As long as that piece of sh!it is their CEO, anything is possible. The fact that they don't throw the guy out, speaks about the company. Anyway, back to learning Unreal egnine.
Typical move nowadays. They advance 3 steps, take the community backlash and then move 1 or 2 back expecting to please them. At the end, they moved a step forward. When dust settles, they hit again!
@@ruiacp True that, in the end its a public company, need to keep those shareholders happy. I think lesson learned as a developer. Need to develop a workflow that's game engine agnostic and look for/ develop a tool that helps in migration when something like this happens (as a backup / last resort). Im a shareholder myself but as a developer, I still feel what they did stinks.
@@ruiacpVery true, although this was also communication error. Basically, we have to pretend nothing happened except step 1, and judge that on its own.
Great news, but I'll stick be checking out other engines. They can still pull stuff like this in the future as long as their are no safeguards in place.
Look for the Always Online requirement. Unity users can get banned from opening their Unity projects, just like Adobe and Autodesk users, if they don't pay the subscription fees
I'm actually thinking of making C++ tutorials for Unreal Engine after this incident. During my time with Unreal Engine I realized almost every tutorial is about Blueprints and almost no tutorial is about C++. Since I already had C++ experience it was not so hard for me to learn the Unreal Engine API but I can already imagine it would be pretty hard for a newcomer to learn without a guidance since C++ is a complex but rewarding language as well as Unreal Engine.
I watched the previous video and many other TH-camrs about leaving Unity, that even the fees not affecting me, I was scared that the amount of new tutorials and work of the community would be insanely reduced. In the past week, I spent ALMOST every free hour I had studing Unreal, and trying to recreate almost everything I know on UE. And to be honest, I liked a lot. It's not a simple Engine, but all the knowledge I worked so hard to adquire on Unity (and even Blender with the 3D part of game assets) paid off a lot on Unreal. Now, I have plans to stick with UE for my main games, and use Unity for smaller apps and projects (and VRChat, love to make content when I got the time for it). Knowing multiple engines is not a bad thing, and I recommend everyone try for a bit on their free time, to give a try.
For you as a content creator and educator I still think it’s a good move for you to reach across multiple engines. You got the chops and APIs are relatively similar in each!
The problem is that they have shown they can change "the deal" at any time, and there really isn't anything we can do to stop them besides a raucous. They got their cut. Now it is just a matter of time and plans to get a bigger one. I really hope you make some Godot tutorials! You are my favorite teacher.
According to several articles, Unity is still not profitable despite having been generated more than one billion dollars in revenue each year, because of their business model and tech acquisitions
Instead of encouraging more spending by releasing attractive perks they banked on devs not being able to leave. They want a deal so bad that devs will take the "if you use our ads program instead this can all just go away" under the table.
I can understand people not wanting to abandon their current projects and all the tools and assets they've built over the years, but if this event did not taught you all a lesson, we will see more of this in the coming years. Unity leadership is still the same after all, this is not a matter of "will they?" but rather a "when will they?".
The biggest concern still for me is that they can STILL change everything if they want to again. Until we get a EULA that says they cannot change anything per version license… then Unity can kick rocks.
that's silly, ANY software can change their pricing structure and constantly do, duh. the new pricing is dependent on the version you are using, not retroactive.
@@paulaitix77 That statement is silly too. Because yes any company CAN if they wanted to. But there are software companies that DO NOT and CAN NOT (as written in their EULA) change the licensing terms for a specific release of the software. They can only change it for future releases. If you did your research and stop being so quick to call people silly, you’d know that there are companies that create EULAs like that. And Unity being this untrustworthy needs to be one of those companies.
@@PeterSedesse They said that after they pulled this SAME EULA trick on Imprabable (SpacialOS) just a few years ago. Then they walked it back once they got heat from users. Here we are again… the same lesson learned from the same people right?
Really sucks that the head leaders of Unity did this to begin with. They certainly destroyed the faith the developers had with Unity. Many moving to Godot or Unreal. And although Godot and Unreal are both good, they have some downsides. Godot is easy use and many hardware can run it due to being lightweight, but according to some people and reviews, it’s not as powerful and stable. Whereas Unreal, it’s more stable and powerful but it’s more resource heavy and harder to use. Unity falls between Godot and Unreal in these aspects. I had to take a pause on learning game development to see how all of this goes on over the next few week or months before making my next move
Unity cons are way worst than other engines XD. The fact that they still have a form of [RunTime fee] is evidence of what their future looks like. They will eventually increase the 2.5% ''to keep the company profitable'' and RunTime will be normalized as the cheaper option until enough developers get used to it then they force the policy on everyone and control how much they want to bill developers. The outcome will be way worst than subscriptions. You will feel like you work for unity. You will not feel like you have your own business. You will feel stuck since you invested even more years into this dying engine. Other companies will also adopt this ''model'' to ''stay profitable'' so everyone will apply [Runtime fee + tax fee + steam fee + subscription fee ..etc] , why ? because unity did it. Basically independent developers will become slaves under these types of companies BECAUSE OF THIS RUNTIME FEE Once GoDot create their asset store, they will surpass unity so why not be founders of that community ? Like how Bracky was for unity.
@lDeath489 Agreed. As far as I'm concerned, the runtime fee is a non-starter, period. To add to that, "sunk cost" is a fallacy if staying the course is guaranteed insecurity, uncertainty, and instability for your company and livelihood. Far better to go ahead, eat the cost now, and make the switch to free and open source engines, libraries, frameworks, etc. That you do not have to report to anyone or pay anyone subscriptions, revenue shares, and/or retroactive install fees brings peace of mind and greater profitability in the long-term (which far too many people neglect to consider nowadays). And free and open source engines can be slower in development and features only because they lack the funding and personnel as these corporate proprietary engines have. But the more talented people who drop the proprietary engines in favor of the open source ones, and begin contributing their talents to them, means they get more attention and their development gets progressively speedier (everyone can make pull requests and contribute to the engine's advancement, provided the proposed contribution is good and is accepted and merged). Furthermore, there's nothing stoping profitable developers from contributing some of their monetary success to their open source engine's developers as a donation. They could treat it like a "subscription fee" and/or a revenue share, though they're not obligated to do so and can stop at any time if money gets tight. But this way, the engine's developers have some financial stability and incentive themselves to work and do good work for their community. And if they regularly get enough, they may even be able to staff some full-time developers who keep making progress on the engine, in addition to merging outside contributions. Win-win for everyone.
