Unity's Self-Combustion Engine(gamesindustry.biz)
gamesindustry.biz
Unity's Self-Combustion Engine
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/unitys-self-combustion-engine-this-week-in-business
159 comments
This part of the article needs a citation. Unity has been setting money on fire, but it hasn't been buying a market advantage. It's been burning money on highly, highly, highly questionable (at best) acquisitions like buying Weta and Iron Source as well an insane hiring spree and then paying those people for years for work and churn that Unity never actually manages to ship in the engine.
The other elephant in the room is that the owner of Unity's main competitor is quite a bit larger than it is. I can't say that anything Unity buys would give it a market advantage.
Second place and the niche for mobile which is lucrative and ‘XR’ which isn’t but could be isn’t too much to sniff at. I think it’s a mistake to think a healthy market is two companies or that the only thing spending buys is absolute dominance.
I don't disagree. Please don't take my statement as a defense of Unity. The intended implication was, "A market sans Unity is not a robust and competitive space, it's Unreal as a monopoly."
I don't know if there are many other options for mobile, but for XR (in this phase where UX norms are being hashed out), I really hope that people look beyond the two, and even dark horse Apple, to what Snap is doing. Even further: look at what people are doing with Dreams on the PS4/PS5 (https://twitter.com/MartinNebelong).
Part of why this hurts is that we let ourselves be taken in by a singular platform... again. Maybe standards with plenty of authoring options instead of cottage industries, next time.
I don't know if there are many other options for mobile, but for XR (in this phase where UX norms are being hashed out), I really hope that people look beyond the two, and even dark horse Apple, to what Snap is doing. Even further: look at what people are doing with Dreams on the PS4/PS5 (https://twitter.com/MartinNebelong).
Part of why this hurts is that we let ourselves be taken in by a singular platform... again. Maybe standards with plenty of authoring options instead of cottage industries, next time.
Unreal isn’t anywhere close to monopoly space. Especially not in mobile
Mostly because Unity exists.
Cryengine, lumberjack, godot..
They are trying to buy market advantage for their Iron Source acquisition - if you agree to use it then the per download fee's magically go away.
Uber isn't a good example. They came up with a business model that literally required customers to get into strangers' cars. Eighteen nanoseconds later, the taxi industry was dead.
There is no other possible conclusion to draw, except that the taxi industry had it coming.
Fast-forward to today. The venture capital has long since run out. Taking an Uber costs at least as much as the taxis ever did. Yet, do you foresee any way for the taxi industry to make a comeback, except by holding the rest of us at gunpoint?
There is no other possible conclusion to draw, except that the taxi industry had it coming.
Fast-forward to today. The venture capital has long since run out. Taking an Uber costs at least as much as the taxis ever did. Yet, do you foresee any way for the taxi industry to make a comeback, except by holding the rest of us at gunpoint?
That’s a decent amount of revisionism.
Uber used VC money to heavily undercut the taxi rates, heavily inflate driver pay and decided to speedrun breaking as many laws as possible
As for getting into strangers’ cars, getting in a taxi is no different.
Do you think Uber was able to become as ubiquitous as it is if it didn’t heavily subsidize both sides of the equation and abide by the laws?
I doubt it.
Like you aptly describe now the fares as on par if not more than taxis, because now that they’ve attained dominance over the market by burning VC money, they can squeeze the customers and drivers alike. I’m not even sure if they’re turning a profit yet.
Uber used VC money to heavily undercut the taxi rates, heavily inflate driver pay and decided to speedrun breaking as many laws as possible
As for getting into strangers’ cars, getting in a taxi is no different.
Do you think Uber was able to become as ubiquitous as it is if it didn’t heavily subsidize both sides of the equation and abide by the laws?
I doubt it.
Like you aptly describe now the fares as on par if not more than taxis, because now that they’ve attained dominance over the market by burning VC money, they can squeeze the customers and drivers alike. I’m not even sure if they’re turning a profit yet.
> I’m not even sure if they’re turning a profit yet.
Uber recorded its first ever operating profit last quarter:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/qai/2023/08/02/uber-just-report...
Uber recorded its first ever operating profit last quarter:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/qai/2023/08/02/uber-just-report...
Is it legit profits?
Iirc Uber had some creative accounting practices in the past offsetting loses from one quarter to another, and making a single quarter look good.
Iirc Uber had some creative accounting practices in the past offsetting loses from one quarter to another, and making a single quarter look good.
No idea. I don't really keep track of Uber at all, I just happened to remember their recent announcement about it.
> now that they’ve attained dominance over the market by burning VC money, they can squeeze the customers and drivers alike
Lyft still exists. To say nothing of local upstarts, like Revel in New York.
Lyft still exists. To say nothing of local upstarts, like Revel in New York.
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I suspect it's still cheaper than Taxis would have been without it existing especially counting for inflation.
But then, the biggest issue being solved wasn't price it was availability. You could call for a Taxi at a craft-beer pub in Texas in 2010 and it was a crap shoot the thing ever arrived or if it did maybe an hour later.
But then, the biggest issue being solved wasn't price it was availability. You could call for a Taxi at a craft-beer pub in Texas in 2010 and it was a crap shoot the thing ever arrived or if it did maybe an hour later.
"Getting in a stranger's car" also describes taking a regular taxi...
In New York getting a Taxi Medallion took essentially getting a mortgage.
It's like picking up food at a restaurant vs some random guys house: technically they're both strangers, there's no guarantee the restaurant is clean either... but only one is a stranger to serving customers food.
