This is why we as consumers must demand open source software
this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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$0.00 dollars per inStallman of godot engine.
While I'm a huge open source advocate this has little to do with open vs closed source software.
The issue of having to put up with software changes you dislike is solved when you (or 3rd parties) have the freedom to change the software in ways you like.
It is my hope that people see this as very much a proprietary vs free software issue. I hope this leads to further introspection; it's bad when an engine mistreats them (game devs) so maybe they should give software freedom to their users too.
The problem is, free software model is actually difficult to make profit with. Red hat has long been touted as the prime example of how to do it, by selling service and support instead of software, and even they try to limit the customers' freedom as much as possible now. Turns out a lot of people don't need support. And the better the software the less support is needed.
I struggle to see a way to make a game engine available so that it's free software and the customers can just take it if they don't like your pricing policy, but still make money from developing it. Or even break even. What would the engine developers sell? What would the game developers sell if the code could just be redistributed for free?
If programming is how one earns a living then the perceived risk of earning lower (if that's generally true, or not) will make moral arguments for free software less receptive.
Earning at distribution is not the only possible time to get funding. Godot engine gets grants from companies that request features, then devs implements them after already being paid. If that method would work for game devs, and earn enough, I can't say.
Free software being more difficult to earn profit is the other side of the coin of proprietary software being easier (for bad reasons). Artificially limiting the availability of software so users can only get it from you makes it easier. Being able to force changes that help you financially at the users' expense is easier. It's my hope that proprietary software is not viable long term as users will demand software freedom, but that's just my wish. In the short term I hope people switch from Unity to Godot.
A patron model is my personal future hope; "pay me if you want to see this game continued to be developed and get more games by me". In the meanwhile I have a full time job, wish we had a universal basic income!
The problem with patron model is that most people don’t want to pay for something they might get some time in the future. We have tried things like gofundme and it generally has been a disappointment. Patron models works for some things, like I might pay for an entertaining content creator to keep making content, at least if the stuff isn’t also available for free, but games are not like that. It’s generally considered stupid to pay in advance for games and seeing how expensive making big games is it would require millions of people being stupid per game.
In the end the patron model in game development would mean mostly big well established companies could make money. Who would pay for an unknown new company with no well established track record? Investors wouldn’t because there would be no return later. Only idiot users would.
I hope users see a difference between preordering the lastest AAA studio's game and donating to a community developed game {e.g. a multiplayer RPG like Veloren }. I'm an idiot who has donated a couple of times :)
As an amature game dev I have no expectation that I will get paid enough to live off. Even if I did that wouldn't prove to others that it can be the norm. I find this preferable to joining the games industry as it is now.
Nickel and diming, dark patterns, gambling to children, rootkit anti-cheat, tying games to consoles, attacking emulation of no longer sold games, shutdown servers required to play the game you paid for. The design is very different from the coin-operated arcades days. I want to make games that repect users' software freedom and for now I bet on users learning to value their software freedom too.
Yeah... "community developed game" very rarely turns out well. Especially if they attempt something resembling AAA content. Perpentual alpha state is the most common outcome. And when they work they typically just recreate some existing game with little creativity in terms of IP. Maybe Veloren will be the exception but nothing they show is in any way special. It seems they have already rewritten the engine entirely once. Edit: and of course it looks a lot like cubeworld and minecraft.
It's not really difficult to create some graphics content and moving characters on some engine engine, but that's like 5% of what it takes to make a good game. Communities are very good at the former but not so good at the remaining 95%.
I want to make games that repect users’ software freedom and for now I bet on users learning to value their software freedom too.
Users generally want games that are fun to play and that actually work. Software freedom is very very much secondary even among those who even know what it means.
Could it be said many game companies attempts end in alpha but communities' failures are just more transparent? A lot of games are clones of others games with just some differences? I feel the desire to create something new but don't mind creating clones if that can work.
I've focused a lot on implementation but if you're right then I think I aught to learn more about game design. It has been fun to think about designing gameplay in the past but I've never studied the basics.
I've recreated a game myself as I'd outgrown what I wrote (and rewrote it in an incompatible updated language). It's just "connect the dots" game as a few learning experiences but I will be posting the first alpha release soon, and hopefully isn't much after that (if one was harsh it's basically an asset flipper).
Could it be said many game companies attempts end in alpha but communities’ failures are just more transparent?
Maybe but it's rare for a company to put out products at alpha level unless they go bust before the game is finished. Sometimes games are launched at beta level and fixed later but that's not the same than the eternal development limbos of open source projects, where something almost playable is released to keep people engaged but it never really gets much better than that.
It has been fun to think about designing gameplay in the past but I’ve never studied the basics.
I'd say the most important thing about making games is gameplay design. While good game engine design is a big thing, what actually makes a good game is the user experience, not the technical details of how they implement things. It's also what is the problem in a lot of open source projects. I had a friend who implemented a very nice javascript browser based game engine. There were very cool features like particle physics and complex light effects in it. But in the end nobody wrote an interesting game with it. What matters is the content of the game, not so much which engine implements the content.
Good game design is also something that PhD theses are being written about. Not simple at all. I found the nintendo talk about designing zelda botw world very interesting. How much thought goes into things like the psychology of the player and how he reacts to what he sees and how to steer the player where the story wants him to go while giving him the impression he makes the choices himself is mind blowing.
Redhat was bought by IBM for 34 Billion dollars.
