Fees of up to $0.20 per install threaten to upend large chunks of the industry.

  • enjoytemple
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    642 years ago

    It’s crazy how these companies could manage to lose their goodwill overnight one by one these 2~3 years. It’s almost like they have some secret any% fiasco RTA competition or something.

    • @[email protected]
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      352 years ago

      I’m not a huge conspiracy theorist, but considering the c-level execs pulled their investments before all these announcements, it’s not out of the question that they could tip people off to short the company as well.

      Hell the realist in me sees the fines these guys get and they see it as a cost of doing business.

    • drphungky
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      42 years ago

      Wizards Of The Coast: Ha, it will never affect us if we change our licensing and hurt the little guy. End consumers don’t care and no one reads these things anyway. “We have an announcement about changes to our EULA!”

      Internet and DND community revolt, Pathfinder 2 sees a massive boost, and content providers are scared now.

      Unity: Surely nothing similar could happen to us if we change our licensing? “We have an announcement about changes to our EULA…”

  • @[email protected]
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    562 years ago

    Installed Godot yesterday and it’s starting to grow on me, I like it. Looking forward to a huge movement of studios over to Godot, which will hopefully speed up the development of Godot through further support. Is there any reliable source of data about which game engines are popular at the moment? I want to see that sweet sweet decline in Unity user base over to Godot.

    • @[email protected]
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      112 years ago

      Definitely waiting for Godot (heh) to step up to the plate, it’s missing some stuff at the moment but give it a year and I’m sure it’ll get there. We’re stuck with Unity for now but things like this mean plans are in place to migrate off it should it become necessary (by and large aren’t hit by this yet because we charge a bunch for the app so 20p isn’t a big deal… although we don’t and likely can’t track installs so no idea how that works…).

    • @[email protected]
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      282 years ago

      Unreal Engine almost has a monopoly at this point. It‘s also very friendly to use for small indie devs, not charging you anything for the first million dollars you make. Their license fees also seem rather fair as of now. But it doesn‘t help competition is flat lining left and right. Epic Games could feel their engine is worth a little more when Unity is gone too so I‘m happy to see many hobby devs give Godot a try first. I hope a company like Valve with their sheer infinite resources will see the shrinking market of Unreal alternatives and give their engine development a serious push. We really need more diversity when it comes to Engines.

        • Dark Arc
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          22 years ago

          Did valve ever release it?

          Crytek is doing some major work to CryEngine for Hunt Showdown.

          O3DE also exists

      • Rentlar
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        132 years ago

        Yeah, and Unreal is just one group of psychopathic executives away from pulling similar shit.

    • @[email protected]
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      72 years ago

      A friend works for a large-ish company that makes a product on Unity (not a game tho) and he just told me they were moving to Godot ASAP

  • Chozo
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    802 years ago

    Unity saw how Reddit killed off free users by raising prices to absurd rates, and how Reddit was largely unaffected by it as a whole. Not going to be surprised to see other types of platforms also follow suit.

    • Jaysyn
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      72 years ago

      I’ve read that this started with easy loan money drying up after the First Republic collapse.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 years ago

        Easy money ending too quickly caused the First Republic collapse. Not the other way around. The Fed did a half a decade of rate hikes in a year.

        Feb '22 rates were 0.08% by Feb '23 they were 4.57%. A 5700% increase in 12 months. First Republic collapsed on May '23.

        An aggressive but responsible rate increase of 0.25% per quarter would have taken only 4 years to implement but would likely have led to zero bank failures.

    • @[email protected]
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      532 years ago

      The reddit issue screwed over end consumers and a couple of tiny app developers.

      There’s some big developers that use Unity. Pokemon Go is in Unity. Pokemon BDSP was in Unity: say what you want about the quality, but that’s as still over 14 million games sold and I would not be at all surprised if ILCA was halfway through another Unity re-make.

      These changes aren’t just screwing over random individuals who like to play games. Not just indie developers either. Unity is looking to battle with billion-dollar corporations over this. I can’t believe for once I’ll actually be rooting for Nintendo’s legal team.

      • stopthatgirl7OP
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        202 years ago

        Genshin Impact is also on Unity, so you know they were hoping for some of all that MiHoYo cash, since this scheme of theirs was going to apply retroactively.

      • greenskye
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        242 years ago

        Guaranteed anyone who can actually fight back gets their own contract that exempts them from this.

    • @[email protected]
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      402 years ago

      Reddit largely unaffected

      So they might say. However the post 3 up from this is an article about how their posts and comments have dropped 50 to 90% across major subreddits.

