Unity exec tells Ars he’s on a mission to earn back developer trust

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/09/unity-exec-tells-ars-hes-on-a-mission-to-earn-back-developer-trust/

by Stratoscope • 3 years ago

13 7 3 years ago

arstechnica.com

solardev• 3 years ago

They should fire this guy.

gmerc• 3 years ago

Either the CEO is on borrowed time or he’s a spineless fuck given that he’s AWOL and is pushing this guy forward.

gumballindie• 3 years ago

Unity is history. Not today or tomorrow but long term it’s done. I guess the lesson is dont do corpo shit when you are backed by so many people and their good will.

sovietmudkipz• 3 years ago

Unity is starting out gaining trust by saying that the TOS GitHub repo that was deleted by Unity was a “separate event” and “an unfortunate coincident.” The real reason it was removed was because the “views were low.” OKAY, sure. I’d love to learn more about what other repos are removed by Unity for low GitHub views, how often that conversation is had for each Unity repo, and more. Why? It feels like a BS gas light and there’s no way the Unity GitHub repo deletion wasn’t related to this new pricing update.

In the fireside chat the Unity rep said they estimated this monetization change was estimated to be around 2%-2.5% revenue so proposing this “either the install fee or a 2.5% revenue share whichever is lower” so is this really a concession?

The burden of counting installs has been pushed onto Unity game devs. How are we exactly going to do that? What if we’re wrong about install counts? Are game devs going to be living in a state of fear over being out of compliance if we aren’t tracking installs how Unity wants us to? It’s self report but some day Unity is going to call BS on someone. It might just be better to pay the 2.5% revenue to be safer. I mean, how are devs going to figure out if a game is a charity bundle, a pirated installation, or mass “install bombing.” These are still real problems with the install fee but the burden has been shifted to game devs.

Not to mention the per seat prices has gone up substantially. Most studios are going to be paying more per seat after the year is up.

It’s cheesy that the Unity is doing a press blitz to do damage control. I get it though. It comes off hollow reading this article knowing this is how businesses act during crisis like this. Feels fake once you’ve been a part of corporate America.

Unity is winning so much but pretending like they’re not. Maybe the original plan but most likely they’re just being good opportunists.

This sudden install fee and per seat license price increase implies that Unity is hurting for money. At ~7,700 employees (versus Epic’s ~2,200) they have a massive operating expense. Not sure Unity is going to have a “sustainable business model” if this is how they’re acting.

It’s not all bad.

I am happy they released a calculator for the install fee versus revenue. I’m happy there is a cap to the new fee. I’m happy the fee only applies to next LTS version. I’m impressed that the carrot to get people to install the next LTS is to be able to disable the Unity logo (kudos and props to the folks who thought up this carrot).

flipcoder• 3 years ago

On the bright side, it was a great week for Godot

codelikeawolf• 3 years ago

That's because that anger reflected "the extraordinary passion that our community has for their craft, their livelihoods, and their tools, including Unity," Whitten said. "When Unity disappoints them, in a way where they're overly surprised or whatever, they give very, very critical feedback. I don't love hearing every single one of those pieces of feedback—sometimes they can be pretty pointed—but I love that that passion exists."

Imagine if you went outside and found someone taking a dump in your front yard. Then when you yell at them to stop, their response is "the passion you have for your lawn is extraordinary. I love that that passion exists." This entire article is preposterous.

raxxorraxor• 3 years ago

extraordinary passion [...] for their [...] livelihoods

How entitled and decadent of them.

This is a pretty good demonstration of the danger of making yourself dependable on certain platforms.

Developing games is still an extremely high risk endeavor and using a more widely known engine can reduce parts of it. Especially on large developer teams or those were developers change. This behavior introduced new uncertainty.

Some might remember the DRM measure of limited installs, I hope we don't get back to that.

Unity exec tells Ars he’s on a mission to earn back developer trust

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