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.
They’re wet go, John Riccitiello! That’s why I recognized that assholes smirk in the thumbnail. He used to be president of EA. No surprise he’s brought those scummy tactics over to unity.
This is all fine and well, but am I the only one a bit concerned about how NexusMods is practically a monopoly in the modding scene? Why does literally every modder have to use a rate-limiting host as a platform, especially when Github exists?
Mods uploaded to github does really suck for discoverability though. There’s the roguelike Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. The modding scene exists entirely on Github and you’d basically never find them unless you go searching for mods on their Discord channel.
That's even worse though. Plenty of games (e.g. Stellaris and RimWorld) are also available on platforms like GOG or, ugh, Epic. But if you want to use mods and you bought the game on any platform other than Steam it's fuck you.
I know it is, developers can block downloads unless the user is signed into a Steam account that owns the game. But as an end-user that's distinction without difference.
steamworkshopdownloader.io never gotten this to work myself but I put the least amount of effort in as possible. There may be others as well but I remember when I did my research a couple years ago that it was a real trudge and almost not worth it.
I know there are workarounds, but this is true. There are very little games I buy (at least directly) through steam nowadays, because I didn’t like what it became after the Greenlight/Direct debacle and I didn’t want my library to be that dependent of them anymore.
I have playnite as a unified game library launcher (with GoG, itch.io, humble, Ubi, EA, even Amazon Prime and freaking EGS just for the free games), so where I get my games from doesn’t matter much for me now.
But workshop integration is basically the only thing that makes me want a Steam copy for a game.
Though among the games in that case, there were Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress, and for both if you get a copy directly from the developers, you get DRM-free and a Steam key. So, that’s what I did.
There’s a couple issues with it. I mean, it’s simple for games where you’re not using a bunch of mods, but at some point it just becomes excessive. Not to mention that when a mod updates, the mod will automatically update breaking your game sometimes, or when you’re trying to play a game, a mod just doesn’t update causing it to break the game that way too. There’s just a lack of control that’s often necessary when modding.
For beatsaber (which doesn't use steam workshop), the there's no steam integration and its a pain to deal with.
For terraria (which uses steam workshop), the modloader is smart enough to know which mods don't work with the current version of the game and disables them and steam lets you easily change which version of the game you have by using the "beta" options. Only time I've had issues with updates breaking things since 1.4 release was during beta-builds of 1.4 tmodloader (and those were generally easily fixed by going to the discord and finding the file to fix it). Since then, no needing to find files and paste them over the existing files, etc. No trying to install one mod at a time out of a dozen or two until you find which one breaks it and redoing the whole process over again. Pretty sure it also just uses the version of mods that support the game version you have, deals with dependencies automatically, etc.. The modloader will also direct you to things like the non-steam pages for mods (sometimes forum posts, sometimes discord, etc).
I don't think the steam integration is needed for such a seamless mod experience, but its certainly compatible with it. And terraria is an outlier because the game devs encourage mods and has a huge and dedicated community. For smaller games with devs that don't like mods, simply trying to keeping things working may take so much work, so that time that making a good integrated user experience is probably difficult.
Let’s be real here though, Terraria is an unfair comparison considering it’s modloader is integrated into the game itself and holds significantly greater support than most other mods with Steam Workshop support. (Oh and that the modloader is basically a community made mod manager anyways and is akin to using the community mod managers for the games mentioned below)
Stellaris, Rimworld, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Total War: Warhammer 3, Binding of Isaac, Dwarf Fortress, Space Engineers, Cities: Skylines, all of these very popular games with massive modding support are still plagued by the issues I mentioned above. And you know what? It has the issues you mentioned as well. Did you subscribe to an outdated mod? Oh, well, good luck figuring out which one that is. Forgot to download a dependency? Crash. Did a mod update and Steam just didn’t update the mod? Figure out what mod that was and unsubscribe to it and subscribe to it again. Did a mod just update and Steam updated the mod, even though the update breaks save compatibility? Well, unless the mod author uploaded the older version of the mod, good luck trying to have fun.
I think it’s just the internet being the internet. Or at least how it’s been for awhile. There are big sites that a lot of people crowd to and that becomes the default. Like auctioning things off online. Ebay. That was where everyone went to. Need to order a few different things online? Amazon. Are there other online stores? Plenty. But Amazon is seen as cheap and convenient.
Nexus mods is just the popular site, but the moders have other options.
Yeah, an alternative using git would be good probably, but maybe don’t use github. Preferably though, it’d be agnostic and just target some git repo anywhere. It’d pull from a description file for the page to ensure a uniform appearance preferably, and it’d show and manage versions from some uniformly named folder on the repo.