I'm still not sure if I want to go back to Unity since the last time Unity did something like this, they promised they'd store their terms of service in GitHub as a way to version track, but this year they deleted terms of service so what's stopping them from doing this again next time they want to screw us over
I think this was what they wanted from the beginning that the developers will accept and by doing it the way they did, they make the developers believe that they won and they accept what they wanted from the beginning and everyone is happy... it's like programming ...
What they did last week showed their true intentions. Even after listening and changing the plan, I know now what they are really capable of, and it's hard to unsee. It's like an attempt of murder, you just don't give them a free pass because they said "sorry" after they got caught. It's out there now.
In the least, they showed that if they know an idea isn't going to be accepted well they are willing to sneak the changes in to make it possible them try to slam it down everyone's throats. They tried to steal the pie then once caught paid for it with a big tip. But you know if the backlash wasn't big enough they would've kept going.
I like those changes, excluding online requirement. But for me, just like with previous terms, this is still a 3x increase in what I need to pay. Cause I use old version of Unity and since plus is gone and for older versions of Unity I need to buy PRO to remove that splash screen.
So from what I understand.... All Unity Games and Projects created prior to the "Latest" version is exempted to the Runtime Fee. Does that basically mean Unity will not lay a finger on you for using earlier versions? If that's the case it's actually a good news. The question is for how long is that going to be? It is good news but they've already shown they can do something like that and cannot be fully trusted, it's the actual trust that has been broken at this point.
Good changes but the fact remains that unity management is plain stupid. Anybody with a brain cell saw how stupid it was, they were even warned by their employees, but still announced it. It's really mind blowing how stupid this whole thing was, how are people like this in charge?
"United against Unity" - I see what you did there😂 I'm cautiously optimistic, and am glad you have made the decision to continue creating content in Unity. I really appreciate the hard line you took in your last video, because that's what helped tip Unity to make these changes. Thanks again for demonstrating your integrity and going above and beyond for the benefit of the Unity community. I just know that as an attorney, I'm going to be looking through every line of their next ToS before I agree to it. I'll be looking specifically for language the prevents them from unilaterally adding new terms or changing terms without prior notice and consent, and language that binds the ToS to the Unity version you are using. The best part about today is I feel like I can now open the Unity engine without reflexively recoiling. Let's hope this is the start of a new chapter in Unity, and I look forward to your future content.
The Github TOS Repo stuff sounds a bit familiar... oh right... like the one they deleted to prevent them from retroactively changing the TOS... so they could retroactively change the TOS before this whole nightmare. (for me, the trust is gone, Unity burnt that bridge)
I'm happy with the new policy. But I'm still concerned about the future. What if they do such thing in future and doesn't listen to the community and make it retroactive. Hope they do some legally binded policy to what they are saying now.
This whole situation made me try other engines like Unreal and Godot and i learned a lot. i'm gonna use the 2022 version of Unity for some of my projects and start moving to another one at 2024, it all depends of what happen in the next three months.
I never comment but I wanted to say thank you for your work in the community. You and all the content creators, even. While there may not have been a video for all of my crazy/ specific questions, the ones that I did find applicable were very well done. Making the splash screen optional is one of the best moves imo. It sucks that we wouldn't want to represent the engine we used sure, but during the healing process I find it'll be necessary. I also looked into Gadot during the week. Seeing what open source has gotten to is very impressive. Maybe you and others will treat us with the occasional Gadot tutorial, and we can all help open source developing get to a level where companies are always kept in check! Stay strong fellow devs
It's a great thing that you're still learning Godot and Unreal. We don't know if Unity will do this again or not but it is very helpful to keep your options open in case Unity or Unreal does something like this in the future
I think the potential of lawsuits from other companies have a larger influence in this decision to change. Either way, this is a better pricing scheme than before
Even tho those changes are nice, some things still needs to be addressed, like: - Legal Protection, no one wants them to pull something like this in the future again. - Business Model, why to get both revshare AND license/seat? - Amount of employees, why would they need 7000+ when Epic Games has only about 3000?
I just started to learn game development 4 months ago (Unity). There is no way I'll continue with Unity, no matter what changes they will make to their price model. Switching to the Unreal engine.
These terms are a step in the right direction, and the explicit mention of terms of services being locked by editor version helps build back some of that trust. Not all of it, because they really should have started with this statment im the first place. I hope this sparks some reformation to get back on track and make good steps toward improving the engine to make good games.
Still, I do not like the idea of using a table, with multiple tiers and percentages that they can ticker with later. If they just said "X percent of the revenue after Y limit (unchanging for this TLS version)" as other engines are doing, it would be simpler and better for everyone. And I'm sure they would get a lot more money too.
It's nice to see they can step back a bit, but how long that will last is very much in doubt. I hope this will be enough for unity devs with major projects to not lose everything but also I hope people keep trying new technologies.
Selfishly, I’m happy that you are going to continue working with Unity. That said - it shows character and good judgment to re-engage with Unity after they responded and made appropriate changes.
Everyone is complaining about what they did to the most united community in the game devs but i think it was the most amazing thing that could ever to all of us because we made them change it back that we have the power and it can get better and better...
One thing I learned about Steam is that if you made MAD STACK of that cheddar they'll do like unity and start lowering the fee edit: just to touch on the mention of Gigaya the higher-ups need to let the engine/dev team produce a real game that way they don't have to bank off us so hard which thankfully with the updated terms isn't so bad but I think it would help every department in the company benefit 1. They get money 2. The engine team makes upgrades where necessary for everyone's sake. 3. The company knows the pain of publishing on these platforms edit 2: in terms of engines to use While Godot and Unreal are good Flax IMO from what I've seen seems to be inspired by Unreal and Unity in the sense of having the Unity style editor with the Unreal workflow
Sam what about if I develop for somebody else on my personal plan and they release the game on their account on whatever platform... then they report and I no longer have anything to do with the game right?? Or is it so? Bc my account is still signed somewhere in the code I suppose...?