It's like picking up food at a restaurant vs some random guys house: technically they're both strangers, there's no guarantee the restaurant is clean either... but only one is a stranger to serving customers food.
Most didn’t own their own medallion, but were employed by large companies that owned them.
No, most were owned by individuals and financed by PE.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/nyregion/nyc-taxis-medall...
> Instead of lending directly, the big banks worked through powerful industry players. They enlisted large fleet owners and brokers — especially Neil Greenbaum, Richard Chipman, Savas Konstantinides, Roman Sapino and Basil Messados — to use the banks’ money to lend to medallion buyers. In return, the owners and brokers received a cut of the monthly payments and sometimes an additional fee.
The big players knew what was happening, they exploited individual drivers to quickly offload their liability. They weren't directly exposing themselves to the risk.
When prices collapsed PE swooped in and bought them outright.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/nyregion/nyc-taxis-medall...
> Instead of lending directly, the big banks worked through powerful industry players. They enlisted large fleet owners and brokers — especially Neil Greenbaum, Richard Chipman, Savas Konstantinides, Roman Sapino and Basil Messados — to use the banks’ money to lend to medallion buyers. In return, the owners and brokers received a cut of the monthly payments and sometimes an additional fee.
The big players knew what was happening, they exploited individual drivers to quickly offload their liability. They weren't directly exposing themselves to the risk.
When prices collapsed PE swooped in and bought them outright.
In 2012 only 18% of Medallions were owner-operated.
https://slate.com/business/2012/06/taxi-medallions-how-new-y...
https://slate.com/business/2012/06/taxi-medallions-how-new-y...
> putting most medallions in the hands of big taxi fleets or brokers who simply rent them out.
https://www.nyc.gov/site/tlc/businesses/brokers.page
Brokers can't rent: only "leasing" (on an asset they didn't own) and financing both with regular payments, an interest rate, and forfeiture if you don't pay in time, just like a mortgage.
https://www.nyc.gov/site/tlc/businesses/brokers.page
Brokers can't rent: only "leasing" (on an asset they didn't own) and financing both with regular payments, an interest rate, and forfeiture if you don't pay in time, just like a mortgage.
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I'd argue the opposite, in terms of safety. Rapes and sexual violence were (anecdotally) way more common back in the taxi days.
Whether or not there's data to back that up, Taxi's also existed for about a century prior to smartphones, which are a great deterrent to victimizing strangers from your car.
Taxi regulation, let alone the prohibitively priced licenses people are referring to elsethread, are a much more recent development from what I understand.
> Yet, do you foresee any way for the taxi industry to make a comeback
Since the taxi industry is far from dead in a whole lot of places, absolutely. In my city, taxis offer a superior experience to ride-sharing companies and they're doing just fine. Uber and Lyft aren't grabbing much market share from them. I've been in many other cities where the story is the same.
Since the taxi industry is far from dead in a whole lot of places, absolutely. In my city, taxis offer a superior experience to ride-sharing companies and they're doing just fine. Uber and Lyft aren't grabbing much market share from them. I've been in many other cities where the story is the same.
When Uber started it was black cars only. Very, very different experience.
The immediate follow up question is can corporate support of open source projects count as product dumping?
We live in very interesting times while all this unravels.
We live in very interesting times while all this unravels.
> The immediate follow up question is can corporate support of open source projects count as product dumping?
For what it's worth, I'd classify true open source as the only exception to anti-dumping laws. If you want to burn money to fuck over everyone else, give up your competitive advantage.
For what it's worth, I'd classify true open source as the only exception to anti-dumping laws. If you want to burn money to fuck over everyone else, give up your competitive advantage.
> The immediate follow up question is can corporate support of open source projects count as product dumping?
It can when the competitors are dead, and the patron yanks all funding and support from the project.
I can't imagine trying to prove that in court though.
It can when the competitors are dead, and the patron yanks all funding and support from the project.
I can't imagine trying to prove that in court though.
They have won "market share" I'm not sure exactly which competitors they've undercut in the process? Are there any examples of a legitimate competitor that failed because they couldn't compete on price?
Everybody points to uber but uber won against taxis because they had an app and taxis had a phone number that often wouldn't even accept a downtown cross st.
As a seattlite who got tired of hunting for a building that still had a street number just to get a cab on 5th and Jackson or what ever I'm glad uber killed taxis
As a seattlite who got tired of hunting for a building that still had a street number just to get a cab on 5th and Jackson or what ever I'm glad uber killed taxis
This is exactly it.
It would be like if no pizza place had mobile ordering and a new one started that had it; that was the killer feature.
Everything else (I personally believe) was hyped up by Uber so that the taxis wouldn't realize what the real competitor was until too late.
Now there may be taxi hailing apps, but nobody knows the name of them, and they're different for every city.
It would be like if no pizza place had mobile ordering and a new one started that had it; that was the killer feature.
Everything else (I personally believe) was hyped up by Uber so that the taxis wouldn't realize what the real competitor was until too late.
Now there may be taxi hailing apps, but nobody knows the name of them, and they're different for every city.
In Austin ~2012-ish, we had Austin Cab.
It had an app. It was like Uber, but worse in every way you can possibly imagine and outrageously priced.
I don't like an Uber monopoly either, but it doesn't mean the status quo was better before.
It had an app. It was like Uber, but worse in every way you can possibly imagine and outrageously priced.
I don't like an Uber monopoly either, but it doesn't mean the status quo was better before.
Because of ZIRP, there's an entire generation of business leaders that have mastered raising money but have no idea how to make it. Expect to see many more own goals like this in the next few years as they try to figure out how.
This.
