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today I'm going to weigh in on the
recent unity game engine Fiasco of sorts
because a a lot of people are asking me
to do it B it hits close to home for me
on a personal level and c I need that
spicy content with a negative headline
because the data's in people you all
tend to click things that are dramatic
and attention grabbing I don't make the
rules I just play by them all jokes
aside Unity the biggest rival when it
comes to epic games and it's Unreal
Engine has recently decided to make some
pricing changes sounds boring right yeah
it should be normally it would be but
it's not because they somehow managed to
effectively unite the entire gaming
industry against them wrestle the mantle
of worst corporate entity away from
Electronic Arts go figure and lose a
bunch of their development customers all
at the same time oh and they lied lost
like a billion dollars in market cap
seemingly tried to cover it all up while
insiders sold their shares and it really
is just a giant mess of a situation
let's discuss before doing a basic
rundown and this one has quite a few
twists and turns it's a decently
interesting story I want to explain why
I care in the first place for starters I
like games obviously right now I'm
playing this little gem called God of
weapons it's in the background right now
and it was made you guessed it with
unity it's a wonderful little game and a
business decision like the one we're
discussing today hurts them pretty
substantially however beyond that one of
the most well-received video Types on
the entire channel is the indie game
Spotlight series some of those games
have admittedly struggled to find their
footing others have gone on to be
breakout success stories but I mean this
quite literally those Indie spotlights
are the highest rated and most liked
videos on the entire Channel not the
highest viewership just the best
reception I love making them I often
interview developers and in some rare
cases we go on to become friends helping
people discover amazing games from
passionate creative people is genuinely
one of the most satisfying experiences
I've ever had on all of YouTube and yeah
this part should be obvious but a lot of
those games rely on the unity engine
that right there makes me substantially
purse personally invested sure the
decision isn't actually likely to
bankrupt ndpc developers that sentiment
has been a little bit over exaggerated
understandably so but it certainly hurts
them massively betrays their trust and
demonstrates executive greed at the
highest level and of the highest order
today I want to discuss that greed and
weigh in on the discussion so here we go
the actual terms of service changes can
be summarized like this instead of a
monthly subscription which they used
prior to all this Unity will move to a
hybrid payment model that charges based
on every individual install of a game
that's an odd Choice especially
considering the fact that the prior
system worked perfectly fine but it gets
worse Unity will now be charging
Developers for every installation Beyond
a certain threshold that threshold being
a product of whichever plan they pay for
already but instead of focusing on the
details of how much the cost per
installation will be and what their
subscription model looked like before
all this I want to focus on the broader
current picture these are unsavory
changes to say the very least but Unity
has also gone a step further with little
more than a sort of ethereum real
promise Unity has stated that their
proprietary methods can detect whether
or not a game has been pirated thus
effectively demanding that developers
simply trust them when it comes to
whether or not they will be charged for
inauthentic installations but when it
comes to Bad actors there are now some
very pressing very real questions about
whether or not repeated installation on
a script for example can be used as a
weapon to harm creatives still those
issues actually pale in comparison to
what comes next because far beyond a
typical executive blunder or something
like that this appears to be a
deliberate move by unity to cover their
tracks and in my opinion abuse the
developer Community alright I'm going to
be very direct here over the past few
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okay try this on for size Unity has now
changed their terms of service harming
developers but a few years ago in 2019
to be precise as per a blog post on
their own website that's still active we
can see the following quote retroactive
TOS changes when you obtain a version of
unity and don't upgrade your project we
think you should be able to stick to
that version of the TOs in practice that
is only possible if you have access to
bug fixes for this reason we now allow
users to continue to use the TOs for the
same major year-based version number
including long-term stable LTS builds
that you are using in your project
moving forward and this is the important
part we will host TOS changes on GitHub
to give developers full transparency
about what changes are happening and
when the link is and there it is end
quote that post in particular was in
response to backlash that they received
over TOS changes that the community felt
were too restrictive interesting right
well turns out that GitHub page has been
taken down Unity has effectively deleted
the evidence by deleting the GitHub repo
as they contradict their prior
commitment of transparency actually even
though it's been taken down we can see
it quite plainly on this page here
quote Unity May update these Unity
software additional terms at any time
for any reason and without notice and
those updated terms will apply to the
most recent current year version of the
unity software provided that if the
updated terms adversely impact your
rights you may elect to continue to use
any current year versions of the unity
software according to the terms that
applied just prior to the updated terms
the updated terms will then not apply to
your use of those current year versions
unless until you update to a subsequent
year version of the unity software end
quote long-winded I know and yes they
make it abundantly clear and very
obvious that they are legally permitted
to change things how and when they
choose to of course of course the
legalese is there but that's plain text
commitment right there on its face
developers can use the prior terms and
conditions if they want to flash forward
to today and no they can't those
promises no longer exist in the TOs the
GitHub repo has been pulled down and
unity sits there presumably happy with
themselves in all this as they
