Unity Situation
Added 2023-09-13 19:00:41 +0000 UTCHi!
In terms of transparency, I decided to cover this topic a little here.
I would assume that many of you have already read the recent news about Unity and their new Runtime Fees which have caused massive chaos in the game development ecosystem.
Here one recent article if you haven't followed the situation:
https://www.pcgamer.com/why-every-game-developer-is-mad-right-now-explained/
Here's also a good video to summarize the main points and concerns:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zuZaJE3n-4&t=334s
Disclaimer: Some information might already be outdated with these links.
I have personally used Unity since 2012 and witnessed multiple of these "moments" in the past and usually these things look worse than they actually are but this one is a bit different.
For Road to Vostok and many other indie titles the new pricing model is not the main concern (unless certain mobile / F2P games), it's the trust towards the platform, sudden changes, lack of communication, confusing guidelines related to the new changes and so on.
I have followed this situation around two days now, tried to observe things in the "big picture" and it's more and more obvious that Unity really messed up this time. The brand damage towards Unity is really hard to undo since developers, publishers and investors are going to remember this for a long time.
The good news here is that I have built this project to be as modular as possible (minimal ties to Unity's native tools) and since I own 100% of the company I can make whatever decisions I feel are the best for this game. In other words, Road to Vostok is one of the "lucky ones" that are not directly threaten by this situation and there's multiple ways to be strategic about the future.
It's too early to make any major decisions but one thing is for certain, Road to Vostok development continues as usual, but I will start increasing the "project modularity" even more from this point forward. I strongly believe that game developers will start planning "engine-independent" ways to make assets / features for long-term game projects and Road to Vostok is already well prepared for this.
As a personal note, with over a decade of working with Unity it's still really sad to see this unfolding, but sometimes there must be bad things for the good things to come.
When it comes to mindset and motivation, I'm not shocked or worried in any way. When you have worked in this industry for long enough you have gain an ability to withstand many of these bad situations and make additional plans before the problems appear.
If this situation eventually leads to switching to another engine (most likely not), I would still take that as a positive challenge and opportunity to learn something new :)
The upcoming days and weeks will tell which direction this is going to take.
Thanks for supporting this project, I will keep you updated and continue working towards Public Demo 2 even though it has been pretty weird for these past few days.
- Antti (Developer)
Comments
I want too see first how this situation evolves, since the tone / severity of this post might change a lot based on Unity's actions.
Road to Vostok
2023-09-14 10:41:09 +0000 UTCGood to hear the project is adaptable enough to not be stuck with unity should the need arise to change the engine! I do think you should post this to social media though, not only to inform non-patreon fans that the project is safe, but to also join the protest alongside other indie devs.
Andex
2023-09-14 10:39:03 +0000 UTC> When it comes to mindset and motivation, I'm not shocked or worried in any way. When you have worked in this industry for long enough you have gain an ability to withstand many of these bad situations and make additional plans before the problems appear. Honestly so true. Working in this industry, it's all something you see coming from a mile away. Obviously I don't mean that we knew Unity was going to do this, but more like, "what if I suddenly need a new engine to work on?". After releasing many games, working for different companies, seeing how people operate, you learn to expect that certain things will go wrong. Typically those things are rather small and don't really set back development, but when you're working on AAA projects they stack up and have an impact. There are however these larger things that you can never predict, but you kinda have in the back of your mind. A new era of game development is approaching where Unity will lose its #1 spot, in my opinion, and for good reason. You can't trust them anymore. I'm glad I moved away from their ecosystem a while ago and I my work is not affected as we are using proprietary engines. You can't help however but feel terrible for all those relying on Unity's engine to make a living. The worst thing is that some people see the fees and not the bigger picture of accountability and mutual trust between businesses. Also, the fees can and will stack up. It may still be cheaper than Unreal according to some calculations I've seen, but that doesn't change the fact that Unity and Unreal are two completely different engines, and that goes quality/expectations wise as well as budget wise in my opinion. So introducing new fees while not adding any substantial upgrade to the engine, makes it fall back and lose ground. Say 300k installs, so 100k * 20 = 20,000 euros. That's a yearly wage for a lot of people. I'm really glad RtV isn't affected, as I know people that heavily relied on Unity and have used it for the past decade. TL;DR Unity screwed big time not just because of increasing the cost of operations for companies but because they don't seem trustworthy.
Dimitris Kalyvas
2023-09-14 10:37:05 +0000 UTCWell put Antti and FiveFingerSlapFace!!
Jed Cam
2023-09-14 05:04:11 +0000 UTCgreed... the grinning, demonic face of capitalism. I'm not political but in every aspect of life I see its destructive impact - commercialization of everything that's salable. it's the system we live in, the system we choose to uphold. no matter the cost. shareholders want more, so the companies have to gain more, pay the employees less, find more ways to monetize their products and to screw over their customers.... in the end, those who pay the price are the small people, the ones who already have less. you don't have to be political to talk about these things. that's why supporting your favorite projects/developments/artists in the most direct way is so important. It's not called indie - independent - for no reason.
FiveFingerSlapFace
2023-09-14 02:59:04 +0000 UTChave seen "Bigfry's" video on this today and am somewhat speechless. First of all, I am glad that Road to Vostok is not in danger, you will make the right decisions. Wondering a bit what's up with all the Unity games that have already been released. Is Unity going to ask for money after the fact? That could never be legal, could it? to be honest, I don't think Unity can or will implement that. The backlash of the developers and the community would be just too big. Unity would definitely dig their own grave.
SavRoyale
2023-09-14 02:33:32 +0000 UTCIt's always impressive how you handle these road bumps. You have a good head on your shoulders, just have faith and take the steps necessary to protect the progress of your game development to minimize any hang ups that this new policy could cause for you going forward. Hopefully Unity will see the backlash and back peddle, but that's wishful thinking. Just keep doing your thing, we got you back Antti!
M1XED_BAG
2023-09-13 23:52:14 +0000 UTCI was wondering what comments you had about the Unity situation, it's reassuring to know where you stand. Thanks for the transparency, hopefully the overall situation improves in the coming days.
Fonzi
2023-09-13 21:18:24 +0000 UTCYou're an intelligent man Antti, Always plan ahead in life because you never know when it's going to bite you. This project and many others like it are honestly why I still have faith that no matter how many wallet-hungry corporations exist, there are still people like you who will make a game because it is something you truly want to make and have a great sense of passion for. We will keep supporting you no matter what.
Amir Emadian
2023-09-13 21:00:18 +0000 UTCHey Antti, I think I speak for the entire RtV community that we fully trust you in absolutely every conceivable way. Of course, the situation is now sobering for the time being. You will certainly make the right decisions, no matter what they look like. We will stand behind you. One way or another.
Patrick W.
2023-09-13 20:28:44 +0000 UTC