Also, this entire generation has no problems speaking about what make them successful, writing books/blogs about business, being keynote speakers etc when they would never be able to build a single business without massive financing. This is changing American entrepreneurship for the worse - in the past, the stories used to be all about someone starting a small business with no or limited seed money and slowly building an empire from scratch.
Also, this entire generation has no problems speaking about what make them successful, writing books/blogs about business, being keynote speakers etc when they would never be able to build a single business without massive financing. This is changing American entrepreneurship for the worse - in the past, the stories used to be all about someone starting a small business with no or limited seed money and slowly building an empire from scratch.
My concern here is that we've run out of low hanging fruit that can be managed by small teams.
Everything is so exceptionally complex these days I just don't think it's feasible to bootstrap an innovative business from your garage.
Everything is so exceptionally complex these days I just don't think it's feasible to bootstrap an innovative business from your garage.
If anything, I think it's easier than ever to bootstrap your own business. The entry-cost is so low and risks are almost zero.
Seems rife for a new generation of immigrants to sweep in and get shit done.
Why do they need to be immigrants?
So they can sweep in.
If your culture is broken import some new bits. We ain’t a Melting Pot for nothing.
I feel like this applies to consumers too. We have a whole generation of people that don’t want to pay for anything (speaking generally, not just Unity related). People are building their businesses using tools that are free/near-free and that are losing vast sums of money. It’s created a broken market both from the supply and demand sides and it’s why businesses are having to resort to subscriptions. Almost none of the people using Photoshop would pay $1000 for it every time a new major update comes out, even though they use it daily in their business and generate their income from it.
This is just reality though. I know it really feels "wrong" that money was so cheap for so long, but in all likelihood, interest rates will return to close-to-zero in the long run precisely for the factors you call out.
Business investments are now overwhelmingly software; it doesn't take massive infusions of capital to make your business more efficient, because efficiency gains are achieved through acquiring a copy of an infinite resource -- software.
Sure software vendors can create artificial scarcity through licensing fees, but competitive market pressures will keep those down, and the floor of software fees is very low. As a result there has been less demand for money than there has been in the past. Hence lower interest rates. (Aging populations and slowing population growth also drive interest rates down.)
In other words, cheap money is an implication of the software-driven world we live in, not some sort of moral failing. It's not the result of policymakers doing something with punchbowls to prop up governments or whatever dumb metaphor gets thrown around.
Business investments are now overwhelmingly software; it doesn't take massive infusions of capital to make your business more efficient, because efficiency gains are achieved through acquiring a copy of an infinite resource -- software.
Sure software vendors can create artificial scarcity through licensing fees, but competitive market pressures will keep those down, and the floor of software fees is very low. As a result there has been less demand for money than there has been in the past. Hence lower interest rates. (Aging populations and slowing population growth also drive interest rates down.)
In other words, cheap money is an implication of the software-driven world we live in, not some sort of moral failing. It's not the result of policymakers doing something with punchbowls to prop up governments or whatever dumb metaphor gets thrown around.
Let the wars begin:
- Unity itself can hire dark botnets to beef up their profits at any time
- game developers need to start selling with the caveat "5 re-installs included" and of course you change the price to over-sell how many installs the average person does
- game developers are now incentivized to make huge huge huge game downloads for no good reason other than to make people think twice about uninstalling and reinstalling later since it takes so long
- steam and game distribution platforms now need to start limiting re-installs and downloads for everyone, more complexity, more hassle, more bugs
- everyone needs to start running whitelist firewalls again, since automatic private data exfiltration is getting so out of control we need to block all internet access by default now
- Unity itself can hire dark botnets to beef up their profits at any time
- game developers need to start selling with the caveat "5 re-installs included" and of course you change the price to over-sell how many installs the average person does
- game developers are now incentivized to make huge huge huge game downloads for no good reason other than to make people think twice about uninstalling and reinstalling later since it takes so long
- steam and game distribution platforms now need to start limiting re-installs and downloads for everyone, more complexity, more hassle, more bugs
- everyone needs to start running whitelist firewalls again, since automatic private data exfiltration is getting so out of control we need to block all internet access by default now
This exactly (minus the huge downloads, no point). If they were successful with their “trust us, we can magically figure out number of installs” game; the incentives of the entire industry would be reconfigured to the 2000s of EA downloader expiring your purchase after 5 installs.
We can thank the heavens for Steam to murder that in its crib and we can hope they, still privately owned, won’t be tempted by the ultimate sin here.
We can thank the heavens for Steam to murder that in its crib and we can hope they, still privately owned, won’t be tempted by the ultimate sin here.
2023 has really been the year of established companies self-immolating in the name of more money. Is this the result of some new business strategy being pushed to high level execs? Or has the idiocracy produced by failing upwards finally come home to roost?
End of ZIRP is making them all suddenly have to actually make money instead of relying on loans and investments. Unfortunately two decades of ZIRP means that none of the current leadership knows how to make money.
Companies have been self-immolating for short term gains since basically forever, so that is nothing new. Raising interest rates have definitely pushed some long-term money losers over the edge though. Rather than subsisting on ever more funding rounds they now need to figure out how to make money out of their huge "free tier" subscriber base and the quickest way is to start charging them money. Predictably, the people who formerly got valuable stuff for free are not fans of this idea.
I think it would make more sense to take a cut of the revenue when a game is sold, as that is easier to calculate for the developers. I can understand why they chose installs though as that's easier to measure for them and they would need to trust developers with their revenue numbers as they don't own the distribution platform like e.g. Apple does, but honestly they could've just used the installation rate as a sanity check for the license numbers reported by developers.
