Talk about blowing shit out of proportion. People need to realize that making death threats is a good way to make the bad guys look like the good guys.
Which is probably why the CEO made it up using the single death threat from an employee as an excuse to close the company for the day and probably also get pity from people for it (see here for more details).
I bet it probably won’t stay that way though, he’ll probably realize people are onto his lies and make some death threats from sock-puppet accounts and claim “No 4 reAl pEopLe arE sENdiNg m3 deAth tHreAts” I wouldn’t put it past him if people don’t keep falling for the current one, and if people keep the heat on him for his current bad decisions.
I hate humanity sometimes, why would they send death threats? Just don’t use their engine; this is the way you actually make a change – switch to something else, threatening people does not help you prove your point. I hate their new pricing changes too, but death threats are never warranted
I absolutely agree. I’d want to say those threats are people outside of the industry. People in the industry have received death threats themselves so they understand that it’s real shitty, right? I hope so.
While I’m not defending those who sent these death threats or justifying these actions, I’m sure a lot work and progress will be lost for many companies because of these outrageous changes. It should be no surprise that many if not all of their clients are gonna be angry. Switching to another engine isn’t like switching from reddit to the fediverse.
They’re changing pennies per install, and only after the publisher is receiving over $200,000 per year, and they don’t count the first 100,000 installs. The price goes down dramatically for customers at the higher subscription tiers. I don’t understand why people are so pissed about them wanting such a tiny cut for providing the software that does so much heavy lifting for game developers.
Their new pricing is not horrible, but it’s pretty wonky at best
After the first wave of outrage they had to clarify that it wouldn’t take reinstalls into account, which should have been clear from the beginning
Also the fact that they take money on a game install wether or not that install generated any money is just dumb, most people would rather pay more as long as they have the guarantee that they only pay AFTER having made some profits
Even with the qualifiers, it makes it super hard to make any financial projections as your profits are totally uncorrelated to the fees you’ll have to pay
First of all if you’re a poor (and possibly solo) developer who could only spring for the lowest tier you’re being charged the highest rate per install. That rate is 20 cents… per install… not per purchase… per install. If I buy the game once and install it on my desktop machine, my laptop, and my steam deck, the developer has to pay 60 cents. one of those computers breaks down and I need to reinstall the game, that’s an additional 20 cents every time. I have a young nephew who thinks nothing of installing a game to play for a day or two then uninstalling it to make room for another only to reinstall that first game again later. He does this with a lot of games… almost all of which are Unity games (I know, because he wants me to play these games with him quite often, so I see that logo pop up). Come January 1st, every time he installs that game, BOOM, developer owes 20 cents. My nephew isn’t special and, if he’s uninstalling and reinstalling games like that you can bet there’s 1000s of other kids doing the same! Hell, you don’t even have to be a kid. I might play a game for a few months, uninstall it, then reinstall it years later. That’s another thing… this 20 cents is perpetual! As a developer, what happens when you’re done with your game? You do have the time or energy to maintain the game anymore? This pricing model doesn’t care. You abandoned your game 5 years ago? Don’t care, 100 people installed your game, you owe us $20!
I didn’t realize they never “per install” quite so literally. That does make a big difference and it’s a really weird way for them to charge.
Edit: Ok so according to another commenter your interpretation is common but wrong, and Unity clarified they mean the first install per customer only. So my position that this isn’t a big deal stands.
Do installs of the same game by the same user across multiple devices count as different installs? We treat different devices as different installs. We don’t want to track identity across different devices.
So, again, if I install the game on 3 different devices, Unity considers that 3 installs. If I build a new computer later, then reinstall the game there, it’ll count as a new install. The scary thing is… what if someone hates you as a developer? They now only need to buy your game once, then setup a script to roll VMs and install your game on VMs (each VM counts as a seperate device), and you, as the developer, will be hit with the new install cost each time.
Additionally…
Does the Unity Runtime Fee apply to pirated copies of games? We are happy to work with any developer who has been the victim of piracy so that they are not unfairly hurt by unwanted installs.
The issue here is… the developer would already have been charged the fee for a “pirated” install, because, how is a developer supposed to even know their game was pirated in the first place. Here, the developer may already be financially hit for a pirated game and now has to spend time and resources with Unity to convince them that some percentage of installs are pirated installs. Earlier in their FAQ, Unity claims they do not have a “phone home” when a Unity game is run, so, how are they determining installs in the first place? “Aggregate data”… or, another words, “trust us”.
