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New Competition...

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by warthos3399, Feb 2, 2021.

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  1. warthos3399

    warthos3399

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    Ive been bad lately, i have found a new toy, and im addicted...bad. I cant stop using the newly released Flax Engine. It truly is a mix between UE and Unity. Heres why im addicted to it, biggest thing is auto terrain chunk streaming, alot of us would love that feature in Unity:

    Light Weight, under a GB.
    Simple HUD, with full documentation. (nice to see a simple, HUD with documentation on hand).
    Very fast opening of a project or play mode. (scary fast, lol).
    Terrain has built-in chunk streaming. (best feature ever for large open worlds).
    Material Editor (node based/visual). (you can spend hours creating).
    Post Effects are global or by Volume. (want different Post Effects, in different areas?).
    C# and C++ support. (pick your poison).
    Automatic draw calls, batching and instancing. (one less thing to do, lol).
    Cross platform support (Windows, Linux, Android, PS4. Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, UWP).
    Visual Scripting. (used it before, would rather write).
    Hot-reloading C#/C++ in Editor. (very cool to hot load script changes).
    Full source code available.

    If you dont at least try this engine your a fool. I know, "alot of engines come out and flop", and etc., heard that for years, but ive really investigated/followed it before trying it, and the engine itself is amazing, like Unity on steroids, with features we all have wanted. But nothing really beats UE or Unity...yet. Its just nice to have a competitor to UE and Unity. I mean no disrespect to Unity by posting this, just wanted to share a find/knowledge. Ill always be using Unity as my main engine, but FE is hard to put down, lol.
     
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  2. On the "cons" column there is the royalty and the report you have to send to them when you earn... I don't like the royalty model. (and it is more expensive than Unity...)
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 2, 2021
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  3. neginfinity

    neginfinity

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    Erm....

    I can't find their license on the website. Which is not a good sign.

    Things of interest you haven't mentioned:
    • PBR?
    • Subsurface scattering?
    • Animation state machines?
    • Ease of writing editor extension?
    • Forward/Deffered both?
    • Camera stacking supported?
    • Animation state machines?
    • Behavior trees?
    • Builtin IK solver?
    • FBX support?
    • GLTF support?
    • Shader system hackability?
    • Foliage?
    • Animation retargeting?
    • Builtin networking?
    • Track record?
    • Which games were already built with it?
    • What about 2d workflow?
    It is also extremely rude to try to lure people into looking at the engine by saying "otherwise you're a fool".
    I mean that's how godot fans create negative impression of their favorite engine.
     
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  5. neginfinity

    neginfinity

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    Finally found the license:
    https://flaxengine.com/licensing/

    The license agreement is 12 pages is well hidden in a separate download and is neither in the codebase nor easily accessible at the site.
    It is proprietary and not opensource.
    It has gambling and nuclear powerstation operation exceptions.
    They also include kickstarter into gross revenue.
    You also agree "not to participate in a class action lawsuits"

    Very sketchy.

    With this kind of terms, the first question is "Why not Unreal 4?" Also, there's no track record and it doesn't even have wikiepdia page about it.

    Thanks, but no thanks, as they say...
     
  6. zombiegorilla

    zombiegorilla

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    Indeed.. it is way more expensive than unity, and unity is a complete engine. If it is still around in a few years, I might be bothered to look at it.
     
  7. warthos3399

    warthos3399

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    Agree, as they say, time will tell, so for now, i like to toy around and see where it will go... @neginfinity yes, most of that list is there, but its a new engine, and so far its been a joy to create a large scale terrain, that is auto chunk streamed. Also having Volume Post Effects is great, and more as i learn...
     
    Last edited: Feb 2, 2021
  8. And here is a killer: in their EULA they claim that in case you or they terminate the agreement, you seize to distribute your product and destroy all copies. Not the engine code and your project source (even that would be laughable), but if you or they close the agreement, you need to close shop and you can't sell your game anymore.
    And obviously they reserve the right to change the EULA for whatever reason at whatever time without any right to comment it with 30 days notice.

    No thanks.
     
  9. warthos3399

    warthos3399

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  10. neginfinity

    neginfinity

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    It id 10.D.

