Unity will quietly waive controversial fees if developers switch to its ad monetisation service - report

A fresh report into Unity's hugely-controversial decision to start charging developers when their games are downloaded has thrown fresh light on the situation.

MobileGamer sources say Unity has already offered some studios a 100% fee waiver - if they switch over to Unity's own LevelPlay ad platform.

The report quotes industry consultants that say this move is an "attempt to destroy" Unity's main competitior in this field: AppLovin.

Hiccup,

I’m blown away that they even think this is less controversial or a solution. Brain dead company should cease to exist. I’m totally fine with no new games made with unity.

Lojcs,

Reminder that the unity ceo once suggested they (apparently he was at ea at the time) could start charging players money for reloading guns hours into a game once the player gets invested enough.

echodot,

These guys are cartoonishly evil. But also completely lacking in any actual common sense.

They literally never seem to think more than one step ahead, it’s pathetic. Sure they might gain some money by screwing everybody over short-term, but long-term they’re going to lose millions when everyone abandons their game/platform for something else. Look at Blizzard, classic example, they’ve screwed themselves over by trying to screw the customer over, they would have made more money if they just kept Overwatch one going.

Rentlar,

I can see it being part of a “announce an outrageously awful thing, settle for doing something bad instead” scheme.

mindbleach,

Advertising shits in your brain.

Let’s get rid of it.

And screw anyone going ‘but then how money?!’ while it infects billion-dollar business models. There’s no amount of money you can pay, where greedy suits won’t imagine taking your money and selling your eyeballs.

sugar_in_your_tea,

There is an ethical advertising system that works well: opt-in catalogues. I love Costco’s monthly ads, IKEA’s catalogue, Amazon’s holiday shopping catalogue, etc. When I need something, I can browse and create a shopping list.

My problem with ads is that it tries to get me to buy stuff when I’m doing something where I don’t want to buy stuff, like watching TV, browsing the Internet, or playing a game.

A game engine isn’t the right place for ads. Leave that to storefronts and other areas where I’m already looking to spend money.

LazerFX,

For those who know in the UK - the Argos catalogue was always my favourite thing to browse as a kid :D

sparky,
@sparky@lemmy.federate.cc avatar

Apple engineer here, from what I understand most of Unity’s competitors in the we space are significantly better paying and performing. We keep hearing from developers that nobody wants to use Unity’s product because of that. AppLovin, the one named here, outperforms Unity Ads by as much as 800% in some titles, according to a contact of mine at a game studio. With a difference like that it’s hardly surprising nobody is choosing Unity Ads.

This reeks of desperation, but one wonders how effective it could be - because this demand to drop AppLovin is basically cutting off the revenue faucet for these same developers they’re now trying to extort. No Unity fees but no good income either…

Saledovil,

There’s this one guy on youtube(www.youtube.com/), who said about business: [paraphrasing] “Sometimes things go well, and sometimes, you dry to get the change stuck between the couch cushions”. And you’re right, this pretty much does seem like a desperate move if you think about it.

sugar_in_your_tea,

Yeah, I love that analogy. When companies deviate from their core business model to try to increase revenue, it’s a symptom that the company is dying. If they’re having profit issues (which I doubt), a healthy company would innovate to attract customers, not to lock them in.

Saledovil,

Is this whole thing a “Springtime for Hitler” esque plot?

Aqarius,

Springtime for Johnny and Unity, autumn for Godot, Unreal

hyperspace,
hyperspace avatar

People chose a proprietary engine. They get what they fucking deserve

ProfessorProteus,
@ProfessorProteus@lemmy.world avatar

I loathe seeing ads in any medium whatsoever, especially a medium I use for escaping this ad-filled apocalypse of a world we all live in. Why on Earth would I willingly force ads onto people who have generously supported me doing the thing I love most?

Disclaimer: I haven’t made any games yet, but someday “soon”…

mindbleach,

GB Jam starts tomorrow, if you want to bang out some four-color faux retro title in a hurry.

echodot,

It’ll be interesting to see how many games are made in unity. I suspect quite a lot will be actually because developers haven’t had time to learn anything new yet it’s been about 5 minutes. No doing that may screw them over long term so maybe they won’t.

smeg,

But MONEY! Don’t you want to make loads of MONEY? Here, watch this Unity developer video about how to squeeze MONEY out of those generous chumps who supported you! It’s the Unity way!

TechieDamien,

When “soon” comes, take a look at Godot. You won’t be screwed by them because it is FLOSS. Have fun!

echodot,

Can Godot compare to unity in terms of features? I admit the last time I looked at it was probably over 2 years ago but it was very bare bones and could only do 2D graphics. Since the project I was developing at the time was a 3D game I kind of ignored it after that.