The changes look good, but this whole thing has just been super sketchy haha I mean, if they really just "Didn't think it through" why were the TOS removed ahead of the announcement? Regardless, I'm sure this is a massive sigh of relief for so many game devs and content creators like you though, so I'm super glad! Personally, I'm pretty pumped about learning Godot an Unreal though, reeeeaaaaally got my fingers crossed to see content from you for those engines. You're teaching skills and explanations are some of the best!🥳🥳 Can't wait to see whatever you've got in store!
I'm happy to see you're reconsidering coming back to Unity. 🙂 Personally I've looked up to all other popular engines during last week, to find out that they are completely different😅While making simple stuff may be similar or even easier than in Unity - I would need 6 to 12 months (as a solo developer) to just learn the engine to the level which would allow me to work on production game. And I don't want to do that. I am lazy, so I prefer to work on a game, than learning how to do what I already know, just in different way. 😆 I'm happy about the new changes. I'm proud of the entire community. I'm happy for the employees at Unity, as this affected them as much as us devs. While damage done to Unity image is huge, and will take lot of time to repair it - I think that in the big picture the entire situation ended up with positive impact. Other engines are blooming! This means more and better competition! This in turn will make each engine to put more competitive offers, and that's good for us! And let's not forget, at the end of the day, the tool is only as good as it's user 😁 Looking forward to your next videos 😉
The Always Online requirement will be enforced, which means we can get banned from opening our Unity projects. Just like Adobe and Autodesk users, if they don't pay the subscription fees
The problem with unity is not the fees that they have now, but those that they may include later, they can't be trusted, learning an engine and developing a game is a big investment, at least on time, you need solid grounds to do that investment.
I felt very disappointed and betrayed as many others when they rolled those changes, with these new changes, leaves me a bit calmer, and although I will finish my current projects with Unity, I will consider another engine for my next one. Using Unity feels like home to me and I want it to succeed, I would love to see them work to regain our trust again in the future.
My damn Fidelity account prevented me from shorting them on the 15th when the stock was >$36 a share. Now it's hovering around $31-32 and most price estimates say itll stop dropping at $28. I'm not sure though, the loss of Good Will from their only customer feels like there is no bottom.
They were a bit misleading on the "choice" of fee structure - it says you have a choice but also says it will be auto-selected for you, whichever is lower. I think it should be a choice. It would allow you to plan for your company's growth rather than be charged one way, then be auto-switched to the other plan.
In the new TOS, I didn't see any promises that they can't just make changes to it at will. Possibly "retroactively". Without that assurance, it's hard to build a business plan using Unity.
I am going to be making a game in my spare time I was so divided... Unity looked so enticing... A powerful engine and a great value. Unreal Engine looked so exciting... Impressive, easy graphics, especially with their partnership with Quixel Megascans Library that gives you game-ready assets for whatever you're making. I realized I had to put all of my eggs into one basket and learn only one... Unity is still a better value because it's still a powerful engine that's half the price of Unreal Engine 5, but this recent debacle proved that UE5 is the way to go. It feels like Unity purposefully overstepped their boundaries so that "when they roll it back" it will look reasonable, instead of just rolling out that as the original plan in the first place. I don't like being manipulated or tricked, so since they didn't completely reverse their decision, I'm not going to bother with them. They can keep their run time, I'm not making my game with them.
That's what was so terrible about this. Unity was and is a great development tool, but ruined by executives who don't seem to understand how game devs operate. I spent time prototyping with it, but I will be dropping it for Godot. I have zero trust in Unity's executive management.
Yes. Its like kroger. They make everything more expensive than retail and then they make sales for customers that have a plus card but that sake price just brings it down to regular price anywhere else. But without the plus card you pay more
Main question is Do Unity even make profits off of this new pricing? If no then it's better for the devs to keep learning another engine to move towards new Engine.
We may no longer trust Unity, but I do trust this community, so Im satisfied with the changes and my hope is that Indie studios continue to make amazing games and that the ecosystem continues to grow.
Don't. Don't do this. Just clean break! I wish I could but i can't. You can! Don't let them lure you back in. Don't let them take any more of your time, energy, or attention.
In mexico we say, le estaban midiendo el agua a los tamales, wich means they posted an initial proposal then see if it baits the community. Now Idk what to do, I learned aboud gdscript in godot and the fact of depelop in a dynamic language with a built in script editor is way more attractive than compiling every time the scripts in unity.
Imagine you are thinking about making a video game for the fist time and learning about the industry and suddenly come across all of this anger towards Unity. They messed up big time. They really did. I invested $3k from my own studio towards the asset store and a Pro subscription for several years. All of the messed up installs were a nightmare. I'm at it solo and still after several years fairly new to this. Everyone has made very valid points in the comments and really, I feel so betrayed it's beyond repair. Even after the changes. All I've done for the past several hours is watch videos like yours because I personally don't know anyone who makes games or uses unity. The reason I chose unity in the first place was the awesome community support. And if they even first ignore the advice and opinions of the community and employees who made them great in favor of shareholders. That's it - that is their true face. The question now is where do we go from here? The whole thing was criminal. My therapist has his work cut out for him, lol.
I switched to Godot this year, nothing to do with pricing. It is just more lightweight and is more suitable for 2d games. I agree the actual point of this whole episode is that those people in charge of making decisions for Unity's future came up with this. They have the future of Unity in their hands and they clearly have no understanding or empathy for game development. They are financially motivated and ultimately this will continue to hamper the evolution of Unity. (IMO)
For steam they have to pay a lot of money for servers hosting, for stability on the platform and for bandwidth for quick download. That's why youtube and Twitch are losing money and change pricing model when they got the monopoly.
I don't think it was a careless decision on Unity's, or Ricottillo's part, I think he was thinking no one would catch on and hope it would fly right under everyone's noses.
