Unity announced a new fee structure today, and developers are none too happy. “We are introducing a Unity Runtime Fee that is based upon each time a qualifying game is downloaded by an end user,” the company wrote in a blog post announcing the change.
  • romaselli@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    43·
    1 year ago

    This is a great opportunity to tell people about Godot, a free open source engine that has been killing it lately.

    • Granixo@feddit.clEnglish
      9·
      1 year ago

      As soon as AV2/H.266 becomes standard, i’d say Youtube would be at risk.

      Edit: Added AV2 to my comment.

        • Granixo@feddit.clEnglish
          7·
          1 year ago

          I’m not saying that AV2/H.266 would make Youtube worse.

          I’m implying AV2/H.266 would allow us to migrate to a platform other than Youtube.

          Edit: Added AV2 to my comment

          • Rinox@feddit.itEnglish
            8·
            1 year ago

            Why would that be? If h265 is anything to go by, MPEG will probably charge an arm and a leg for h266, and the entire industry will pivot away from MPEG and move to AV2. I’m not even sure YouTube will ever implement h266

    • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      92·
      1 year ago

      Wikipedia incorporates pay-to-win mechanics, lootboxes, microtransactions and cosmetics. There will also be a convoluted crafting system with decaying materials and several incompatible currencies for every purpose imaginable.

  • jayandp@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    30·
    1 year ago

    It’s kinda amazing how Unity shot themselves in the chest with this one. No, I don’t mean foot, they are now actively bleeding from the torso.

    No Dev or Publisher is going to be okay with this, none. This basically leaves Devs on the hook for unlimited liability. Even with their walk back of “only initial installs” doesn’t help. I myself have both a Desktop and a SteamDeck. That’s possibly two installs out of the gate from one customer. Then any time I make an upgrade in the future, or heck maybe even switch Proton versions on my Deck, the Dev could be on the hook for more cash. There’s zero transparency with how these “installs” are detected or counted, so there is no way to budget or plan for the expenses.

    Businesses hate unpredictable fees.

    They’ll deal with utilities upping rates, because who are you gonna switch to in a monopoly? But if you’re just a tool for them, they’ll ditch you as soon as they’re able and never use you again.

    And again, publishers will care about this too, since their whole job is distribution. Any Dev looking to sign with a publisher, even a subscription service like GamePass, will now be asked which engine they’re using, and I bet you 9/10 times the Dev will get rejected if they’re using Unity now. That puts even more pressure on Devs not to use Unity.

    Unity will price gouge their existing customers(Devs), but will ensure that nobody ever buys their product ever again. At this point I doubt their reputation will ever recover even if they can walk this back. The fact that they believe they can unilaterally add enormous fees at the drop of a hat means they’ve ruined any trust their customers had in them.

    Unity: I can charge you any fees I want, any time I want.

    • douglasg14b@lemmy.worldEnglish
      16·
      1 year ago

      Nevermind desktop games.

      The real hit is free mobile games. Paying per install can be crippling when you naturally have low retention rates.

      You can accidentally success yourself into debt if you don’t have preditary monetization.

      I’m building a game ATM that’s meant to be fun and fair, monetization is really low. If it shot up as a front page item for some reason that now went from a huge success to a massive stress point as the number of installs would easily put me into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to unity overnight.

      Who TF wants to take on that kind of risk? Does this not push mobile games into being even MORE preditary?? Since it’s now impossible to build a mobile game with Unity, and just release it as something free.

      • Lemminary@lemmy.worldEnglish
        10·
        1 year ago

        preditary

        Predatory

        I don’t mean to be rude, just giving a heads up since it’s written there twice with the same spelling

    • phx@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      How would they even track that it was “only the initial install”, and what’s the metric for that? If i need to reinstall my OS due to a crash, is that a second install for the game? How about if I replace a piece of hardware that fails, is it considered a new system with a new install?

      The whole idea that they can claim additional fees for an “install” is ridiculous.

  • FLeX@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    1 year ago

    Fuck unity tech, they haven’t made a single intelligent decision in 10 years.

    The engine was perfectly fine and they ruined ALL OF IT.

    I wasted so much fucking time because of them, everything they do is garbage.

    Just let them go bankrupcy.

  • lechatron@lemmy.todayEnglish
    13·
    1 year ago

    Do you know how many times I install and uninstall a game before I even play it? I could probably destroy a small game company on my own with this fee structure, and I’m sure I’m not alone with the constant installing and uninstalling.

  • pikmeir@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    1 year ago

    As someone who’s been following Unity’s development since 2.0, this doesn’t surprise me. They’ve always struck me as a company that doesn’t care about developers. And while all companies are trying to make money, there’s a difference between “pay for our product because we need money to operate” and “we love Adobe’s subscription model and want to outdo them - and we will squeeze you as much as possible.” Have a little heart, Unity.

  • Surreal@programming.devEnglish
    10·
    1 year ago

    Finally, the company announced that it’s discontinuing Unity Plus subscriptions starting today to “simplify the number of plans we offer.” It says existing members on that tier will receive “an offer to upgrade to Unity Pro, for one year, at the current Unity Plus price” via email in mid-October.

    Well sssshhhiitt