Stealth update breaks old versions of Unity. Is installing Unity Hub bloatware the only cure?

All my old projects are ruined now. Bug report team isn't responding. Nobody cares. Because this is just what life is like in 2019. Corporations hurting their customers every chance they get. Not content with all the money I've thrown at the asset store for over ten years while earning 0$ from my games, Unity Team's decided to shovel more garbage onto my machine. 2 gigs per install isn't enough. They want always online. They want "metrics." They want control over my personal information. They want paid monthly subscriptions for software that doesn't even work.

This is what happens when you take the bastards who ruined the AAA video game industry and put them in charge of your tech company. Cuz millionaires like that don't think of you as a customer. They think of you as a "consumer." They expect you to just open your mouth and swallow whatever S*** they decide to pour down your throat. They want unsustainable growth, year after year, growth that the laws of physics won't even allow, and when they don't get it, they double the price, halve the quality, put a gun to your head and slowly grind their own business into the ground until they can sell it off, fire everybody, and move on to the next big industry so they can buy that one out, double the price, and halve the quality, in an endless cycle of pointless, endless greed and destruction.

The worst part is, beyond a certain point, getting extra money doesn't even make you happier! These corporate bastards are destroying industries, countries, families-- the entire economy that sustains them! And for what!? Scientists have proven that once your basic needs are met, having twice the income does not make you twice as happy! They're ruining everything around them, destroying everything we ever had, sucking the marrow out of the 99%-- and it's not even making them happier! It's greed for its own sake! It doesn't benefit anybody-- not even the people pulling the trigger!

Anyway, I have no idea what "Unity Hub" is or what it's supposed to do, but I know what its affects are on my workflow. They broke their own products, possibly server-side, to force people to update, and updating to 2019 doesn't work without Unity Hub. I can guess what happens next. Corporate spyware, intrusive advertisements, all the big brother bullshit, hell, maybe they'll even put bitcoin miners on our machines, if we're really lucky. Because there's just no end to the bullshit. There's no limit to how greedy or how evil these corporate heads can get. No depths they won't sink to in the name of getting All Of The Money. Not just Some Money. Not just Enough Money. They want All Of The Money. And if you don't have any money, they'll just break you in half, suck all the nutrients out of your shattered husk, and discard your useless remains. Unity 2018 stopped working, and destroyed my project, and Unity 2019 is holding it for ransom if I don't install Unity's latest malware.

I always knew this was the endgame. Ever since the Asset Store. That was the turning point. That's when people stopped helping each other and volunteering solutions and everything turned toxic and mercenary. Remember what working with Unity used to be like? Now they've grown to the point where they've made all the money they can off of AAA studios and they've made all the money they can off of smaller studios and they've made all the money they can off of Asset Flippers, and they've made all the money they can off of the failed startups and hobbyists and noob developers of the world, and there's nothing left to do but hold a gun against everyone's head, start kicking people out if they don't pay up, and sell their personal information when they have nothing else left to take.

We've hit Peak Capitalism. It's all downhill from here.

If anyone can tell me what Unity Hub is actually for or what it's supposed to do, please respond to this thread. Everything I've said in this post is an assumption based on what every other corporation in the video game industry is doing lately. I would love to be proven wrong, but I don't really see how that's possible since it's closed-source, and even if it comes from the horse's mouth, a corporation's word is only good until the corporation changes its mind.

Screw forced updates. Screw unnecessary middleware. Screw blind corporate greed.

I miss the real Unity Team.

 

Unity doesn't install "stealth" or forced updates. The only reason to use Unity Hub is if you believe it would add to your convenience, by making it easier to manage multiple Unity version installs. They don't require you to be always online. If you're not online you simply click the button that says "work offline." Not hard stuff. Pretty much everything else in the post is BS the same.

Interesting you're complaining about the "corporate bastards" wanting all the money, when most users of Unity are getting it for free. Most likely yourself included. I can think of better ways of getting all the money than giving your flagship product away for free. Call me crazy, but I think charging actual money would be the first step.

As for your broken projects, just revert using version control and get back to what you were working on. Worst case you should lose a few hours of your labor. Things happen, projects break sometimes, its all a part of software dev using extremely complex tools.

 

possibly game development is not for you.

