Unity Comes to Their Senses...Kinda
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ก.ย. 2024
- The whole dumb saga comes to an end. But is the new Unity deal any good? Let's take a look.
Unity's Open Letter - t.co/qadAWzdGkb
Key Updates w/ Q&A - unity.com/pric...
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#unity #update #controversy
im not gonna give them any credit since they wouldnt be "sorry" if there wasnt so much backlash. But it means that indie devs can keep doing what theyre doing, so im just glad theyre going back on it.
But will they want to keep doing with what they're doing with Unity.
@@jamiewilliamson9829 Unless the projects are extremely early in development, it's so much more worth to stick with Unity until they're done. It's not an easy task to just switch engines, and it would probably delay projects by a year at least probably more. Afterwards I would say switch engines for any future games
@@jamiewilliamson9829 probably with whatever theyre in the middle of making right now
@@epicgamner1139 Yeah as it could make major setbacks but after that a lot of developers could jump ship because of all this nonsense.
@@bluetoadettethegoddess6104 You're right. After their current projects it's probably goodbye Unity and hello Unreal or Godot (never heard of that until all this nonsense started). Let's hope for the best for these developers especially the indie developers.
The damage has been done, trust has been broken. If they're able to just change up the terms of their deals all willy-nilly then dev teams will be less likely to use Unity in the future in favor of other game engines.
Couldnt the same be said of other engines (UE, Godot)?
Dont get me wrong, not defending unity. They made the choice of engine easy to me and started learning Godot since then.
Install fees are still there, they just changed thresholds.
@@fernandomartin9190Godot is open source. So even if the devs somehow screw up everything it can just be forked and continue under new management.
@@fernandomartin9190 I know it can't happen with Godot, because it's 100% open source (anyone can modify and redistribute it)
@@fernandomartin9190Godot is open source under the MIT license and it's code source is literally out there in the wild. I don't think it's even possible for it to pull a Unity, at least without lawsuits.
UE can definitely do that but I don't see them doing this type of drastic change when they have existing deals with AAA game companies and Hollywood Studios for their tech. Not to mention they're still trying to make the Epic Games Store as popular as Steam and it would be against their best interests to alienate smaller devs.
To be clear: the splash screen removal was previous a feature from Unity Plus, the pay tier they removed in this attempted update. This is their way of bringing that back as a feature without having to pay thousands of dollars for Pro, since many wouldn't have been able to afford it.
I'm sure their brand is thoroughly ruined too, but that's not why that's there.
When you engine is so bad you have to hide splash screen because of that XD
This type of thing is not only not gonna happen with Godot, it literally cannot happen because Godot is free and open-source software meaning it's source code is out there and anybody can just take it and make their own changes to rebuild their own software if for whatever reason they didn't choose to just make those improvements to the free public version instead
common Godot W
"Sorry, we're only gonna do part of this" isn't worth a good on you. They are still the only one doing this. I'm not congratulating this
They're probably banking on headlines like this. "They've kinda come to their senses" except they really haven't in any way, since coming to their senses would be not doing this shit in any way, shape or form.
I am still extremely pessimistic about using Unity for future games. But my team has a serious sigh of relief.
and as soon as you go to spleep, they fugk you.
at least thats the reputation now
There’s absolutely no way to spin ANYTHING in a positive light with Unity anymore. Just look into the CEO. Abandon ship.
Also, let's not forget Unity trying to force mobile Devs onto their ad revenue model by saying they'd waive sub fees for them if they switched. Unity are the bad guys here. Anything but a complete U-turn is unacceptable.
“How many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man.”
It is sad to see that just one well craft PR speak is enough for people to trust Unity again. They will pull this stunt again, in the future. Any game dev or publisher investing in Unity games will be willingly taking any risk from now on.
There is no "it's more fair"
Don't give them any leeway, stay on their case until they full backtrack because half backtrack is exactly what they're looking for
Probably calculated too. Test the waters to see how people react, then backtrack a bit to make it more appealing in comparison
As a Unity dev myself, trust is certainly broken. But the game development cycle takes many years, and we acquire expertise in an engine over our careers.
