I'm an ex-developer of Godot. Do you want to use Godot after Unity's shady decisions?

This thread was moved by moderators out of IronSource topic.

Hello! I see that people started to suggest switching to Godot here. I'm an ex-developer of Godot with 5 years of experience, which included contributing to the engine development, becoming a maintainer, helping others, all as a volunteer.

In the recent turn of events, they permanently banned me from all Godot community platforms. This has a long story, but before you decide to switch to Godot, I really encourage you to read my threads on Twitter (see #CancelGodotEngine). Godot leadership is highly hypocritical, disingenuous, and make a cult out of Godot. There's a culture in Godot community against speaking out badly about Godot, they are extremely defensive. It is highly addictive, in a bad way. Some of you won't be able to finish a single game with Godot just because of Godot's community that you may feel closely attached to, so you may find yourself promoting Godot instead of actually working on the game...

If you're concerned with Unity's decisions, Godot's lack of direction and development philosophy doesn't inspire confidence either, especially with the recent talks about Metaverse.

This is my first post here on Unity forums, I'm not affiliated with Unity, I'm just an individual who decided to switch to Unity after the disastrous experience with Godot. If you think that Unity is S***ty now, Godot is not any better, I'd say it's even worse. I can talk about Godot's faults non-stop.

 

A new Unity account and a Twitter account with 11 followers. I don't know, chief, I'll think I'll develop my own opinion.

 

(This crowd is used to being fed a pack of opinion, it's almost investor-proof and no-one can pull the wool any more - proud of them TBH)

 

No problem, that's an expected response from someone who appears to defend Godot here. That's exactly the defensiveness I'm talking about, disregarding an opinion and an experience of a seasoned Godot developer using the "you're not popular", ad-hominem argument. I suggest you to look at my GitHub account if you want to judge my popularity in Godot community. No offense.

 

I'm not defending Godot, I'm contrasting Godot's direction to Unity's. And I much prefer Godot's at the moment. I've also expressed the downsides of Godot in several other threads which you didn't cherry pick.

You're expressing your negative Godot opinion with such zeal (on Unity forums of all places) that I can't help but feel you have an agenda. If your message would resonate within the Godot community, you'd have at least some reach, but you're just shouting into the void alone. So I reserve my freedom to not buy your S***.

 

so it's a group of people doing a thing? Got it.

 

I read the dude's twitter thread and he complains about the management of the engine but then goes on to describe how every major open source project with an actual direction functions, including Blender.

 

It was weird when he compared holding a certification in a particular software to being that software's slave.

 

Moved the off topic into it's own thread.

 

Exactly. I'm not against open-source, and I'm not against corporate projects. I'm against hypocritical decisions.

Thanks for asking! I'm not the only one who thinks this way. You can read a story of an ex-moderator of Godot's Discord server if you want more objectiveness.

And obviously, overzealous Godot fans will not tolerate negative opinion, this is exactly the reason why most Godot followers will call me biased, angry, and even mentally-ill, all to discredit my own opinion on this, basically creating a scapegoat out of me. If you research more, you'll surely see that Unity is not the only place where I talked about this.

Certification is alright. But it goes against the ideology of FOSS and the mission behind Software Freedom Conservancy which governs Godot on financial level, that's all. It shouldn't be done by Godot, but third-parties. Most people are volunteers in Godot so it doesn't make sense to provide official Godot certification of contributors. That's non-sense.

 

Oh well, I l'm gonna get the popcorn

 

Blender is exceptionally well managed. It is because of its project management that it's gotten any good at all over the last few years. There's no point in going to your twitter to discuss this with you there because you're exhibiting classic crank behaviour.

 

To clarify, I'm not even talking about Blender here. From what I can tell, Blender is doing great. Not sure what you mean by "classic crank behavior". Could you elaborate?

 

You're posting lengthy rants complaining about the ideological purity of an open source project and, even in your own link complaining about the direction and philosophy, you go on and on and on without saying anything and lashing out at everyone who replies to you in a way where you try and frame yourself as a supreme intelligence, basically the exact thing every crank does when they want people to take them seriously but it's not happening because they're a crank.

 

Could you elaborate? Can you show me an example where I say nothing of value there (as you say, anything)? Several people agree to what I'm saying here, not to mention the vast number of thumb ups (which is not always a good metric, but nonetheless).

You have to realize that Godot is a community full of overzealous fans. Those people who cannot talk factually will take every objection and they will turn it around on you.

I live in Ukraine so let me give you an example: in Russia, people cannot go out and say "No to war!" now without going into jail. Are they reasonable when they say "No to war!". Sure! But in the eyes of Russian government, this person is a criminal. Mind you, this is just an analogy to deliver my point.

 

As always I recommend people try a bunch of engines to see which is suitable for their project. Currently, I don't see any engine out there anywhere near as profitable for indies than Unity.

