Unity Tax & Engine Alternatives

zapzero

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That's the thing, even they don't know how yet. They don't really have a full plan, last I looked. It's like he is trying to sabotage the company. It's very strange.

Yeah, it is all very vague.

Even if I paid attention to downloads, that doesn't really give me # of installs, so I wouldn't even know how to track that if I wanted to. lol
I can check the number of downloads of one version, on one platform, but not much beyond that (that I know of). For me, this is just a stupidly expensive hobby, at least for now.

They way they changed the asset download/store access not long ago had me already planning to change when I make my next game, but this is the last straw, and if it gets too bad, we will have to change mid game, and that would REALLY be upsetting.

Yeah, It's currently all top-down decision making and HOPING in 2-10 years time they'll develop the tech and get access to internal data from distribution sites that allow them to differentiate what those downloads mean(different version? big patch? free copy? gift copy? will that be double/triple counted?), because the current Unity is NOT built to have invasive spyware constantly phoning home and tracking user data, at least in their old ToS and old versions of the software.

In fact, I won't be surprised all these bullshit is just Unity trying to bully their customers into going up the higher payment tiers since all these new tracking data implementation they are claiming will probably break numerous laws if they are going to do it accurately and have some unholy backdoor deals with all the big players.

The few Unity "defenders" I have seen, have weak arguments, lack basic knowledge on how any of these are going to work and often conflate Unity with governmental entities that have sweeping powers and can blantantly break their own rules to gain access to data in the name of (insert convenient excuse here).

Even Unity devs who reply to these, admit they have no idea how they are going to implement it yet, and the PR team is currently backtracking numerous statements they made earlier.(or in their words, "clarifying")

Sounds like a fun shitshow to watch if you aren't an Unity dev, and a horror show if you are one.
 

dogsta

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This is a colossal 'L' from Unity. There's no two ways about it.

I've dev'd in Unity for near on a decade. The changes have allowed for a level uncertainty in a dev's business model. It's just unacceptable in my opinion.

The dust settles, then what?! I think the damage is done and this is not just about the re-pricing, or 'nickle & diming' with installs...
 
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zapzero

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This is a colossal 'L' from Unity. There's no two ways about it.

I've dev'd in Unity for near on a decade. The changes have allowed for a level uncertainty in a dev's business model. It's just unacceptable in my opinion.

The dust settles, then what?! I think the damage is done and this is not just about the re-pricing, or 'nickle & diming' with installs...
Uncertainy is putting it nicely.

Unity just aligned itself AGAINST its developers by punishing success, and is now on the same side as hostile actors who just found a new attack vector similar to randomsware.

Unity has zero incenitive to stop this since they'll just get paid more either way.
Hell, whats stopping Unity themselves from spinning up a few thousand VMs and printing free money for themselves?

What an absolutely stupid business model.
 

anne O'nymous

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Yeah, It's currently all top-down decision making and HOPING in 2-10 years time they'll develop the tech and get access to internal data from distribution sites that allow them to differentiate what those downloads mean(different version? big patch? free copy? gift copy? will that be double/triple counted?), because the current Unity is NOT built to have invasive spyware constantly phoning home and tracking user data, at least in their old ToS and old versions of the software.
They don't need to have invasive spyware to do this. They don't even need an effective spyware.
All they need is to use the OS API to get information regarding the OS and the hardware (card ID, etc), to chain all this in a big string then to generate an SHA 512 hash of that string. The result will be both unique and totally anonymous (since it's a hash you can't know what are the information). It's a method that was already used in the early 2000 (modulo the way the hash was generated) to generate ciphering keys to protect local sensible data.
Then the game just have to send a "hey, I'm project [x] running on [the hash]" to home. The server will see if it already have this hash for that project, and increase, or not, a counter due to this.
As long than they don't try to look it the hash is used for another project and don't care about the IP address, it's compliant with all privacy protection laws, including the strict EU ones.