My bet is that many existing developers will stick to Unity for the short term, both to avoid complicating in-progress projects and the cost/time of training in a new engine. But I also think that most new developers will avoid the engine entirely, and a good portion of us will try to pick up something else up on the side. I know I've been exploring Godot this week.
The only good thing is that Unity are actually going to have to improve now to combat people going to Godot.
THE
DAMAGE
HAS
BEEN
DONE
The original pricing structure was egregious, but what concerns me the most as a consumer is the big brother aspect of their plan. Any game developed with Unity will have some sort of tracking software in it whether or not developers or consumers want it or not. That is the biggest concern for me as a consumer.
What do you think Iron Source merger was for? It was company known from malware.
The fact that "unity" is being used as a synonym for "change the contract in favor of the one writing the contract" by game devs says it all. Their reputation is toast and no backpedaling will fix that. Whether or not unity will weather the storm is another matter but I don't think it will be easy for them.
United against Unity
No I think they are only going to reduce the amount and only get 3/4 of the money from developers
Should've had a ceo that knows his shit, No one will trust them in the future.
I don't trust them not to change it in the future. Trust in Business-to-Business is a lot more serious than Business-to-Consumer (although I wish consumers had higher standards for themselves...).
Only comment I have is that there needs to be more engine out in the wild that are on par with Unity. More competition and less moves like charging for each download
Nah, this isn't more fair. They made a huge bad change then walked it back to this slightly less bad change to get people to accept it. I say, if you can, abandon Unity and move on. Unless they FULLY walk it back and the CEO and others responsible step down, don't compromise.
Serious question, why didn't they go this route in the first place?! If you absolutely needed to this unity (you didn't) then why destroy your brand in the process? This entire situation baffles me.
Greed.
It's an improvement, yes, BUT!
The damage is done. The trust is lost.
This situation made people dig a lot of Unity's dirty laundry such as the 2019 situation you mentioned.
This is good as it means the developer that are too deep in development to change engines won't be screwed if the become successful.
Still I won't be surprised if a second exodus happens once the cure projects are concluded.
Personaly I am still going to Unreal.
The damage has already been done... what's stopping them from trying something like this again. Not a developer, but I can only imagine the stress and headache this whole thing caused...
So sad. I’ve been learning Unity for the past 2 years and now I pretty much have to trash all knowledge. I’m going to finish my current project then immediately move to Godot just because I don’t feel like remaking the game from scratch. Such a shame but they did it to themselves. I don’t care if they backtracked, they clearly don’t have any trust
Nope, still nuked the company. This is exactly what I expected. They pull out an extreme change that everyone hates only so they can come do an apology tour with the actual deal they want and try to score brownie points by “listening.”
I think developers need to move from unity but also look at open source, OR developers need to unify and demand contractual changes that basically mean that once a contract is signed they can't change the rules.
Its too late. The damage is done. It wouldnt surprise me if the company loses all value due to their greed and hubris.
Unless that was the plan all along.
Too little too late. The trust was obliterated and the greedy, disgusting approach they clearly have in mind while that Riccitiello weasel stays at the helm won’t change
I think it is worth pointing out that investors might be suing management. The management sold shares before the announcement, as if they knew that it would cause issues. To me it would seem to be a case of using insider knowledge at the expense of existing investors.
This isn't a true apology and backtrack, this is what they were willing to settle for in the first place, they pushed the envelope as far as they could so that anything they asked for after would seem reasonable by comparison. Imagine if they'd started with "we want 2.5% of your revenue". People would be outraged. Do NOT let unity get away with this. This is NOT a reasonable demand and these are not reasonable conditions. They don't deserve dev trust and would burn the industry to the ground if it meant they'd make more profit.
Trust is gone. I'm learning both Unreal and Godot.
i feel like some devs will still go through with their actions as a show of trust being broken
Cant wait until Unity tries to get creative again
Yeah no I would prefer the runtime fee be completely removed. The only fixed half of the issues. Don’t let them get away.