 

Personally i rather use unreal but now im forced to use unity bcs of my work and i'm not a fanboy or w/e but dude... what a bullshit... Nothing is forced, especially not updates... unity hub is great bcs i have to manage 3 versions of unity and cloud projects are easly accesable no matter what version i want to use. The only thing that could break your S*** is that u are kinda clueless...

"Ohhh i don't know what unity hub is for, pleas i don't know what the hell is google and i can't read" -.-

ITS ALL ABOUT THE MONEY! THEY WANT ME TO PAY FOR MY PROJECT! THEY WANT TO SPY ON ME! Ble ble ble... I have multiple projects on multiple versions and everything works just fekin fine... Just get ur S*** together and stop with that conspiracy theories crap.

 

Unity 2018.3 worked fine when I saved my game. The game worked. Everything was fine. I went to bed. Got up. Launched Unity. The game won't load now. The game did not change overnight. My computer's hardware did not change overnight. The operating system did not change overnight. Therefore Unity's behavior changed overnight.

No, the only reason to install Unity Hub, is because when you launch Unity 2019, it says "In order to use the Lightweight Render Pipeline, you need Unity Hub." It was in the product, and they took it out, to force you to add Unity Hub to your workflow. (And also, I'm assuming, to prevent you from managing your own Unity installs.)

 

I'm downloading Unreal Engine and will be using that to make games. Unreal Engine gives you the full product and it's all free to use and you pay Epic when you make money. Why does Epic operate that way? Maybe because they have a product that works and customers can use it to make FINISHED games which actually sell. Unity has a system setup like Game Maker Studio where they take your money with promises you'll make tons of money using their stuff. Meanwhile they're getting rich off your subscription while you are making a game with their broken engine which will turn your finished product into bloatware for the end users. No one has ever become rich off selling assets on the Unity Asset store either. The reason.... pirating. Even those with $100+ assets listed on the store are not making a decent living through the Unity Asset Store. They're making the same money as a public school teacher. Unity makes a good percentage for every sale though.

Unity's glory days were with version 4. It was better then. Game companies actually released commercial games made with Unity. After Unity 5 came out everything began to change. People started to notice the Unity game engine with Unity version 4 and Unity made the fateful decision to change how people would program using Unity. They decided to screw programmers and cater to consumers they could win over with the idea of using Unity to get rich quick without knowing how to code. Unity's monobehavior class and how you use it significantly changed from version 4 to version 5. Now if you didn't know how to program you could easily make games with Unity. But the catch is other code you never see must be compiled in your game by the Unity engine to make it work. All the stuff you don't have to worry about that real programmers do is handled by the Unity engine. Do you think that code is specific to the kind of project you're making with Unity or do you think it is a big generic mess that will handle as much projects as possible? The overhead is enormous.

When I played a game made with Unity version 4 I bought from STEAM in 2015 it would run on my old 2.4 GHz dual core dell Intel integrated graphics laptop that had 4 GB system ram and 64 mb shared video memory. That same game now updated to use a more recent version of Unity in the year 2020 has the following specs:
Quad-Core 3 GHz or better
Memory: 16 GB RAM!!!
A graphics card with 4 GB of video ram that uses DirectX 11
An SSD is highly recommended. (really an SSD? It didn't use to need an SSD)

What in the world!!!

vs
A successful game made with the Unreal Engine
Fortnite: Recommended Requirements (as of January 30, 2020)

• CPU: Core i5 2.8GHz. (a CPU made in 2009)
  
• RAM: 8GB RAM.
• HDD: 16GB Free Space.
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 / AMD Radeon HD 7870 or equivalent video card with dedicated memory of 2GB or higher VRAM.
• OS: Windows 7, 8.1, or Windows 10 64-bit.
• DirectX: Version 11 or better.

Fallout 4 will run on a system with an Intel i3 processor and 6 GB ram with a regular/old hard drive with 5400 rpm. You just need a decent graphics card. Skyrim, original, will run on less. If Bethesda made Skyrim using Unity 2019 only rich people who could afford to buy super computers would be able to play it.

After 5 years using Unity my conclusion is it's great for making simple arcade games. If you're fine with making free apps for the Android store and YouTube Unity demos and simple arcade games then Unity will work well for you. But you'll need another 9-5 job while you do it. Because real programmers will always come out with much better games that take up much less system resources. Which would you rather play?