I like the idea of rallying against Apple and steam next. I would say though, while watching Jason's interview with Marc, it seemed more like a politician responding to a single incident, when we all know it's not an incident, it's just part of their business model
Way better than before, I’m more relieved now as I can finished my game that I’ve being doing for two years with unity. Thanks to all developers who fought for it , including you :) Not sure what I’ll be doing after this game thought. Probably change to Godot on new projects.
3:35 not in the ancomnet but in the Q&A they said they'll use the runtime every Unity game has since forever plus some sort of AI to sort of pirated copies... So yeah they kinda said they already have spywear in unity games they just needed to act on it... Which where unity game phones home right now or not I don't know but they seemed to have it all figured out in the moment.
pretty much everything that got changed was expected to be changed, private conversations with Unity, asking questions and raising concerns, that's the way the community should of handled it (some did). that is not the way the majority of the community handled it though. always a good idea to keep an eye on them, no company is your friend, Unity isn't an exception....there are no exceptions. you play their game, by their rules, it's very easy to get what you want. they just want your money, so find a way to get them money and they will happily skip along with you. also, the ending. that's not easy, i knew i subbed to you for a good reason. hope things work out.
There's a lot to unpack with the latest developments. Because of my relationships with so many wonderful people who came from "Starving Artist" to Developer (many through Unity) I felt like I couldn't ignore and not stand behind Developers using Unity. With that being said I am a little bit apprehensive still. It is said "The devil is in the Details" and until the new TOS / EULA come out I will reserve my own final thought on whether or not to continue using Unity (I hope it does get better and stay better) for my own projects which aren't directly in Game Development (although remember the thing called a "Slippery Slope"?). I am glad you kept and are continuing to keep a level head (or as much as possible) and I wish you the best success possible going forward. Cheers! Stay Healthy and Stay Sane!
From last year until last week I was developing my first game as a hobbie, and hoping to release it on Steam once its done. Like an idiot I agreed on the TOS without looking much into it., and then discovered the whole fiasco. Am i stuck with the runtime fees, or is there an updated version TOS with the new system?
Maybe Steam charge a bit too much but don't forget they offer more than just put the game to be downloaded, they offer an update ability, the customer service included the refund part, etc.
I once bought a game on Humble Bundle and got a free steam key for the purchase, so I obtained the game on 2 separate distro channels, wouldn't that double the install fee?
I see your hair is different.. the breakup was real wasn't it? Not opposed to more Unity content. Glad to see you've cooled on this and might give it another shot. I know my projects are years in the making and I really don't want to have to switch. I'm also actually going to stick up for Steam. 30% is a chunk no doubt, but you're getting access to the best publishing tools in the industry, the fastest global distribution network on Earth, and oh yea.. 130+ million active users. Your chances to succeed are greater than they ever would be on Microsoft or Playstations respective platforms.
My hair is the same I just washed it 😂 Yeah Steam has great opportunities and without their distribution it would be hard to find success, but I wonder if that fee can be lowered so developers can retain more profit for their hard earned work :) But I’d totally pay their fee to get access to their amount of users!
On Jason’s Live FAQ Marc was saying that they have strict rules for stock selling and it’s automated a lot of the time, so it could have been sold by chance. But there’s no way to tell for sure 🤷♀️
Not surprising they removed the splash screen requirement - without that, gamers have absolutely been panning Unity games and Unity would actually be hurting their own bottom line by forcing that screen to be shown.
I'm glad that unity is listening to the community and that you'll be returning. I just started watching your videos two weeks ago and I knew you're the real stuff. I'm a happy newish subscriber now :D
It's almost like they made an outrageous proposal first to make the next one seem like a good deal, it's a big change. Hopefully it means more investment though
Wishlist my new game BUMBI on Steam! store.steampowered.com/app/2862470/BUMBI/
WE ALL WIN BIG FAKE NEWS TO GET HYPE FROM UNITY, WE WIN YEEEEEI❤❤❤❤❤
Okay sure, but it will cost you a runtime fee of 30%.
@@dclxviclanwe won the battle but lost the war
@@lanceroygames😵💫
ye
This is much better, but honestly this just shows that they can switch things up whenever they feel like it.
As long as that piece of sh!it is their CEO, anything is possible. The fact that they don't throw the guy out, speaks about the company.
Anyway, back to learning Unreal egnine.
Typical move nowadays. They advance 3 steps, take the community backlash and then move 1 or 2 back expecting to please them. At the end, they moved a step forward. When dust settles, they hit again!
@@ruiacp True that, in the end its a public company, need to keep those shareholders happy. I think lesson learned as a developer. Need to develop a workflow that's game engine agnostic and look for/ develop a tool that helps in migration when something like this happens (as a backup / last resort). Im a shareholder myself but as a developer, I still feel what they did stinks.
@@ruiacpVery true, although this was also communication error. Basically, we have to pretend nothing happened except step 1, and judge that on its own.
From the backlash they got, clearly, they can’t
Keep in mind: the reason for the ToS tracking github repo in the first place was in response to community revolt for a prior snafu.
😬
If you do branch out and end up making tutorials for other engines, I'll definitely be checking those out!
Let's see that UE5 tutorials
Loved the brief UE5 Arc on her channel
Great news, but I'll stick be checking out other engines. They can still pull stuff like this in the future as long as their are no safeguards in place.
Look for the Always Online requirement. Unity users can get banned from opening their Unity projects, just like Adobe and Autodesk users, if they don't pay the subscription fees
Hey can remove or change those safeguards anyway so its no point so im gonna use godot
无论如何，建议不要在一棵树上吊死。
I'm actually thinking of making C++ tutorials for Unreal Engine after this incident. During my time with Unreal Engine I realized almost every tutorial is about Blueprints and almost no tutorial is about C++. Since I already had C++ experience it was not so hard for me to learn the Unreal Engine API but I can already imagine it would be pretty hard for a newcomer to learn without a guidance since C++ is a complex but rewarding language as well as Unreal Engine.
Please do!
Yes please do! I switched to unreal recently and don't know where to start, I do have c++ knowledge but having such tutorials would be very helpful😊
I watched the previous video and many other TH-camrs about leaving Unity, that even the fees not affecting me, I was scared that the amount of new tutorials and work of the community would be insanely reduced.
