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A warning to new indie developers in general

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by arkon, Apr 21, 2019.

  1. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    That is true, I never considered it. I will go back and update my old stuff I think (while making them free)... or maybe just re-release as new ones, not sure since they'd be free anyway.
     
  2. arkon

    arkon

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    I can totally relate.
     
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  3. arkon

    arkon

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    If you want to donate them to me I will do it and add them to my pile.
     
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  4. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Would involve rewrites to be honest, half of them are in js, and badly programmed. It's something I'd like to do anyway for fun (when I get time!)
     
  5. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    Isn't the butler the one that always did it? :p

    HippoButler.png
     
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  6. zombiegorilla

    zombiegorilla

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    Branching as process is a methodology that solves a lot of process/cycle problems and is common that virtually everyone does. It's not a development strategy. Nor is "agile" for that matter. The op's challenges aren't related to or would be solved by a branching plan. Choices and the work of third party maintenance still has to be done and decided upon. Branching doesn't change that or solve it.

    -

    I know the OP already said they didn't want to hire anyone to fix/upgrade their products. But it does strike me that someone could probably could base a studio/business on that as a service for others. Building both the knowledge and tools to support it efficiently. Maybe even investing in popular deprecated asset store assets. There are definitely other developers who are in a similar state, if one could make it it cost-effective enough... it could be an effective business model.
     
  7. arkon

    arkon

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    I was thinking off offering such a service but have you seen other peoples code?! When I incorporate most assets into my games I do it without trying to look at the code because it's usually incredibly poor. It would take ages normally just to understand someone else code before you could even attempt to fix it and bring it up to date.

    Saying all that. A shout to all asset store developers, it you have depreciated your asset then donate it to me, I will attempt to bring them up to date, in exchange I get the income from the updated asset and ownership transfers to me.

    Any takers?
     
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  8. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    On more than one occasion I've ended up not releasing something as an asset purely because I wasn't happy with the code, but didn't want to put in the time to get it up to what I would consider commercial quality.
     
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  9. JohnnyFactor

    JohnnyFactor

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    That's a good example to ask this question: Why didn't they use C# to begin with? I don't know the history so it's a serious question.
     
  10. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    angrypenguin and JohnnyFactor like this.
  11. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    At the time Unity was developed, no one expected C# to be as popular as it was. No one expected Unity to become as big as it did. And no one anticipated the cost of maintaining three languages.

    Multiple language support was seen as a good marketing and accessibility move. But over time it became obvious Unity customers wanted one good language, instead of three mediocre ones. But that wasn't obvious from the start.
     
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  12. MadeFromPolygons

    MadeFromPolygons

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    Because boo is awesome.

    Nah I am joking, it sucked, and sometimes I think I am the only person who used boo with unity back in the day XD So unsurprising they removed it!
     
  13. MD_Reptile

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    I actually ignored boo and started on unity script following examples from the forum until I was dangerous with both. Then I noticed c# syntax felt so much less restrictive than say, c++ or ruby, or python, or... all of them lmao
     
  14. neoshaman

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    Did they removed boo?
     
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  15. Murgilod

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    You haven't been able to add a Boo script since Unity 5.
     
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  16. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Must be in hot demand then :p
     
  17. Antypodish

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    You must be still on <= Unity 4 :p
     
  18. neoshaman

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    When they were removing unityscript I caught a thread where a unity guy said they were still using boo ... so I assume we could still dev on it because they had internal need for it (python is the most popular language after all). I never used it for lack of resources although the code look sexy without the c style pimple ...
     
  19. superpig

    superpig

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    The UnityScript compiler itself is written in Boo, and uses the Boo runtime library to provide various UnityScript features. So we had to keep shipping the Boo runtime library for as long as UnityScript was being supported. Now that UnityScript is gone, Boo is gone too. Definitely no Boo usage in our internal scripts and tools :)
     
  20. neoshaman

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    Thanks for the info!
     
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  21. Deleted User

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    I'm not particularly interested in reading the tomes of the Unity boards (everything above) but I did parse it a bit.

    Its a tad dramatic/negative to title the thread "A warning from a Unity user...". First impressions matter and stating your case does too, but don't, just don't create a thread just to complain.
     
  22. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Well it was a warning for indie developers using UNITY before I edited the op's title, as it does see like someone having a bit of a moan about how tiring it is to update 20-30 titles on a mobile store :p
     
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  23. arkon

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    Ok, Thanks for telling me what I can and can't say, perhaps you would like to tell me what to have for dinner today too.

    If I don't put it all out there then someone else might be just starting out and make the same mistakes I did. If I can save just one developer the pain then it was worth it.
     
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  24. Deleted User

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    Not the intended meaning. Have some Lobster and a nice day??
     
  25. arkon

    arkon

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    I woke up today from yet another email from Google Play pulling another of my 4 year old games. Every one of my games has this exact same mechanic in it that they don't like, so eventually they will get around to pulling them all. I feel like King Knut trying to hold back the tide.
     
