Everyone Hates Unity - Inside Games
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ม.ค. 2025
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Hosted by:
Lawrence: / sirlarr | Bruce: / brucegreene | Charlotte: / whatashow
Edited by: ShooklynTV: / shooklyntv
Written by: Lawrence Sonntag & Brian Gaar: / briangaar
Sources --
[X, @Unity] / 1701650081403842851
[Unity Blog] Unity plan pricing and packaging updates - blog.unity.com...
[X, @AggroCrabGames] / 1701691036832309260
[X, @Authogin] / 1701669055784980759
[X, @InnerslothDevs] / 1701731398498013575
[Bloomberg, Video game company Unity closes offices following death threat] www.bnnbloombe...
[X, @Unity] / 1702077049425596900
[Axios] Unity rushes to clarify price increase plan, as game developers fume - www.axios.com/...
[Twisted Voxel] Unity Claims PlayStation, Xbox & Nintendo Will Pay Its New Runtime Fee On Behalf Of Devs - twistedvoxel.c...
[Eurogamer] Unity will quietly waive controversial fees if developers switch to its ad monetisation service - report - www.eurogamer....
[Mobilegamer.biz] Unity is offering a Runtime Fee waiver if you switch to LevelPlay as it tries to “kill AppLovin” - mobilegamer.bi...
[Stealth Optional] Unity’s CEO making devs pay per install tried to charge FPS gamers per bullet - stealthoptiona...
[X, @MORTREDENJOYER] / 1701741020096942567
[The Guardian] Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello resigns - www.theguardia...
[X, @Unity] / 1703547752205218265
[GamesIndustry.biz] Unity's self-combustion engine | This Week in Business - www.gamesindus...
[GamesBeat] Unity report: Number of games made with Unity grew 93% in 2021 - venturebeat.co...
[Kotaku] Sources: Unity Laying Off Hundreds Of Staffers [Update] - kotaku.com/sou...
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A
ironSource is what is killing Unity and the dreams of a lot of devs. Look it up.. they control Unity now
I was told(decades ago) a Shitstorm is not actually a "word" and that we using it just don't know English and English internet lingo. Idiots wanted to make me call it getting flamed (when flamewars were a thing) on the internet..when it's obvious that a shitstorm is the right metaphor no matter if the word exists or not.
So as you are native English speakers (I guess) , it must be an actually existing word, right?
SOY
This is the reason that CEOs need to suffer the consequences. If you made a decision and because of that decision it made the company loose money they should opt out of bonuses and pay from their own pocket or get a pay cut from the losses that the company got hit with your dumb butt decision.
in theory, they should be since they are directly hired by the board of directors, problem starts when they do insider trading and secret deals with the shareholders.
it does not help, CEOs already only care about short term gains.
they dont care about the future because anyway is the next CEO problem to fix their disaster.
if you make them pay for every decision that loose money they will focus even more in short term gains.
what needs to happen is stop having businessman that only know how to squeeze money from the consumers as CEOs.
give back control on the product to the developers, programers, that got into it for passion.
I would say only if you can prove malicious intent. If you run a business you would know that you can make 100% genuine and well research decision and it can still go pear shape our of your control.
Obligatory "Everyone is united against Unity" comment
Obligatory upvote
United we stand.
Unity they fall.
I feel like it’s law at this point
5:00 oh, for fluff sake!
I understand that Death threats are a no-no, but the number of people getting the story mixed up to "favor" the Unity Upper management and tarnish the community is getting frustrating now; The death threat didn't come from external, it came from one of the employees themselves. Even they aren't happy with the Runtime fee changes.
Those death threats were made by a staff member. Do NOT blame the community that's exactly what unity wants
As one dev pointed out, how will they charge Playstation and Microsoft when neither party signed a contract with Unity at any point during the development process? It takes real balls to speak on behalf of large corporations you have 0 relationship with like this and it's mind bogglingly stupid. It's a wonder none of these companies have made a statement, I'm sure at the begging of Unity because there is 100% change there are back end conversations with furious Microsoft and Sony reps who were blindsided by the announcement their company would pay fees for someone else.
I think you should clarify the source of the death threats. It was a Unity staff member.
