You’re right, they’re absolutely collecting data, but saying they can’t differentiate between activations and then saying “oh yeah, actually, we can when it comes to (piracy/bundles/charity/etc.)” less than 24 hours later tells me that not only do they not care about game devs, but they think we’re stupid too.
Via an application Firewall, which will run on your PC. Safing’s Portmaster works on both Linux and Windows. Objective-See’s LuLu is a good Mac option. Both of these tools are free and open source.
If you know Unity’s IPs, you could block it in your firewall. I’m guessing you do not. Though, with a little work, it can be done.
If you can’t do either, you could at the very least block it at the DNS level. This will stop the software getting those IPs. It doesn’t really work if the IPs are already baked into the software, but that is incredibly unlikely in games. A great configurable DNS provider is NextDNS. If you have the know how to self-host a Pi-Hole or Adguard Home are great options.
There’s also ways to analyse that traffic, which I won’t go into here.
Ok so if they are now only charging for the first install, why aren’t they just charging an extra fee per sale? Wouldn’t that accomplish effectively the same thing? (And actually work out in unity favour since not everyone who buys a game downloads it)
That’s probably pretty negligible numbers. In fact I’d suspect that the number of people who buy a single copy that they then install on multiple devices is lower than the number of people who buy a game and never play it.
It’s also much simpler to implement and the numbers are verifiable. Unless… that’s exactly what Unity wants; just “trust me bro this is the correct number” kind of deal.
Also Steam Deck - every install and uninstall is considered a new computer. That’s true for Linux gaming using Proton in general, but the rest of Linux gaming is not as relevant.
The only major reason I can think of is people playing on PC and Steam Deck, using the cloud save to play on both. Sometimes I want to play the same game on the big screen and sometimes in bed.
Because they realize that a huge number of their customers are small indies, and they want to be able to squeeze them - the majority of their customer base - not just the minority of big companies (who are also the most likely to fight back legally).
Just look at how their scheme squeezes smaller, poorer developers way more than big ones. If Unity went by points like, say Epic does with Unreal, they could shake down the big developers… but wouldn’t get much out of the indies.
Which is the opposite of what smart companies like Adobe do. You facilitate the small players in hope that they grow big and keep using your products at a larger scale.
€10 may not be much, but as a broke gamedev student, I’m really hoping this Unity exodus is just the boost Godot needs to become more competitive with Unity.
Too early to tell, but it could signal the start of a trend where developers and game studios at least entertain the idea of having a look at other engine before going with unity.
Don’t underestimate the sunk cost of Unity. The commitment to Unity it big. Unity is taught in game classes, people are formed and specialized in it, and you might have years of in-house tools which you couldn’t re-use.
I can see hobbyist switching and game studios with games that are easy to port, like arcade-style 2d games. For a lot of studio switching is a real risk of bankruptcy, more so than the extra fees. It will take more than a few days for Unity to fall, or even have an “exodus”.
Blender was around for decades, with big name studios poking around and using it here and there along the way, then it more or less exploded. Hoping to see something similar for Godot.
Honestly, I rather hope the same for most software. FOSS is the way to go. Fuck privately owned, proprietary, spyware bullshit.
The fact that they went forward with this decision means they’re not so wise at lying. It sounds more like last-minute damage control, but I doubt this will stop their greed. What I’m wondering now is how will the Chinese game companies react? Everybody get your popcorns ready.
I read it as 'stitching'(as in sewing) and I was like 'wtf? did it ripped apart?'
But it actually says 'stichting'(with the 't' before the 'ing').
According to wikipedia: A stichting is a Dutch legal entity with limited liability, but no members or share capital, that exists for a specific purpose.
It makes a lot more sense than 'stiching' tbh
Bevy is definitely nice, but it’s probably a bridge too far for (say) an indie team moving off Unity. (Rust learning curve + ECS learning curve + no editor yet + still pre 1.0)
$10 may seem like nothing and all you can spare, but it definitely adds up and is very important. That $10 is still very important and making a difference.
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