Why Unity's New Install Fees Are Spurring Massive Backlash Among Game Developers - IGN angielski

The Unity Runtime Fee is scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2024, and it's been universally panned by developers on social media since its announcement earlier today.

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For instance, if a free-to-play game has made $200,0000 in the last 12 months but has millions of people installing it, the developer could end up owing Unity more than the profit earned from in-game purchases.

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Others are worried this could lead some smaller developers who built their games on Unity to pull titles from digital storefronts to prevent more people from racking up downloads.

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"I bet Steam, Epic, Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft will love having waves of developers pulling their games," writes Forest from Among Us developer Innersloth Games. "Innersloth has always paid Unity appropriately for licenses and services we use. I'm not a discourse guy, but this is undue and will force my hand."

Other developers are actually asking people online to not install their game built in Unity, with Paper Trail developer Huenry Hueffman writing, "if you buy our Unity game, please don't install it… demos also count, dont install this demo, you'll literally bankrupt me".

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Unity also clarified that the fee will not apply to charity games or charity bundles. Unity defended the pricing model, saying it's designed to only charge developers who have already found financial success.

We only succeed when you succeed. Our 5% royalty model only kicks in after your first $1M in gross revenue, meaning that if you make $1,000,001 you owe us 5 cents. And this is per title!
Also, revenue generated from the Epic Games Store will be excluded from that 5% royalty.

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Unity has been under pressure lately, laying off hundreds of employees in the first half of 2023. Riccitiello also came under fire in 2022 for referring to developers who don't focus on microtransactions as the "biggest f*cking idiots" before apologizing. Featured in everything from Cuphead to Beat Saber to Pokemon Go, it has been lauded for ease of use. However, trust in the platform has been declining over the years, leading many developers to look to alternatives.

Mawkey,

Join the Godot Chad's!

4am,

May your golden parachute have secretly been stuffed with lead you greedy abusive piece of shit. Fuck these bait and switch MBAs.

Luci,
@Luci@lemmy.ca avatar

Just a reminder that other game engines exist. Some are even free and just as powerful, if not more.

geosoco,

Like godot!

Here's a bunch of other dev related tools link.

static09,

Also stride!

www.stride3d.net

PeleSpirit,

Stride looks great, thanks for the link.

Kata1yst,
@Kata1yst@kbin.social avatar

And O3DE, formally Amazon Lumberyard / CryEngine

https://o3de.org/

wave_walnut,
@wave_walnut@kbin.social avatar

I'm interested in Flax game engine.
https://flaxengine.com/

M500,

I know nothing about game dev.

Is godot really just as powerful? I’ve heard of it, but I always thought it was for 2d stuff.

dustyData, (edited )

It shines in 2D where Unity falters, yes. But it’s perfectly capable of doing 3D competently. It’s shaders and lightning pipelines that are a bit rough on the edges, but that can be overcome with time with more brainpower coming in to contribute. The scripting is also far more robust than the hodgepodge that Unity tries to pass off as C#. The great advantage is that Godot is a non-profit foundation with a transparent governance model. Not a predatory venture capitalist behemoth like Unity.

EnglishMobster,
@EnglishMobster@kbin.social avatar

Godot is a passable engine. It doesn't have a massive pile of money behind it, but it'll generally do most things adequately.

Honestly - and I may be biased as I'm a AAA dev who works with the engine - Unreal is really the way to go. Reasonable pricing on a powerful engine. The main issue is that it's bloated as hell and there's a learning curve... but if you're an indie, it's just as usable as Unity. Plus if you wanted to get into AAA development someday, Unreal is super popular and used everywhere.

CaptDust, (edited )

It’s been really great for 2d, 4.0 made it really good for 3d, and it’s even decent for general GUI applications, as an engine it feels ready for wider adoption to me.

I think it’s not up to Unreal quality, but for the vast majority of indie games I believe it’s enough.

LetMeEatCake, (edited )

Unity is Unreal’s biggest marketer now, it seems…

Curious if some of the many internal AAA engines out there might start to get shopped around as a new alternate to UE. Sony, Ubisoft, and Microsoft all have a few in house engines that at least on paper seem viable for branching out — the biggest obstacle would be support, I suspect. Which isn’t a trivial obstacle, to be clear.

idTech is due for a resurgence. Maybe Valve could even get a revival in usage of Source.

Paranomaly,
@Paranomaly@sh.itjust.works avatar

I’d love to see Capcom license the RE Engine with how nice and smooth all the games made on that have been

fsxylo, (edited )

This doesn’t help people who were already knee deep in a project.

I might invest in some cheap liquor instead.

Enkers,

Riccitiello also came under fire in 2022 for referring to developers who don’t focus on microtransactions as the “biggest f*cking idiots” before apologizing.

Classic CEO brainrot. There’s more to life than just maximizing profit.

otter,

Maybe this will be the kick in the rear that gets people to drop them enmasse. I’d definitely explore the other options for any new projects I was starting.

Even if they drop this fee, is it really worth the headache in the future when they try something again?

doctorcrimson,

No, Unity has always been an inferior engine to others such as Unreal Engine, Lumberyard, Blender, etc. In fact, the Unreal Engine 3 UDK became free well over a decade ago, and it’s basically Unity if Unity weren’t the scummy corporate vampires they’ve always been.

quams69,

Let’s not pretend Epic aren’t also scummy corporate vampires

dylanTheDeveloper,
@dylanTheDeveloper@lemmy.world avatar

I’m sorry but Blender game engine was pretty cumbersome to use. It was officially dropped awhile ago and last I heard it was picked up by the community

LillyPip,

In a capitalist oligarchy? There’s really not.

KingThrillgore,
@KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml avatar

The aftermath from its main audience, mobile devs, is going to be biblical.

banana_meccanica,

They must have lost their minds. Bankrupt or even pay Unity back for a successful game you made and finished months ago? I hope they get legal action.

KoboldCoterie,
@KoboldCoterie@pawb.social avatar

Seriously. If they were changing the terms going forward, that’d at least be defensible, but trying to make it apply to everything that’s ever been made is just nonsensical.

Fubarberry,
@Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz avatar

Even then it would be pretty bad for a lot of devs. If you’ve been developing a game in unity for years, you can’t just easily change engines just because they’ve changed the rules of using their engine.

KoboldCoterie,
@KoboldCoterie@pawb.social avatar

I agree with you; they’d have to give plenty of notice that the changes were coming and maybe even offer exemptions for developers who can show they were working on something significantly before the announcement… I don’t think there’s any way they could reasonably do it that would avoid all backlash, but this just seems like the absolute worst way to handle it.

4am,

So they owe devs on all previous installs? Like back payment? Or just going forward if you’ve ever used Unity?

KoboldCoterie, (edited )
@KoboldCoterie@pawb.social avatar

Any future installs starting on January 1. It does, however, mean that many developers will be more or less forced to pull their games off of storefronts, if it actually goes through. It also means that if you bought a Unity game in the past, you’re costing the developer money every time you install it (again, if this actually goes through - I can’t imagine they won’t backpedal.)

The real issue with this isn’t the policy itself, which I would bet money won’t actually be enacted, but the fact that Unity (thinks they) can just unilaterally and retroactively change their policies. If this actually held up in court, which I think is a tenuous possibility at best (but I am not a lawyer so take that with a grain of salt), it sets an awful, awful precedent.

NotMyOldRedditName,

If they can change the terms of games already released and ask for a % per install, what’s stopping them from just asking for 100% and saying suck it bitches.

geosoco,

This article has some new quotes and details. I know we have the other thread going, but this would get buried over there.

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