In the past week, I spent ALMOST every free hour I had studing Unreal, and trying to recreate almost everything I know on UE. And to be honest, I liked a lot.
It's not a simple Engine, but all the knowledge I worked so hard to adquire on Unity (and even Blender with the 3D part of game assets) paid off a lot on Unreal.
Now, I have plans to stick with UE for my main games, and use Unity for smaller apps and projects (and VRChat, love to make content when I got the time for it). Knowing multiple engines is not a bad thing, and I recommend everyone try for a bit on their free time, to give a try.
Agreed! Nice to hear it payed off
For you as a content creator and educator I still think it’s a good move for you to reach across multiple engines. You got the chops and APIs are relatively similar in each!
Yeah. This move is a lesson for all developers to broaden their horizons when it comes to development workflows.
Yea more money for grifters teaching folks how to do basic things in 3 engines instead of something complex and useful in one.
@@rdothl5 foundations are necessary. Complex and useful is up to you as the developer
The problem is that they have shown they can change "the deal" at any time, and there really isn't anything we can do to stop them besides a raucous. They got their cut. Now it is just a matter of time and plans to get a bigger one. I really hope you make some Godot tutorials! You are my favorite teacher.
The question though is, why do they want so badly to be like their own personal game development IRS.
Simple answer they need money
According to several articles, Unity is still not profitable despite having been generated more than one billion dollars in revenue each year, because of their business model and tech acquisitions
Instead of encouraging more spending by releasing attractive perks they banked on devs not being able to leave. They want a deal so bad that devs will take the "if you use our ads program instead this can all just go away" under the table.
simple pricing is always better for everyone. management just doesn't seem to get it
I can understand people not wanting to abandon their current projects and all the tools and assets they've built over the years, but if this event did not taught you all a lesson, we will see more of this in the coming years. Unity leadership is still the same after all, this is not a matter of "will they?" but rather a "when will they?".
The biggest concern still for me is that they can STILL change everything if they want to again. Until we get a EULA that says they cannot change anything per version license… then Unity can kick rocks.
that's silly, ANY software can change their pricing structure and constantly do, duh. the new pricing is dependent on the version you are using, not retroactive.
@@paulaitix77 not retroactive, for now
@@paulaitix77 That statement is silly too. Because yes any company CAN if they wanted to. But there are software companies that DO NOT and CAN NOT (as written in their EULA) change the licensing terms for a specific release of the software. They can only change it for future releases. If you did your research and stop being so quick to call people silly, you’d know that there are companies that create EULAs like that. And Unity being this untrustworthy needs to be one of those companies.
I think they learned their lesson.
@@PeterSedesse They said that after they pulled this SAME EULA trick on Imprabable (SpacialOS) just a few years ago. Then they walked it back once they got heat from users. Here we are again… the same lesson learned from the same people right?
Really sucks that the head leaders of Unity did this to begin with. They certainly destroyed the faith the developers had with Unity. Many moving to Godot or Unreal. And although Godot and Unreal are both good, they have some downsides. Godot is easy use and many hardware can run it due to being lightweight, but according to some people and reviews, it’s not as powerful and stable. Whereas Unreal, it’s more stable and powerful but it’s more resource heavy and harder to use. Unity falls between Godot and Unreal in these aspects. I had to take a pause on learning game development to see how all of this goes on over the next few week or months before making my next move
Yeah pros and cons to all of them, but hopefully Godot will see more changes since it’s open source and a lot of Unity devs will be moving to it!
Unity cons are way worst than other engines XD. The fact that they still have a form of [RunTime fee] is evidence of what their future looks like. They will eventually increase the 2.5% ''to keep the company profitable'' and RunTime will be normalized as the cheaper option until enough developers get used to it then they force the policy on everyone and control how much they want to bill developers. The outcome will be way worst than subscriptions. You will feel like you work for unity. You will not feel like you have your own business. You will feel stuck since you invested even more years into this dying engine.
Other companies will also adopt this ''model'' to ''stay profitable'' so everyone will apply [Runtime fee + tax fee + steam fee + subscription fee ..etc] , why ? because unity did it. Basically independent developers will become slaves under these types of companies BECAUSE OF THIS RUNTIME FEE
Once GoDot create their asset store, they will surpass unity so why not be founders of that community ? Like how Bracky was for unity.
@lDeath489 Agreed. As far as I'm concerned, the runtime fee is a non-starter, period.
To add to that, "sunk cost" is a fallacy if staying the course is guaranteed insecurity, uncertainty, and instability for your company and livelihood. Far better to go ahead, eat the cost now, and make the switch to free and open source engines, libraries, frameworks, etc. That you do not have to report to anyone or pay anyone subscriptions, revenue shares, and/or retroactive install fees brings peace of mind and greater profitability in the long-term (which far too many people neglect to consider nowadays).
And free and open source engines can be slower in development and features only because they lack the funding and personnel as these corporate proprietary engines have. But the more talented people who drop the proprietary engines in favor of the open source ones, and begin contributing their talents to them, means they get more attention and their development gets progressively speedier (everyone can make pull requests and contribute to the engine's advancement, provided the proposed contribution is good and is accepted and merged).
Furthermore, there's nothing stoping profitable developers from contributing some of their monetary success to their open source engine's developers as a donation. They could treat it like a "subscription fee" and/or a revenue share, though they're not obligated to do so and can stop at any time if money gets tight. But this way, the engine's developers have some financial stability and incentive themselves to work and do good work for their community. And if they regularly get enough, they may even be able to staff some full-time developers who keep making progress on the engine, in addition to merging outside contributions. Win-win for everyone.
I'm still not sure if I want to go back to Unity since the last time Unity did something like this, they promised they'd store their terms of service in GitHub as a way to version track, but this year they deleted terms of service so what's stopping them from doing this again next time they want to screw us over
Thank you for joining this quest. If they ended up changing the terms is because of all the complains from all the devs and creators. Thank you ❤
I think this was what they wanted from the beginning that the developers will accept and by doing it the way they did, they make the developers believe that they won and they accept what they wanted from the beginning and everyone is happy... it's like programming ...
What they did last week showed their true intentions. Even after listening and changing the plan, I know now what they are really capable of, and it's hard to unsee.
