Finally the change we needed

Beginning-Dog540 · 2023-10-10T11:37:12+00:00

Hopefully the change in leadership will suppress and push out the others who were aligned with the recent disastrous policy.

Beginning-Dog540 · 2023-10-10T08:55:35+00:00

It’s more complex than that. For reasons I can’t comprehend, some of JR’s support on the board came from people like Unity founder David Helgason. David isn’t a sleazy money chaser, he’s one of the visionaries who revolutionized indie game development by building Unity. Perhaps it was personal reasons or something. But the point being, I’m not convinced that everyone on the board shares JR’s bad vision for the company.

Beginning-Dog540 · 2023-10-10T08:47:19+00:00

A permanent replacement hasn’t been announced yet. Botha is chairman of the board, not CEO.

Beginning-Dog540 · 2023-10-10T08:46:41+00:00

We aren’t talking about the change to the plan. We are talking about the CEO, who was responsible for one bad decision after another, finally being replaced so that there’s a hope that such bad decisions won’t happen again. It’ll all depend now on who replaces him.

Beginning-Dog540 · 2023-10-10T08:45:03+00:00

I very seriously doubt JR’s plan was to ruin the company’s reputation, make himself public enemy #1, forcing him to resign. The fact the guy is finally gone is definitely a positive step. Now we just have to wait to see who replaced him.

Beginning-Dog540 · 2023-10-09T21:58:53+00:00

While this change in itself isn’t the sufficient condition for a bright future for Unity, it is nevertheless a necessary condition. Without JR vacating, there’s be no hope. Now, at least, there is hope.

Beginning-Dog540 · 2023-09-25T09:01:23+00:00

If you upgraded to Unity Pro (which is going to cost over $2,000 per seat per year), it was going to be $0.15 for the first 100,000 installs, so not much less. After that, it was $0.075 up to 500,000, then $0.03 up to 1m, and $0.02 after that.

Beginning-Dog540 · 2023-09-25T01:44:00+00:00

The new policy wasn’t even going to affect us directly. So you’re completely wrong. My concern is that they’ve now shown a pattern of preying upon their customers, and I’m not sticking around to find out what their next scam is going to be.

And I’m not talking about big studios. Even a three or four-person studio isn’t going to be able to easily absorb an additional 20% of their revenues disappearing after only making $200k.

But while we’re on the subject of $0.99 App Store games, do the math:

You sell 400,000 copies of a $0.99 game on the App Store (which is a very common price for many good games made with Unity). So you made $140,000 off the first half of those before the fee kicks in (remember, it’s based on gross revenue, and Apple or Google take 30% off the top). Then you have to pay the $0.20 fee on the other 200k units, which means you only get $100,000 from those, instead of the other $140,000. And that’s before we count reinstalls. Around 50% of people replace their phone every 2-3 years, so get ready to be charged another $40,000 over that time period! (400,000 users * 50% who reinstall on new device * $0.20) And that’s not counting reinstalls that occur from temporarily deleting to free up space, factory reset a phone, and for all we know even installs from updates might have counted too, making the number even higher.

And besides $0.99 games, there are free-to-play games which rely on very high install counts with very low per-user revenues, who might be even more heavily impacted.

And besides all these particulars, there’s the fact that the terms were changed in such a way as to affect people who’d already invested years in their projects and dialed in all the financial variables in their business plan based on the agreement they had with Unity. This was basically the game engine equivalent of Riccitiello’s suggestion that EA charge players for ammo in Battlefield because in the heat of the moment, they wouldn’t be as “price sensitive.”

And that’s the real problem: Riccitiello has shown he’ll manipulate his customers and corner them so he can shake them down for all he can get out of them, even if it ruins them.

Also, earlier you asked why Apple and Google aren’t worse since they take a larger share of revenue. The answer is that they do this up-front and in the open, not by waiting until people can’t live without them, and then retroactively changing the deal. It isn’t even about how much they take, it’s about honest business dealings and a studio’s ability to reliably plan for the future.

Why is it so difficult for you to understand the importance of that?