As a game developer I would be very wary about signing such a contract as I'm sure these metrics can be easily gamed, so anyone with enough malicious intent could probably install-bomb my game and rack up large charges for me, and in the end I would be responsible for proving that those installs were malicious (which I imagine could be quite difficult).
As a game developer I would be very wary about signing such a contract as I'm sure these metrics can be easily gamed, so anyone with enough malicious intent could probably install-bomb my game and rack up large charges for me, and in the end I would be responsible for proving that those installs were malicious (which I imagine could be quite difficult).
Like, you better not make a good game that is installed more than once.
Pay-per-install seems like a really bad way to charge dev costumers by. E.g. a nice long lived game will be charged way more than shovelware, due to users reinstalling when they buy new machines.
Pay-per-install seems like a really bad way to charge dev costumers by. E.g. a nice long lived game will be charged way more than shovelware, due to users reinstalling when they buy new machines.
I've installed Deus Ex probably 30+ times since I first played it at launch. Hell, sometimes I'll install it, decide not to play it, uninstall it, then reinstall it a week later. I've reinstalled it like three times this month because I can't decide whether I feel like replaying it or not. That would basically mean over 10% of the game's original full price going towards Unity with ongoing costs in perpetuity. That's without distribution (whether brick and mortar or Steam) and other costs, and without the developer further monetizing the game off of me.
That's absurd.
That's absurd.
Presumable only one install per unique device counts. At least that's what they say.
Not that they even seem to know at this point how will the install be even tracked....
Not that they even seem to know at this point how will the install be even tracked....
Anybody who believes anything they say now is a fool. Every developer would have to go out of their way to track the same thing Unity is tracking to ensure that Unity isn't literally lying to them about how many installs and how much is owed. Again, in perpetuity. This is again additional cost and effort for every single developer on top of all other costs.
Quite simply, it's a completely unbounded cost for an indefinite amount of time.
It is fucking absurd.
Quite simply, it's a completely unbounded cost for an indefinite amount of time.
It is fucking absurd.
> This is again additional cost and effort for every single developer on top of all other costs.
Presumably pretty much all developers already do that (F2P games are filled to the brim with analytics) and paid game developers can use the number of purchases as a proxy (and presumably also end up paying for every install of a pirated version..).
I still don't quite understand how is this legal in Europe for instance? Mandatory telemetry which neither the developer or end use can disable and which phones private user data to a third party (outside the EU presumably) which is not necessary for the product to function must surely be illegal?
If so Unity's management can't be that stupid to now know this?
Presumably pretty much all developers already do that (F2P games are filled to the brim with analytics) and paid game developers can use the number of purchases as a proxy (and presumably also end up paying for every install of a pirated version..).
I still don't quite understand how is this legal in Europe for instance? Mandatory telemetry which neither the developer or end use can disable and which phones private user data to a third party (outside the EU presumably) which is not necessary for the product to function must surely be illegal?
If so Unity's management can't be that stupid to now know this?
> I can understand why they chose installs though as that's easier to measure for them
How is it easier to measure? Bundles, sales, re-installs, charity events, Game Pass... There are a million ways to install a game.
How is it easier to measure? Bundles, sales, re-installs, charity events, Game Pass... There are a million ways to install a game.
The Unity runtime phones home.
It does not. They may have plans but you can run wireshark and see it does not, at least for games bought on GoG
Maybe, but Unity said it doesn't need to for them to "estimate" an install number.
My theory is that newer installers will troll the registry and try to phone home about anything you did.. That’s the only way you could roll this out without the capabilities for tracking in most present games.
at least on windows.
at least on windows.
It doesn't always phone home, that's the thing, a lot of people assume that's the case and that every games built using their engine since the beginning does it but that's not the case.
The way they calculate the installs is not base on that, well unless you enabled Unity Analytics of course, but that's not the case on every games and they are going for every games ever made by their engine.
The way they calculate the installs is not base on that, well unless you enabled Unity Analytics of course, but that's not the case on every games and they are going for every games ever made by their engine.
I think it would be even easier to charge for tiers of software instead of the rent-seeking until the end of time.
As you can see, they have promised they would not take a cut of the revenue, as well as specified in their license that you would not have to accept the new license as long as you used an old version. Then changed the license and are now claiming that you can't do that.
Isn't that grounds for a lawsuit?
You would think so, but maybe not in the USA ?!?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37527060
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37527060
This would not allow them to monitize free2play games.
Install tracking is impossible. Especially unique install tracking.
How long until someone weaponises the 'installs' to bankrupt competitors? I can see this happening in the already somewhat scummy free-to-play market.
People used to pay less-than-reputable businesses for services that would spam ad clicks on competitor's search ads, draining their advertising budgets. So I could definitely see the same "services" for installs.
Anyone who knows what’s going on in the Minecraft server scene knows it won’t even need competitors for that..
There is so much wrong here:
- “Trust us we figured our install measurements” is insane. We all worked on this for decades, it’s a dilemma with multiple axes, one being piracy.
- Everyone in games for a decade or so has been in a company that’s been screwed by publishers or partners on sales. Developers embraced unique activation keys and master servers to stop publisher fraud at least as much as as an anti consumer piracy measure.
- The only tradeoff to install transparency is surveillance and tracking which trades off against piracy. Most developers are not interested in pushing boundaries there.
Trust us with a company that now has broken every single promise they have made… I don’t think so
There is so much wrong here:
- “Trust us we figured our install measurements” is insane. We all worked on this for decades, it’s a dilemma with multiple axes, one being piracy.