It's like an attempt of murder, you just don't give them a free pass because they said "sorry" after they got caught. It's out there now.
In the least, they showed that if they know an idea isn't going to be accepted well they are willing to sneak the changes in to make it possible them try to slam it down everyone's throats.
They tried to steal the pie then once caught paid for it with a big tip. But you know if the backlash wasn't big enough they would've kept going.
I like those changes, excluding online requirement. But for me, just like with previous terms, this is still a 3x increase in what I need to pay. Cause I use old version of Unity and since plus is gone and for older versions of Unity I need to buy PRO to remove that splash screen.
So from what I understand....
All Unity Games and Projects created prior to the "Latest" version is exempted to the Runtime Fee. Does that basically mean Unity will not lay a finger on you for using earlier versions?
If that's the case it's actually a good news. The question is for how long is that going to be? It is good news but they've already shown they can do something like that and cannot be fully trusted, it's the actual trust that has been broken at this point.
Good changes but the fact remains that unity management is plain stupid. Anybody with a brain cell saw how stupid it was, they were even warned by their employees, but still announced it. It's really mind blowing how stupid this whole thing was, how are people like this in charge?
"United against Unity" - I see what you did there😂 I'm cautiously optimistic, and am glad you have made the decision to continue creating content in Unity. I really appreciate the hard line you took in your last video, because that's what helped tip Unity to make these changes. Thanks again for demonstrating your integrity and going above and beyond for the benefit of the Unity community.
I just know that as an attorney, I'm going to be looking through every line of their next ToS before I agree to it. I'll be looking specifically for language the prevents them from unilaterally adding new terms or changing terms without prior notice and consent, and language that binds the ToS to the Unity version you are using.
The best part about today is I feel like I can now open the Unity engine without reflexively recoiling. Let's hope this is the start of a new chapter in Unity, and I look forward to your future content.
The Github TOS Repo stuff sounds a bit familiar... oh right... like the one they deleted to prevent them from retroactively changing the TOS... so they could retroactively change the TOS before this whole nightmare. (for me, the trust is gone, Unity burnt that bridge)
I'm happy with the new policy. But I'm still concerned about the future. What if they do such thing in future and doesn't listen to the community and make it retroactive.
Hope they do some legally binded policy to what they are saying now.
Amazing! Samyam is back! Looking forward for future content on all the engines you’ll be using.
Good luck!
You could cover any topic, great public speaking skills!
Wow thanks!
This whole situation made me try other engines like Unreal and Godot and i learned a lot. i'm gonna use the 2022 version of Unity for some of my projects and start moving to another one at 2024, it all depends of what happen in the next three months.
Looking forward to seeing how your channel evolves with the broader scope of more than just Unity stuff 🧡!
Thank you!
I never comment but I wanted to say thank you for your work in the community. You and all the content creators, even.
While there may not have been a video for all of my crazy/ specific questions, the ones that I did find applicable were very well done.
Making the splash screen optional is one of the best moves imo.
It sucks that we wouldn't want to represent the engine we used sure, but during the healing process I find it'll be necessary.
I also looked into Gadot during the week. Seeing what open source has gotten to is very impressive.
Maybe you and others will treat us with the occasional Gadot tutorial, and we can all help open source developing get to a level where
companies are always kept in check!
Stay strong fellow devs
Unity can survive without paying millions to the board of directors, Unity will survive for now, but all people will switch to other engines
Looking gorgeous as always Samyam, nice to hear your thoughts on this
It's a great thing that you're still learning Godot and Unreal. We don't know if Unity will do this again or not but it is very helpful to keep your options open in case Unity or Unreal does something like this in the future
I'm glad that you're updating your stance as the info changes, looking forward to more content from you!
I think the potential of lawsuits from other companies have a larger influence in this decision to change. Either way, this is a better pricing scheme than before
Yeah I think them saying that companies that they would be paying the fees for games on game pass probably got them a couple stern emails
Welcome back! See you in Amsterdam!
See you there :)
Hoping for Unreal or Godot tutorials 😊
Yes UE pleaseee
Even tho those changes are nice, some things still needs to be addressed, like:
- Legal Protection, no one wants them to pull something like this in the future again.
- Business Model, why to get both revshare AND license/seat?
- Amount of employees, why would they need 7000+ when Epic Games has only about 3000?
Yes definitely not perfect and needs a lot of work
I just started to learn game development 4 months ago (Unity).
There is no way I'll continue with Unity, no matter what changes they will make to their price model.
Switching to the Unreal engine.
These terms are a step in the right direction, and the explicit mention of terms of services being locked by editor version helps build back some of that trust.
Not all of it, because they really should have started with this statment im the first place. I hope this sparks some reformation to get back on track and make good steps toward improving the engine to make good games.
Still, I do not like the idea of using a table, with multiple tiers and percentages that they can ticker with later. If they just said "X percent of the revenue after Y limit (unchanging for this TLS version)" as other engines are doing, it would be simpler and better for everyone. And I'm sure they would get a lot more money too.
It's nice to see they can step back a bit, but how long that will last is very much in doubt.
I hope this will be enough for unity devs with major projects to not lose everything but also I hope people keep trying new technologies.
The fact that the apology letter didn’t come from the CEO spoke volumes to accountability and responsibility.
Unity probably could’ve made money without much trouble if instead on per installations it was per sale like every other program does.
Selfishly, I’m happy that you are going to continue working with Unity. That said - it shows character and good judgment to re-engage with Unity after they responded and made appropriate changes.
Haha thanks! But I’m keeping my wits about me to see how they continue to act long term :)
Everyone is complaining about what they did to the most united community in the game devs but i think it was the most amazing thing that could ever to all of us because we made them change it back that we have the power and it can get better and better...
The power will only be in our hands when the source code is made available. Until then, it's all nothing but a shitshow.
