• shawnshitshow@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    1.5 years of learning unity gone down the shitter. here I come, godot

    even if they backtrack, trust is ruined at this point. this only makes sense if you’re trying to destroy the company intentionally and short your stock on the way out. what the fuck

    • Kichae@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      1.5 years of learning unity gone down the shitter.

      And this is the real damage to their business here. They clearly lost sight of their business model: Create an army of developers who know their product very well, so that it’s on a short list of products studios are all but forced to consider.

      A wave of developers who know soemthing other than Unity or Unreal has the potential to turn the games development ecosystem totally on its head. They didn’t shoot themselves on the foot, they possibly shot themselves in the femoral artery.

    • nephs@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      Don’t forget those skills are transferable!

      Streams of events, object manipulation and shit is used everywhere. Just a few minor concept changes, just like from one company to another.

      • 小莱卡@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        Im looking forward to what happens next, do they hardcode it so the runtime doesnt work if it doesnt receive a response from home, effectively making it “must be connected to internet” or will they allow us pihole users to bypass the telemetry.

  • simple@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    It’s actually neither of those, the biggest impact is free-to-play games. Hearthstone, Legends of Runeterra, virtually every Unity mobile game in the market… Having to pay per install has huge potential for abuse and can cost a fortune for games with millions of downloads.

    • falkerie71@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      JFC, I just learned that they are retroactively applying this new rule. This means that games that are out already or have been on sale for multiple years will have to pay the runtime fee too. Insane. They can bankrupt a studio before they even release their next game.

  • Mossy Feathers (She/They)@pawb.social
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    1 year ago

    This needs to turn into a class action suit that results in John Tortellini having his oxygen rights revoked. I can’t imagine shareholders will be happy finding out that John Riceroni has been selling off Unity’s stock, and I’m pretty sure what Unity’s trying to do here is straight-up illegal in the US. Fuck John Rigatoni. God, I was so happy thinking he’d died and gone to hell after EA, but nope, still alive and well.

  • net00@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    From their FAQ, looks like Unity doesn’t have any real way of dealing with pirated or fake installs. Their FAQ says you have to work with them when that happens so they can correct your bill. It doesn’t say Unity will automatically filter those installs out.

      • net00@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Officially no, but the wording on the FAQ says it’s the developer’s job to take it up with them to resolve it. So it’s clear they don’t have any safeguard and only after you’re affected you can talk to them lmfao.

        Does the Unity Runtime Fee apply to pirated copies of games? We are happy to work with any developer who has been the victim of piracy so that they are not unfairly hurt by unwanted installs.

        Same thing goes for “install-bombing”:

        We are not going to charge a fee for fraudulent installs or “install bombing.” We will work directly with you on cases where fraud or botnets are suspected of malicious intent.

        So not only are the fees outrageous, but now devs are responsible for making sure this whole system isn’t being abused. It’s not gonna be long until people figure out how the install count is updated, and will proceed to weaponize it lmfao.

  • Then_I_said@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 year ago

    I understand the controversy, especially in light of the recent Reddit bullshit. But I don’t think I understand the tech.

    For the sake of it, let’s focus only on games that are paid for, installed on a system (or downloaded using Game Pass), and do not involve a multiplayer element. (Hollow Knight, Cuphead, etc)

    Is there some ongoing resource use (on Unity’s end) when people download or play these games? Like, when I play Hollow Knight, my system isn’t connecting to Unity to use their servers to run the game on my home system, is it? When I download a game to my system, an I downloading the engine separately from the software, thereby using Unity’s servers?

    As abhorrent as the Reddit API change was, at least they were charging for the ongoing consumption of some digital resource (Reddit data). Unless I’m misunderstanding something, this just seems more like trying to collect a residual after the fact.

    • mihnt@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Is there some ongoing resource use (on Unity’s end)

      Nope. The engine is part of the game once compiled. So all hosting and bandwidth cost goes to steam/gog/whoever is selling the game.

      They are just trying to get more of that sweet viral game money.

    • Shush@reddthat.com
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      1 year ago

      Honestly I don’t see most of the indie companies keep working with Unity unless they have no choice. Even if they roll it back, who’s to say that they won’t do that again next year?

      The fact that they count you retroactively for eligibility means they want to try and rake as much money as possible.

    • lobut@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      I’m waiting for a Legal Eagle breakdown or something. I’ve been thinking the exact same thing. Sneakily removing stuff from their TOS in GitHub a while back is dodgy.

    • Maestro@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Unity is not a product, it’s an ongoing subscription. You can distribute Unity as part of your game as long as you have a subscription.They changed the terms of the subscription for next year. If you don’t have a subscription then you cannot redistribute Unity. So your choice is to either accept the new terms, or pull your game from the stores.

      • orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts
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        1 year ago

        They are retroactively applying the new pricing model to games that have been out for years. That’s what I meant. So they’re not back-billing for previous downloads, but already-released games don’t get grandfathered in.

        I’m always open to corrections though.