This is way too many days removed from the "death threats" to not include that it was made by a Unity staffer, and that it was known to have been made by a staffer when they released the statement claiming they were being targetted.
It’s rent seeking behavior. Executives continue think about how they can extract value from “trapped users” rather than create value.
No one can convinced me this was not an inside trading move, ceo sold all his shares, release de news, buy them (and a few more maybe) back, then apologize, wait for prices to normaliza and double dip.
Massive thanks to Lawrence for spelling out Riccitiello's role in BioWare's decline. No one else seems to remember that...
But did you also know what Riccitiello did during that time he took off being EA CEO? He co-founded Elevation Partners, bought up BioWare and Pandemic, then sold them back to EA just before he was reinstated as its CEO in 2007. He then shuttered Pandemic in 2009 before doing all that crap to BioWare that Lawrence talked about... I really, really dislike the guy.
You guys missed the fact that it was an employee who issued the death threats.
If Unreal Engine owner Epic Games were smart. They would announce something like a 15% price cut to game development teams that have less than like 10 people. It wouldn't cost them anything. And would almost certainly generate tons of free positive press.
But Epic games are a lot more crazier when it comes to quick cash grabbing but that idea of the Unreal getting a price cut is a cool idea indeed
@@ravenralph123 oh I agree. There's no way it'll happen. But if I were on the board for Epic I'd at least pitch the idea. Capitalizing on Unity's fuck up by offering the price cut for only like two months would be enough
They already dont take a cut until u make a million
Unreal is already free until the game makes $1 million. The problem is Unreal isn't great for making 2D games and use a different programming language to Unity. Godot is probably what most people will switch to since it's open source.
Or the better option would be to help fund studios to port their games over to Unreal. It will be a win-win for Unreal as they will get more games made in their engine, while looking like the good guys against Unity.
Of course they will have to make sure that there aren't any exclusivity clauses put into the funding agreements, as that will only make them look like the bad guys.
If every company had their own proprietary engine and staff only knew how to use them, this would significantly reduce their bargaining power. It would basically make them locked to their employer.
Having a common engine for most AAA studios means that skills are more easily transferable, which means that employees with those skills can negotiate more fairly.
The issue with everything in one engine is this: what if Unity was that engine? Instead of everyone trying to switch to unreal or godot we would be stuck with just unity.
But yes the problem with everyone using their own tools is a problem as well.
In the end the current system is probably for the best: companies with the options to go there own system, but other open systems that are available for indies but are also AAA viable.
Then when a unity situation happens we have alternatives and an incentive for others to make more alternatives down the line.
@iandakariann the market would create a solution if the dominant platform becomes unviable. Tech platforms don't consolidate because there are limited options, they consolidate because the cost of fragmentation hurts everyone. Just because a platform becomes dominant doesn't mean its locked in forever.
If a dominant platform becomes exclusive or exploitative, alternatives replace them. Apple is responsible for android's rise as the proprietary nature of iOS excluded any and all other manufacturers from using their platform, which led to mass adoption of an alternative. The same happened with windows. Windows became dominant because previously leading platforms were proprietary to manufacturers and led to massive fragmentation which was not developer or user friendly.
I think the funniest part about that John Riccitello/Unity story is that the way it was implemented was LITERALLY how he described the Battlefield bullet thing. He got everyone hooked on Unity, then, when they were all invested and entrenched, he just went "well now you have to pay me $$$ to keep going. Do you want to throw it all away now, or do you just want to pay men?" It's literally the exact same play.
“ 0:03 The amount of good will thrown into a bonfire is kinda impressive” you have a way with words bruce
They keyword is "How the hell does Unity know my game has been installed somewhere? What malware are they inserting into my games??"
The wildest part? They could have just incrementally increased the price of subscriptions and the worst that would have happened was grumbling! Friggin' greedy bastards...
They could have just done what Unreal does and demand a revenue share. Unreal is like 5% I think so they could have said "Hey we want 4% of your revenue" and people would have said "ah that suck but it's fair and still a better deal than Unreal".
