ESTNN Writes: "The world of gaming is opening up more and more to the indie market. In recent years, there have been many small development teams who have managed to have great success thanks to their work, even if they do not benefit from the means that the large software houses have at their disposal. But you know, great means is not necessarily synonymous with quality, and indie developers know this well. Anyway, have you ever wondered why indie games are mostly platformers, puzzle games, and metroidvanias? We have tried to give an answer in this article."
Effective January 1, 2024, Unity will introduce a new Unity Runtime Fee that’s based on game installs. Unity will also add cloud-based asset storage, Unity DevOps tools, and AI at runtime at no extra cost to Unity subscription plans this November.
"It's an absolute f*cking catastrophe".
Unity has announced dramatic changes to its Unity Engine business model which will see it introduce a monthly fee per new game install beginning on 1st January next year - a move that has drawn considerable criticism from the development community.
Also, according to Yahoo, last week "Unity Software Inc's President and CEO John Riccitiello Sells 2,000 Shares".
It continues: "The insider transaction history for Unity Software Inc shows a clear trend: over the past year, there have been 49 insider sells and no insider buys. This could be a red flag for potential investors, as it suggests that those with the most intimate knowledge of the company's operations and prospects are choosing to sell their shares."
* https://finance.yahoo.com/n...
@Palitera - Yep, that's the world we live in. If you're rich and powerful, the law doesn't really apply to the wealthy the same way it does normal folk. Then there's the bond system. Any rich person that goes to jail, they just get to pay some pocket change and get to be let free thank to the bail bond system! It's so nice that if you have money, you can walk around free regardless of your crimes.
He's the same sleazeball who said this in a shareholders meeting years ago when he was EA CEO,
"When you are six hours into playing Battlefield and you run out of ammo in your clip and we ask you for a dollar to reload, you’re really not that price sensitive at that point in time,”
There will be fees for installing game demos that let you buy the full game, early access and betas... Epic must be celebrating in anticipation of everyone moving to Unreal.
Yes, I feel sorry for companies that have stabilized businesses and will have to TRY to shift focus.
For premium games, the fee is not that relevant, but for small, free mobile or free web games, this is a big strike.
The balance between revenue per user and user acquisition cost is usually very tight, and now it has been severely broken.
And if you think “screw F2P and small games”, remember these are the companies and devs that might make the indie gem you might love.
if i were them I just look a way to move it into another engine, this thing unity is doing is super abussive, if it doesnt cause problems it will do for us by them increasing the price, it was also coming to gamepass i believe, imagine if people download it multiple times 🤦🏻
It’s all uncertain right now.
Unity said Microsoft would be charged in Game Pass games.
The thing is: the contracts usually have clauses that push extra costs forward to the devs.
So, if Unity keeps the policy, either MS accepts the hit alone or the costs will be forwarded to consumers or devs.
And that is why engine consolidation is the issue that it is. It allows the company that operates the very few commercial options available to do whatever they want and their consumer base can only shallow it.
Yeah, but the alternatives aren’t even close. Hopefully this will put Unreal as lead for III, AA and above, and Cocos/Godot for smaller titles.
That is not hopeful at all. That is still engine consolidation, is just transferring the power from Unity to Epic and Godot. Sure the latter is open source and therefore much safer, but the issue remains especially with Epic and the Unreal engine, those guys already partake in some real shady stuff with their store. The last thing they need is more power over development.
I agree, but, in the current state of game development, there aren't many options. It's not like we can choose to have a FOSS engine taking over right now.
Corporate greed continues to evolve in unexpected ways. I was wondering how this will work if devs choose to move onto another engine and stop subscribing to Unity. Will they have to delist games to prevent new downloads? Will Unity prevent access to the games we purchased if the devs no longer want to pay them?
Can they hamper access to games that could be technically called grandfathered in
IGN can exclusively reveal the details from IATSE's 2023 Gameworkers.org Rates and Conditions Survey, where the organization asked hundreds of video game developers about their pay, benefits, and working conditions.
Sure they are. Video games aren't going anywhere. I think their confused with cashier jobs, fast food jobs things of that nature. Convenience stores around my city have started to go self checkout along with grocery stores.
"Video games aren't going anywhere"
That doesn't mean it's sustainable. Most devs are overworked and underpaid. This has been a problem for a long time. But we're now at the point where these people have to spend years in crunch just to get games out the door. Then if that game fails that single failure can be enough to put that entire studio out of business.
What about that sounds like a sustainable career?
Do you know most game developers are contractors and it’s a very competitive job that’s project by project? Or do you think it’s a job where you get hired and the same people work from project to project?
Because they are easy to make. I expect with Unreal 5, AI and metahumans we will see more indies push to make more compelling games.
They have a very high output to input ratio
Easiest type of game to make. Many indie devs are still learning and lack experience.
It's an excellent way to learn the ropes. This type of game design takes the least amount of manpower to make and if it's a good game there is a high return on investment.
I love Metroidvanias, so I am not complaining. Plus many big companies don't do Metroidvanias usually.