I was really hoping thunderstore and mod.io would take off more since they seem more platform-agnostic and FOSS-like with their integration with git and versioning (and for some games they have), but people just prefer convenience of nexusmods and steam workshop unfortunately. They just have a bigger community and better discoverability in the end
I don’t think that term really applies here. It’s not like the barrier to entry for a webservice hosting game modification data is all that high. It’s very different from the railway, waterworks and power grid markets.
Also there are at least the competitors Loverslab, Curseforge, ModMD and Modrinth from the top of my head.
Indeed, it applies as much as accusations of monopoly. Two sides of the same coin. Really, it’s not a monopoly situation or any kind at all. It’s just by far the best of its kind and it has no competition.
Network effect creates barriers to new competitors, regardless of quality. Either for the upstarts or the leaders. See: Twitter. Once some choice is the default, anything else faces an uphill battle.
Does any one of those integrate with Mod Organizer or do I have to download the mod (often also with an annoying wait time) and then point Mod Organizer to it. Do they have an API that enables “a new version is out” notifications, or do I have to hunt everything down manually.
It really wouldn’t be that hard, but none of them cares. Nexus kinda has itself positioned well there as they would not have to support any third-party API endpoints in Vortex, but Vortex isn’t even the popular choice for many games.
Well, for one thing, Nexus gives modders a share of ad revenue. Under a different name, I have a mod that’s a backend requirement for a big, popular mod, and that nets me a reliable few bucks a month.
That said, a good portion of the modding community also exists on Gamebanana. If you want BotW, ToTK or Source engine mods, GB is the go-to.
Wait I have a stupid subscription to nexus and idk why I haven’t canceled it (used it for one month for some mod back in the day). I use nexus for all mods. Should I keep my sub then because all I care about is modders getting something.
R2Modman and thunderstore.io has grown it’s catalogue quite a bit as of late, but it’s mostly (don’t know if it’s entirely or not) unity games. It’s my favorite modding platform with features that make sharing modlists for multiplayer a breeze.
There’s stuff like Curseforge, but it’s only for some games, mostly Minecraft. The problem, if someone considers it a problem, is really that communities for games generally centralize around one site for their mods for the most part, and Nexus has garnered a lot of trust and therefore has more pull/inertia for communities working those things out.
As for Github, I believe the vast majority of mods have Github pages, but Github itself doesn’t really have a UI suited for mod downloaders, and no real incentive to implement one. So sites like Nexus and Curseforge are still a necessity.
Nice! Personally I don’t have any particular issue with Nexus, but it’s always nice to see diversity. Monopolies are pretty much never good for end users.
My only issue with Nexus is that I have to create a login to download mods there. I don’t want to sign in to websites just to DL something. Curseforge is good for Minecraft mods and doesn’t hassle me with a login prompt
Nexus has the lions share, but only for some games, I had a premium subscription but still found for like half the games I mod that nexus either didn’t have a modpage for them or that most modders for that game used other sites to host their mods
Not really sure curseforge is better. Its another of those sites with an sketchy bloaty overwolf launcher that makes you jump through hoops to load mods onto a server.
It’s concerningly hard to avoid overwolf in modding
There’s also steam workshop. Neither are shining examples of a free modding community. I think nexus mods starting out better and slowly enshittified but I don’t know the extent of it.
Their rate-limiting isn’t bad at all, their integration into everything is excellent, and for games without much of a community Vortex is often the only mod manager. Their API isn’t closed down, so Mod Organiser can integrate with Nexus just as well, and they probably would also do it with other mod sites if those ever bothered to set up a version check etc. API. They have an excellent search function.
In short: They provide a good service. Like the most annoying part about Nexus as a freeloader is the five or what seconds wait before your mod manager picks up the download.
And, no, their rate limiting really isn’t bad. 1.5MB/s for people with adblock, 3MB/s for people without. How often do you download gigabytes worth of mods it’s not like they’re bullying you into a subscription.
Github has other ways to make money, and Microsoft capital to back up everything. And granted Nexus could use a better bug tracker, but you won’t see them getting into the private repository business any time soon.
Considering their policy doesn't allow for other stuff like this, yeah I am not surprised.
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Reminds me of the time when a Spiderman mod removed the VERY few instances of a pride flag in a recreation of NEW YORK CITY and a Skyrim mod that removed any potential gay romances that only occur when wearing a very specific amulet (including a single dead skeleton couple off the beaten path.)
Those got booted as well cause.....come on now. Its blatantly targeting a group of people about their sexuality and gender who have BARELY any presence to begin with in these games.
Starfield is even more egregious as its LITERALLY just a menu option and the rare use in dialogue....
Really pathetic and sad people would even feel the need to make them to begin with. Let alone feel the need to upload them to a platform.
Magic, thanks for posting this. I’ve been trying to find a good and clear explanation of that been going on since I started reading about people getting upset with unity during the week.