As someone who's spent thousands of hours learning unity I've cut my losses. I feel bad for the people who can't afford to leave unity. At the end of the day this is a painful lesson, corporations are businesses, if they think stepping on your toe's will make them more money... then it sucks to suck i guess.
naw, we hate John "I love money, and am also just the worst" Riccitiello.
nobody will chill out, charlotte. it's their livelihoods. this guy deserves literally every bit of bad will.
but... death threats, really? there is a line
@@Prawnsly you're right, the moral thing is to bankrupt people and get them killed indirectly. that's totally okay. nothing comically evil about that.
@@turbochargedfilms so far as i know, unity haven't actually threatened to *kill* anyone, yet... murder is a few steps removed from corporate scumbaggery
Death threats that came from an employee of unity. Also since humans need money to live, screwing up the finances of everyone using your platform is a bigger threat to life than a pissed off dev, IMO@@Prawnsly
i appreciate you explaining to me how humans need money to live, thank you for that. however i still feel murder is a slightly disproportionate threat@@dweebicusmaximus
The big issue that was missed in the video is the changes to Unity's ToS which basically states "we can change the ToS whenever and retroactively apply the changes to you." Normally if a piece of software would try something like this you could stay on an older version to avoid the changes. Unity at this point is completely radioactive even if they walk back all the changes, there's nothing stopping them from trying this again in a year.
On the topic of internal engines and maintaining a staff with specialised skills.
I worked for a company for nearly ten years and I had a pretty in-depth knowledge of my industry, but we used an internal platform and I had very specialised expertise in that. When I was made redundant, I applied for jobs in other companies in my field and found that my training was mostly useless, and I didn’t know how to use any of the software other companies were all using.
I was never able to get a job in the field I studied and worked for 10 years in.
Unity’s Dr. Manhattan arc is questionable but *interesting*
I wonder if they'll be teaching this in business classes in the future as a case study or something
Nah. This is capitalism "working" as intended.
So instead of a box its a cylinder now? The X Cylinder series C
The X-Can, now with more digital crap. This cloud gaming always connected crap is a hard pass from me glad I got a PlayStation again.
I dont understand why everybody was surprised, this ceo was the same guy who called unity devs idiots a year or two ago
Death Threats that came from Unity employees, just to add that little detail
We're in such a transitional stage for digital services/spaces, with x, unity, flash etc. It's just crazy how we're entering an age where the proletariat is sufficiently barred from creating & expressing themselves digitally which was something of appeal for the space, as an art educator this worries me, but also that's why if you have the means/time to code I'd say go for it and help develop/fork/spread the word of open-source software because I mean we've been in this rodeo before like with Adobe & DAWs, we have to make sure the means to creation don't effectively evaporate.
I do know grassroots will always fill the space it's intrinsic to the internet, but filling massive shoes takes a lot of privileged with time/talent folk to rebuild. X is a good example right now there is effectively no service that provides the same wide level of communication, organization & realtime news update system. Threads philosophically won't add a trending page because of the power it gives the user & other attempts to create a twitter like app are often futile because of the serversoace & resources needed to create that kind of functioning, safe & coherent experience. In time the pendulum will swing back hopefully. Whether that be a counter-movement to only create analog physical art or fill the cracks companies have left idk. But that's my prediction, who knows.
for any game devs or ppl wanting to get into game development that has been scared away by this I would highly recommend Godot, its a 100% free and open source engine which means you don't have to worry about fees or about having the deals changed mid-development. It's not quite as powerful for 3D games as unity but it is really capable and super intuitive.
Unity tried to do something like this in 2019.
Why would anyone stick with them after is beyond my comprehension.
16:28 - There's a thing that I always say with F2P games that applies here - "The first lick is free, there after they'll nickle and dime you until they leave you high and dry."
I've often wondered why more studios that have good in-house engines don't license them the way Epic does with Unreal. id used to even open source theirs under GPL eventually.
They finally figured out a way to monitize the vast number of players who don't pay for Freemium games, and pirates: Charge the devs.
I remember that time when they plan to charge Bullet Reload to players, I just didn't care enough at the time.
But everyone remembers about EA buying PopCap and that stuff about the creator "getting fired" for not wanting Microtransactions in Plants VS Zombies.
Wow it's all under the same person. (I assume he's also behind the PopCap and PVZ's microtransactions)
Guess the cracking ijots that doesn't want microtransactions in their games has been his enemies ever since.