Good to hear someone comment on how crazy it is to give 30% to a store to list your game for download. Still seems so crazy
One thing I learned about Steam is that if you made MAD STACK of that cheddar they'll do like unity and start lowering the fee
edit: just to touch on the mention of Gigaya the higher-ups need to let the engine/dev team produce a real game that way they don't have to bank off us so hard which thankfully with the updated terms isn't so bad but I think it would help every department in the company benefit
1. They get money
2. The engine team makes upgrades where necessary for everyone's sake.
3. The company knows the pain of publishing on these platforms
edit 2: in terms of engines to use While Godot and Unreal are good Flax IMO from what I've seen seems to be inspired by Unreal and Unity in the sense of having the Unity style editor with the Unreal workflow
Sam what about if I develop for somebody else on my personal plan and they release the game on their account on whatever platform... then they report and I no longer have anything to do with the game right?? Or is it so? Bc my account is still signed somewhere in the code I suppose...?
the fee is payable by the publisher of the game, so no you wouldn’t need to pay it they would if they meet the requirements
@@samyam gotcha. Thank u
The changes look good, but this whole thing has just been super sketchy haha I mean, if they really just "Didn't think it through" why were the TOS removed ahead of the announcement?
Regardless, I'm sure this is a massive sigh of relief for so many game devs and content creators like you though, so I'm super glad!
Personally, I'm pretty pumped about learning Godot an Unreal though, reeeeaaaaally got my fingers crossed to see content from you for those engines. You're teaching skills and explanations are some of the best!🥳🥳
Can't wait to see whatever you've got in store!
I'm happy to see you're reconsidering coming back to Unity. 🙂 Personally I've looked up to all other popular engines during last week, to find out that they are completely different😅While making simple stuff may be similar or even easier than in Unity - I would need 6 to 12 months (as a solo developer) to just learn the engine to the level which would allow me to work on production game. And I don't want to do that. I am lazy, so I prefer to work on a game, than learning how to do what I already know, just in different way. 😆 I'm happy about the new changes. I'm proud of the entire community. I'm happy for the employees at Unity, as this affected them as much as us devs.
While damage done to Unity image is huge, and will take lot of time to repair it - I think that in the big picture the entire situation ended up with positive impact. Other engines are blooming! This means more and better competition! This in turn will make each engine to put more competitive offers, and that's good for us!
And let's not forget, at the end of the day, the tool is only as good as it's user 😁
Looking forward to your next videos 😉
I'll be happily waiting for your next videos. I wish you all the best things in the world
The Always Online requirement will be enforced, which means we can get banned from opening our Unity projects. Just like Adobe and Autodesk users, if they don't pay the subscription fees
Thanks for the good explanation! The first time I understood die two different caps (200k and 1 million)
The problem with unity is not the fees that they have now, but those that they may include later, they can't be trusted, learning an engine and developing a game is a big investment, at least on time, you need solid grounds to do that investment.
The new terms are crazy reasonable and the new TOS changes mean that you can’t be bamboozled anymore. This is really good
I felt very disappointed and betrayed as many others when they rolled those changes, with these new changes, leaves me a bit calmer, and although I will finish my current projects with Unity, I will consider another engine for my next one.
Using Unity feels like home to me and I want it to succeed, I would love to see them work to regain our trust again in the future.
My damn Fidelity account prevented me from shorting them on the 15th when the stock was >$36 a share. Now it's hovering around $31-32 and most price estimates say itll stop dropping at $28.
I'm not sure though, the loss of Good Will from their only customer feels like there is no bottom.
Great update, I love the thumbnail. Sub'd
Thanks for speaking out !! .. devs with a platform ( and the bigger indie's ) are what made the difference !
They were a bit misleading on the "choice" of fee structure - it says you have a choice but also says it will be auto-selected for you, whichever is lower. I think it should be a choice. It would allow you to plan for your company's growth rather than be charged one way, then be auto-switched to the other plan.
Thanks for clarifying!
In the new TOS, I didn't see any promises that they can't just make changes to it at will. Possibly "retroactively". Without that assurance, it's hard to build a business plan using Unity.
I am going to be making a game in my spare time
I was so divided... Unity looked so enticing... A powerful engine and a great value. Unreal Engine looked so exciting... Impressive, easy graphics, especially with their partnership with Quixel Megascans Library that gives you game-ready assets for whatever you're making. I realized I had to put all of my eggs into one basket and learn only one...
Unity is still a better value because it's still a powerful engine that's half the price of Unreal Engine 5, but this recent debacle proved that UE5 is the way to go. It feels like Unity purposefully overstepped their boundaries so that "when they roll it back" it will look reasonable, instead of just rolling out that as the original plan in the first place. I don't like being manipulated or tricked, so since they didn't completely reverse their decision, I'm not going to bother with them. They can keep their run time, I'm not making my game with them.
That's what was so terrible about this. Unity was and is a great development tool, but ruined by executives who don't seem to understand how game devs operate. I spent time prototyping with it, but I will be dropping it for Godot. I have zero trust in Unity's executive management.
Yes. Its like kroger. They make everything more expensive than retail and then they make sales for customers that have a plus card but that sake price just brings it down to regular price anywhere else. But without the plus card you pay more
Nice points and analysis Sam
Hello, if you would switch engines, or learn a second one, which one would do prefer?
Too late... Im already migrating to godot.
Main question is Do Unity even make profits off of this new pricing? If no then it's better for the devs to keep learning another engine to move towards new Engine.
I guess they’ll find out in the years to come 😅
We may no longer trust Unity, but I do trust this community, so Im satisfied with the changes and my hope is that Indie studios continue to make amazing games and that the ecosystem continues to grow.
Don't. Don't do this. Just clean break! I wish I could but i can't. You can! Don't let them lure you back in. Don't let them take any more of your time, energy, or attention.
"Your credibility is not a boomerang; if you throw it away it doesn't come back."
Good point about the 30% cut of steam, Google, Apple also the ridiculous annual fee of apple
In mexico we say, le estaban midiendo el agua a los tamales, wich means they posted an initial proposal then see if it baits the community.
