Official Important updates to the Unity Runtime Fee policy

I've found this video on reddit that is relevant to the situation we have with unity and also shows me is pointless to hope for any change because the owners of unity stock are making money by "playing" with the stocks on the market and they have zero care about quality content. And this is widespread on galactic level and we are basically in a big hole with no way to get out.

The only hope I see is open source, because you are shielded (at the moment) of these predatory business practices. Is free so they don't care to go after it.

 

You also got private companies. Like Epic. Does that make no difference?

 

If you want to go down that rabbit hole, you should direct your attention to Black Rock and their ESG score (a social credit score for companies that has radically changed businesses in the last 15 years. Blackstone is a big player in home equity, buying up endless houses from under normal people, making them unobtainable with huge offers above market. They intend to buy all of the houses to make owning a house impossible, and rental the only solution.

But Black Rock is the greater evil - if only because they have truly mind boggling amounts of money that they wield as a weapon to invoke change in the world economy. It is run by unabashed post modernists that seem to be combining Communism and Capitalism in bizarre ways (pushing to make all of society a rental society, where you "own nothing and are happy". Wondering why it seems we don't own the things we buy as much as we used to?).

Anyway, it's a very deep rabbit hole that can potentially change your view on the world and bring intentions of organizations like the World Economic Forum in doubt. I will stop there because it will get way off topic for this thread.

 

They got you all talking about the pricing and revenue model that they are going to use going forward. Their shock and awe got you so confused and stressed you no longer are looking at what the real issue is - the management.

They got you.

And I am done with this thread.

 

The [qualifying for Pro] employer/company is supposed to buy additional Pro seats, assign them to the freelancers to use for the project they are hired for, then they revoke the seat licenses when the freelancer is done.

What stops the freelancer using the seat license to make their own stuff with it at the same time? I have no idea.

 

Well, the talk about Unity management makes up about 60% of this thread. All that didn't count? We need to start talking about them for real this time.

 

Hahaha, that was a good one. Seriously.

 

If the freelancer already has a Pro license, you don't need yet another license.

If the freelancer does not have one, usually the company will provide it, or at least pay for it.

In practice, we typically find ways so they don't need to use Unity, which most of the time means more work for me, which is a bummer.

 

plan for the worse. no one knows the future but if a couple of years from now they have financial problems and they need to change the way they do business you may have the same situation as today.

but if they don't change all the copyright laws tomorrow open source is the safest bet on the long run

 

Stock market hasn't bounced back. Currently down 1.6% on Friday's close at ~$31.20.

 

Unity in that form is dead. They just don't know yet.

 

The worst case scenario would be different though. Unreal license is a EULA and it is per instance of that software. That means if you install version 5 (or whatever) that EULA will apply to it forever. Even if Epic changes things they will not be able to touch the version of s/w you have installed. Unity sells s/w as a service and uses a TOS which is different. And they have not put in any legal protections that prevent them from doing what they did past two weeks.

 

This might come as a shock, but I totally agree. However, I've not seen anyone here claim Godot is a drop-in replacement for Unity. It shares some similarities but it obviously lacks features and follows a different design philosophy that many find unacceptable. And that's fine. I only defended the engine itself from your highly opinionated rant regarding it's practicality, because it was obviously false.

It seems your main concern here is people not complaining about Unity enough because they falsely think their are real alternatives? Complaining alone is pointless if you're a hostage to an engine with no alternatives. The only way to make Unity really care is to create actual rivals that threaten their monopoly. Just ranting about any engine and it's supposed issues is ultimately a waste of time.

 

I am not sure how it is guaranteed that a different management would not be way worse.

 

From my experience if the project runs fine in the latest Unity 2022, should also run ok in 2023.

Things have stabilized a lot in latest version across year versions.

 

After the "Runtime Fee" drama is clear for most users that Unity have a evil CEO, and a company with a evil CEO is a evil company, possibly Unity stocks not recover value in the short term.

 

Maybe, although I do remember when Elon Musk fired Parag Agrawal for cause to deny him a severance. Pretty shaky justification, and maybe Musk will lose in court at some point in the future over that, but there's a pretty stark contrast between Agrawal and Ricetellio.

 

Sure hope Unity won't have legal rights to my firstborn after they change the TOS retroactively next time.
The lack of Unity people in this thread is kinda telling.

 

Ya na.

Text written code is king and portable where proprietary nodes are not.

If Unreal allowed for text based scripting again it would be goodly. Blueprints are fine but code... code is king.

Porting our integration tools over to UE and creating BP libraries so they can be used from scripting e.g blueprints.