- Everyone in games for a decade or so has been in a company that’s been screwed by publishers or partners on sales. Developers embraced unique activation keys and master servers to stop publisher fraud at least as much as as an anti consumer piracy measure.
- The only tradeoff to install transparency is surveillance and tracking which trades off against piracy. Most developers are not interested in pushing boundaries there.
Trust us with a company that now has broken every single promise they have made… I don’t think so
Not even competitors. When you talk about games, even jilted fans are a liability.
They clarified it will only be initial installs. Depending on how they’re uniquely identifying that, I guess it could still be gamed though.
> They clarified
They backtracked.
https://www.axios.com/2023/09/13/unity-runtime-fee-policy-ma...
> After initially telling Axios earlier Tuesday that a player installing a game, deleting it and installing it again would result in multiple fees, Unity's Whitten told Axios that the company would actually only charge for an initial installation. (A spokesperson told Axios that Unity had "regrouped" to discuss the issue.)
This is an important distiction.
They backtracked.
https://www.axios.com/2023/09/13/unity-runtime-fee-policy-ma...
> After initially telling Axios earlier Tuesday that a player installing a game, deleting it and installing it again would result in multiple fees, Unity's Whitten told Axios that the company would actually only charge for an initial installation. (A spokesperson told Axios that Unity had "regrouped" to discuss the issue.)
This is an important distiction.
There's absolutely zero chance that Unity can track such a thing precisely. To say nothing of their handwavey "proprietary data model" that uses nothing more than vibes to determine how much a developer is on the hook for. It's all corpo-speak nonsense from a clueless CEO who has no idea what he's doing.
"We'll bill you how much we feel like and offer no way to reliably measure or control it yourself."
You can script a VM that looks different enough each time (e.g. change a Mac address) and install the software. Over and over.
I'm sure an enterprising hacker will figure out the http endpoint that gets hit at the end of the install, so you can just rub a script instead of actually installing the game multiple times.
Wouldn't be surprised to see people DDOS that endpoint.
And gamers are fucked enough in the head to actually do stuff like this.
That's still potentially disastrous for free-to-play games, or games that get pirated a lot.
Unity has no incentive to solve this. They’ll push it onto developers to provide a deduplication in a clumsy process after they’ve already been billed for the month
This is immediately what I thought of when I heard it.
Worse, apparently reinstalling a game also charges the developer.
Worse, apparently reinstalling a game also charges the developer.
Do you really think Unity will allow one of its customers to bankrupt itself? That doesn't benefit Unity at all.
I'm not sure that "is this in Unity's interest" is still a reasonable way to judge whether Unity will do something.
This is a bit naive. Lots of customers of unity have gone bankrupt. Did they retroactively waive the $2000/seat yearly pro subscription (5k for enterprise) or any other fees for those companies? Of course not.
That doesn’t seem to bother all the other businesses out there who are also the moderators of abuse within their own domain. Such as ad networks who include bots with their page impression statistics.
There's really no way for them to recover the lost trust. Even if they backtrack everything the mistrust will be there. The only way out in the end might be to open source the engine.
> There's really no way for them to recover the lost trust.
As many have discovered throughout the years, Companies don't need "trust" to be profitable
Ubisoft has been a laughing stock for a decade, EA still holds the record for lowest rated reddit comment (feel your pride and accomplishment), and "it just works" in Bethesda world
As many have discovered throughout the years, Companies don't need "trust" to be profitable
Ubisoft has been a laughing stock for a decade, EA still holds the record for lowest rated reddit comment (feel your pride and accomplishment), and "it just works" in Bethesda world
Bethesda you know what you are buying into, and at least, it is a simple transaction.
You know the game will run like ^$^@% for a while, if not for good.. You know the modders will fix it, and smart folks will wait for the sales on their titles, because by the time they go on sale, they'll be well supported by mods, and less buggy.
So.. I'd keep them clear of the other sleazoids ;).
You know the game will run like ^$^@% for a while, if not for good.. You know the modders will fix it, and smart folks will wait for the sales on their titles, because by the time they go on sale, they'll be well supported by mods, and less buggy.
So.. I'd keep them clear of the other sleazoids ;).
I see the sentiment a lot, but its not really that simple.
- The majority of BGS players plays without the unnofficial patch, much less other mods to fix the game.
- In exchange for all that I feel you got masterful worldbuilding and some gem side quests to discover, but I think that factor is diminishing over time. The writing in Starfield, in particular, is really bad, and it doesn't seem like the little gems are sprinkled with enough frequency to make up for it. And there is no excuse of "this was a rushed lemon MMO side project" like 76, Starfield is supposed to be BGS at their best.
- This kind of exchange is not unique anymore, as BGS is no longer the only giga action RPG on the block. You could say the same thing about ME Andromeda and Asscreed Odyssey, for instance, but I feel the filler/reward ratio is much higher in those games.
- The majority of BGS players plays without the unnofficial patch, much less other mods to fix the game.
- In exchange for all that I feel you got masterful worldbuilding and some gem side quests to discover, but I think that factor is diminishing over time. The writing in Starfield, in particular, is really bad, and it doesn't seem like the little gems are sprinkled with enough frequency to make up for it. And there is no excuse of "this was a rushed lemon MMO side project" like 76, Starfield is supposed to be BGS at their best.
- This kind of exchange is not unique anymore, as BGS is no longer the only giga action RPG on the block. You could say the same thing about ME Andromeda and Asscreed Odyssey, for instance, but I feel the filler/reward ratio is much higher in those games.
Personally, I enjoy CP2077, and the mods there at least as much as FO4.
Once again, it is knowing what you are buying into to.