The CEO would sell his own kids if it could make him a few bucks. The guys a scumbag. Hate people like him ruining companies reputations.
A truly fitting thumbnail to show how badly the gaming community and devs who use the engine whooped their asses.
I’m not going back - the trust was lost 💯
I'm glad they're going back on this, but the trust is already lost. Unity has absolutely destroyed their reputation and this won't fix it.
let's not be fooled -- there is no compromise to be made here. anything short of a complete backtrack and very outspoken and enacted promise to never do it again is unacceptable.
damage has been done lmfao. industry-wide switch to another engine incoming.
Lets ignore the damage already done, is this really any better. First the runtime fee is dumb in general and only making it apply to some tiers is dumb and doesn't solve the issues, as small teams could still be effected if they use Unity Pro. It also only applying to the upcoming versions of Unity isn't the generous move it looks like. You end up losing new features, and there is a greater security risk. Unity needs to just go back to what there where doing, this is only a half step.
With everything back to how it should be, I can now resume my experiments with the Unity Engine. All the same, the Unreal Engine was too big for my hard drive anyway. May not be the most stable option going forward, but I would rather not throw away what little progress I have. Plus, I can someday backport whatever I do manage to make to Wii U if Unity is used, something that's rather difficult to do in Unreal.
Best of luck, man
Maybe try Godot? Unless Wii U is super important to your project? I don't know man, I can't recommend anybody use unity anymore at this point
The only reason I can come up with someone sticking around with Unity is if someone is already in the process of making a game or if they just can't afford the time and money to learn how to use another engine. If they want to rebuild any credibility in the industry, they'll need to fire John Riccitiello and any of the other stuffed shirts who were dumb enough to think that this would be remotely acceptable. If they're too engrained in Unity to fire, Unity ain't worth touching.
So my takeaway from this is that Unity is getting away with it. Not unscathed, certainly, but the start of this mess was them effectively demanding a slice of everyone's profits, and they managed to pull back and soften the terms just enough to the point where a majority of developers are willing to swallow that pill.
I hate the future.
It's nice that there will be less of an impact to existing projects. Hopefully EVERYONE ditches it for any new projects. Burn it down and run these execs out of the industry.
Some saying this might have been deliberate do have a point. Create a terrible plan, announce a milder version and that seems like an improvement.
As an indie game dev, this news has made me comfortable enough to move forward with our current game we are making in Unity, but not enough to make me stick with Unity for future projects
Unpopular opinion, I think everyone should encourage the pro-consumer behavior, as bittersweet as it is. These public corporations are dumb as a box of bricks and so out of touch and removed from the actual consumer, that it's important that people suck it up and encourage this to train them like you'd be training a 2 year old what's right from wrong.
Having that Unity logo there was extremely bad for creators and seeing it gone is a real relief.
In any case, as a Unity developer for 7+ years full time, I'm focused on slowly migrating to creating my own 3D engine, mainly due to the always online and required authentication. Also, using Linux and something other than Visual Studio or VS Code. I don't like the idea of some day having some big greedy or evil public company being able to ban me from my own creations/inventions.
I think when Devs finish their current projects on the current engine version, they are going to move engines. Honestly I think think this would be the best thing for developers to do. Finish what you got in the pipeline, don't upgrade to the new engine, and start learning other engines and tools for your next project.
trust broken forever
I'm not really a developer, but I have had a bit of a pipe dream idea of a game I'd like to make for a while now, and while I don't have any knowledge of coding or game design on the nitty gritty level, I had before this just assumed I would use Unity to make it because that was the simple and obvious choice for someone like me with little coding knowledge. But this has, simultaneously, reinvigorated my idea to learn how to design games so I can make my ambitious idea happen someday, and also made me decide that there's no way in hell I'm going to use Unity anymore. I'm gonna learn Godot now, even if there's tradeoffs to using any prebaked engine and I might find out it's not ideal for what I'm trying to do, it'd at least be a place to start investigating things.