Oh so like twitter, sorry X, sorry I mean whatever he’s going to try to force us to pay for
Sorry whatever app he paid $44 billion dollars for and realised quick why add revenue matters but still chodes up anyway because he's a "genius" and is gunna fight Zuckerberg one day as soon as he pulls the stick out of his ass the size of his inflated ego.
They must have missed the whole WotC OGL debacle. Or they heard about and thought it was somehow gonna work if they did it.
I don't think you guys nailed it here, well you partially did, it is about stability not the cost.
No one will pay the 20 cent cost, it's only purpose is to drive people at that point to buy the next version up which is like 2000 dollars per seat and the cost is like 0.04 cents or something.
For me at least the concern is if they are willing to change the ToS in such a sneaky way and monetize in such a sus way... then the platform is simply to unstable to conduct business.
Put it like this: If I had a deal with a parts manufacturer, they supplied me with the parts and in return they get 5% of the profits I make from the products. Then a year into things they change/destroy the old contract and say we will use this new contract. We'd say okay sure if its fair, then they say also it's retroactive... now that's probably legally sus.
I'd at that point be better of saying okay before that new contract is valid I better find and learn up with a new parts manufacturer. Not because of the cost but because of the stability.
Finally this isn't capitalism, I know its easy to shovel shit that way, this is corporatism, and I know it well, worked in this kind of business for a few years to recognize it. So I am glad a lot of devs picked up on it and are bailing fast.
"I just wish people would run better businesses" we should have some kind of idk, "bureau" dedicated to that sort of thing
i'm amazed you managed to not talk about RE-LOGIC (Terraria) HUGE donation to FNA and Godot
Shout out to "please dont show my name in the credits" that's a real supporter right there.
I feel like it's somehow appropriate that TH-cam has marked this video as featuring Cyberpunk 2077
It sounds like they’re targeting Hoyoverse because I can’t think of many devs that use Unity, launch on multiple platforms and have boat loads of money to reap from
Why does the tool in the thumbnail look like two other tools (Mr. Bean and Musk, specifically) were crossed to produce him?
Police found out that the death threats came from within the Unity building. So it's likely either a disgruntled employee or a deliberate tactic to try and change the story and make people be empathetic towards Unity.
Didnt those death threats come from a unity employee?
In the last week, Unity has run a better ad campaign for Unreal than Epic ever has
Unity did the honorable thing and fell on their sword to UNITE the gaming industry and gaming community
I was using this video as a podcast and all i could think of at the 3 min mark was... Soylent green is made of people ahhah, now if you don't get that reference... I'm glad your knees don't hurt and you can still drink milk lol
Congratulations on being #1 game news ❤
Just do a simple revenue share. "If you make money off our free product, give us a percent or two"
done.
Unity has nearly 8000 staff and they make an engine. Epic have 4000, and they make games, and have multiple successful applications.
8k seems... a bit crazy
A software with a backdoor is dangerous to anyone.
So, with such a massive indie library, what would be the move? There are a lot of great titles that use this engine and I would love to support them (the indie games) by buying and downloading when I can. But do we not? Do we, as a community, not download anything that supports Unity? Or do we hope to hear from the developers to say that it is okay to do so? I know that the developers of Cult of the Lamb almost took their game off the market due to this, though it looks like they've walked it back.
Correction, it was a Unity staffer that made those threats
My heart goes out to Unity employees and game developers who will be hurt by this, but I'm going to enjoy watching Unity die as much as I enjoy watching Twitter slowly die.
"Is Soylent still made of people" was what I was going to say before Lawrence ruined it
Ok I'm dumb and I know nothing about it but shouldn't it be something as simple engine makes certain % on every sale of game made in that engine like idk 2% of price of the game goes into engine or something like that
Hey didn't he engage in insider trading too? Or was that just a rumor?
Woo! Love to see more Charlotte
it shouldn't be legal to retroactively change the Terms of Service for existing customers.
It's all those "Shareholders" who are to blame.
When are we going to start blaming the roots of the problem?
Riccitiello was using the reload microtransaction as a metaphor to explain his philosophy for EA on microtransactions, not that he was actually advocating they put that specific "feature" into battlefield.
Not that I'd put it above the man if he knew he could get away with it.
You guys should hire Alex from angry joe show. You guys have the same type of energy.
