Discussion Why working in Unity isn't like Google Drive

Clickbaity title

Our last project we lost a lot of manhours on merge-conflicts, again. And yes, we set up scene-merging, we used continuous integration, but we lost a lot of manhours on merge-conflicts again, and this isn't an uncommon story.

It got me thinking: why isn't collaborating more like it is in Google Drive? I love Google Drive. There is just 1 version of everything - wanna edit a document? edit a document. Create folders? Just create folders. It's all happening on the cloud: no learning curve, just intuitive.

Even with all precautions, a lot of the conflicts came from artists and designers, who just would not, could not, understand version control. And I don't blame them, because when you think about it, version control really sucks. There, I said it. It's like when my mother does home decorating: she will place a table in an inconvenient location and then say: "there, now everyone walk around that table or use a different door (love you mom <3)." Version control is like that, as in if you don't do exactly what you're told, you're gonna bump your foot on that inconveniently placed table.

Maybe git is fine in a team of just engineers, with a million veterans being able to bring any messed-up ruin-of-a-project back from the depths, but indie Unity teams may not have that luxury, and working together is still a really awkward endeavor most of the time, with all these pipelines and workflows just so you can walk around that table.

What would be needed to create a solution for Unity akin to Google Drive? Is there an application that allows users to work on a folder in the cloud? Is there a TeamViewer for up to 100 people, and is Scene Fusion the closest solution we'll ever see?

 

If I'm not mistaken Unity is working on some sort of cloud-based editor. If they succeed you can have Google Drive-like collaboration because you aren't modifying local files anymore.

 

When you say Unity do you mean the editor, or their Version Control Service?

Also, if you like how Google Drive works, then.... use it?

 

Your problem isn't version control, it's your team's organization.

Google drive does the same thing as version control. It's done in real time but with the same limitations if changes are conflicting.

You can edit a file with other people because it's mergeable. If you rename a file and your coworker do the same at the same time, someone will lose their change. It might be worse if you're not aware there was a conflict.

Same if the file is not mergeable like a picture.

Either ways, you're not supposed to make changes that conflict with other team members.

Version control manages that to some extent but a well organized team avoid these situations.

 

So I was talking about this with a friend, that less technical people have problems with git, that we don’t use blame or rollback anyway when he pointed it out:

“What about SVN?”

So yeah I guess that’s pretty much what I want :’)

 

I have used Plastic when it was still in its infancy (Gluon was still in experimental back then), and I am also considering taking that path, but a big drawback for me is that it costs money. Now- I know that sounds silly, especially because I take professional tools really seriously, but I am trying to achieve something strange: open-sourced games. I am- SO FAR removed from that it's not even funny XD but it's a dream I'm investigating. A big problem with Plastic is that I can't give you a number of seats up front, nor do I want to put contribution by others behind a paywall. There's still ways to work around this issue but I would really like to try things differently. I'm a small fry with big ideas