  26. Antypodish

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    But whatever google, apple and other fruits decides, is not a fault, nor responsibility of Unity, or other game engine. However, I understand you may get frustrated, because of what happens. Unfortunately, us as devs, we need deal with range of such of technical and legal challenges.
     
  27. arkon

    arkon

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    I know it's not Unity's fault, but they don't make it easy to update old games. I know in advance that it will take me 1 to 4 weeks to update this latest one. A lot of stuff breaks silently and requires re play testing each game and that takes forever. The one I'm doing now had a crash on the 5th game level that takes 25 minutes of play to reach. Caused by something that used to work fine and now for some reason crashes. To make maters worse all my 3d assets are .C4D files that for some unknown reason Unity won't import anymore and I have to convert them to .fbx.
     
  28. Owen-Reynolds

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    The same way you can't read a few pages, we can't read your mind. What you actually wrote was an insulting lie. I found this to be one of the more interesting threads in Forums, driven by observations from the OP.
     
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  29. Antypodish

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    Just a thought. Looking on bright side, since you mentioned same mechanics, providing you will (or want to) replace with alternative, technically should be easier in the sense, you duplicate updated mechanics, across all 4 titles, with addition of relevant variation (if required).

    On other hand. Why not consider to leave mobile market, and go to desktop, since you do updates anyway? Definitely less future hassle. In same time, just making sure, you update your portfolio.
     
  30. superjayman

    superjayman

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    UNITY IS ALMOST FINISHED!!! They are constantly playing catch up with UE4, and lately THEY DON'T GIVE A STUFF ABOUT DEVELOPERS OR USERS!

    UNITY HAS BECOME SOOOOO SCATTERED AND UNDOCUMENTED!!!. SO MANY VERSIONS FULL OF BUGS!

    Unity is no longer a game engine that actually helps you, it's a pain to keep up with all the scattered versions.

    Can't even do the simplest things in HDRP and people think it's a joke.. I've been asking for the last few weeks just to get the normals in image effect and NO ONE HAS A BLOODY CLUE!!!..... Something so trivial as to get normals is now not possible...
     
  31. Stick to the LTS versions if you don't want to fiddle around with PREVIEW solutions. 2018.4 is your friend, it does not have HDRP, because HDRP is preview (under heavy development) feature, but everything is documented and usable, and have very few bugs.

    Unity does care about users, that's why they're sharing the in-progress work (HDRP for example), so we can evaluate and follow along IF we want to. It's not mandatory if you don't want to. Judging your shouting and whining, you don't want to.
     
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  32. arkon

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    If only it was that easy, The thing they are complaining about is more an artwork thing. Each game I created had an icon to press to bring up a "More Games by me" type of window. This had approx 6 game icons that if you press them takes you to the Google play page of that game. They are now calling this "Deceptive Advertising"!!!!

    As each game was from a different period in time, it had icons for different games of mine depending on what I'd just created recently or wanted to promote more. I've been in contact with them several times to argue my case that it's not deceptive but they just tell me I need to change it. The won't even tell me what I'm doing wrong, just that I need to change it. When I ask them how, they reply with a "It's not our place to tell you how to solve the problem". Solvong the problem is not obvious as I don't know why it's wrong in the first place.

    Which brings us full circle to the reason for my rant in the first place. The fix is usually trivial, maybe an hour at most per game. But so far I've never been able to just re build and re submit. Hence my whinge about asset developers prepared to take payment for something then disappearing off the face of the planet. Which then led to the whinge that it's fundamentally Unity's fault for making existing stuff too hard and time consuming to maintain. I mean the assets here obviously.

    I have seriously considered ditching mobile but I can't see a way to really make money unless you are lucky on steam. A steam game is going to be seriously too much work for a lone indie. Lets say I spend a couple of years on my epic windows game and the odds are seriously in favour of it failing to make any money. So what was the point. Although yes it is a hobby, I still need to make an income from it to be able to spend full time on it.

    I think the main reason I get such a hard time from some on here is that they haven't walked a mile in my shoes so they are clueless. If I'd spent the last 5 years tinkering with some large single project, continually updating the engine and never actually releasing anything I too would be clueless and probably also shouting at someone like me on here for obviously not doing it correctly.
     
  33. Antypodish

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    Have you actually try to reach for information on internet, outside Unity forum? Like reddit, Unreal, blogs, etc.? (Sorry if you wrote already and I missed). Surely more people has similar cases. How mobile games have resolving such matter these days, if you want similar features? I am not asking to give us solution, but rather path, that can be followed, to search for solutions.

    Whatever reason is, providing you want keep games still on the store, If I were you, I would try change one, and check, if new feature is accepted by store. Just a though, if you haven't do that yet.

    Atm. you ride and rely on your past dev. products. No products last forever we know that. Unfortunate in your case, as you described, you are dependent on promotion icons in your older games, which are more popular. While by now, you should work for having strong profile, recognizable on the net by your followers.

    We have seen topics, about people loosing sales, just because google decided to change algorithm. It shows, how mobile market is unstable and unreliable. Whatever you decide is up to you. But you don't need go on steam at all. But could help. Option of many. You got experience. You got product. Play smart. You can always invest in ad campaigns.