    Also, earlier you said that whoever is unwilling to try this engine is a fool. (-_-) Just saying.
     
  11. Meltdown

    Meltdown

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    Really?

    Sure, maybe the new engine has some shiny objects.

    But think about the following...

    - What SDKs/3rd party tools/analytics etc support integrations with this engine?

    - Want to make a mobile game? Which ad networks integrate with this engine?

    - How big is the developer marketplace/asset store of pre-made scripts/templates/models for this engine?

    - What happens when you have a question or get stuck? Is there an accessible history/knowledge base of questions that have been answered before or discussed in the past in forum threads somewhere? Probably not.

    - Is this engine 'battle-tested' in the real world? How many games have published with it? How did they fix device/cpu specific performance problems/quirks, and across different OS versions?

    - Is it worth investing your time into building a project with an engine that in 6 months time may very well no longer exist as it had to close their doors? I'd put my bet in that odds are Unity will still be around then, this new engine, not so much....
     
  12. Amon

    Amon

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    I tried it. It's nice. It works. I haven't crashed it yet. It has potential. It's nothing on Unreal or Unity though.
     
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  13. Ryiah

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    Seeing this made me curious to check out the termination section of other game engine licenses. Unity terminates your right to use the editor. Unreal terminates your right to use the game engine itself but if you port your game to another engine you can continue selling your game.

    Just the thought that they could hold my game hostage if I don't agree to the terms they come up with immediately turns me off to their engine regardless of how competent and polished it is. I can understand requiring you to port to another engine but this is simply too heavy handed to make it worth consideration.
     
  14. Exactly. I can understand why they thought it's a good idea (royalty), but even if they would have said that "you can continue to sell your game as long as you continue to pay us while you're porting your software to a different engine", it would still be idiotic, but remotely acceptable. I wouldn't touch it though still, but people with considerable budget may. If they make a great engine and all. I think it is too high risk like this. Especially for indies without market-power.
    And yes, I can imagine, they are great guys and all, and "they would never do such a thing" and everything, but business is business.
     
  15. Antypodish

    Antypodish

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    @warthos3399 I am just curious, nothing against, but may I ask, why focusing so much on investigating different game engines? You seem being in middle of your current project.

    Is this something to do with your business partner recommendation?
     
  16. MDADigital

    MDADigital

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    It has some nice features, streaming, autolod etc. Its good with
    competition for the market. Embrace it.
     
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  17. Joe-Censored

    Joe-Censored

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    It is closer to 6% than 4%, since they are charging against revenue you never even receive. Put game on Steam for $10, your real revenue is $7 and Steam keeps $3. But for the revenue calculation they want you to include Steam's $3 for the original $10 price.

    On top of that, they want a cut of anything which touches the game at all under 4b. Here's a ridiculous example, but it helps show the absurdity. Lets say as some special promotion involving your off road driving game you work a deal with Toyota so with every purchase of a Toyota truck the buyer gets a code to unlock a special in game truck model. Per the terms under 4b, now you owe Flax 4% of the revenue for every real world Toyota truck sold during this promotion. So that's probably around $2000 (4% of a $50,000 truck) you'd have to give Flax for each sale.

    Yeah this is a big problem. I'm not even sure if it is possible to comply with these terms. Again on Steam, when you retire a game it remains available for past customers to continue to download. I think you'd have to sabotage your repo to actually comply with these terms, but Steam probably has their own terms which disallow that.
     
  18. bobisgod234

    bobisgod234

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    It does say you have to stop distributing your product and destroy all copies in your possession. Copies people own on steam presumably wouldn't be considered to be in your possession.

    I am not a lawyer so don't sue me when you get taken for court for not destroying other peoples copies :p
     
  19. Joe-Censored

    Joe-Censored

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    But wouldn't a customer downloading the game they already bought still be considered "distributing"?
     
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  20. Obviously IANAL, but "distributing" sounds an action to me. When they download their copy, you do not do anything.
     
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  21. bobisgod234

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    Good point, I wouldn't know.

    My gut feeling is that distributing would refer to purchasing and acquiring the rights to use a piece of software, not so much the technical details of downloading it.

