this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2023
36 points (83.3% liked)
Game Development
3483 readers
39 users here now
Welcome to the game development community! This is a place to talk about and post anything related to the field of game development.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The only apology I or most others will accept is emptying out their exec suite, because those are the people who lobbied for and enacted these changes. If the exec suite doesn’t change, it just means they’re waiting for a more opportune moment to try the same strategy again.
I doubt that it's "most". Unity will wait until this has been forgotten, then introduce something a little less this than this, and repeat that until they're halfway to this situation which is exactly where they probably wanted to be from the start. By that time, most will be too deep in whatever it is they'll be doing and will be caught with their pants down.
I bet most will not learn from this and continue to use unity. Opensource alternatives like Godot, Stride, Torque, Panda and other will remain obscure for the simple fact that the majority will have been taught unity or unreal.
But the thing is that they’ve consciously fucked over, like, all of their developer partners. It was an idiotic and capricious business decision if you actually understand how the gaming industry works.
People will refuse to do business with them going forward, because their current exec team (and let’s be real: they’re not going anywhere) has demonstrated that they have zero compunctions about unilaterally pulling the rug out from under business partners who thought they had a reasonable contract around their use of Unity’s platform and services. Unity’s leadership has demonstrated a willingness to engage in a level of unpredictability that will absolutely make developers and studios look elsewhere.
There are only two ways I could be convinced that people have learned from this:
I'm betting that neither will happen and around this time next year, Unity will be as used as ever - if not more.
You’re entitled to your opinion of course, but I disagree, and pretty strongly at that.
Businesses - and I mean literally anything one could classify as a business - depend on well-written contracts to be able to function efficiently and consistently. Unity, by unilaterally making sweeping (and importantly, retroactive) structural changes that impact ALL of their customers, has now broken that cardinal rule of business: they’ve shown that their leadership is willing to make chaotic, poorly researched and understood, and harmful (to their customers) changes at the drop of a hat, with zero consultation or advance notice. Unity has introduced unpredictability in a business context where other parties require predictability. I am entirely serious when I say that I expect Unity to die (largely because the exec team is definitely not going to be sacked).
I actually agree with everything your reasoning, I just disagree with this
They should die for what they did, but I'm a cynic and have absolutely no faith in management nor individuals to change when they have to. Basically everything around us is proof of it. There are already discussions from people complaining that Godot isn't business ready and can't possibly be an alternative: better move to Unreal. Absolutely nothing has been learned by the majority.
Only time will tell just how able and willing decision makes are willing to change.