The simple truth is that, while the new terms are "better" in the most egregious ways, they're still not good in the long term, and there's little reason to trust them to not just boil the frog on us. It's good to hear that people on current versions of Unity in mid-development or who have already pushed their finished games won't have to worry about the install fees, but I guarantee very few people will bother to use the new version for new projects. And I'm just extremely uninterested in bothering to learn it at all now because, hey, there are other options. Who knows if I'll ever get anywhere - I'm rather busy with other life obligations. But yeah, nobody's buying any of Unity's spin, they'll have to do a ton more backtracking and restructuring before anybody trusts them again, if that ever happens.
$200k? You're forgetting smaller companies or indie developers can possibly make insane hit games which can go WELL beyond that cap. This isn't good still at all.
And no developer or companies in their right mind would want to work with a company that just showed it's greedy ass, and any business position of that company would want to minimize any risk of getting fucked over potentially in the future.
For me, an aspiring game developer, even with Unity backtracking they've still lost my trust. Personally, for the indie games I will make I'll look into Godot and possibly Unreal Engine, I won't ever be using Unity.
This is how they should have structured it in the first place. As an indie Unity dev of many years, I am heavily invested in the engine, so I will continue using it based on inertia. I feel like the freak out had some valid grievances, but was grossly overblown. Unity knows that the change would not have impacted 90% of their developers, like me, but it was incredibly stupid of them to make a change that would impact their biggest successes.
I feel like it's too little too late, after that whole "Runtime Fee" fiasco.
For all I know, people have moved on to either Unreal, or other engines (probably FOSS ones).
I would move on if I was a developer because you know if they don't feel the effects of this monetarily or get a new CEO, they'll be back with a new scheme sooner or later.
What does the white pillow with blue wording to the right of your squid pillow say? I can see “Gred tibe Sealy”
good vibes only
Out of curiosity, I started learning Unreal Engine and I'm having a ball. It's a steep learning curve from the simplicity of Unity, but I feel like I am using a serious game engine as apposed to a toy. Unity doesn't even make games with their own engines anymore. At least Unreal does. I also can't stand Unity's CEO. He reminds me of the character on South Park during the BP crisis. "We're sorry.. sorry... so sorry," over and over again. This is the second time they made a major boo boo under this CEO and had to kiss developer arse. He's just terrible.
Make no mistake, the real reason that the splash screen stating made in unity is allowed to be removed has nothing to do with the brand being tarnished and everything to do with unity doing everything in its power to prevent their name from being commonly public facing. That way, at least in the executive’s eyes and unfortunately it is very likely to actually happen, that the general public will have less exposure to the name and logo of unity and thus the scandal has a greater chance of fading from the public consciousness faster. It’s an ingeniously filthy tactic by executives to trick you into forgetting how badly they fucked up.
Yes, there is the obvious effect of not using that splash screen as a method of advertising but it’s a negligible loss in comparison to the gains they’d receive this way.
2:05 mayhaps I'm not looking at this from a more naive perspective, but I'm not sure how much the "not associating with our brand" was a part of the decision for removing the mandatory Made with Unity splash screen?
This is one of the advertised benefits with the Pro plan is being able to disable that splash screen, where as for Personal (free), it's there by requirement. For products trying to look professional, it looks a little dingy and cheap (they'd rather just credit Unity in some other form that more matches the product), but indie developers who are just trying to learn the engine or are just putting out something small for themselves and their friends won't really mind or care.
I think what this really is saying is that professional teams that fall under the new increased profit threshold can drop down to Personal and avoid the revenue share and fees, while still being able to turn off the tacky splash screen. That being said, I'm not really sure how many people/companies that increased threshold will really cover, so teams above that threshold aren't exactly gaining anything with these two specific changes, and people/teams below the old threshold just got something for free that would've otherwise cost them money to do... so it is still kind of a weird decision in my mind, but I'm not going to complain. (Personally, I'm still thinking about taking some time to learn Godot pretty soon...)