It may not align exactly with my needs yet (I'm very into high end graphics and high performance - basically inspires me) but it is one of the easier engines to use.

I like Godot. I even signed the email for Sony to accept Godot. I think without Godot, Unity and Unreal are weaker. Epic even saw fit to invest in Godot. I hope Unity has as well.

The thing is though, there's still the reality that each tool can do different things, or suits a different particular set of skills. So ultimately, people trying to sway other people ... it's not useful.

What is useful is people try engines, and pick one that serves their particular needs. In recent times, it's become clear that Unity is mobile-focused and there is nothing wrong with that.

 

Sure, but usefulness of discussions like these are directly proportionate to facts. It would be delusional to dismiss an opinion of someone who has spent years using a product and even developing the product itself.

I know that people usually prefer to talk about the technical side of things, like features. I could talk about that as well, like Godot's VisualScript system, but the common denominator will always be the human factor, and so far so long, Godot leadership discredits itself more and more. Godot community was more or less decent back in 2017, but now it's turning into a mob that cannot tolerate any kind of negative opinion about Godot.

Seriously, the lead developer of Godot literally threatened me in private that if I quote anyone, for any purpose, under any context regarding the decisions of Godot members (to the point that I cannot even talk about myself), it would be an instant ban for me. And I know several other people who received similar punishment in Godot community (I won't reveal their names here for obvious reasons).

 

I get you have been banned from all things Godot and you feel this is unjust. I read your github comments. But remember one thing, and one thing only.

You are only here, on these forums if you will be developing in Unity, or using Unity services. There is no other scenario, so if you are only here to talk about Godot, this thread will be closed.

Unity is not a place for non-Unity development. As a mod, I love freedom of speech, the elasticity of discussion. But it is still the Unity forums, not the sour grapes forums.

 

I can tell straight away that I"m not planning to.

I have negative experience with "Godot prophets" that kept coming to unity forums to spread the word. Existence of such people is a red flag.

<redacted>

 

General was always for the things that are game-dev related, though?

 

Yeah but we do actually lock most of those threads in the end, once they go too far away, and we do lock anything political, and this is already political. So I'm just really stretching the elastic here because I feel there's room for that. I'm trying to keep it open as long as I can.

Trying my best to be fair on all parties.

 

This isn't a threat, this is standard behaviour when dealing with somebody who is being openly belligerent. To use your own examples...

https://twitter.com/Xrayez/status/1538484101338087426

What Juan is saying here is that you are not a representative of the Ukrainian people. He is also saying that you being Ukrainian has literally nothing to do with the conversation at hand. He also says that you are being judged on your own behaviour, which you've already shown to be pretty awful. You attempted to twist this back on him after having already been condescending in saying he was raised under "totalitarian laws" and that he has a "long way to go."

It's increasingly clear that the reason you were banned from Godot discussions was because of your own behaviour.

 

Sure. If you're not aware of manipulation techniques like gaslighting, you'll instantly believe Juan and his authority. That's how mind control works in cultish communities. Read my thread on Twitter which dismantles Juan's gaslighting on some topic.

Can you find an instance of my own so called "troublemaking" behavior prior to my ban? People who know me actually say that I'm not rude or troublemaking at all in Godot community, and some expressed willingness to defend me so that I could return to Godot community.

Having said that, I have experienced quite severe defamation of my character in Godot community once I started to talk negatively about Godot. This is exactly the reason why I decided not to use Godot in my entire life.

 

You literally and repeatedly kept accusing other devs of things because they were Russian, my dude. Ya ain't slick.

https://twitter.com/Xrayez/status/1523267290040578048

 

Of course not. How does my phrase has to do with Russians specifically? Besides, this cannot be taken out of context. I was mostly talking about a particular Russian member of Godot that insinuates about my nationality in private. Even the ex-moderator confirmed his troublemaking behavior in Godot. Some Russians even see myself as Ukrainian Nazi, which stems from propaganda in Russia, and which further proves my point.

Now, I realize that what you do here is to try to turn this into a political subject for this thread to become locked by moderator. Hopefully this thread won't be locked, because I think we have a serious and productive discussion here.

If you want to lock this, you are free to do so I guess... But then you'd repeat the same action Godot moderators did when I talked similar things on Godot forums.

 

You literally said "what can you expect from a person who lives in Russia" and then implied he was a fascist. That same screenshot shows that you did this multiple times. You were banned because of your own behaviour.

 

You have to realize that I reacted on his "you either align with leaders or not", which is typical attitude of someone who's affected by Russian propaganda in Russia (this has nothing to do with nationality here, any person of any nationality can become affected by propaganda in Russia, and including all around the world). You can have another option: to challenge toxic leaders. You can read more about this here, called The Toxic Leadership Triangle.