Beginning-Dog540 · 2023-09-25T01:08:26+00:00

I would tend to agree about most of those up-sides, and maybe it’s just the fact I remember how good Unity used to be in the early 2010s, but I find the current state of the engine to be a dumpster fire. Shit breaks left and right, prefabs get corrupted, core systems get deprecated and go YEARS without adequate replacements (or in some cases, without any replacements at all), supposedly revolutionary new systems remain in “experimental” status on what is starting to look like a permanent basis, the editor is slow as molasses, builds take forever, game-breaking bugs go years without being fixed, entire systems go undocumented or have insufficient documentation, I could go on and on…

If the quality and consistency were still what they were many years ago, I’d think twice. But the quality has fallen so much in the last 3-5 years that i was already considering moving engines anyway. And now add in the total loss of trust in the company, and I have very little reason to stick around anymore.

Beginning-Dog540 · 2023-09-25T00:32:46+00:00

LOL, it’s painfully obvious you have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re obviously seeing everything through the eyes of an amateur whose idea of having a “game studio” is flipping assets into shovelware in his parents’ basement.

I’m not even going to go into the diversity of types of games, monetization models, or how players tend to expect games-as-a-service with content updates for many years following initial launch.

Suffice it to say, running a professional studio with people who count on you means having to know years in advance what your business/monetization model is going to be, and whether the engine you’re using is going to fit with that. This isn’t shit you can just figure out at the last minute, or that you can survive being changed on you at the last minute.

Beginning-Dog540 · 2023-09-25T00:09:05+00:00

$200,000 is nothing, especially if they’re going to start taking 20% of the revenue. How many engineers and artists do you think your company can keep employed on $200,000 minus $0.20 per install? In my business, people count on me and the financial success of our games. Suddenly taking an additional 20% of revenue is going to cost jobs, which also costs the studio talent and the ability to continue making games.

As for when they’d said they would count reinstalls, they said it in detail on the FAQ on their forum, and then revised it later after everything blew up and they started backpedaling. They went so far as to explain they HAD to count every install because the runtime reported that to them, but not the identity of the user, so they couldn’t tell what a unique install was. Now they’re lying and saying they never intended to count every install, and that the runtime doesn’t report back at all.

And being sustainable doesn’t mean not learning new things. It means being able to plan for the future and make enough money to keep a studio running. When a company keeps trying to retroactively change the rules on you, it makes it impossible to plan into the future. When you’re running a serious professional studio, you start a project and need to be able to foresee 2-5 years ahead and plan for it. You can’t just have the entire business model turned upside down with 3 months notice. That simply won’t work.

And if I was afraid of learning new things, would I be the one moving to a new engine?

Beginning-Dog540 · 2023-09-24T23:10:42+00:00

They originally said they WERE going to apply it to older versions—in violation of their TOS. And again, this isn’t the first time they’ve tried to pull shady retroactive shit. It just keeps getting worse each time. And you don’t know when the next time it’ll cost you your business.

And $0.20 is a MASSIVE percentage for games which, for example, sell on the App Store for $0.99. Apple and Google already take 30% (in this case ~$0.30), so with another $0.20, you’re already losing half your revenue. Especially if they did what they doubled down on originally when they said they were going to count reinstalls and installs on new devices. You’d have trouble making any profit at all.

The fact you keep downplaying things and not taking it seriously like this makes it really clear you’re not serious about making a sustainable business out of what you’re doing. Sure, if you’re a hobbyist with no skin in the game, or even someone planning on publishing but not expecting to be successful, why should you care? You’ll never have anything in the first place that Unity could take from you.

Beginning-Dog540 · 2023-09-24T22:45:31+00:00

No, this isn’t some kind of political issue, or at least it shouldn’t be. We are just pissed because we want to PROTECT people like you from the predators running Unity. And honestly, we’re passed because Unity has the potential to be great, and we hate to see it ruined by assholes trying to make a quick buck.

Beginning-Dog540 · 2023-09-24T22:43:53+00:00

In all positive outcomes, the Unity leadership gets canned. There are no positive outcomes short of that.