I held off on Starfield. After hearing about some of the clusterfsck that the development had been... I hope it has a redemption arc.
Once again, it is knowing what you are buying into to.
I held off on Starfield. After hearing about some of the clusterfsck that the development had been... I hope it has a redemption arc.
gamers can't boycott, that's true
Unity's clients aren't gamers, they're businesses
you'd have to be insane to build a business on unity now
Unity's clients aren't gamers, they're businesses
you'd have to be insane to build a business on unity now
^
Businesses and even solo developers look at their options much more closely. They aren't buying a few hours of fun, they are choosing the vector for their livelihood.
Businesses and even solo developers look at their options much more closely. They aren't buying a few hours of fun, they are choosing the vector for their livelihood.
That's because it's not the consumers who are the ones who hold the power, it's the labor force. If you're a conscientious engineer working as a game dev for EA or Ubisoft, you should reconsider your options. It's likely there are plenty of options for one of your caliber.
Honestly, I think it's a vocal minority of people who shit on Ubisoft, EA, Activision etc.
The average person either doesn't know who they are or recognises them as the company that made some prior game they enjoy.
The average person either doesn't know who they are or recognises them as the company that made some prior game they enjoy.
I don't think that would solve it for them at all. They'll still want to lock you in with their services and whatnot. Besides, they probably don't have the rights to open source the engine.
They should just cap their take at "up to 5% rev share". At least at that point there's no worry about runaway costs.
They should just cap their take at "up to 5% rev share". At least at that point there's no worry about runaway costs.
> The only way out in the end might be to open source the engine.
The problem for unity is that it costs a ton of money to develop the engine and not enough people pay them for it. Open sourcing the engine does not help with that problem and might even make it worse.
The problem for unity is that it costs a ton of money to develop the engine and not enough people pay them for it. Open sourcing the engine does not help with that problem and might even make it worse.
> The only way out in the end might be to open source the engine.
Do you have faith they know to monetize an open source engine? Wouldn't that actually expedite the fall in their case?
Do you have faith they know to monetize an open source engine? Wouldn't that actually expedite the fall in their case?
You're probably right, but when I put myself in the game developer's shoes I can't think of any other way for me to touch Unity again.
[deleted]
No one has mentioned Apple yet. Unity is Apple's exclusive partner on Vision Pro (for now at least). I can't see Apple being especially thrilled with this.
I hope this leads to a fire sale. Maybe Apple could buy Unity and make it free, period, just to encourage Mac and Vision development.
(edit: and iOS! Lol I always forget mobile gaming is a thing. Facepalm.)
(edit: and iOS! Lol I always forget mobile gaming is a thing. Facepalm.)
If apple buy unity the last thing I see them do is make it open source.
I can see them make it apple exclusive and more integrated to the apple ecosystem though.
I can see them make it apple exclusive and more integrated to the apple ecosystem though.
Open source is indeed unlikely, but there's a very good chance they'd make it free or inexpensive relative to competitors. Plenty of precedent for that in the video editing tools they've bought and turned first-party.
They might not kill off cross-platform support this time, though. Today's Apple maintains true native (not just "port half of the Mac/iOS userland" native) Android and Windows apps.
They might not kill off cross-platform support this time, though. Today's Apple maintains true native (not just "port half of the Mac/iOS userland" native) Android and Windows apps.
My pipe dream would be Valve buying unity, being a private company they would not have to deal with pressure from shareholders and they have a good track record with developers and customers.
But they already have their own Source game engine so no point in them doing that.
But they already have their own Source game engine so no point in them doing that.
Microsoft is honestly a better fit given Unity's C# roots and Visual Studio integration. But I find it hard to imagine Microsoft being all that interested in Unity these days. They're already attracting intense antitrust scrutiny vis-a-vis their attempted Activision-Blizzard acquisition.
Given the ubiquity of tech debt in Unity I could see Apple maintaining support for the current C# version for the time being and in the long term, replacing it with a full rewrite based around Swift with a temporary C# compatibility layer to pull the ecosystem through the migration, which wouldn't be everybody's cup of tea but could be interesting.
That's a really interesting idea.
I'm pretty sure the Blizivison acquisition went through in both the US and EU. Microsoft's not really a huge player in gaming; Xbox and Windows combined are still tiny compared to the other consoles and mobile platforms. And if they use a similar playbook like they did with the acquisition (promising cross platform compatibility for a decade or so), they honestly wouldn't be the worst stewards.
Today's Microsoft is kinda slow and boring, but that's probably the kind of business you want managing a game engine. Reliable, stable to the point of being stale, but reliable. No sudden surprises that give you 3 months to reinvent your last five years of work.
I'm pretty sure the Blizivison acquisition went through in both the US and EU. Microsoft's not really a huge player in gaming; Xbox and Windows combined are still tiny compared to the other consoles and mobile platforms. And if they use a similar playbook like they did with the acquisition (promising cross platform compatibility for a decade or so), they honestly wouldn't be the worst stewards.
Today's Microsoft is kinda slow and boring, but that's probably the kind of business you want managing a game engine. Reliable, stable to the point of being stale, but reliable. No sudden surprises that give you 3 months to reinvent your last five years of work.
That would be quite something. Perhaps this would also result in Unity's ad business being shuttered or at least sanitized, similar to how Shazam shed all of its third party tracking junk after Apple bought it.
If Apple buys it, it'll quickly head down the path of exclusivity. They'll find some "security" excuse for it that'll be enough for their reality distortion field to do its thing.
Is there such a thing as an Apple exclusive game? I can't imagine a developer would want to cut off like 90% of the market from being able to play their title.