    This seems like the sort of technicality that would probably have to get sorted out in court if it came to that.
     
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  22. Joe-Censored

    Joe-Censored

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    If it doesn't have to do with the technical details of downloading it, then why would they require you destroy all copies if you end the agreement? Instead they would just require you stop selling or giving rights to use the software to others.
     
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  23. warthos3399

    warthos3399

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    Thnx for the replys and input guys. Wasnt meaning to call anyone a fool, we have nothing to loose by checking out new engines, Unity and UE will probably always be the kings, but after using FE for about a week, i really like it, and alot of it reminds me of Unity. I will say though, i dont like the EULA, and some of you are right, we dont know if its going to last long. Personally i havent liked many game engines out there (Lumberyard, GoDot, Strider, etc.), theres just alot i like about FE, it has potential.

    @Antypodish i havent been looking at any other engines, but someone here made a post about FE awhile back, and decided to check it out. I would never think of using any other engine for Jurassic Extinction, and you couldnt pay me to port it to another engine, way too much work.

    @Meltdown Its a new engine so no, alot of that isnt there yet, but is planned. Would i make a game and publish it with FE, no, its way too young/new, but its worth playing with and see whats going to happen.
     
  24. neginfinity

    neginfinity

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    The thing is, everything has a great potential, but most things fail to reach it.
     
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  25. bobisgod234

    bobisgod234

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    My guess is that this referring to hardcopies (e.g. disks) intended for retail sale. I suppose destroying existing disks is one (somewhat obsolete) way to prevent someone from selling new copies.
     
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  26. mafiesto4

    mafiesto4

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    Thanks guys for your interest in Flax!
    I've got some clarification from our side (developer). I see you've put lots of focus on Eula rather than the actual engine xD Eula is the first thing users see before installing Flax so we don't hide it.

    We're not destroying the world of Unity/Unreal but just provide something different. Diversity is good and I'm sure you all agree with this. Flax reaches the sweet spot between those 2 big engines and has many unique features.


    The revenue-share-based model we have is nothing new to this industry (Unreal and CryEngine do exactly the same for a long time) so don't freak out. Plus our license is veeeery similar to UE4 which doesn't prevent the whole industry from using it.

    Of course, Flax is fresh and tutorials/community are still young but on the other hand, if you have a bug or issue we can get it fixed within minutes after reporting it as there is direct communication with devs (https://github.com/FlaxEngine/FlaxEngine).

    That's not true. We charge 4% revenue share above $25k per-quarter. It's calculated from the game price, not the actual income of the developer because usually there is a publisher on the way between or you can sell your game directly without store revenue. Also, it makes the engine free to use during game development (unlike Unity).

    If you make game with Toyota vehicles that is related to actual car sales (your example or for instance VR configurator or car preview on car manufacturer website) it doesn't apply to revenue share from those sales but your gross revenue from contact with Toyota. No worries, we don't do that crazy actions.

    Finally, regarding your concerns about §10.D (product copies destruction) and gambling restrictions I've spoken with our layers and we've decided to remove those restrictions as are unlikely to cause any troubles.

    If you have any other questions feel free to ask!
     
    Last edited: Feb 3, 2021
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  27. Joe-Censored

    Joe-Censored

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    That's my point. Game price isn't revenue. Income is revenue. Compared to the actual definition of revenue you're charging around 6%.

    Revenue | Definition of Revenue by Merriam-Webster (merriam-webster.com)
     
  28. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    I'm skimming through the Unreal Engine EULA and I came across the following example that suggests otherwise.
    https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/eula/publishing
     
    Last edited: Feb 3, 2021
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  29. MDADigital

    MDADigital

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  30. EternalAmbiguity

    EternalAmbiguity

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    I haven't paid Unity's company a dime in the last 6 years (apart from asset store purchases). What are you talking about?
     
  31. neginfinity

    neginfinity

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    mafiesto4 and warthos3399 like this.
  32. zombiegorilla

    zombiegorilla

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    If anyone wants to ask questions, please do so on the Flax site, not here.

    While general discussion about games is allowed, and discussions of other engine features compared to Unity (within reason), a Q&A with a competitor's developer here isn't really isn't in good taste. This thread can stay open as long as we don't go there.
     