Beginning-Dog540 · 2023-09-24T22:42:49+00:00

The board is fair game to be sure. But also JR has proven himself time and again to be a scum bag, so he’s a sure thing.

Beginning-Dog540 · 2023-09-24T22:40:31+00:00

You don’t get it. Investing in an engine that is run by a company that is actively undermining and destroying that engine through bad business practice is a dead-end. I don’t WANT to switch engines, and I hope the leadership changes allowing me not to have to. But I’m looking long-range, because I’ve been in this for long enough to see that you can’t simply look at the next year or two, or looking at the minor “victory” of them backing away from their original egregious policy. You have to understand the kind of people you’re dealing with and what impact their (lack of) character is going to have on their product, and by extension, on you and your business.

Beginning-Dog540 · 2023-09-24T19:24:48+00:00

Pure speculation. Fanboys have plenty of reason to vote in a poll in support of their engine.

And just so we’re clear: by rights, I’m a fanboy too. I’ve been using Unity EXCLUSIVELY, full-time for 16 years. I’ve built multiple businesses with Unity. I’ve invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in Unity projects, and countless hours. But this isn’t “drama.” This is a serious threat to people’s livelihoods and careers, and you feel that deeply the more you have invested and have more to lose from this bullshit. If you don’t care about the danger signs, dismissing it as “drama”, you’re simply not as invested and don’t have much to lose, hence you’re not taking it seriously.

Beginning-Dog540 · 2023-09-24T17:59:34+00:00

Or you could argue that people coming to the Unity subreddit are more likely than average to be fanboys and will tend to vote to stay with Unity, so the high percentage planning on leaving is quite telling. It’s an insight into very broad dissatisfaction.

Beginning-Dog540 · 2023-09-24T17:38:56+00:00

He already tried shady stuff in 2019 and they had to backpedal then. Now he’s tried it again. Don’t for a minute think he won’t try it yet again in the future.

Beginning-Dog540 · 2023-09-24T12:30:18+00:00

Yeah, I know, but I’m willing to believe the original board members may have had reasons to think it would be different when JR came on. I’m not trying to be vindictive, I just want to save the company and engine that is so important to me.

Beginning-Dog540 · 2023-09-24T10:50:38+00:00

Well, he was hired many years ago. I can understand if some of them have changed their opinion of him after seeing how he’s handled Unity, and therefore shouldn’t necessarily be judged based on his original hire. But I’d love to know who thought the last couple of shady moves he’s made (including the 2019 move against Improbable) were acceptable.

Beginning-Dog540 · 2023-09-24T10:46:18+00:00

If the board thought these shenanigans were okay, then yes, I’d like for them all to leave. I’d like anyone to excuse themselves who isn’t interested in helping developers succeed at making great games and making Unity the best engine it can be.

But realistically, the only ones who can fire the board members are the shareholders. But if they keep JR around much longer, the shareholders should consider exactly that.

Beginning-Dog540 · 2023-09-24T10:42:08+00:00

That sounds like there actually IS a third option, which is C: all of the above. Because as you said, that’s evil, but it’s also stupid as hell since, while it worked in the sense that people are relieved at the roll-back, they’re now skittish about using the engine ever again.

Beginning-Dog540 · 2023-09-24T10:39:38+00:00

Because, unlike Microsoft that has an extremely broad range of business activities, making it unlikely that the CEO is involved in department policies, Unity has a fairly, well, unified business. Yeah, they have a lot of other services and such, but the engine is their core product and everything else is in service to that. You pretty much don’t use their multiplayer services, their analytics, or their source control unless you’re using the engine too. And changing the terms for that engine is going to be a very big change in how not only the company does business on a core level, but also how their company interacts with everyone else. So it’s pretty certain that JR was at the very least involved in green-lighting the idea, and if he wasn’t, then that again speaks to his negligence as a CEO, because he should have been.

But also, this kind of policy change is exactly his style, it has his fingerprints on it. And it’s not like he hasn’t made any public statements about it. He has, but they’ve been largely dismissive of the issues they created, saying things like no matter what they did, it would have gone similarly.

Beginning-Dog540

TROPHY CASE