(I think there are a few on Apple Arcade, but I always assumed those were sponsored exclusives?)
(I think there are a few on Apple Arcade, but I always assumed those were sponsored exclusives?)
There used to be some indie Mac (and later iOS) only game studios like Pangea Software (makers of Nanosaur, Bugdom, Otto-Matic, and Enigmo among others) but I'm not sure how many of those are still around.
As far as bigger studios go, Bungie was a Mac studio until Microsoft scooped them up to turn Halo Xbox-exclusive instead.
As far as bigger studios go, Bungie was a Mac studio until Microsoft scooped them up to turn Halo Xbox-exclusive instead.
The issue is not an apple exclusive game, it's that they will make the Unity developer experience apple only.
How could that work? Even the M2 Ultra isn't nearly as powerful an actual desktop GPU, much less workstation or data center cards. And devs will need to be able to test on Windows machines.
There used to be plenty of iOS exclusives.
But if you are talking OSX exclusive, yeah, that would be kinda insane.
But if you are talking OSX exclusive, yeah, that would be kinda insane.
To be fair - Unity did start on OS X and was very early on iOS!
I make WebGL multiplayer games using Unity.
The original changes essentially shut me down.
Yesterday, I just found out Unity has changed their definition to exempt WebGL games: a partial relief. I have little confidence Unity will stick to their plans.
In between I evaluated all the alternatives to Unity specifically about WebGL players.
unfortunately WebGL is either impossible or crippled in other engines, frameworks. Further, other engines are like MS Paint versus Unity who would be Adobe Creative Cloud.
Here is my WebGL summary:
Godot uses Node trees instead of Entity Component. Porting Unity scripts almost impossible because of this amongst other reasons. Attempts to weld Entity Component only supported on Godot 4 but….
Godot 4+ WebGL does not work on Mac with no plans to change. Godot is waiting for Chrome to fix something, no comment on Safari, FF, others. One forum poster doing Godot WebGL export noticed that the Empty Scene WebGL export of Godot is 17MB versus 4MB for Unity.
Unreal 5 does not export to WebGL. However you can use UE 4
UE4 WebGL is not much discussed and the pieces you can find imply the output size, and thus customer download time, is significantly larger than Unity’s
Stride does not export to WebGL.
So UE4 seemed the only other option
The original changes essentially shut me down.
Yesterday, I just found out Unity has changed their definition to exempt WebGL games: a partial relief. I have little confidence Unity will stick to their plans.
In between I evaluated all the alternatives to Unity specifically about WebGL players.
unfortunately WebGL is either impossible or crippled in other engines, frameworks. Further, other engines are like MS Paint versus Unity who would be Adobe Creative Cloud.
Here is my WebGL summary:
Godot uses Node trees instead of Entity Component. Porting Unity scripts almost impossible because of this amongst other reasons. Attempts to weld Entity Component only supported on Godot 4 but….
Godot 4+ WebGL does not work on Mac with no plans to change. Godot is waiting for Chrome to fix something, no comment on Safari, FF, others. One forum poster doing Godot WebGL export noticed that the Empty Scene WebGL export of Godot is 17MB versus 4MB for Unity.
Unreal 5 does not export to WebGL. However you can use UE 4
UE4 WebGL is not much discussed and the pieces you can find imply the output size, and thus customer download time, is significantly larger than Unity’s
Stride does not export to WebGL.
So UE4 seemed the only other option
Godot 3 on web is solid. I was pretty sure unity web export was pretty big. How are you getting 4mb?
We strip out a ton of the code in Godot using a "custom modules" file and the .wasm export is much smaller. I think it's ~4mb actually.
You should look at defold or play canvas. And Godot 3, compiled from source, with just the modules you need.
We strip out a ton of the code in Godot using a "custom modules" file and the .wasm export is much smaller. I think it's ~4mb actually.
You should look at defold or play canvas. And Godot 3, compiled from source, with just the modules you need.
Any reason to not consider a "web-native" engine(ie Phaser)? Just curious.
Phaser cannot do 3D games well.
Also, the Unity Asset store has so many great assets for me to use.
And 3D tools like PlayCanvas are browser based for their editor too. Desktop apps still have a massive edge in productivity.
Unity has Timeline, Cinemachine, Particle System editors which make detailed tasks possible.
Unity takes care of format shifting your assets into a compatible format, saving oodles of time.
And C# is a superior language to Javascript (never use == use ===). Visual Studio a better IDE than debug in browser
Also, the Unity Asset store has so many great assets for me to use.
And 3D tools like PlayCanvas are browser based for their editor too. Desktop apps still have a massive edge in productivity.
Unity has Timeline, Cinemachine, Particle System editors which make detailed tasks possible.
Unity takes care of format shifting your assets into a compatible format, saving oodles of time.
And C# is a superior language to Javascript (never use == use ===). Visual Studio a better IDE than debug in browser
Maybe for all this work they are doing...
they deserve to get some payment?
they deserve to get some payment?
The original plan would have had the developer paying 20 cents every time someone loaded up their website. That's more than "some payment".
Yes, they deserve payment. I was never going to use them for free or try to circumvent.
Under the old system as soon as I got to $100k revenue all the developers needed a Pro license at roughly €1900 per annum.
Under the old system as soon as I got to $100k revenue all the developers needed a Pro license at roughly €1900 per annum.
<edit: nevermind, myopic HNers are right as always>
That's completely useless for code assets. Even for purely art assets they usually come with Unity specific things such as prefabs, particle effects etc.
> Desktop apps still have a massive edge in productivity.
