https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/15/23875396/unity-mobile-developers-ad-monetization-tos-changes
The fight between Unity and its customers is escalating.
If you look closely, you'll notice the Unity logo is constructed of 3 arrows, all pointing in the directions that their user base is going
This. Who in their right mind is going to develop their game using Unity after this? Their only revenue source from the point forward is going to be games already published.
It's hard to care about people who develop games to encourage and monetize on gambling addictions.
Maybe just search for better games then. There's plenty of mobile games that don't rely on gambling. Most are indie, but there are really some gems in there.
You can just choose to not buy anything when playing those types of games.
Gambling addiction is a whole separate beast.
The reason those games are so popular is that they're inherently exploitative. I have no issues with predatory app developers being priced out of business.
Unity cares. This whole fuckup is Unity trying to further monetize mobile games and get a stranglehold on mobile game advertising. Console/PC games are just collateral damage.
If this costs Unity enough money it might work. I'm not holding my breath but stuff like this has a better chance of working than PC indie devs abandoning Unity does.
Yep. Even if they reverse course, they can't be trusted not to make a similar retroactive change in the future.
I think that may be the greatest dammage they've done to themselves. They used to be trusted as one of the good players. Now they can't be trusted anymore. Apart from unhappy developers leaving, who would start to develop with Unity after this?
I have a pipe dream of slowly developing a game of my own, but even if I think I could eventually figure out my own homebrew engine, the whole thing is operating on my free time so that's even more unrealistic of a goal that's either gonna lead nowhere or to massive headache down the line.
So I looked around and liked a few things about Unity:
I've sunk a decent amount of time into training materials already, and was starting to feel good about the whole process when this news hit. Not even gonna question it, I'm looking elsewhere. Godot looking mighty tempting to avoid any shenanigans like this. Ultimately if my dream ever realizes I'd like to be able to publish to console, but there are routes available for that with Godot and maybe the options would improve by the time I reach that point.
Yeah I'm in the same boat. Looked at all the engines, decided that my idea was simple enough and picked Godot. Then this news hit. Glad I made that decision.
They would have to have a complete change of management for the engine to even be considered.
Yeah the CEO saying some shit to the effect of
Specifically, Riccitiello said that developers who don't implement monetization systems early on are "the most beautiful and pure, brilliant people. They’re also some of the biggest fucking idiots".
I didn't even know he had said that till this news.
I'm actively avoiding unity games and unity development, so there's that. Can't put that genie back in the bottle. They massively fucked up.
I don’t understand how unity has any legal standing to retroactively charge new fees to developers who have already made their games. You’re only required to abide by terms agreed to in a deal as it was written at the time of agreement. Isn’t that literally how EVERYTHING works?
Even in their old TOS they said if you didn't agree with any future TOS updates they could stay on their current version and the old TOS applies.
But obviously they deleted that part in April, which makes this much worse and most likely illegal.
Unity doesn’t give out perpetual licenses any more, it’s a subscription model. If you don’t like it, you can leave at any point in time, but then you also don’t have a license to distribute their engine along with your game.
The problematic part (for Unity) is that they used to have a clause in the contract that said that you could keep using the old license terms as long as you didn’t update the engine. They removed that last year, but developers who are using an older version than that should be able to have a chance at the court. The problem is just that small indie devs don’t have the money for this multi-year legal battle.
This feels like Reddit all over again. There's no saving it, their CEO has long touted the "gotcha bitch!" approach to extorting money from users and called people who didn't "fucking idiots". This is all he knows.
So far the most popular games ive seen pushback from are Slay the Spire, Cult of the Lamb and Darkest Dungeon. Those games also have the benefit of dedicated fanbases. Those people will easily follow them.
Follow them where? They've made their games in unity. If unity sticks to its guns, those studios are fucked.
Time to go open source. Godot, etc. But, that could take a LONG time to rewrite.
I feel for them.
Slay the Spire in their statement specifically said theyre looking into other engines. I meant that if said games were ported the audiences would follow.
They didn't say it but I'd assume for Spire they're looking at Godot.
Honestly wouldn't be surprised if we see developers make tools to more easily port over games to Godot from Unity.
I have many hours in Slay the Spire and would absolutely buy the game again in support if the moved.
In the many threads on Lemmy on Unity, those two were already mentioned:
They’ve made their games in unity
Slay The Spire isn't made with Unity, just its developer's next title, which has been in development for 2 years. So still pretty bad, but Slay The Spire should be unaffected at least.
I feel proud of myself that I left that sinking website, never to return. It always sucks when CEOs have their heads stuck so far up their own asses.
Let's see how this pans out over the week, still heaps of opportunities for unity to fuck this up further
An uninstallation fee for users to prevent them from defrauding devs by repeatedly reinstalling.
Charge 1 cent for every day the app remains unused if installed, 2 cents for every day after it was uninstalled
And that is when computer usage itself will seriously go downhill. Imagine holding customers captive in such a way.
I can totally see them teaming up with Microsoft to make that happen though.
The thing that’s crazy is there are some Wall Street analysts who are more bullish on Unity in our current context, which is hilarious to me, because given how they’ve (perhaps illegally) pissed off so many different and critical parts of their ecosystem, the only clear trajectory I see for Unity at this point is down.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“As a course of immediate action, our collective of game development companies is forced to turn off all IronSource and Unity Ads monetization across our projects until these changes are reconsidered,” the letter read.
Beyond monetary concerns, developers are also angry because the new pricing represents a breach of transparency Unity established with regards to its terms of service.
The action caused outcry in the community, and in response, Unity reinstated Improbable’s license and committed to keeping users informed for future terms of service changes.
According to an email reviewed by The Verge, a Unity representative acknowledged that the company’s ad monetization programs had been paused for an app and remarked that it was likely because of the new fees.
“The new regulations from Unity will affect every project that doesn’t generate sufficient income per user,” said Nikita Guk, CEO of PR firm GIMZ, who organized the letter.
“Pushing developers to either migrate to alternative game engines or place even greater emphasis on monetization, at the expense of creating immersive gameplay experience.”
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If you go to a game on Steam, find the gear icon, go to Manage and select Browse Local Files...
For most Unity games you will find a file called "UnityCrashHandler..." executable right in the folder that opens.
Not easily, but if you become a game developer you can start to tell at a glance. Unity games have a very specific type of jank and look + feel. (So do Unreal, Source, and Godot games.)
Even if a game is highly stylized, a Unity game always "feels" like a Unity game. Kerbal Space Program, Pokemon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl, Pokemon Go, Cuphead, Untitled Goose Game, Cities Skylines, Valheim, etc. It's a combination of physics, shaders, and input latency that's hard to put into words.
The closest I've come to seeing a game that breaks out of the "made in Unity" feel is Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe, which was made in Unity but pretends to be made in Source (the original Stanley Parable was made in Source).
Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but last I know of, any games made with Unity start up with their name and logo first, or at least shortly after their intro.
Read comments below for corrections.
Honestly I agree. If you are building a game with the same mechanics of other games that already exist its fine. Once you reach a point where to need access to the engine code itself to make something a reality, you are fucked.