I dont know who is the most pathetic group here, if nexus mods for taking down a dumb harmless mod for ridiculous reasons or the moders that made a mod that takes out a dumb harmeles feature for ridiculous reasons. Nexus mods sucks either way and the mod devs suck too.
The sad part of the story is that, thousands of people were scammed on the kickstarter site on hundreds of projects, thousands are still throwing their money at them and the site is still standing.
Moderation exists to identify and exclude people who are being absolute cocks.
You don’t need any grand philosophical statement about values. You don’t need to defend the paradox of tolerance against absolutist demands for unrestricted expression. It’s perfectly fine to say: you were doing some diet Nazi shit, that’s awful, fuck off.
Finally an article that goes beyond the drama and misinformation. It is not just about the new fee, which realistically is nothing compared to what you would owe epic for the same level of success.
What sucks is the shadiness and the deceptive nature of it all. I am sure the executives felt really clever and thought it would almost fly under the radar After all, they managed to spin this as not-a-royalty after years of boasting that Unity wouldn’t have any.
The new changes are essentially this :
You’re forced into going with the pro or enterprise license past a certain revenue (which was sort of a thing already).
You’re forced into serving Unity ads, or else you get charged a some royalties, which realistically should still be less than what UE charges.
You’re forced retroactively into it, as they deleted the old TOS behind the scenes.
They’re definitely not being upfront about their intentions, and due to their complete aversion to mentionning the word royalties, they managed to deceptively make up a lie that sounds worst than the actual truth. Even though this is a move targetted at multi-mullion dollars productions, actual students and hobbyist are now worried about being charged per user downloads, which is not happening.
It is sad to see, Unity went from being owned and operated by people who truely cared. I worked there for a number of years and most leaders and employees truely believed they were a force of good in this otherwise shitty world. It is crazy how much the company changed in just a number of years/months. It sucks, and whoever ended up in charge robbed both the employees and the users of something great.
John was a smooth talker, and even as the company was turning corporate and seemingly stepping on old values, he was very good at making sensible arguments and justifying the company transformation. I can’t help but feel deceived now. Ultimately I left the company because I disagreed with so many decisions. Virtually my entire backlog was stuff I disagreed with and I just couldn’t justify waking up in the morning. We’re long past the “Users first” slogan which made Unity so popular with indies.
You’re leaving out what’s really the key problem with the new pricing, which is that it is per install. It’s an unlikely but very possible scenario that a developer could lose money (inexpensive game with an abnormally high number of reinstalls).
The pricing incentivizes “live service” or ad-supported games that constantly extract revenue from users rather than “buy once” games.
Their pricing is based on "trust me bro" currently, since they don't have details on how it will work. They say it was installed i number of times, therefore you owe them j. No need for a bot farm when they can just lie, since we have no way to verify their numbers.
Fair enough, this is an atrocious billing system, but I I firmly believe that this is simply a gimmick to get around charging royalties without calling it so. Maybe I am biased, but the people working at Unity are not monsters, and I believe the employee who posted publicly and stated that the people implementing this system made sure that it would be under-reporting installs is speaking the truth. I think there is this misconception that Unity is simply gonna fire an event for every install and charge you directly for each report, but there is no way that this will be this simple. In all likelihood they will use this to keep a list of the popular games, and the actual fee will be based on heuristics like estimated sales and whatever other analytics and ads generated by the game clients. Sure it is a “trust me bro” system, yes it’s bad, yes it could be abused, I think it is fair to call it out and ask for a more transparent system, but deep down I just don’t believe that Unity is evil and did this to abuse the developers.
In all likelihood THEY will be the one forced to under charge, and really they’re doing this to force you into their ecosystem so it is likely that they will reach out the studios individually before incurring the fees. The whole thing is worded in a way that past a certain level of success, they will charge you royalties unless you play ball with them and serve ads and buy in other services. I would not blame anyone for calling it scummy, but I think it is important to understand their motives, they want to force your hand to use whatever they’re selling. The installation fee is just a smoke screen, they have nothing to gain bankrupting studios by making up numbers. Of course, this is just my own take. I think I have a fairly good understanding of how they operate, but I could be wrong.
Welp, I didn’t say it was a good deal. Nonetheless it’s a better deal then getting ow2 coins for buying rtx 4000 gpus. And some later buyers got Diablo 4…
Man Starfield’s nowhere near as bad as Jedi Survivor, let’s be honest. At least it runs well on my Steam Deck and doesn’t stutter every 3 seconds like it does in Koboh in Jedi Survivor.
Bash.org used to have a “worst of” section, for the lowest-voted quotes. It was mostly racist garbage. At some point the worst went something like, ‘that’s where black people belong: back of the bus, bottom of Bash.’
They nuked that shit shortly after, because why the fuck would you want that on your server?
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