Unity editor is so crashy, bloated, slow and unreliable tho. Waiting for c# to compile drives me nuts.
Unity editor is so crashy, bloated, slow and unreliable tho. Waiting for c# to compile drives me nuts.
Or Babylon for 3D.
I wonder if Godex[0] could be a fit for you. ECS based Godot, based on 3.x which has much more broad WebGL support.
[0] https://github.com/GodotECS/godex
[0] https://github.com/GodotECS/godex
It looks like the Godot problem is that Chrome on Apple systems by default uses the native Apple OpenGL driver, which are broken, and can be worked around by passing --use-angle=metal to Chrome to tell it to use the new experimental Metal backend.
So in practice it's probably going to be fixed by the time a new game is released, and otherwise you can tell users to start the browser with the proper command line, or contribute a workaround to Godot yourself.
So in practice it's probably going to be fixed by the time a new game is released, and otherwise you can tell users to start the browser with the proper command line, or contribute a workaround to Godot yourself.
No, the problem isn’t trust. The problem is the pricing model is both bad and retroactively applied. Given a good number of games won’t be modified or updated, just sold over time, I struggle to see a justification for applying to them beyond “we want more money.”
> "We leverage our own proprietary data model, so you can appreciate that we won't go into a lot of detail, but we believe it gives an accurate determination of the number of times the Runtime is distributed for a given project."
This is incredible. They've given themselves the right to demand any amount of money as determined by them alone.
This is incredible. They've given themselves the right to demand any amount of money as determined by them alone.
"We won't go into a lot of detail" but they still expect to be paid based on the data they collect? What happens when a popular game or publisher claims they had X installs and Unity claims they had Y? Hard to imagine people will simply accept Unity's position when there's real money at stake...
Isn't that how ad networks work too?
Yes, and it's an open secret that they're crooked as a dog's hind leg.
Yes. In fact, Unity merged with a company that sort of specializes in mobile advertising: ironSource. [1]
Here is an example of one of their mobile ad products: https://www.is.com/mobile-advertising-sdk/
[1]: https://investors.unity.com/news/news-details/2022/Unity-Ann...
Here is an example of one of their mobile ad products: https://www.is.com/mobile-advertising-sdk/
[1]: https://investors.unity.com/news/news-details/2022/Unity-Ann...
Considering more than half their revenue comes from advertising that is not unsuprising.
And if you look at little closer, it's beyond obvious this is what is behind all of this - if you use Unity's ad services (IronSource) then all the per install fee business magically goes away.
They are trying to force people into their services - plain and simple. It was pretty obvious to me but stuff like this just reenforces it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOCTSp_U-KI
I never thought I'd say this, but they make Oracle license audits seem reasonable by comparison.
"Trust me, bro"
> John Riccitiello, now there is a guy who is going to attract and retain top management and engineering talent!
The Unity board apparently. The stuff that comes out of this guys mouth inspires confidence.. In shorting the company. How have they not replaced him ages ago?
The Unity board apparently. The stuff that comes out of this guys mouth inspires confidence.. In shorting the company. How have they not replaced him ages ago?
They will probably pick up Phil Harrison!
> Unity lit money on fire for decades to buy a market advantage that overrules the basic economic incentives that supposedly ensure free markets work best for customers
This is, quite literally, pretty much every consumer-facing startup. Uber anyone?
As an aside, the very idea of "free markets" is a myth. Markets only function effectively with strong government. Period. Let's see how far anyone gets in a libertarian fairy land without courts.
ARM's IPO valuation is pretty much based on jacking up licensing fees too.
We need to get back to the idea that companies are vehicle for generating income without the endless expectation of growth at all costs.
This is, quite literally, pretty much every consumer-facing startup. Uber anyone?
As an aside, the very idea of "free markets" is a myth. Markets only function effectively with strong government. Period. Let's see how far anyone gets in a libertarian fairy land without courts.
ARM's IPO valuation is pretty much based on jacking up licensing fees too.
We need to get back to the idea that companies are vehicle for generating income without the endless expectation of growth at all costs.
If you have been around more than a few years, you are not a startup any more.
> I see a lot of developers talking about Godot, but I also see developers talking about Linux whenever Microsoft pulls some underhanded shenanigans with Windows and that doesn't seem to have cracked the OS market wide open
This is not even close to a fair comparison.
This is not even close to a fair comparison.
They share upsides, but the major downside that end users tradeoff compatibility with the rest of the software on their system is something Godot does not share.
> $2.6 billion – Unity's lifetime accumulated deficit over 19 years of operations, a figure we got by combining the $2.2 billion lifetime debt of its last annual report with the $447 million in net losses it reported for the first two quarters of its current fiscal year.
Anyone know how a start up company can possibly finance such a gigantic debt?
Anyone know how a start up company can possibly finance such a gigantic debt?
> ...but companies don't exist to grow market share. They exist to earn money.
This is not what HN/YC "taught" me...
This is not what HN/YC "taught" me...
It does as much sense as sites with "Do you want to enable browser notifications?" popups.
No sense, sites still do it, regardless of what there users press.
I think their actual strategy is to cut deals with vulnerable devs. They are waving a gun around and seeing who flinches.
This right here is the most notable part of the article, and it is entirely correct - it has been for years. Venture capital is fine to use for actual ventures, to create new markets or hell, to break into a market with entrenched powers... but when it is used on a long time purely to undercut and destroy legitimate prior businesses (taxis/Uber, hotels/AirBnB, game engines/Unity), authorities should step in.
It's time to revive anti-trust, anti-dumping and other anti-predatory politics.