  33. MDADigital

    MDADigital

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    Using gross value is really gross. Since you cant really control what your revenue will be, Steam will take 30% no matter what. But Unity model is bad too, 100k should be calculated on revenue made on the actual unity product. Now you need to setup new companies etc if you want to keep Unity revenue seperate.
     
  34. It is calculated that way.
     
  35. AcidArrow

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    Not if you're a legal entity.
     
  36. You don't use Personal as legal entity at the begin with.
     
  37. MDADigital

    MDADigital

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    No its not. Its calculated on the companies entire revenue . Not only the revenue on the Unity product
     
  38. AcidArrow

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    Pretty sure that is wrong.
     
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  39. Hm. You're right. For some reason I remembered that they specifically only mentioned persons, not businesses, but apparently I was wrong.

    From here: https://store.unity.com/products/unity-personal
     
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  40. EternalAmbiguity

    EternalAmbiguity

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    Is that saying that you're not allowed to use Personal if your company makes more than 100K?

    Because if so, lol. That ain't happening in most places.
     
  41. MDADigital

    MDADigital

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    It does you are not allowed to use Personal if you make more than 100k.
     
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  42. EternalAmbiguity

    EternalAmbiguity

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    It doesn't completely specify, but is it only for commercial projects - things one's selling? Or that if a small internal project is using Unity, it still can't be Personal?

    Because if so...again, lol.
     
  43. MDADigital

    MDADigital

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    if your company make more than 100k only way to get around it is to create a new company with less than 100k

    edit: I think there was a clause so subsidiaries does not work since they count the entire corp.group
     
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  44. neginfinity

    neginfinity

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    If they subcontracted you, then you're not allowed.
    If you're working for yourself, you are allowed.
    If you're working as part of the company, then you're also not allowed to use Personal.

    If I'm misunderstanding something here, I'm all ears, by the way.

    https://unity3d.com/legal/terms-of-service/software

    Basically, if Ford Motors hires you to make them a unity game, you'll have to subscribe and at highest tier. Cause their revenue is in ballpark of 156 billion.

    This actually makes unity less attractive to freelancers. Here's Unreal license:
    https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/eula/publishing

    Unless I'm misreading something, this implies that, if, once again "Big car manufacturer" hires you to make some internal thing for them, the cost for you will be zero, and the cost for them will be zero too, unless they start selling that thing.

    That's an interesting angle, I must say.
     
  45. MDADigital

    MDADigital

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    If you're working for yourself, you are allowed.
    Not if you are doing it under your company name, even if its just you in the company.

    edit: they dont mention corp.groups and subsidiaries. So I guess you are fine starting a subsidiaries with zero income then,
     
  46. EternalAmbiguity

    EternalAmbiguity

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    The phrase "for yourself" implies it's being done on personal time, with personal resources, for personal gain.

    Edit: though WFH makes all of this all far more sticky.
     
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2021
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  47. Joe-Censored

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    That would be true if Steam's 30% cut was actually an expense, but it is not. You never receive the 30%, nor do you make the payment. So Steam's 30% cut is not actually an expense on your books, nor can you count it as a business expense on your taxes. Gross revenue is actually your 70% cut.

    What this is actually doing is applying the revenue share to Steam's gross revenue, not mine. Big difference.

    I understand Unreal pulls the same nonsense.
     
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  48. neginfinity

    neginfinity

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    You would need to challenge that in a court.

    The way I see it, it is probably dependeent on wording of contract.
    If "You agree to pay 30% of money earned to steam", then it is an expense.
    However, if it is "You receive 70% of money steam earned by selling your product", then 70% is your gross.

    However, it is lawyer territory.
     
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  49. EternalAmbiguity

    EternalAmbiguity

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    Couldn't you flip that on its head? Just figure out if Steam's revenue is the 30% or the 100%. One might be able to figure that out from numbers released by other, more forthcoming storefronts (on console perhaps).
     
  50. neginfinity

    neginfinity

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    I don't know. Like I said, it is "lawyer territory". Additionally, I'm unable to locate "Steam distribution agreement" in the wild. Only this portion of it:

     
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