So we'll aware of how they work and working with them. It's fine like I said but man text based code is huge leaps faster to create.

As to optimization, BP help there, they limit you and this force you to follow some rules so they have that advantage. Personally don't need the guardrails would rather script in txt but it is what it is

 

I wonder if they think they did a good job...

 

What do you mean? Unreal supports C++ code just fine. If you don't want to - you don't have to use blueprints. Its just more convenient when you can use them as output for the systems. The same with Unity. Can't avoid MonoBehaviours (or some kind of authoring) at some point.

"Blueprint Class" is just a fancy name for the prefab.
Also, all nodes are written in C++ that looks more like C#. And sources are included. So, yeah.

Google Unreal for Unity Developers. You'd be surprised how many things are similar.
Gamedev concepts translate really well from one engine to another.

Edit:
If you want to do more Entity/GameObject(Actor)<->Component approach, that can be done too.
GameObjects that can be extended. Component hierarchies that do not involve extra GameObjects.
There are a lot of potential.

Or you can use something like Flecs or Mass for more ECS based approach and run simulation separately.
Use nodes to fetch data for designers directly from the simulation. That works too.
And since there is pretty much no marshalling layer between - its really fast and straight forward to implement as well.


My biggest issue with Unreal so far is MS / Visual Studio tools.
Some things MS makes are just pure pain incarnate. And well MSVC / MSBuild is one of those.
Jetbrains Rider works and still better than VS somehow, but its not as deeply integrated as C# portion of it.
And can't be used without tinkering with MSBuild (or just VS installation that is more or less unavoidable).

There are pain points like module (asmdefs in C++) creation that requires editor window restart + sln regeneration that has to be done manually. Otherwise all hell breaks loose.
So Unity wins here just by being C#.

Fortunatelly, you don't have to do it often, and most of the time things just work.

 

We were never pressed because we aren't scared of basic arithmetic. Even the initial plan was far more generous than the competition and the finalized one is even better. Everything else you're trying to freak us out over exists only in your head. And we don't have time to entertain your pointless internet arguments, we have actual jobs to do

 

It seems like a bunch of people have these questions and are asking them over and over. I've started just replying to Unity employees to ask, so they maybe see it. At this point though, I think they're dodging the question. Because they either don't know, or they can't answer questions about accepting the runtime fee from us. Neither is a great look.

 

Because clearly handing everything you owned to Unity was generous. Tell me how you flunked basic arithmetic without telling me you flunked basic arithmetic.

 

In practice, the qualifying employer will look at this scheme, and hire a normal office worker instead of dealing with freelancers.

 

Could you elaborate on that one? So what the actual issue with VS is?

Also (I really don't know yet, so seriously asking): I've heard that most of the stuff is done with blue prints, some C++ coding (I'm very used to use C++ btw). But obviously when coding in C++ you have quite some long turn-around aka compile times don't you?

Thank you!

 

I've posted several times already that the TOS fixes that are going to be done just take us back to how TOS used to be and that those fixes won't offer any additional protections for developers over what was there originally. Unity asked what can we do to make you trust us? My answer is; make the legal changes actually binding in law that prohibit what was done couple of weeks ago. Specifically I'm referring to preventing applying retroactive conditions to previous Unity releases that developers already agreed to when they started their projects on. I've heard nothing from Unity on this, no "sure we'll look into this", no "sorry we can't do that legally", no "anything". If it's a bad idea you can tell me, I'm a big boy I can take it. This is the last time I'm posting about this since I feel like a broken record. Is my take so bad that it does't warrant a reply?

 

UE is an enormous project and VS struggles with that kind of scale.

 

Visual Studio or VS Community? Or VS Code?

 

All of the above. Here's an article detailing how to get started with UE C++. It mostly touches on VS but as far as I'm aware it applies to VS Code too. Short version is IntelliSense on its own can't handle the engine and will often crash. You need either ReSharper C++ or Visual Assist to make it work. Or just use Rider.

https://landelare.github.io/2023/01/07/cpp-speedrun.html

E: Just found a statement about VS Code in the article. Somehow I missed it the first time.

 

There were some, but a few people were constantly hostile to them (I use hostile loosely). They bowed out directly due to the complete disdain for them donating their time after hours. I'd have left the thread too when it becomes clear that nothing really constructive can be had. At that point, they might as well just wait and let official announcements go out from the designated punching bags.

 

The plan is to move all internal projects to Unreal but we also have clients with their projects that we assist and those are mostly mobile and Unity.