demonstrate some of the most latent
industry greed I've ever seen the thing
is we really really truly shouldn't be
surprised see Unity has now clarified
that developers won't be responsible for
Game Pass installations or charity
bundles that bill will be served to the
likes of Microsoft supposedly good luck
there somehow I doubt Microsoft is going
to play ball here with this and pony up
and pay but focusing more on Unity
itself as a company we find something
interesting for starters the only thing
that's been happening for the past three
years is aggressive Insider selling of
their own stock simple explanation
Insider buy and sell activity can
sometimes in some cases be used as an
indication of future outlook example
this is the past three years of Insider
trade activity for Activision Blizzard
according to Market beat what we see is
mostly sell side activity yes especially
fourth quarter 2020 but there's also a
couple million here and there of
insiders actually buying the stock in
contrast here's Unity for the past three
years again according to Market could
beat analytics there has been only
Insider sales hundreds of Millions worth
actually just a few days before all this
even kicked off initially the CEO John
riccitello riccatello whatever however
you say that and a company director
Robin Cisco were offloading shares again
just a couple of days before all this
Rob and Cisco opting to sell off nearly
two-thirds of her entire position in the
company in a vacuum maybe nothing but
knowing what we do now it certainly
raises an eyebrow still when searching
for total context there's quite a bit
more CEO of unity John rickettiello
however you say that again don't really
care isn't some sort of unknown Maverick
of the industry no no no he's the former
CEO of EA Games and it turns out he has
some very vocal opinions on monetization
now I could read the headlines for this
and summarize it for everyone very
quickly but I think the actual audio
itself serves the purpose far better
here he is over a decade ago speaking to
investors
digital revenues or microtransactions
when you are six hours into playing
Battlefield and you run out of ammo in
your clip
we ask you for a dollar to reload you're
really not very price sensitive at that
point in time
um and for what it's worth the cogs on
the clip really love and so
um essentially what ends up happening
and the reason the play first pay later
model works so nicely is the consumer
gets engaged in a property they might
spend 10 20 30 50 hours on the game and
then when they're deep into the game
they're well invested in it we're not
gouging but we're charging
and at that point in time the academic
can be pretty high as a personal
anecdote I spent about five thousand
dollars calendar year to date I'm doing
just this thing this type of thing on
our products and others I can readily
attached to how well it works but it is
a it's a great model and I think it
represents a substantially better future
for the
that right there is vile immersing
players in a product subverting their
critical thinking skills then preying on
their moment-to-moment desire to finish
an objective or just keep their
character alive even to milk as much
money as possible from them while mental
faculties are diminished is evil and
that is the person at the helm of unity
right now it's not just this even he
also famously spoke to pocketgamer in
2022 referring to developers who don't
think this way as in prioritizing
monetization of their products to an
extreme Above All Else as [ __ ] idiots
making it readily apparent that the
motivation here is not quality or
ethical consideration it's profit Above
All Things greed of the highest order as
I said previously and that motive is now
once again displayed here with unity as
they double down on one of the worst
decisions I have ever seen in the entire
video game industry since I got involved
with it Crema games the developers of
temtem Mega crit the team behind to slay
the Spire which was an indie Spotlight
by the way on the channel incredible
game highly recommended and Agro crab
have all stated publicly that they will
either cease using unity in the future
or even migrate existing projects right
now and that's just the ones I happen to
scroll past on social media today
there's more this right here is a pretty
solid Reddit thread detailing high
profile industry responses but the
damage continues to mount behind the
scenes even every passing hour Unity has
destroyed any semblance of trust that
their Community held in what I would
call a death knell of their relative
industry position like I said earlier
after chatting with a fair number of
developers and Friends affected by all
this the PC side isn't as broadly
impacted indie games that use Unity will
still be okay I guess despite these
changes unlikely to be bankrupted or
destroyed as a result but the mobile
space that's a whole separate ball game
I don't necessarily care as much about
the mobile space on a personal level
I've certainly dabbled in some mobile
games here and there even trying to be
number one in the world on certain
titles for a time but the basic reality
is now sinking in that Unity has
destroyed their Community Trust worse
than ever before while going down a road
of maximized read I'm not even being
hyperbolic here some developers like
those behind Cult of the Lamb have
stated that they will actually just flat
out delete their game come January 1st
unless the decision is completely
reversed devolver digital has indicated
that they will now be using engine
Choice as a lever on whether or not to
even work with potential projects even
Among Us publicly stating that they will
delay features or Port their game
elsewhere that is a very big deal bottom
line like I said it's not even hyperbole
the fall of unity is happening in real
time as the company goes down a road so
asinine ridiculous and obtuse they have
likely catapulted themselves to the top
of the list when it comes to greediest
companies in all of video games it's a
negative attention-grabbing headline but
it's true holistically true and you best
believe I'll be offsetting it with some
more Indie spotlights in the future so
yeah there's that for now links are down
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sponsor a link to God of weapons on
Steam it's a fantastic little game and I
guess actually if they're going to be
charged per download I mean it's still
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it's a great game it deserves your time
I highly recommend it and more like a
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thank you
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