Mark Twain said it best: “I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” It takes time and hard work to create quality.

The Unreal Engine asset store is much smaller than Unity's but more commercial games are released using the Unreal Engine. Why? Because people who use Unreal Engine to make games have to know how to program in C++. Microsoft has a saying about programmers. There are only two types of programmers. Those who know how to program in C++ and those who don't. Unreal Engine does not cater to people who want to make a quick buck on STEAM. If the people who use Unreal Engine need something for their game they make it they don't buy it. Only the new comers to the Unreal Engine who think they can quickly spit out a game and make lots of money will buy from the Unreal Engine asset store. It takes time and hard work to create quality.

Unity and Game Maker Studio are now in the same boat. They are both software toys. They aren't for anyone looking to make serious money with software. It's too bad. Unity had a good thing going. It still could change around and go back to catering to programmers but they're making sooo much cheddar from subscriptions why would they? From a business standpoint that would not be reasonable behavior.

 

I understand this on both sides here, but what was the reason to make this post instead of leaving unity?

Some will go left or right depending on the game engine, I don't care. I use both products, and yes, I can see the pros and cons.

I do have a problem with having contact with dedicated support, and that does annoy me.

But I have seen many small games made with Unity get a lot of support, including one that is still made in Unity 5. Although the more graphical ones, I have seen in Unreal.

But when I have a problem with a product that cannot be fixed, I prefer to abandon it.

But I understand, the need to raise hell to get the problem fixed is a suitable answer if you can't find a solution. Unfortunately, in the end, you're nothing but a tiny sound, unless everyone comes into an agreement.

I know I don't sound very friendly and monotone, but I do see your problem, but wouldn't many people catch on to the situation before it spread? Since Unity is a widely used game engine, wouldn't security researchers be tearing apart the engine bit by bit before the Devs actually harmed us?

Have fun with Unreal, and calm the hell down.

 

Your game will sell based on how fun and creative it is, how well you market it etc. It will not sell on how much "hard work" you put into it, if no one wants your hard work. Programming is only one aspect of game development. It is the one aspect that most players are going to care the least about, as long as it functions.

I will never understand people treating C++ like some mythical programming language. It's really not magical. I have done plenty of development with C++, C, some x86/x64 Assembly along with C# and other higher level programming languages. It's just a language. Pick whatever works for the task at hand.

If you think your choice of engine is somehow going to miraculously make your game great, you are going to be disappointed.

 

I'm thinking he finds the Hub "untrustworthy" because he fails to understand that it is only to make everything more simple for us to set things up. He talks about "Bloatware", but the hub takes about 200MB. The more recent Unity Engine uses about 10GB. The Unreal engine uses 10-11GB worth of hard drive space.

Plus using antivirus software, which in my case is Avast, would target the engine if it had all that bad stuff.

Rereading this makes it sound like WarpZone is just going insane over small inconveniences to the point where he just wants to whine about it to anyone who will listen.

DarthHawk13 actually made a point. But the reason for that could be using updated assets that try to take the full extent of the engine, whereas it was limited at that time. I understand that It is something that is an inconvenience because it requires a better computer, but some games want to stay relevant and also take advantage of new engine features. Plus we are reaching the point where there are literal games that can only run on high-end hardware.

AAA games are less recommended by people, but indie games are much more suited to them.

Maybe before you choose a game engine, maybe decide to do some research beforehand before making a fuss about false allegations WarpZone.

 

Maybe I was a bit too harsh on words there...

 

In the beginning of the the Unity hub i was against it because stuff did work before and this "new" thing that is buggy as hell was not helping, but for about a year it really saved me quite some time. Quickly getting a new editor installation going or restarting a unity instance is now super easy and fast.
in Genreal:
If unity is not the Game / Creation engine for your project / way of working, choose another tool.
Work with the best tool you can find and afford.

Independent of what game engine you choose make sure to use Soruce controll to have a backup of your project.
Its not a question of will my pc / mac / HDD /SDD fail some day, its the question when it will.

 

This is the point that I am happy to announce that someone gets the idea that it was bad and can still be, but not entirely.