this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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[–] MossBear 107 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Why stay at all whether they revert it or not? They're egregiously incompetent and if they've done this sort of thing once, they're going to do it again. Developers should go where their support will help make something better (Godot) and not stick with the crusty old Unity hag that is constantly pawing at their pockets hoping for the jingle of coins.

[–] Serinus 150 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Because changing the engine in an existing project is a huge pita that requires many, many hours and possibly in some cases a full rewrite.

This also applies to games that would be released in 2023 or 2024.

Nobody should be considering Unity for a new project, but it's understandable to make either decision for many existing projects.

Ripping out the engine of your game isn't a trivial thing.

[–] douglasg14b 55 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Many many hours is a massive understatement.

Thousands and thousands of hours is more appropriate

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't know how you could change the engine without rewriting the entire thing basically from scratch.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It really depends on how modular their codebase is. The Doom 1/2 modern ports they did in 2019 use Unity. But it's actually still the original Doom underneath and just using Unity for input and output to make porting easier

[–] cozycosmic -3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I agree, although a lot of the work going into a game is the game design, art, and iteration, and not just the programming and rigging. And it may actually be a catalyst to rewrite parts better

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Strongly disagree. While a lot of work does go on to art assets which should be simpler to migrate, the code is absolutely what makes the game. There are tons of very successful games with low quality or stock assets, there are very few popular games with broken code.

Even then, it's still a lot of effort to check every asset you're using to ensure they work as expected in your new engine.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

I agree for a specific scenario: if you don't use many unity specific packages or assets. Then, perhaps you are correct, still I don't blame anyone staying even in that case, as it is still daunting to take on such a task.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

You're completely right

[–] cjthomp 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)
  1. It's a significant effort to change engines
  2. Even though it's just one dev, they're giving Unity a reason to revert. If you just say "Yo, I'm OUT!" then they've already lost you and they have no reason to revert on your behalf.
[–] MossBear 2 points 1 year ago

If Developers were in a relationship with Unity, it'd be the sort where Unity always comes home drunk and is verbally abusive, but they stick around with the belief that Unity will change.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Cause it's probably not worth it for them to migrate and learn/train on a new engine unless Unity goes forward with their plans.

But you're right, this completely destroyed Unity's reputation. Even if they revert, who's to say they won't try something like this in the future.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

This is the classic tactic of doing something just to see if people will accept it. Even if they backtrack, they absolutely WILL do shit like this again. It's just like EA and micro transactions