Somewhat good news, but the damage is already done in terms of turning people away from Unity, no one wants to live with the constant fear of not knowing whether or not the thing they're working with or is tied to their livelihood will suddenly, sporadically end up being much be much more costly and difficult to deal with.
It's like using TH-cam as a platform, in many ways.
Unity killed my faith in them with this. I don't even disagree with changing their revenue share. My issue was how overreaching they were. I don't even think what they wanted to do with retroactively targeting released products has a shred of legal backing. In fact, it's so over the top that ever since the news dropped I have been considering the notion that this was seriously an intentional gamble, creating this tense atmosphere, so they could "walk it back" and still get more out of its users while looking like they ceded to us. They even "went that extra mile" and removed the splash screen requirement. I just don't think they realized how much of a visceral reaction they'd get, and it got a lot more serious than they were anticipating.
No matter what they do at this point, the damage has already been done and will be shown in a short matter of time. The greed of that CEO just tanked a well-off company.
"People need to make money" In what world were they not. Christ.
I honestly never uninstalled Unity originally. Idk I was too used to the structure of how the editor worked and couldnt get used to any other engines. I tried a bit of Unreal though learning blueprints for the first time and the dabble was fun! :). I will never see myself ever using Godot. I use Unity for personal stuff tbh and dont even care about publishing my work. The personal plan for me is what I intend to stick with.
Regarding Godot though heard GDScript is pretty nice language so hope that whoever does make the switch to it enjoys the engine! Its very light weight which is great for portable use.
Why don't you see yourself using Godot?
Damn. Unity's taking a page out of Twitter's hide checkmark book.
Everyone should just use RE engine
This was their intention from the beginning. They announce a really crappy new policy so that they can announce a less crappy one so that people actually thank them for charging them more. The worst part is that (as always), is working. Saw it coming a mille away.
still disgusting imo. i started learning unity last year but i took a break last week when i heard about this mess, and now im thinking of just starting over with another engine
Godot welcomes you 🙏
I would not trust them!
Thank god…
Okay, sure but what are they installing on my PC that allows them to track those installs. Also hiding the logo is a fair bit shady, they're framing it as a boon to the indies but at the same time it can allow them to slide under the radar of those concerned about the whole situation. I don't think it's a great step obfuscating information like that from a game people are paying for.
I can't say I'm much happier with their half measures, but I'm glad the indies making stuff now aren't going to get slammed.
They reacted faster than Hasbro/WotC did with their D&D OGL mistake, and like with that some people will return. But they also burnt trust with many.
This is not enough, they have to get rid of the fee per install completely.
It has to be a full backtrack.
I'm happy about the updated pricing model. However, I'm not going to put my full faith in unity. It's clear we have to stay adaptable, so I'm going to learn Unreal Engine 5, and maybe even Godot down the line. No one should be reliant on a single engine or company.
Problem is that unity has lost so much respect of the gaming community as a whole. It's going to take a lot to regain trust.
What do you mean with 'gaming community' exactly?
If you mean consumers then it doesn't matter.
'Nobody' will boycott games, just because they were programmed in unity.
What's more important is the dev side of things.
If Unity lost a good amount of trust from devs then this will hurt more in the long run.
@@D2daICEhe means devs, not the people that play the games
@@ItsNothingAmazing
Then why say 'gaming community' and not 'devs' or 'developers'?
@@D2daICE he probably couldn't think of a better way to say it. Maybe English isn't his first language. I know what he's trying to say because I've seen so many people saying what he wrote, his message is almost a copy paste
I hope I'm not wrong about what he's trying to say. If he actually does mean 'the gaming community as a whole' then he's obviously not very smart. Most gamers don't care what engine the game is made in, they just care about how fun it is to play
Count how many times people said "Trust" in the comments.
Earning trust is definitely the final barrier, but the actions of not only taking the feedback and making better changes (especially for personal) can't be ignored. They're objectively positive and what I would expect if they wanted to build back trust. It's a little annoying that people can be so harsh when this is at least a right step forward, especially when I didn't even expect them to actually do that. It helps developers for the time being who are currently working on active Unity projects, especially because they can be assured for now that the new TOS does not apply to current versions of Unity now.