Im some cases I could see how this could destroy someone’s livelihood and people have killed over that sort of thing before. But my guess is that the people sending the death threats probably aren’t even developers.
What’s more curious to me is what kind of people are those that resort to such lows?
I mean they might have mental issues,yes,but it’s scary to see that people seemingly intelligent and able to create games (asset flipping not included) can have such low morals and problem solving capabilities.
One of the issue here, and I am in absolutely no way defending Unity, is that legally an executive team works for the shareholders. They must ensure shareholder return no matter what as they are in the hook for it.
Unity’s biggest issue is that they like many successful companies stopped innovating and have moved from a company run by technical people to one run by sales and marketing. Sales and marketing only know how to extract more out of the product they already have and not how to improve the product to make more in honest ways. I would (have) gladly given Unity more money if they offered tools that truly helped me get to market faster as then my win would be their win. Instead their product has become stagnant, slower not faster since 2019 and more expensive. I am getting less for more and it is unacceptable. Unity is a horrible business partner. But I can see why as they are a sales and marketing company now. Steve Jobs says it best in this 2 minute video. He got it. Why are so many other not getting this?
That doesn’t mean making decisions that can ultimately hurt the business or their partners though. You can be greedy while not alienating the developers who drive the company’s profits. Decisions like these could make them lose millions or even go out of business.
You could swap unity with any company really and it would be the same. once a business goes for an IPO, whatever mission/vision it had turns into making shareholders happy and fast. Profits go directly to shareholders by stock buybacks instead of R&D/salaries, so they have to squeeze consumers more and more with the same products to keep it up. it’s tragically comic that you mention Steve Jobs kinda talking about it when Apple turned into the GOAT of this stuff.
is that legally an executive team works for the shareholders. They must ensure shareholder return no matter what as they are in the hook for it.
Not an excuse for just blatantly fucking over the customers. By implementing this hostile pricing model, company is alienating their customers. Big game studios may or may not cough up the money (or just delay that payments and take Unity to court if threatened). Small companies will just not pay up and either kill their projects or redesign from the ground up using a diff engine. Indie devs will likely just use another engine all together.
It’s a clear money grab that will backfire on them (losing trust of an already small community, and thus money will slowly stop rolling in). Fucked by the loss of sales. Fucking over the shareholders and creating new bag holders. Only winners here are the insiders that dumped their shares before announcement.
I agree. I think the issue is though that Unity (like many successful companies) have become their own worse enemies. Steve Jobs in this 2 mins video really explains it well. It will resonate what is going on at Unity and why they pulled such a stupid move. Wrong people are in charge and they have no means to make money honestly. Intellectually and creatively bankrupt. youtu.be/tGKsbt5wii0?si=v8_A2jW5uLewhbVS
Well looking on the bright side. If death threats are starting to become common for the decisions that companies make then maybe WFH should also be common to protect employees. Can’t target employees at an empty office. The employees will have to be careful with social media however.
This is pathetic. Why send death threats because a company made a change to their product. Why are these people so entitled? Or maybe they just know there are no consequences to their actions so they behave in a shitty manner. If you don’t like the changes then use a different product.
First time on the internet? That’s all they do and swat people which results in real deaths. This isn’t anything new, same ol vile behavior that police do handle and do punish for because phone lines are not secure.
Hey! Don’t threaten people! Don’t hurt anyone! Just move to Godot. That’s it. Abandon ship, peacefully. These people care more about money than employee lives anyway.
Yes, retroactively changing ToSes to impose tyrannical taxes and fees that will bankrupt most users is, in fact, kind of a rare thing. The ruling class is usually a lot more subtle. And what they do is usually not so in-your-face that it is arguably illegal.
Have you actually looked at what they’re charging? Nobody is gonna be bankrupted. The pricing structure they announced guarantees the cut Unity takes is a tiny sliver of any developer’s revenue unless they’re literally only charging like $1 for their product in developing countries.
There are no victims in this story, and even if there were, what I said would not be victim blaming. Seriously, point to where I said developers were asking for it. You can’t because I didn’t, but you’re so high on your own farts you can’t read a single sentence without wildly misinterpreting it.
