Submitted 1 year ago by geosoco@kbin.social to technology@lemmy.world
A fresh report into Unity's hugely-controversial decision to start charging developers when their games are downloaded has thrown fresh light on the situation.
MobileGamer sources say Unity has already offered some studios a 100% fee waiver - if they switch over to Unity's own LevelPlay ad platform.
The report quotes industry consultants that say this move is an "attempt to destroy" Unity's main competitior in this field: AppLovin.
Don’t you just love when a company creates a problem just to go and try to sell the solution?
It looks like a protection racket with extra steps. An unpleasant solution presented by the problem creator. Why is this not banned?
Game design 101 since the first smart phone.
IBM sure does suck donkey balls but I really don't think that particular thing is their fault.
Game devs: “No thanks, we’re waiving the fees by using a different engine.”
I’d imagine that game devs, just like Unity’s shareholders, like predictability in profits. Even if it’s more expensive overall for them to move to Unreal for their next game, it could be worth it to avoid future calamity.
The problem is because you pay per install you could end up owing Unity more money than you actually make. Especially if people uninstall and reinstall your game a bunch of times for whatever reason.
Lol nope. Not even fucking close. You’re gonna die, Unity. You have only yourself to blame.
Ooh yeah FOSS forever!
The conspiracy theorist in me says Unity planned this whole thing out to get less resistance on this thing they actually wanted to roll out; announce a super shit change that will intentionally outrage everybody, then say “ok, we won’t do it if you agree to use this other shitty model instead”.
Anyways, big shoutout to Godot for existing as an open-source alternative.
That’s not a conspiracy theory that’s like entry level MBA stuff.
Screw this. Boycott unity.
There should be a law against offering something for free for a long time, until many other businesses rely on it then make it pay to a point of breaking all those businesses. It’s one thing changing the price of a product that’s customer facing but if you market to other businesses that’s not okay. I guess it’s up to businesses to look in the contract for a clause that states that the product will be free forever or that they need X time warning before making it pay.
Tech companies wouldn't exist.
Good.
Changing from free to paid is fine. Doing it retroactively is not.
Once a game is in development using their product the terms need to stay the same.
I actually disagree with this… without support programs in place.
The vast majority of “new” tech companies operate at a loss. It is the only way to make inroads in a market dominated by the Google and Microsoft and Apples of the world. They pull this off via crowd funding or (less so these days) venture capital.
If they actually get the market share they then need to actually monetize. Different companies have done this to different degrees and I am inclined to put Unity in the same category as Reddit in terms of “did you really think that would at all help?”
Because if the company can’t actually try to make a profit? They will go out of business, at best.
The vast majority of “new” tech companies operate at a loss.
This is a bullshit hypothetical that has no relevance for Unity. Unity is a well established company, that has been very successful after they revised their model to be more Indie friendly. This is a money grab pure and simple. And it’s a money grab that is so bad it might actually kill Unity.
My problem with it is not monetizing; it is the changing of your monetization to affect games that were sold under a different model. If this was just the new TOS, ok fine. It would suck, but it’s their right to make whatever shitty monetization they want. But retroactively inflicting this on games? Shocking the development world with only a few months warning when game development takes years? No, that is not ok.
Just to add to my last point a bit:
This is actually very common in software development. Nobody is dumb enough to write ALL of their own software (okay… there are a few orgs…). So you are going to be dependent on third party libraries. Some are free and open source with licenses that aren’t GPL. Others are licensed for a small fee from other companies. And many are in the middle somewhere where you pay for support, but can use the software regardless.
And… companies change licenses over time. Open source projects change licenses over time. And sometimes, that means you can’t use it anymore. Or you don’t want to use it because the team really dropped the ball and it is a piece of shit. And that is when you get an all hands on deck to replace it.
One of our major partners recently dicked us over REAL hard by changing the terms of a license we were discussing with them to a MUCH worse one. And we are being pretty public about how unprofessional that was and “accidentally” talking about it when other partners ask us what tech we are using to do X. Mostly in the context of “Well, we were previously dependent on using Y but they actively misled us before changing their license. So we are in the process of migrating everything to Z”.
But… regardless of how salty we are and how much we and others are doing to poison the reputation of that company to those who hadn’t interacted with them before: We need to finish the port to use Z.
I disagree. If you state that it’s free until X bench make and you make the change after that benchmark it’s fine. If you don’t, then users should be able to seek compensation
I’m pretty sure this is just unequivocally worse. This is how Ads end up in paid games. Unity is speed running their complete collapse as the dominant player in the market.
This is such a dumb move.
Forget about ethics for a minute, if there is an alternate option that doesn’t cost as much money then developers would obviously make use of that option so in any environment where alternate options exist companies have a limit of how obnoxious they can be and get away with it.
Somehow unity forgot that Unreal and Godot exist.
Honestly, if I had any stake in them I’d be wondering why Unity is so desperate for money.
Every tech company is desperate for money right now. Funding isn’t coming in at the same rate it did for the last 10 years and now everyone is desperately trying to make a profit.
That's worse, you fucking assholes.
The first one was assholish, but this one is outright insulting.
Elon Musk: speedruns enshittification on Xitter
Unity: "Hold my beer"
It’s enshittification all the way down
AppLovin? What kind of a stupid name is that? What, are they trying to be an Irish R&B singer?
It was either that or Mohammed
I heard it could’ve been Aladeen, but they didn’t know if it was too positive or negative.
They hired the same marketing firm to come up with a name that McDonalds' used.
Time to polish off my unreal dev skills, something tells me those jobs about to be hot.
Better off with Godot
No, I’d be better off polishing off my existing skills using a technology that currently holds a significant market share in the industry.
Unity have yet to discover that nothing happens quietly on the internet.
Fuck unity. Use anything but unity.
The closest competitor is, what, Unreal Engine? That's more costly.
Godot
And so continues the downward spiral of the enshitification of video games.
How many times are developers going to put up with being used as sticks for one group of rich assholes to whack a different group of rich assholes with before we start supporting open platforms?
Dirtbags. Compared to Godot, what incentive do people have to stay with this trash?
Being already well into development of a game in it.
Fuck you, Unity.
say this move is an "attempt to destroy" Unity's main competitior in this field: AppLovin.
This is the best advertisment ever. I've messed around in Unity a few times and would've recommended to people interested in a framework. But I guess I got a new platform to talk about.
I think among us 2 just restarted development, what a shame exactly 0 cents with go to unity
empireOfLove@lemmy.one 1 year ago
Why’s it always end up being fucking ads?
I hate late stage capitalism. I want off Mr. Bones’ Wild Ride.
Maultasche@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The ride never ends
Rubanski@lemm.ee 1 year ago
It’s either ads or crabs
lorez@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Tortoises?