Citizen, that is supposed to launch as a separate game. It's basically a small portion of Star Citizen, but with a story and ending. I'm still not confident; waited too long for that.
Valve Says Counter-Strike 2 for macOS Not Happening Because There Aren't Enough Players on Mac to Justify It (www.macrumors.com) angielski
Cal Kestis actor confirms Star Wars Jedi 3 during Comic Con panel (www.videogameschronicle.com) angielski
Monster Hunter Now surpasses 5m downloads in its first week (Niantic) (www.eurogamer.net) angielski
Monster Hunter Now, the latest free-to-play Pokémon Go-style augmented reality creature-battler from developer Niantic, made in collaboration with Capcom, has officially surpassed 5m downloads in its first week of release on iOS and Android....
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Review Thread
Game Information...
CD Projekt recommends starting a new game when Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.0 drops: 'starting fresh will enhance your overall gameplay experience' (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
Cyberpunk 2077 is getting a mammoth-sized update, titled Update 2.0, tomorrow, September 21, and it promises to be a bit of a game changer. A police revamp, a progression overhaul, a new cybernetics system, vehicular combat, DLSS 3.5—it's vast, and thankfully separate from the Phantom Liberty expansion due next week, so you'll...
Upper Echelon: The Unity Disaster Gets WORSE - IronSource And A New Tech Trend (www.youtube.com) angielski
Unity Claims PlayStation, Xbox & Nintendo Will Pay Its New Runtime Fee On Behalf Of Devs (twistedvoxel.com) angielski
Unity Technologies has stated that PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo will pay the company's new runtime fee on behalf of game developers.
Nexus Mods Fine With Bigots Leaving Over Removed Starfield ‘Pronoun’ Mod (kotaku.com) angielski
Unity's self-combustion engine (www.gamesindustry.biz) angielski
Unity boycott begins as devs switch off ads to force a Runtime Fee reversal (mobilegamer.biz) angielski
Crime Boss: Rockay City: Dragon's Gold Cup Expansion Pack Trailer (www.youtube.com) angielski
Unity reveals plans to charge per game install, drawing criticism from development community (www.eurogamer.net) angielski
Unity has announced dramatic changes to its Unity Engine business model which will see its introduce a monthly fee per game install beginning on 1st January next year - a move that has already send shockwaves across the development community....
Unity introducing new fee attached to game installs (www.gamedeveloper.com)
All Picross e games to be re-released on Switch (www.eurogamer.net)
What games have you played due to FOMO? angielski
FOMO stands for Fear Of Missing Out....
Necromancer Career | Official Cinematic Trailer - Warhammer: Vermintide 2 (www.youtube.com) angielski
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Let's Just Calm Down About The Nudity In Baldur's Gate 3 (www.dualshockers.com) angielski
Looking at you, streamers and angry defenders of Japanese ‘fanservice’ games.
Obsidian says Avowed was originally co-op but it just wasn't Obsidian enough (www.eurogamer.net) angielski
Is Lemmy another anti Nintendo space like Reddit for people to pretend they don't exist? Because if it is that's very disappointing.
I’ve noticed in a lot of Reddit threads the outright hostility towards Nintendo games and Nintendo fans in general gaming subreddits....