I find this and other comments like this hilarious because you’re 100% correct and yet at the same time lemmy is a cesspool of people on every post about an owner, or landlord, or millionaire/billionaire about killing them, or beating them, or bringing out the guillotine, or eating them, etc etc.
Again, you’re right. It’s amazing how tone deaf people are here though to not be aware their behavior reeks of the same extremism.
It’s why I’m very much on the fence about continuing here outside of the memes. The people here are disgustingly naive and not healthy quite frankly.
Idk why the downvotes. It’s seriously off putting to be surrounded by people that clearly have no idea how the world works. It was funny before Trump. Now I take these meme waves with a grain of salt. Idiots in large numbers are dangerous. At least reddit was easy enough to use that the cesspool was diluted with less intense morons.
I’m a landlord. Never evicted anyone. It’s a super high risk position to be in. My mortgage isn’t free. The upkeep to my property isn’t free. Time spent vetting renters so my neighbors don’t have to live next to crackheads isn’t free. You pay rent so you don’t have to think about maintenence costs, mortgage, risking allowing others to live in property you spent money you worked for on. All of that and any other subtly is lost on here. Going to work and enjoying it is possible. The world isn’t black and white. Communism doesn’t work on a large scale. Etc.
Where do I find one of those? Most communities with any traffic feel like they’re full of the same people with the same axes to grind, just talking about slightly different subjects.
This, like cancel culture, is a direct result of a justice system that pretty much never delivers justice to the victims of the rich and the powerful. Fixing that is the only thing that can stop this escalating cultural phenomenon.
They already do that in most jurisdictions. Solve the root problem, and the surface problem will be fixed. Only fix the surface, and…well, it’s like weeding dandelions.
Somehow I get the feeling that this may not just be some unhinged internet troll throwing out online drivel from his mom’s basement. Unity’s pricing changes are posing an existential threat to smaller studios that meet the minimum income threshold and are placing the livelihoods of countless thousands of smaller game studio workers at stake. This is one of those changes that is going to impact whether you can continue to put food on the table.
John Riccitello has pissed off a lot of people with his disgusting levels of corporate greed, to the point where even the fourth circle of Hell may not be enough to punish his avarice once he pops his clogs. This move may even be worse than the crap Martin Shkreli pulled as a big pharma executive.
his real goal is to invent new drugs for rare diseases. Turing recently announced discounts of Daraprim for hospitals, and Shkreli says that for people without insurance it will cost only $1 a pill. For everyone else, insurance, which he argues is paid for by corporate America’s profits, will cover the cost.
I’m surprised, it does seem that this is true. I read a lot of articles where he announced that people could apply for medication, or medicaid would pay $0.01 per pill. I couldn’t find anything about where to apply or one people who have applied and been able to get this medication, but there is already a generic alternative, so this program might be dead in the water.
As for smear campaign, I’m not so sure. Everytime I read quotes from him, it seems he just really likes to play the “bad boy”. Maybe he just wants people to think pharmaceutical companies are scumbags, so when he ran one he purposefully made himself look bad. Shkreli definitely didn’t seem to care that people got a bad impression of him.
Video game development is some of the worst paid tech sector jobs. Most developers will be able to move on to other work with relatively little interruption. It’s not ideal by any stretch but it’s not nearly on the same level as price gouging life saving pharmaceuticals
I don’t think devs that work for corporations really care about this change, if their group used Unity for some reason, they will just move on to their next job (and they’re the ones who are worst paid). Every indie dev or otherwise small dev company that has used Unity ever in it’s last ten years are now open to serious bad actors. A single person running a script can cost a dev hundreds of thousands of dollars on their own, whether a troll, just same guy pissed off for some reason or another, or even a competing dev. Hell, the one idiot living in his mother’s basement who sent death threats to Unity could also do it.
There is no “relatively little interruption”, as not only have people lost a lot of work on something they already paid for, they also have to remove all previous work they’ve made or published with the engine. It’s all susceptible to attack.
I agree it’s not on the same level as pharma scum, but saying “it’s just a video games” is much too far off the other end of the spectrum. At least Shkreli never managed to bankrupt people who had purchased anything (from him) in the past, or made them ‘regurgitate’ any benefits they had seen. Though I’m sure he’d have loved to.
