Unity Can Get Fucked | Hacker News Reader

Unity Can Get Fucked

garry.net

47 pointsdavikr18 comments

For context, Unity is retroactively deciding to make game developers pay per-install fees starting January.

(I say “retroactive” here because the change will be applied to existing pricing plans on existing products that developers already budgeted for)

Outer Wilds is developed in Unity, for example.

Other commentary from other devs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37493028

These changes really are a shot across the bow of every single developer who bet on Unity. Even if this particular change doesn't negatively impact you, why would you continue to invest your time and energy in a product which has shown that it's willing to retroactively alter licensing terms?

Thats how all software has been for two decades...why is it a surprise? We gave up ownership for SaaS and this is the inevitable result.

> We had 10 years to make our own engine and never did. I'm sure a lot of game companies are feeling the same today.

I think Facepunch is one of the indie studios uniquely poised to do this. Garry spent years working on modding the source engine, adding features to the point where it's like a new engine on top of the source renderer

I hope they don’t decide to make their own engine for Rust 2.

If they need custom stuff, build it for Godot instead.

If Godot can become the Blender of game engines, game developers will be in a much better place.

Would be cool to see them make their own engine, though. I'm always happy to see new game engine projects

They have another game in development using Valve's Source 2 engine so that'd probably be the most likely option for them.

> I hope they don’t decide to make their own engine for Rust 2

Rust in Rust

My friends and I joke about wanting this all the time.

I also keep making jokes about running a Rust server on an Oxide rack... only a matter of time, I think, hahah.

It might unironically make the game run better than it is running now with Unity. If you've ever ran your own Rust (the game) server, you might've noticed just how wonky the whole framework is. Just switching to/rewriting in Unreal might de-bloat the game, who knows?

There are, btw, project conversion tools like the Utu Plugin (Unity to Unreal Project Converter; see i.e. https://youtu.be/34qx5Ac8cZo) and some other frameworks on GitHub that might at least help in some rudimentary conversions in a switch from Unity to Unreal. That is, if going full Rust is a bit of a stretch and taking the joke too far.

One door closes, another one opens.

How feasible is it currently for Unity shops to move across to Godot (or similar open source alternative)?

What’s practically involved?

Really depends how heavily they've been leaning on unity. But it's definitely possible to go from unity to godot mono. With the state of LLMs it's easier than it's ever been before.

(I've done it before on a project I spent a few months on in unity and moved it manually to godot in a week or so)

Someone could make some real income fine tuning a model and making it a service.

I'm having wildly good luck using chatgpt to convert code over as well. fingers crossed

It's pretty much a full rewrite. It's like trying to port a Django webapp to Java Spring Boot - Unity gives you base objects you're extending and A LOT of libraries that simply require a full reimplementation on Godot... If they exist.

This makes me very optimistic about Godot: lots of people will leave Unity because of this (even if they're not directly affected), and Godot is in a good enough place right now that most projects can be ported over without too many problems.

I hope this results in unity devs flocking to open source engines and taking back some market share. We're better together!

Most likely moving to Unreal

I feel there will be a split: larger companies will move to Unreal because of its tooling and reputation as the industry standard, while indies and solo devs will move to Godot, because it's (imo) easier to use for smaller projects, and its open source nature protects us from bait-and-switches like this. (For what it's worth, I don't think Epic will pull anything like this with Unreal, because so many big studios already rely on it and they're probably making a killing on it as-is).

I think it'll be similar to the 3D modelling space: big shops tend to use Cinema 4D/Zbrush/whatever they're using nowadays, and everyone else uses Blender.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com