IBM knew their proprietary crap could not compete with FOSS alternatives.
Unity could make plenty of money on the asset store, and would never have to worry about Godot eating their lunch if they open-sourced their game engine. But this type of stuff will force people over to Godot.
This has everything to do with FOSS.
If a company can get away with pulling the rug on you, they will.
Once you've heavily invested in using a a piece of software, the company behind it has leverage over you, but if you could pay for updates to that software from another company, the original company has no leverage over you.
The only reason these companies refuse to release the source code is because they are planning on fucking you over in the future. As consumers we need to demand open source products to prevent this sort of abuse.
When capitalism runs out of places to grow/metastasize, it will consume itself.
And it has been for years, in every sector. People try to blame everything but the cause.
So out of every 1M downloads, that's $200,000 to Unity's pocket and out of the pockets of developers. Am I doing this math right?
Not downloads. Installs. They also count re installs. So if you. Install a game, play it, remove it, then install again later that is an additional charge to the dev.
So.. if your game becomes the most pirated game in history, you're on the hook for millions off zero income.
Way to go Unity..
They carved out an exception for pirated copies
And they can tell.. how exactly?
If I've read this right, they don't count re-installs on the same hardware, so just "I don't want to play this anymore" uninstall -later- "I want to play this again" reinstall won't count as two installs. But reinstalls of the same license on different hardware does, so "I just bought a game! Let's play it on my aging gaming PC" installs I just bought a new gaming PC, let's see what that game looks like on high graphics settings installs again does count as two installs and the studio will...bewilderingly...be charged twice for that one sale.
Now I'm intrigued about multiple installs on multiple virtual machines.
You're not the first to consider that possibility. It seems possible to grief a studio by repeatedly installing games in virtual machines and running up their Unity bill.
The question of "what about pirated games" has also come up. Are developers going to be charged per install of pirated games? Unity's answer to this has been an LTT brand "Trust me, bro."
Plus on top of all the other subscription fees.
it's not even really about the money, even if it will fuck the devs and ruin projects and lives, but the breach of trust and a mark that more shit is probably on it's way if this goes through. Unity owns a ecosystem that many people depend on and now they really start squeezing. It's not right.
This is why things that act as commons should be either nationalised or replaced with free software.
I agree. This dipping of fingers into the pockets of devs errodes trust.
Plus on top of all the other subscription fees
False. This 200k number assumes you would stay on Unity Personal, which breaks EULA anyway since you’re required to buy Unity Pro once you have more than 200k in revenue and funding.
The real cost for 1M installs, under Unity Pro, would be 62k$, to which you’re adding 2k annually for every seat of Pro you need, that’s it. Again, this assumes you’re making upwards of 2M$ annually. As soon as your game falls back under that, there’s no runtime fees anymore.
Compare with Unreal, where as soon as your game made 1M$ revenue over its lifetime, you’re on the hook for the 5% revshare perpetually. Over time, there’s loads of situations where that will stay more expensive.
Compare with Unreal, where as soon as your game made 1M$ revenue over its lifetime, you’re on the hook for the 5% revshare perpetually. Over time, there’s loads of situations where that will stay more expensive.
The difference between that and Unity that with Unreal it's predictable.
Basically unless you're going to make a sellout game, it might cost you money to make a game.
Not necessarily. It depends on the Unity license being used and it scales based on installs. So higher tier license and more installs makes each additional install cheaper. But if they are using the free license, it stays at 20c per install no 'discount' at any install counts. It is a bit convoluted: https://unity.com/runtime-fee
Is there any legitimate reason for this other than "shareholders go wahhhh!" Like is there a financial burden on unity every time someone installs a game?
If not this is insanely disgusting...
There is a reason. The current CEO is EA's former CEO. Dude was kicked out of EA for pulling something similar.
Well that makes all the sense in the world now. Man fuck EA even when it's not EA lol
He was kicked out of EA. Even EA isn't this bad lol. Seriously, while EA has had some controversies with nickle and diming, have they ever retroactively started making things cost money?
EA realised that it would be illegal and would get them sued. This guy either didn't ask the lawyers, or didn't listen to the lawyers.
A contract, is a contract, is a contract. You can't change it halfway through without getting confirmation from all parties, and obviously they haven't got that
Unity do not suffer financial hit just because someone installs the game.
They don't host the code. You use their code but the code itself is hosted by the likes of Valve or Microsoft or Sony. So no they have no legitimate reason, other than they like money and they reckon this will generate them some.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
That goodwill has now been largely thrown out the window due to Unity's Tuesday announcement of a new fee structure that will start charging developers on a "per-install" basis after certain minimum thresholds are met.
The newly introduced Unity Runtime Fee—which will go into effect on January 1, 2024—will impose different per-install costs based on the company's different subscription tiers.
Outside of those countries, an "emerging markets rate" ranging from $0.005 (for Enterprise subscriptions) to $0.02 (for Unity Personal users) will apply after the minimum thresholds are met.
This is a major change from Unity's previous structure, which allowed developers making less than $100,000 per month to avoid fees altogether on the Personal tier.
Larger developers making $200,000 or more per month, meanwhile, paid only per-seat subscription fees for access to the latest, full-featured version of the Unity Editor under the Pro or Enterprise tiers.
"Gloomwood will definitely be my last Unity game, likely even if they roll back the changes," developer Dillon Rogers wrote on social media.
The original article contains 506 words, the summary contains 168 words. Saved 67%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!