You are correct but in the opposite way, it seems it was a single employee at their company instead which the boss took and decided to say we’re getting death threats we’re going to close for the day, basically so he could go home early and people would feel bad for him and maybe not give him the flak that he deserves for such an awful decision that’s going to ruin the lives of smaller legitimate game developers who use unity.
Dude…Just stop using the software and let the business fail. That’s all you’ve got to do. Unreal engine, Godot, Gamemaker Studio, Source 2, QBASIC, use something else.
Depending on how much money you expect to lose, that may be the more prudent option for some.
At the very least you’d have something to work with - it’s not truly “from scratch”.
I work in the AAA industry and I’ve ported code from one engine to another - it’s not fast by any means, but at the very least you can assume the code that’s there is largely correct. The killers are materials/shaders, porting over design work, and fixing timing issues. If you have netcode that can be tricky as well.
But at the very least you can have the core of your game running again reasonably. It’s how things like Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe went from Source to Unity, and how Pokemon BDSP went from the proprietary Pokemon engine to Unity.
Indies and AAs can hire some extra hands to work temporarily with their existing engineers to port and they’d probably lose less money than Unity is charging.
There is seriously a mental health pandemic going on and it’s scary. Everyone here who has messages or upvotes messages about bringing out the guillotine or killing billionaires really needs to seek help.
Well then, do what you tell people who condemn rapists and pedophiles to do: learn some empathy.
People who hold different opinions and worldviews than you aren’t fucking mentally ill. You are by insinuating such. You are not the center of the universe and your opinions are not automatically facts just because you hold them.
Americans actually do still have a constitutional right to advocate overthrowing their government if they want; the whole fucking point of the first and second amendments is to enable the people to do just that.
I’m tired of people like you and your vile bullshit. Don’t like it, get out of the thread. But don’t come in here with your holier-than-thou act thinking you’re going to bully or guilt trip or emotionally blackmail anybody into sitting down or submitting to your opinion like you’ve been doing to the American people for decades now.
I’m sorry I don’t condone the murder and enslavement of millions around the world by a small dominant group of people who have no one’s best interests at heart but their own.
I’m sorry I don’t condone the perpetuation of a broken system that purposefully subjugates billions of people.
I’m sorry you’re butthurt I and a bunch of other people on the internet won’t validate your massively unjustified sense of superiority and self-importance.
You grow the fuck up.
Grow. Up. And stop protecting and defending evil people. Stop hurting society and stop hurting us.
“I don’t condone the killing of people simply because they make more than I do.”
to
“[condoning] the murder and enslavement of millions around the world by a small dominant group of people who have no one’s best interests at heart but their own.”?
What I found out is the outcomes of events like the French Revolution and the rule of the Khmer Rouge i.e. vastly different dependent on the circumstances of the place and time.
Well, what the rest of us found out is the outcome of almost every other revolution in modern history including the American Revolution, which kickstarted modern democracy and led to the liberation of 60 other countries from enslavement, colonization and oppression.
In other words, you are just biased and here with an agenda just like you shitlords were when you inundated the Danny Masterson thread and the other news threads where you hounded on anybody who dared oppose your vile little sacred cow.
Take your political agenda out of our lives and respect our right to make up our own fucking minds. You are hurting us by acting this way: you enable and defend evil, you help the ruling class continue to subjugate the working class, and you do it all because you yourself benefit from the status quo and don’t want to miss out on McDonald’s and 7-11 because of the workers getting riled up.
you enable and defend evil, you help the ruling class continue to subjugate the working class, and you do it all because you yourself benefit from the status quo and don’t want to miss out on McDonald’s and 7-11 because of the workers getting riled up.
Seems to me like you’re far more butthurt judging by this comment thread lol.
You’ve put a lot of words in my mouth that I’ve never said.
I almost guarantee you and I have more in common than you may realize unfortunately you’re so blinded by hate you’re unable to think clearly.
Mark my words we are working towards WW3 and it scares the living hell out of me because people like you are so built up in your echo chambers and you’re frothing at the mouth. There’s no difference between your attitude and those of an average Trump supporter. It’s blind rage. Looking for simple solutions to a complex world.
