2y ago

Unity backtracks slightly on plans to charge developers for game installs

www.eurogamer.net

Game development engine Unity has U-turned on some parts of its hugely controversial plan to enforce fees on game creat…

Technology @lemmy.world

stopthatgirl7 @kbin.social

2y ago

Unity backtracks slightly on plans to charge developers for game installs

www.eurogamer.net /unity-backtracks-slightly-on-plans-to-charge-developers-for-game-installs

29 comments

Unity had made their plans clear. Whether they backtrack a bit now or not doesn't matter. We know what direction they are heading: squeeze more money out of indie devs
- The controlling shares of Unity are held by a trifecta of private equity and venture capital organizations. That’s why this is happening. It’s a classical presentation of the (short-term) profit über alles enshitification cycle.
  
  And seeing as how the CEO sold 2000 shares just days before this announcement, short-term profit really is all they’re in for.
- That's correct. Even with this backtrack, it's a safe bet that they'll likely re-introduce this same policy with different wording once they believe their consumers have calmed down.
- Yeah it's like knowing the foundation is structurally unsound and still deciding to build a house on it hoping it won't get worse. It will.
Not nearly enough though.
They're still exploiting their customers who've been developing products based on a completely different fiscal agreement; you can't just change engines after years of work.
- The worst isn't even people currently developing things - it's developers who already have released products. Imagine if you released something like, over the summer, for example. You've been paying the current revenue share, and will continue to do so until Jan. 1, then you'll start paying the per-install fee. So you're paying twice for the same customers' purchases.
  
  I really feel like they're going to lose a lawsuit on that.
  Unilateral contracts don't have unlimited power and "we can blanket change what we want to charge you on games already made" doesn't seem like it's going to be enforceable.
From games as a service we went to game engine as a service. What is the next step? C++ as a service?
- C++ rebranding as €++ 🤑
- Don’t give them ideas.
- There absolutely were non free language compilers at some point. If we hadn't had tjings like GCC, it'd be a different world.
  Just look at Apple, they always asked money for XCode.
- More like oxygen as a service at this rate
There’s no way they can stop install bombings. There’s gonna be something that they rely on that can be changed somehow, and even if they find a way to perfect it, how could any developer trust that it’s flawless?
This is bad even if everything did work and everything was flawless. They’ve wrecked their trust here.
- Unfortunately there's only unreal engine as an alternative...
  
  That’s not necessarily true. Lots of alternatives exist and Godot seems to be what all the cool kids are using now
  
  Godot is also an alternative and it's free/open source so no worries about the company completely changing how they charge you in the future and destroying all the work you have done for years.
  https://godotengine.org/
They’re idiots for this policy. You alienate your devs, you ruin your platform.
- Most businesses get ruined if you alienate your customers. The exception would be monopolies.

29 comments