 

Because C++ needs to be compiled every time you change something the connection between Visual Studio and Unreal is more "finicky"

Because of this Unreal 5 is pushing a "plugin" approach, where ideally game functionality is decoupled and split in plugins.

This ensures both fast compiling but also portability between projects.

Is a bit complex and I'm not the best person to explain it. But start from studding the Lyra project which uses this approach. And there are unreal official tutorials around but I guess this is not the place to start a unreal plugin wiki

tldr. c++ requires compilation which involves using visual studio as a compiler not mostly a text editor like in unity with C#

 

Ryder for UE is excellent too.

 

One person was straight up hostile but they were being banned every time they made a new account to do it with.

 

Yeah that's why I threw in "loosely speaking" because it wasn't all vicious, but there were repeated cases of "unconstructively unfriendly" stuff.

 

That is fantastic, any chance you left that code online somewhere that someone might find it?

 

So speaking with a few mobile devs over the past few days it seems that not a lot has changed in terms of retention, here is a snapshot of some of the discussion;

1. The runtime fee causes a design shift due the mentality that an installation is now a net negative for production unless each installation is monetized heavily, or at least heavier than the previous compensation system. Finding that sweet spot where the end-user is not going to immediately uninstall due to monetization/ads is more important than ever now.
   
2. Install-based popularity (or "trending") app store status can provide anxiety with some developers if not monetized correctly, it was mentioned that they would market IAP/ads heavily during trending periods, which may upset previous monetization timelines as a direct result of the install fee.
   
3. The per-seat cost and end-user installation cost don't work well together. Developers don't want to manage costs on both talent and end user installation/revenue share at the same time. Unity should address the "double-dipping" nature of the updated pricing as mentioned by a few people in this thread already.
   
4. Future app compatibily is uncertain. Now that the revenue share model is tied to editor version, updating a popular app to address compatibility/functionality (iOS/Android API minimums) resulting in added rev share costs or unknown fees is still drawing devs away from Unity. A (legal) TOS guarantee would likely alleviate some of this.

I saw that UnitedGameDevs updated their page with a response to the updated runtime fee open letter stating that developer tensions were not addressed, so it will be interesting to see if Unity do address these tensions in another update. Only one of the mobile devs I spoke was on that list but it's true that they are investing (donating, rather) heavily in FOSS game engines. It will be interesting to see what happens in the new year.

 

Hi. I've asked this question a few times now. I expect you might not have a definitive answer at this stage, but it'd be good to know it has been seen and is something that is being thought about by those making the Terms of Service decisions.

Here's the question again quoting my post from the last time I asked it:

 

Personally, as long as the legacy version 2022 LTS does not affects the Android and iOS deployment then should be fine.

Unless I needs features like doing Apple Vision device, new Android and iOS requirements that must be used under v2023 then will use latest version of Unity.

In fact, the new policy of reaching threshold USD200k is fine, actually I do thinking to move to v2023 onward, but I wanted to start with low profile at first.

 

well, an analyst said it well:


https://investorplace.com/2023/09/u...-are-upbeat-as-unity-adjusts-pricing-approach ..

in a nutshell: unity got what they wanted, installed the installation fee into the system. and that is really bad news for devs.

 

Unity has shown all of us who they are - multiple times now. Let's believe them and find open alternatives.

 

@ https://mastodon.social/@mcc/111111344965774324

 

Thank you for the clarifying that point. I was hoping it was from when a game is published/released, but could not assume that 'upgrading to' or 'game created in' didn't mean something else, thanks.

 

Her takeaway is roughly in line with what I had been thinking: Unity is at best a tie if you're a studio that makes games that aren't a runaway success. Which realistically that's what many indie studios will be. So if you're not happy with the stunt they pulled you're not likely to lose anything by choosing UE.

 

I don't see how we can possibly trust this new "we promise you'll be able to use the old ToS" blog right after you tried to secretly remove that clause after the old "we promise you'll be able to use the old ToS" blog. Unless you actually remove the "We're allowed to change the ToS to whatever we want, whenever we want, retroactively" clause from the ToS themselves, then any added clauses later on about promising not to do it are meaningless. You literally just proved that yourselves.

 

I just want to say I would drop all my plans to switch to Unreal this year if and only if Unity came out with some type of legally binding ToS that cannot be altered for any 2022 LTS that I download this year with none of the revenue changes involved, even if it means I cannot update it next year to resolve bugs.

That is the only thing I want and the only thing I will be looking for in the coming weeks.

 

How am I even supposed to respond to ridiculous hyperbole like this? It's a waste of time