      • @[email protected]
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        62 years ago

        That’s what happens if you piss off the 10 percent of your users that provides 90% of the meaningful engagement.

    • sebinspace
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      362 years ago

      Had been looking at it for awhile. Installed it this morning.

      Even supports C#.

      • @[email protected]
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        72 years ago

        I just had the same thought and looked into it. It seems like Godot has the same object composition style as Unity? That was the main thing that’s kept me using Unity.

        • sebinspace
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          42 years ago

          Having documentation that’s always in flux, I don’t know that I would recommend Godot to new users, but I’ve been doing this for fifteen years, and after awhile, you develop a sense of what general direction to look in when things aren’t working as expected.

          • @[email protected]
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            12 years ago

            Right well I’m not new to game dev, just looking for a new engine. My experience with the UDK years ago turned me off that entire engine and confirmed to me that composition >>> inheritance which is why I stuck with Unity.

            I guess since I’m pretty much committed to finding an alternative it can’t hurt to download it and give it a try. It’ll be nice to know I’m working in an actually open engine for once.

    • Jaysyn
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      122 years ago

      I think the only reason not to use Godot now is console support.

      • @[email protected]
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        12 years ago

        Godot mentions on the website that they partner with publishers for console support, so it’s theoretically possible. It’s not like indie devs working with Unity are getting their hands on Dev kits anyway.

  • @[email protected]
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    432 years ago

    Thanks Twitter and Reddit api increases! You started a trend in fucking over your user base and developers!

  • @[email protected]
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    2 years ago

    This is why non-libre software sucks. They have 0 incentive to not screw you over.

    • @[email protected]
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      92 years ago

      With how many companies started trying to move libre software to non libre licenses, it’s also not a given that that helps.

      I guess at least you can just fork libre software if that happens.

      • @[email protected]
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        432 years ago

        That’s exactly the point and it’s happened many times now. OpenOffice got converted to a non-libre license so it was forked to LibreOffice and OpenOffice was left to rot. Audacity fucked around and now there’s like 3 or 4 forks all competing there. That’s the great thing about open source software, if companies or even individual maintainers do something that pisses off the user base enough, someone will come along and fork it. It’s truly democratic as people vote with their feet, or downloads as the case may be.

        • @[email protected]
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          132 years ago

          In addition, the work is never fully lost.

          If unity goes to shit, welp, cannot use any of unity’s code at all. Years and years of engine development wasted.

          If some FOSS software goes to shit? That code is still there. Just take it and unshittify it. Little to no work wasted.

          • @[email protected]
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            22 years ago

            I don’t know honestly, I was never really an Audacity user in the first place. My limited googling though suggests there still isn’t a strong consensus behind any of them yet though. It just sort of seems like you pick whichever one you like the name of the most.

          • @[email protected]
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            2 years ago

            I am a light user so I just stayed on version 3.0.2

            It works for my use case as it is and the day it doesn’t, I’ll look for whatever fork is most popular

      • @[email protected]
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        2 years ago

        Being licensed as free software (libre) just means users have the freedom to fork and continue without the copyright owner (to the degree permitted by the license).

        The same bad incentives still exist but they are mitigated when devs know competition can sprout out of their bad actions.

  • El Barto
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    712 years ago

    I was always curious about Unity, but now I’m good.

  • @[email protected]
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    22 years ago

    Ffs, add twenty cents to the price, fuck it add 50 cents so valve gets it’s cut and you do too. If it’s a good game from an indie developer I’ll buy it.

    • @[email protected]
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      82 years ago

      They aren’t demanding a cost per purchase, they are demanding a cost per install. The abuses this could lead to are widespread and could easily lead to many bankruptcies.

    • mosiacmango
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      2 years ago

      Per install. You got 2 computers and steamdeck? Make that $1.50 extra.

      Since youre a fan, how about steam and unity work to make it “fair” and just have the download fee on the store page. That way, you can pay for the game, then pay Unity each time you actually play the thing you own!

      What a great deal for everyone, especially you!

  • CrypticVader
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    442 years ago

    2023 has been quite an year of revelation, showing the true nature of these scummy corporates. Lets learn our lesson and not jeopardize ourselves by trusting them.

  • @[email protected]
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    362 years ago

    I was going to start game programming using unity. Just uninstalled it. Will pick up something else like godot.

  • @[email protected]
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    192 years ago

    I’m so happy I never wasted the time to learn this platform. I could’ve but chose not to (mostly too busy). Again, another company that I have no problem watching them fail, along with the Twitters/Teslas and reddits of the world.