    There are plenty single indie developers, which manage to sell bigger than mobile games. Check how they do it. And maybe try to adapt?

    I may be wrong, tell me that fine, but I got impression you felt so comfortable to the point, you missed and neglected big aspect, of SEO and growing social media importance. Which maybe that is why, you conclude, you have no chance on different platform (like Steam). Yet even so, people still manage, isn't it?

    On other hand, which company managed to stay on the market for prolong period, without continuous improvement? Same is for many games. Even retro games go through revamp, as modern hardware is no more capable running them. Including mobiles.
     
  34. Deleted User

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    @arkon have you thought about hiring someone to maintain your games? You have many titles published, presumably they still provide you income. Maybe its time to outsource their maintenance? Think of it as a cost v benefit thing. If you lose X games to Google's stupid policies, where Cost = X*D (where D is the revenue produced every month) maybe you could figure out what is worth maintaining and what isn't...
     
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  35. BIGTIMEMASTER

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    Read the thread dawg!
     
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  36. Deleted User

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    What do you want from me? I have not encountered the suggestion of hiring a maintainer in as much as I've read here. Get off my back.
     
  37. Ryiah

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    Clearly he wants you to spend an hour or two reading walls of text. :p
     
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  38. Deleted User

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    Whoaaaaaa. I had no idea! :p :D
     
  39. Ryiah

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    If it's anything like TV Tropes or Wikipedia by the time you're done reading you may have forgotten why you started. :p
     
  40. arkon

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    Most of the revenue is made from only 3 possibly 4 of the games, the rest is just a few dollars per day. Individually they are not worth it and to pay someone here in Australia probably at least $40 per hour is just not worth it. Collectively they add up but not enough to employ someone. If I had just one game making a decent >100k per year then of course I might think about employing someone.
     
  41. Deleted User

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    That's wayyyy too accurate. I feel like I've been mind sniped.
     
  42. Antypodish

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    And here is a point, where probably most of us should stop posting on such multi page thread, since that often leads to walking in circles. Like just case above, where someone ask / suggest something, which was previous explained.
     
  43. Owen-Reynolds

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    Huh. The web has complaints from at least 6 months ago about this exact thing. Said they needed to blatantly label each link to one of their games as an Ad. Said the problem was Google's Ad policy-bot was too stupid to understand a "More games by me" page. But I can sort of see their point. I think the first time I pressed one I expected to see a short text description, and was a little surprised it took me out of the game (mostly the mere fact it was possible). Google has probably gotten enough fines in Europe that it's taking no chances.

    But the thing is, google knows about those pages now. They could easily write specific guidelines for a More-By-Me. The one page they have looks like it was tossed together in an afternoon, then never touched again.
     
  44. recon0303

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    easier to fix, (ACCESS to source Code is why we use UE way more) I been using Unreal since before UE3, and have games release, no issues fixing updating...Unity its much harder, I also used since Unity 3 and nothing but a head ache, it caused me to stop mobile development, and just worry about PC and Console.... but yes to the OP... Don't buy assets...code ones...and rely on them at all..... use it for protyping or level design, but don't rely on anything for game play etc.... @arkon we cut WAY back on buying any code base assets... unless we know they won't be in game when released... if we do, we have every intention on replacing.. so I would think about that.
     
  45. OreoSplitter

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    Reading the first page of this thread, have to disagree with op point of view. Even if you wrote your own code vs buying assets, that too would have to be updated. Odds are you bought those assets because they were easier to use vs code it yourself. You got plenty of mileage! If you can't be bothered to update it, buy a new asset for a measly $20 that is current, rip out the old and put in the new.

    To be like WARNING, WARNING, avoid assets because I'm unhappy 5 years later is a bit dramatic.
     
  46. Owen-Reynolds

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    The rest of the thread went into detail about how so many Assets are unsupported and sloppily coded, which makes them much less useful than you assumed. Your two suggestions are't so helpful.
     
  47. Ryiah

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    It's almost always going to be more complex to completely replace an asset than to upgrade an older one.
     
  48. Deleted User

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    I have to wonder if the idea of planned obsollesence has as much truth as some people say... I don't think there are business managers telling software engineers things like "Make sure to deprecate some features before release... make some of the things incompatible". I think Unity and the other companies have more opportunities and problems to solve than they can handle. If the industry ever reaches stagnation I think this may become the norm though....
     
  49. arkon

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    Says someone that clearly hasn't got a clue! Do you honestly think that if it was as easy as now just buying a new $20 asset to replace a now depreciated one, that I wouldn't have already done it?

    As far as I'm concerned there is one asset that has not only done exactly what it was supposed to do but also been maintained all the way through and that's the NGUI asset. Huge thanks to them for maintaining it like they have. It's the only asset I can just delete, and import the latest one and all the warnings go away. Buying NGUI was one of my smarter choices years ago. Just wish I'd used it from day 1. (I have 4 games that don't use it and are legacy OnGUi. (A ticking time bomb)
     
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