CorruptBuddha,

2 years ago godot absolutely had 3d game development. You just go to the top, and click from 2d, to 3d.

dandi8,

Godot 4 is, apparently, a big rewrite and doing 3D shouldn't be a problem now.

sugar_in_your_tea,

The 3D demos are impressive, and the most recent release added a lot of features for 3D development, such as a Vulkan renderer and a bunch of lighting effects.

I’m no 3D game dev, but from what I’ve seen, it’s ready for smallish 3D games. I don’t think the performance is anywhere near Unreal, but it seems to be capable enough for most indie 3D titles.

ProfessorProteus,
@ProfessorProteus@lemmy.world avatar

What the other folks said. To add, there are several games made with Godot that look like they match Unity in terms of graphical fidelity. And if you’re a boomer like me who doesn’t care about graphics, there are cool games like Ex Zodiac

TechieDamien,

Godot 4 drastically improved the capabilities of godot, especially in the 3d realm. It isn’t perfect, but I would say it is about on par with unity in terms of features. Note that some of the more advanced stuff are in modules that you need go download within the editor. This was done to keep the core light while not sacrificing features.

ProfessorProteus,
@ProfessorProteus@lemmy.world avatar

Last night I uninstalled Un*ty and replaced it with Godot, so I’m very excited to start learning. It’s a little disappointing that it’s not as “capable” as other engines, but my conscience (and future expectations) will be clear. And besides, to me game dev is about expressing oneself artistically and not chasing numbers and metrics.

TechieDamien,

If there is something you want to do and it isn’t simple and you think it should be, there is a good chance that there is a module that adds that functionality. Good luck!

ProfessorProteus,
@ProfessorProteus@lemmy.world avatar

That’s great to hear. No sense in reinventing the wheel, especially if the wheel uses quaternions for its 6-DoF rotation 😂

Thanks, and good luck to you as well!

mateomaui,

ok, so fuck these people again

remus989,

Ah, so THIS was they wanted to get in there.

acceptable_pumpkin,

Oh good, now I can play a game I payed for and see some ads. Maybe they’ll add skins in games where some character will wear a Taco Bell shirt or change health potions to “Vitamin Water” bottles

/s

Hiccup,

On the bright side, a lot of the scene might come out of retirement to crack and clean up this shit or we’ll get new adblocking technology/ software. That said, fuck unity.

sugar_in_your_tea,

I don’t want ad blocking in my games, because I should never see ads in something I paid for. I hate that trend in streaming services, I hated it in mobile games, and I absolutely will not tolerate it in desktop/console gaming. I’d rather not play games than see ads there.

DocBlaze,

I wonder if it will be that integrated. perhaps if you’re a PC player you can solve all these issues for most non multiplayer games by simply cutting the internet out when you’re not using it to download updates from steam.

if it’s just like a taco bell skin dlc, I’m fine with just ignoring it. it’s the same thing as 47 having the clown costume in hitman. it’s an ignorable goof at worst and maybe at best creates an interesting choice for modders.

don’t get me wrong this is fucked, and John riccatello should really be dismissed after the wave of lawsuits overwhelm unity.

all-knight-party,

The article suggests it's strictly for smartphone apps. Could just be vague wording on the part of the article, but I struggle to understand how this would be as feasible for console or PC releases.

DocBlaze, (edited )

perhaps. I miss the days when you could airplane mode your way out of ads on your phone. the solution of course was to pay for premium games which are way better than a shitty skinnerbox anyway. but most casual gamers don’t want to

smeg,

You can set your private DNS to something like dns.adguard.com, that blocks all ads in mobile games (and every other app) that I’ve tried

_haha_oh_wow_,
@_haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works avatar

Welp, looks like it’s time to abandon Unity entirely.

kadu,
@kadu@lemmy.world avatar

We will truly live in a world where 95% of games are based on Unreal Engine, 4% on Godot or GameMaker Studio, and 1% custom engines.

Which is such a shame… When Unreal does something bad, like absolutely messing up shader compilation, pretty much all games start suffering with this for years. And there are some amazing engines out there… Resident Evil’s scales surprisingly well and looks way better than it has any right to.

PenguinTD,

Because Capcom’s in-house game engine is really scalable.

kadu,
@kadu@lemmy.world avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    PenguinTD,

    well, they did name it RE Engine but it was developed and used on many other projects as well.

    Games made with RE Engine

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RE_Engine

    jsh,

    So scummy of them.

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