I seriously worry for my children. The anger is so unfocused or focused on the wrong area.
We can change the system but we have to want to. The problem is people increasingly on the left and right just want to burn it down.
Strawmanning and attacking #EatTheRich memebros actually is equivalent to enabling actual violence by condemning anyone who opposes nonviolence, actually, and it’s why you all are finally, finally being downvoted and rejected by everyone else. Ackshually
And it couldn’t possibly be that you’re just wrong.
Wanna know how I know? Because I actually think and don’t resort to blatant bandwagon fallacies like you do. Actually recent polls have even shown the number of Americans who agree with sentiments like #EatTheRich or who accept political violence is rising, and it’s more Democrats doing it than Republicans, so you’re doubly wrong.
Take your status-quo-or-die bullshit elsewhere. We’ve had enough of it. No one has to agree with you on the issue. No one has to agree with you on nonviolence or political violence or any sort of -ence. People have the right to feel the way they want to feel and as someone with a vested stake in a liberal democracy that pretends to care about such things, by extension you have to respect that.
Thanks for the link. Some of those results were interesting. Question. Your link says that 84% disagree with the statement that “political violence against those I disagree with is acceptable”. How have you concluded this is “rising”? What is your base of comparrison?
I’m assuming you read this elsewhere because your source does not have a comparrison number. So at present, there is nothing to indicate the number is rising. For all we know the number of people who agree with that type of violence could have been sitting at 16% for many years.
It isn’t realistic to expect the number to be zero. There will always be radicals. Always. Even if we somehow create a perfect utopia, there will always be a handful of malcontents.
You literally could have just Googled it instead of trying to bad-faith your way to the position you want to believe, but whatever, I Googled it for you, there you go. The one poll I posted is not the only one that shows the trend. Civil war’s a-brewing, fren.
I also didn’t say zero, I said close to zero. Jesus Christ, if you’re going to speak in bad faith you could at least try to be subtle about it. At least the assholes in the other threads would have the decency to use a motte-and-bailey. You’re just lazily throwing out strawmen and obvious garbage.
Wow. You’re an angry person. I had no ill intent. Just curiosity. Hope your day goes better.
Edit: also, your provided sources are in conflict. You say it’s on the rise, but your second link is from Jan 2021 which states 33% - 36% of people “feel somewhat justified in using varying levels of violence to achieve their political goals”. However, your first link is from Sept 2022 states only 17% feel using political violence against those they disagree with is acceptable. By your own sources, it would seem to be decreasing.
I do feel sorry for them. Death threats are not ok in this scenario, boycotts and protests are. Death threats makes them a victim, and this shifts away the discussion from the victims they’ve created. The people making death threats as well as those who do not condemn them are helping support Unity indirectly.
When you call for violent threats you give ammo to the very groups that you wish to inflict harm upon for the masses to side with them
Accountability for CEO actions needs to be done financially. It needs to first and foremost affect shareholders - because that’s the only point for a public company to exist - and then after that it needs to personally penalize CEOs.
If you just target the figurehead of a company the owners won’t really be affected. You need to get them where it REALLY hurts - in the wallet. Only then will the dynamic change.
We can see clearly that that’s not happening. No one has any actual sympathy for Unity and even the most highly upvoted comments in this thread are of people justifying it.
No one in the masses sides with them. People are not that stupid.
You only have a fuckload of sympathy for them because you either have a political agenda or they’re lining your pocketbook. Either way, your opinion is irrelevant.
You’re acting insane. And vile, and despicable. The proper response to people saying #EatTheRich is to leave them the hell alone. If people agree with the dumb death threats and stupidity, that’s their right. Not everyone has to think like you to be good or valid people. You’re deeply problematic for thinking otherwise.
I’d say being dead really hurts them. Seriously though I get what you’re saying but it isn’t the reality and we know it. The rich take advantage of us, write the laws and just win overall.
I don’t see it as wrong for us to be violent toward these people
The overreaction to online death threats is so stupid. An anonymous 0 follower Twitter account allows organizations and people to instantly turn the PR situation around and become the victims and act like they are personally being hunted down by Mossad.
Big corporations need service contracts. If something in the engine is broken where it impacts the game in development, engineers are flown in to fix it at the customer’s site (if that’s necessary). That’s not something available with most open source tools.
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