You say that I "implied" this. Well, this is totally your interpretation. My both phrases were more about asking a (rhetorical) question rather than asserting anything.

But if you really want to know "what can we expect from a person who lives in Russia", look here for instance.

 

Again, ya ain't slick. It's clear when something is rhetorical and when it's being used to target somebody. He even says there that Godot isn't a country. You are complaining about how something is managed, using that to attack people from a political and personal angle, and then acting surprised when they decide you're not worth keeping in the community.

See, now you're doing it here.

 

This is basically the downfall of every person who thinks emotional feeling == justice. If you really want a chance to succeed and surmount problems like this you need to base all your reasoning only on facts, and never accuse. Each time you accuse, you allow people to put more targets on you.

Instead your strategy should have been one about calm mistakes and errors. The moment you made it about emotion and justice was the moment you lost.

 

Good find. That sort of behavior won't get any support from me.

Xrayez after reviewing the links the decision made by Godot devs appear to be a fairly level headed one.

And it truly is "either you align with core group or not". However, since the project is opensource, you're always free to make a fork.

 

Lets assume that you're right. Then ask yourself: why would Godot leadership suddenly decide to permanently ban a highly experienced contributor? Just because I remind people that Russia is responsible for the war in Ukraine? Do you even realize how unethical such punishment sounds? At what point defending Russian members in Godot became a priority?

 

It's not about "defending Russian members," it's about your behaviour as I and the people responsible for your ban have both said.

 

That has nothing to do with Godot (or Unity) though, and is actually counter productive to the engine development (introducing politics instead of bug fixes or features).

At the end of the day, people working in a bakery know that wars are fought for often unjust reasons, but people still need bread.

People should finish up their opinions and discussion as this thread will be locked at some point.

 

Because you called one of their developers a fascist.

If someone is managing an opensource project and are taking it seriously, the last thing they want to deal with is politics. Meaning the reasonable thing to do is to kick out everybody who can't stop talking about it or is trying to bring up their political situation, or redirect the discussion towards that situation.

In the end a group should exist in sort of harmony or at least mutual acceptance so the project members do not try to insult or kill each other. And removing anyone who is incapable of maintaining neutral attitude is a reasonable thing to do.

Bringing politics into projects lead to disaster. We had peacenotwar module fiasco when somebody tried to wipe out data on computers determined to be russian by erasing filesystems. That's what happens when you bring politics into development.

 

Well, many companies are pushing away from anything related to Russia because they have caused the war with their actions and inactions. And rightfully so. This will stop when Russia stops bombing Ukraine and killing people of Ukraine. I'm an Ukrainian, by the way.

They have found a pre-text for my permanent ban to hide everything under the rug. Even if you think that I'm wrong here, it doesn't remove my other points about Godot. The reason why Godot preferred to ban me is because of totalitarian attitude towards contributors. And yes, believe me or not, Russia is totalitarian.

So yes, consider it political if you want: Godot stands with Russia, not Ukraine. There's a reason why you won't see Ukrainian members in Godot.

 

And that is idiocy. Because it turns neutral or anti-war russians into supporters of their government instead. Meaning the exact opposite effect compared to the intended one.

Anyway, likely not the time or place to discuss the Ukrainian conflict.

 

Every community has this to some degree especially open source communities. Unity and Unreal both have had it in various forms over the years. Stack Overflow/Exchange has it. Many reddit communities have it.

 

The definition of idiotism comes from Greek noun, and one of its meaning is "a person not interested in politics".

The war is already happening. Thanks God that Ukraine receives support from the west, otherwise a lot of people would die and cities get destroyed, like what happened in Mariupol. The purpose off cutting of Russia is to stop the war machine to prevent deaths and genocide of people in Ukraine. Of course, some radical Russians would support the government stronger initially, but at the end of the day, it will all boil down to eventual revolution. Or not, let Russians isolate themselves from the rest of the world, because it's becoming a truly fascist country.

Again, I'm talking about this as someone who has lived in Ukraine all my life. Unfortunately, Russian propaganda works.

I was talking about this in an appropriate channel called "coffee-break" in Godot. So, it was certainly not about being off-topic. I ask you not to jump to conclusions, think for yourself. You seem to initially support my view about Godot cult community, now all of a sudden you changed your position just because of "peacenotwar module fiasco" which happened in your environment. The fact that you used the "conflict" word and not "war" is worrisome... It means you don't actually understand what happens here in Ukraine.

 

@Xrayez Unity has contributed much toward Ukraine as have many people here. Some of the Russian developers on these forums have contributed and even left their home country in protest. So there are people doing what they can, and your plight is well understood and respected.

Unfortunately this thread is against the rules and you may not make another thread about this topic on these forums.

What I do advise is you put your strength of feeling into game or asset development in Unity. Make a lot of money. Then you can make a lot of difference on your own terms in the wide world.

Best of luck!