The CEO needs to go though.
I’ll never trust Unity as a company again. They have lost that and a minor apology will not change that.
I don't think I've ever seen the "Made in Unity" Screen. I only own Nintendo Consoles so maybe I just never played any games that use it? Then again there were rumours that BDSP used Unity but I haven't seen that there either.
yeah they were forced to do this, doesn't really matter. Getting rid of it wouldn't fix the trust. That would take Decades to recover.
This is no way a backtrack. They haven't come to their senses. Unless businesses and consumers push until Unity scraps the concept of runtime fees entirely, they will continue to pull this "egregious offer -> backlash -> 'backtrack' to the offer they wanted in the first place" stunt. Don't give them any credit, don't trust them. They don't care about anything but the bottom line.
I feel that it is possible for them to regain trust but it would require the removal of most if not all of the executives responsible, and even then it’ll be a serious uphill battle.
They’ve landed themselves well into the red in terms of trust and it’s going to take a lot serious action to get out of the negative
Come to their senses? They did no such thing. Unless a studio/team is too far along to switch, no one should use Unity. I’ve been developing in it for close to 15 years now and the decision to not look back is easy.
Correction: “Made in Unity” splash screen was always optional. Unreal has the mandatory one.
Edit: Looking into it, it was optional for Unity Plus, but not base Unity. Still, you weren’t able to tell just by the lack of a splash screen that the game engine wasn’t Unity.
Unreal does not mandate the logo. They do ask some aaa devs to show it but in no manner is it mandatory, especially not for indies.
@@lpnp9477 Ah, my professor was wrong then.
While it's great for some momentary peace of mind, I feel like, if I were a developer, I'd still want to get away from this engine as soon as possible, because this still set an uncomfortable precedent.
#FireJohnRiccitello
Paying royalties to a tool maker is nonsensical. Also what is meant by "revenue share"? Do they feel entitled to in-app purchases? I would never give them a cut of in-app purchases.
There are a number of things you have wrong, starting with the apology. An apology written by a middle manager is meaningless, full stop. Most of the "concessions"made in the license changes are clearly the result of actual lawyers fixing the initial ones, which *were not legal*. And the splash logo on personal? They have known for years through market research that it makes Unity look bad for the logo to primarily show up on one-off amateur projects, this is about protecting their brand.
Let's be real here, they tried to make changes that were actually in violation of contract then partially rolled back after universal backlash and are ready to throw a midget manager who had no decision-making power over this under the bus. This response should tell you they don't even care if they seem trustworthy.
ask a ridiculous sum, then 'reluctantly' settle for the sum you want! I'll continue making my worthless games in Godot and Monogame, and pray that if I ever do make a successful game on either, and they try this same, that someone forks them, and continues them (at least as they are, when/if that time comes).
The people who did this are still in charge, so how can you trust them?
What was the ultimate source of this issue? I'd be willing to bet on Shareholder demands or something. If that was the case, I can't help but wonder what the shareholders' reactions were during all this.
nah, is too late. The only real Unity backdown is for the EU to legislate
also the Class Action Lawsuit still needs to happen for all the damages they caused to Devs all over
also also, the Lawsuits from Nintendo & Microsoft for trying to screw them over
also also also, the 4 Chucklenuts in charge of Unity are still not arrested from their Insider trading
tl;dr no, this is far from over, & it shouldn't be over until Unity becomes such a smoldering crater every other Engine developer gets the fear of God put back into them, & stops trying to get away with this stupid nonsense
Did you do the English voice over in the recent Nintendo Direct? The voice over guy sounds like you.
Not at all dude
@@maegnificant odd, when I was watching the Direct I kept saying to myself "it sounds like Derrick"
@@EPS5000 It definitely does sound like him lol
Yes, unity is dead to me and that stupid ex EA ceo should be fired as fast as they can.
John Riccitiello needs to be fired he's a tumor in the gaming community
Well... too late LMAO🤣
R.I.P. Unity 🪦
Really?
Not touching Unity.