Correct me if I am wrong. Wouldn't the dumb move Unity pulled actually be a violation of privacy? They would know, at all times, when and where a Unity game is installed. That gamers are having their hard drives monitored by Unity at all times.
GOD BLESS YOU for quoting Cory Doctorow!
I tried Soylent a long time ago. Its certainly a choice in name
We've always talked about how buying games digitally means you actually buy a license to install it or some shit. Point is, we don't own our digital games and stores can just remove them from our accounts. I feel like we are about to test that in real life, because if this Unity plan happens it will be the best excuse for developers and publishers to burn their old catalogue. If our game libraries survive this intact, nothing will "tact" them.
Hehe, Unity is hated more now than Bobby from Activision / Blizzard.
I hate to say it, if the people in these mega companies aren't afraid of the backlash they wont care. If it doesn't affect them or thier families they won't respond
Hahaha throwing fuel to the fire! 5:42
Studios are dumb when it comes to educating staff and retaining those educated. After shipping JC4 they had the opportunity to keep me on after two years of my learning their engine and the rec of my lead but instead let my contract end and chose to hire someone cheaper they had to train from the ground up.
In an ideal world, retention to grow knowledge about your engine would be the way to go but reality is it’s all about chasing that dollar. Even if it means letting go talent to do it.
Once more it's executive vs. The consumer. It's the beast of greed vs the average person
I don't trust anyone who could look into the abyss as long as they have and still be lawful good. Something evil hidden there or sus i think.
Nah. We just hate Riccitello's mismanagement.
I’m glad they’re back on TH-cam.
7:30 as much as the guy sucks he wasn’t planning on doing that. He was in a meeting and it was about how people are more willing to spend money after hours of playtime.
He used charging a mag for real money as an example. People hours into a game would be more willing to pay for it.
I expect nothing less from an ex-CEO of EA....
Companies should develop open source engines. Not proprietary systems.
Great episode. You read my mind about Soylent Green. LOL.🤣
That EA ceo that they hired single handedly gonna get gimself blacklisted 💀
At this point seeing any new games still use unity will be a red flag of greed and game that will probably be mid
14:55 You contracticetd yourself there - so you think it's bad that Unity, the most popular game engine will recede, and developers having to switch to Unreal Engine is bad because it's a popular game engine... and isn't commited to a propietary engine? To the point you're making, it doesn't make any difference if they were using a popuar game engine in the first place!
the ceo definitely doing Insider Trading
how does that guy gets a job as ceo after his past performance ?
Better reporting than inside gaming.
Unity CEO reminds me of the villain from ready player one
Been waiting for this one guys.
Talk about other free game engines like godot. Open source, free, alternative
@insidegames you cannot treat game engine like you are doing drugs. Imagine if you want to start an indie dev company and have to create your own engine. That's like asking a web developer to stop using React, or angular, and start making their own javascript framework. ARE YOU NUTS!? It's already happened to "Stonehearth" (not Hearthstone). they made their own engine from scratch, and eventually, they ran out of money and got bought by Riot Games. Only to realize they could be a victim of occasional massive layoffs.
You’re concerned about consolidation in unreal when they have like 13% vs unitys near 50%. Unity not going anywhere with such a long distance to fall. The fact they released this without the tech to actually implement it is the laughable part to me and why it’ll be modified to something more reasonable (along with the justified outcry).
Everyone does not hate unity
Unity Stonks!
Soylent made my poo poo hulk green.
Ps my urine is still yellow
Unity deserves to fail for letting this demon run their company
How did Unity execs see this going any differently?
Executives don't think about the consumer. They never do, never will. It's always consumer/person vs. the monster/ executive
Unity could’ve just copied unreal people would’ve complained for a brief moment but devs would have understood
What’s wrong with Unreal?
I like Soylent
Soylent is great and all, I have tried it myself but I would be lying if I said that it didn't irk me just a bit with Soylent claiming their product produces less CO2 thoughout production compared to whey protein. That may be so, however, whey protein is a natural by-product of of cheese-making. So it's the cheese-making process that produces high co2... I get what soylent is trying to say, soy-based protein has a lower carbon footprint to manufacture, but realistically people are not going to stop making cheese which means that we are always going to have whey protein on the market no matter what.
Also fuck corporate money-grabbing schemes.