Government must act immediately, say Games Up? organisers as campaign goes public
The recently-revealed Games Up? campaign has been officially unveiled this morning (27th May 2008), with a warning that 'UK games studios face decline' as 'runaway industry growth will increasingly move offshore'.
Revealed at the weekend in a piece on the Mail on Sunday, the Games Up? campaign is a unified and organised attempt by the UK games industry to successfully lobby Government for a games production tax credit and better higher education.
Backed by UK trade associations Tiga and ELSPA, and a number of leading UK games companies, the move is designed to "warn government that the UK's world-leading studios face decline despite the boom in the £18 billion games software market".
"The Game Development World Championship (GDWC) celebrated the 2023 Summer Season with an Awards Stream on Thursday, September 21st. At the event, GDWC announced winners in 11 categories for the Summer Season." - GDWC.
Today Unity revealed a rather radical change to the new pricing policy announced a while ago, following the massive backlash from many of its developers and the wider gaming industry.
It's ugly, but I think they deserve a second chance only because they, at least, admitted they took a wrong turn, and they want to straighten things up. unlike for example, Nvidia.
Remember, competition is good for the consumers. we don't want them to go out of business, but to do things fairly.
It's only a matter of time until something else disagreeable becomes policy. The stage has been set. Stone has been cast. Can't rewind time like you can in their game engine.
Not sure why the downvotes...probably people who have 0 dev experience(or socialists lol). Competition is essentially for quality products.
Get out of here being logical and level headed on the internet. You can only spread hatred and be obstinate with zero exceptions. Obviously nobody being overly dramatic and critical has ever made a mistake. Otherwise they wouldn't be so quick to place permanent judgement on anyone....
Absolutely not, they've been proven to be chancers. The only reason they are doing a 180 is because they know the alternative is to keep getting shit for being greedy ultimately leading to their failure as a company
No
Game development is very costly and takes very long time, only a fool decides on the core engine purely because “muh healthy competition” and risk the chance of Unity making another shitty decision down the line and ruining years of work.
Would you give someone a second chance if they walked up to you and kicked you in the nuts?
Why does unity deserve a second chance? They only walked this back because of the backlash, give them a chance and they will only try it again.
@JackBNimble a kick in the nuts is totally different than making a wrong decision, is it not?
my reasoning is not to side with Unity or anything close to that, it's only because we cannot afford having a monopoly in the game engine market. imagine if, for example, Epic is the only company making game engines, fees will go up the roof and quality will go down the gutter, why? because they can. Just look at what NVidia is doing in the GPU market.
If you can see past your emotions, you'll understand.
@KwietStorm_BLM @savedsynner thank God you exist. but to be fair to others, i think most of the commenters here are too young to view and understand things the way adults do.
It’s definitely not too little too late. Companies have been making crazy decisions this entire generation and people have moved right past it.
PS5 Price Hike, XBL Gold doubling in price, Series Price Hike, Games going for $70, etc…. It’s in the news and media for a month or two, then the vast majority of people and gamers don’t care anymore as they move on to the next news topic. Meanwhile, those who games using the Engine are the ones who have to actually do the communicating and work to make sure the solution is fair and balanced for all parties and so they can continue their work. If there is no resolve for all parties after this then there’s no coming back.
What they did do is give Unreal Engine 5 an unneeded advantage over them which was the most ignorant thing they could have done.
I think you underestimate how long and badly a lot of users on here hold a grudge. They’ve got the sharpest axes.
I agree with your not too little too late sentiment. Everyone makes a bad decision at some point. Let’s see if they can rectify and improve in a way that benefits them, consumers and developers before we start frothing at the mouth.
Sounds familiar doesn't it? Like when Don Mattrick invited everyone to Redmond to unveil a certain console. Phil Spencers been and most definitely his right hand man Executive Fanboy Aaron Greenberg (Head of Marketing - Why would you put a guy like this as your head of marketing, honestly) have been caught in the same thing. Phil Spencer's just as bad and as much of a two-faced about faced liar as Don Mattrick, they just put his under bite more. He's obviously not as stressed because he's packed on a ton of weight sitting as his desk with his feet kicked up playing his Switch and shoving his mouth full cause he's fat now too
Pretty much. Any devs future games should not start on unity. They've shown their cards like ms with the original Xbox one reveal.
First, they've removed Terms of Service from github, just 'cuz, so no more transparency (is there a new version? What changed? Read ToS every week with a lawyer to be safe), the trust is broken.
Then, they also started requiring 3 day online check ups. And they also increased the price of the subscriptions, 'cause why not?!
After that, they introduce those ridiculous runtime fees. And after developers started to revolt, what they do? They didn't back down, instead they tried to move some numbers around to make it "easier to understand and accept". And keep in mind, if you install a game, that's +1 install. But if you uninstall and reinstall right away, that's another +1 install. This can be exploited and probably will be. And it's applied to your every developed game, not just newely created ones.
Say "thanks" to your new EA exec and it's "great" ideas (yes, "it's"; don't this it has a soul or anything human anymore), this company can't and shouldn't be trusted anymore, by anyone. They became too greedy and will now try to slowly screw you over. This is not some one small misstep, this is a calculated plan. They deserve what they're getting.
And this is happening when Unreal Engine will start taking money from you after you've earned $1.000.000 in a year (and if they change ToS and you disagree with it, you can continue using your current version without any extra strings attached). And you also have free Godot, O3DE and others.
At least they both changed the price back. Sony just raised there price without adding anything and not peep from PS gamers...
I'm assuming the tos removal is more because it takes a long time to write a tos and this is a emergency response to the situation there will be a new one republished I'm sure
@Profchaos
That Github repo was actually created after a previous ToS blunder they had (here's the announcement - https://blog.unity.com/comm... and they were updating it ever since. They themselves made a commitment. And then they removed this sneakily repo without saying a word to anyone, right before announcing runtime fees for the first time. Not AFTER they had to rollback to previous version/fix their mess. So it was 100% a pre-planned malicious act. They knew what they were doing and it was to screw their customers. And the people responsible for this "wise" decision are still working there, so it's expected to continue later, i'm assuming.
They removed it not because it's hard to keep it up-to-date (they have a whole legal team for that), but they did it so people wouldn't be sure what's changed and what didn't, so no history is kept. And they did remove at least one important part for many developers, that you must agree to new ToS and you can't keep using an older version.
And they were updating ToS on github before just fine, as they promised.
Hopefully they will get plenty of backing and attention.
With so many other countries now offering developers tax incentives to set up in there region its important that we herer in the UK retain wahts left of excellent developement heritage.
As a UK developer myself, I'm particularly interested, but anyone who follows games history and cares will know that UK developement is worth protecting and fostering....
If the Govt. don't do anything soon then what happened with our film industry will happen to the games industry.
The companies will move operations and investment abroad and the Govt. will have lost out on another opportunity that could have been lucrative for them and the country.
It looks like the industry itself is asking for this so that has to open someones eyes in parliament.
http://www.developmag.com/n...