Now Idk what to do, I learned aboud gdscript in godot and the fact of depelop in a dynamic language with a built in script editor is way more attractive than compiling every time the scripts in unity.
stick with godot if you like, it’s what you feel most comfortable with
There is nothing better to watch than a content creator going back on their word :D
Imagine you are thinking about making a video game for the fist time and learning about the industry and suddenly come across all of this anger towards Unity. They messed up big time. They really did. I invested $3k from my own studio towards the asset store and a Pro subscription for several years. All of the messed up installs were a nightmare. I'm at it solo and still after several years fairly new to this. Everyone has made very valid points in the comments and really, I feel so betrayed it's beyond repair. Even after the changes. All I've done for the past several hours is watch videos like yours because I personally don't know anyone who makes games or uses unity. The reason I chose unity in the first place was the awesome community support. And if they even first ignore the advice and opinions of the community and employees who made them great in favor of shareholders. That's it - that is their true face. The question now is where do we go from here? The whole thing was criminal. My therapist has his work cut out for him, lol.
I love how Gamedev’s were effectively able to vote with our “wallets” and persuade Unity to make these changes.
I'm willing to come back as soon as they show the new eula and it is clear and concise on this stuff.
I switched to Godot this year, nothing to do with pricing. It is just more lightweight and is more suitable for 2d games. I agree the actual point of this whole episode is that those people in charge of making decisions for Unity's future came up with this. They have the future of Unity in their hands and they clearly have no understanding or empathy for game development. They are financially motivated and ultimately this will continue to hamper the evolution of Unity. (IMO)
For steam they have to pay a lot of money for servers hosting, for stability on the platform and for bandwidth for quick download. That's why youtube and Twitch are losing money and change pricing model when they got the monopoly.
Interesting, thanks!
Welcome back to the Club! 🙌
I don't think it was a careless decision on Unity's, or Ricottillo's part, I think he was thinking no one would catch on and hope it would fly right under everyone's noses.
Hey samyam, do you have any big projects in development?
👀
I like the idea of rallying against Apple and steam next. I would say though, while watching Jason's interview with Marc, it seemed more like a politician responding to a single incident, when we all know it's not an incident, it's just part of their business model
Thanks samyam
Thanks for the video, I'm looking forward to more Unity content and hope that they won't pull something like this in the future
Way better than before, I’m more relieved now as I can finished my game that I’ve being doing for two years with unity. Thanks to all developers who fought for it , including you :)
Not sure what I’ll be doing after this game thought. Probably change to Godot on new projects.
Thank you SamYam
thank you so much for making these videos
3:35 not in the ancomnet but in the Q&A they said they'll use the runtime every Unity game has since forever plus some sort of AI to sort of pirated copies... So yeah they kinda said they already have spywear in unity games they just needed to act on it... Which where unity game phones home right now or not I don't know but they seemed to have it all figured out in the moment.
pretty much everything that got changed was expected to be changed, private conversations with Unity, asking questions and raising concerns, that's the way the community should of handled it (some did). that is not the way the majority of the community handled it though.
always a good idea to keep an eye on them, no company is your friend, Unity isn't an exception....there are no exceptions. you play their game, by their rules, it's very easy to get what you want. they just want your money, so find a way to get them money and they will happily skip along with you.
also, the ending. that's not easy, i knew i subbed to you for a good reason. hope things work out.
If they put taxes on next version of unity, they gotta work on that version, and I'm intrigued.
Your thumbnails are interesting
thank you i work hard on them :)
There's a lot to unpack with the latest developments. Because of my relationships with so many wonderful people who came from "Starving Artist" to Developer (many through Unity) I felt like I couldn't ignore and not stand behind Developers using Unity. With that being said I am a little bit apprehensive still. It is said "The devil is in the Details" and until the new TOS / EULA come out I will reserve my own final thought on whether or not to continue using Unity (I hope it does get better and stay better) for my own projects which aren't directly in Game Development (although remember the thing called a "Slippery Slope"?). I am glad you kept and are continuing to keep a level head (or as much as possible) and I wish you the best success possible going forward. Cheers! Stay Healthy and Stay Sane!
Thank you so much!
From last year until last week I was developing my first game as a hobbie, and hoping to release it on Steam once its done. Like an idiot I agreed on the TOS without looking much into it., and then discovered the whole fiasco. Am i stuck with the runtime fees, or is there an updated version TOS with the new system?
The new fee will only apply 2023 LTS and later, check the links in the description for more info
Was looking for your thoughts on these changes, this is a super helpful summary of their...capitulation
Maybe Steam charge a bit too much but don't forget they offer more than just put the game to be downloaded, they offer an update ability, the customer service included the refund part, etc.
Fair, but 30% is a lot!
I once bought a game on Humble Bundle and got a free steam key for the purchase, so I obtained the game on 2 separate distro channels, wouldn't that double the install fee?
I see your hair is different.. the breakup was real wasn't it?
Not opposed to more Unity content. Glad to see you've cooled on this and might give it another shot. I know my projects are years in the making and I really don't want to have to switch.
I'm also actually going to stick up for Steam. 30% is a chunk no doubt, but you're getting access to the best publishing tools in the industry, the fastest global distribution network on Earth, and oh yea.. 130+ million active users. Your chances to succeed are greater than they ever would be on Microsoft or Playstations respective platforms.
My hair is the same I just washed it 😂 Yeah Steam has great opportunities and without their distribution it would be hard to find success, but I wonder if that fee can be lowered so developers can retain more profit for their hard earned work :) But I’d totally pay their fee to get access to their amount of users!
8:14 "they weren't expecting this type of response" - but the leadership sold stock before the announcement.
On Jason’s Live FAQ Marc was saying that they have strict rules for stock selling and it’s automated a lot of the time, so it could have been sold by chance. But there’s no way to tell for sure 🤷♀️
Not surprising they removed the splash screen requirement - without that, gamers have absolutely been panning Unity games and Unity would actually be hurting their own bottom line by forcing that screen to be shown.
I'm glad that unity is listening to the community and that you'll be returning. I just started watching your videos two weeks ago and I knew you're the real stuff. I'm a happy newish subscriber now :D
thanks! still will be exploring other engines though 😄
Look, you said you weren't going to go back to unity regardless. I always said we need to just wait and see what happens, and we got our outcome.
Clearly a person who don’t care about their own word
It's almost like they made an outrageous proposal first to make the next one seem like a good deal, it's a big change. Hopefully it means more investment though