Now, this being said, since I wouldn't trust them to use a hash and not directly the string as token, to not track what other project(s) you play, to not track your IP address, and to not include other data in what is sent.
My point is not to say that they'll not spy on you, but that, strictly speaking, they don't need to spy on you to do their counting in a really accurate (modulo change in the hardware) way.


In fact, I won't be surprised all these bullshit is just Unity trying to bully their customers into going up the higher payment tiers since all these new tracking data implementation they are claiming will probably break numerous laws if they are going to do it accurately and have some unholy backdoor deals with all the big players.
No, it's simpler than this.
Last year, AppLovin, the leading company in terms of ads and in-game purchase on mobile, . And they really wanted to do it, US$ 20 billions is astounding for a company that had a .
This pissed off John Riccitiello (Unity CEO) who's convinced to be the smartest man on Earth and that he deserve to lead the world, not to works for some upstart. So he now have a crusade, killing AppLovin for this terrible offense made to his ego, inversely proportional to his IQ.
And this is strongly confirmed by the fact that they clearly try (LevelPlay). Said module that they introduced last year (right after AppLovin started their attempt to buy Unity), while forcing users to use it instead of the legacy module and/or homemade code.

I'm tempted to say that everything else (mostly the hell for small/indie structures) is just collateral damages that John Riccitiello absolutely don't care about. , and even less its users.


Even Unity devs who reply to these, admit they have no idea how they are going to implement it yet, and the PR team is currently backtracking numerous statements they made earlier.(or in their words, "clarifying")
They aren't backtracking, they try to save the ship before it definitively sink. They had a rendez-vous with John Riccitiello Friday, for him to explain them the situation (because they works for him, but know nothing ; again this tell a lot) and he finally didn't came. [should be in one of the link I provided]


The more we learn about this, the more sordid it is, and the less faith I have in the possibility for Unity to get out of this mess without damages. There's already some (unconfirmed, so I'll not provide links it would be misleading) reports about studios dedicated to mobile apps/games trying to see what they can do with Godot and to what extend they can port their current games/apps without too much work.
 

c3p0

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No, it's simpler than this.
Last year, AppLovin, the leading company in terms of ads and in-game purchase on mobile, . And they really wanted to do it, US$ 20 billions is astounding for a company that had a .
This pissed off John Riccitiello (Unity CEO) who's convinced to be the smartest man on Earth and that he deserve to lead the world, not to works for some upstart. So he now have a crusade, killing AppLovin for this terrible offense made to his ego, inversely proportional to his IQ.
And this is strongly confirmed by the fact that they clearly try (LevelPlay). Said module that they introduced last year (right after AppLovin started their attempt to buy Unity), while forcing users to use it instead of the legacy module and/or homemade code.

I'm tempted to say that everything else (mostly the hell for small/indie structures) is just collateral damages that John Riccitiello absolutely don't care about. , and even less its users.
But Elon has more (ego, IQ and money), so another cage fight? I bring the beer, who brings the meat and who brings the chips?:cautious:
 
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zapzero

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They don't need to have invasive spyware to do this. They don't even need an effective spyware.
All they need is to use the OS API to get information regarding the OS and the hardware (card ID, etc)
And all that can be easily spoofed, there are free VMs out of the box that can circumvent that tech now. Which is why I mentioned they needed to develop the tech intrusive enough far beyond calling APIs. Because "good" anti-fraud tech is a constant cat and mouse game with hackers that never ends.

Even ignoring VMs etc, how are they going to detect pirated copies?

I can legally install my purchased DRM-free games on my laptop, phone and on my PC but how will they know if I "illegally" installed it in my friend's laptop too? Repeat that for my other friends.

Sounds like they will going to reintroduce some sort of harsh DRM alway-online type regressive locks(on DRM-free games oh the irony) at the very least and we haven't even gone into distribution tracking which is yet ANOTHER big problem for them that WILL push distributors away from picking up Unity games.

All these assuming of course, that is something they legitimately want to do, but just from their statements expecting future devs with issues coming to them with a ticket, "accurate tracking" seems very low on their list of priorities.

They aren't backtracking, they try to save the ship before it definitively sink.
You seem to be confusing the PR team's response with Unity devs in my statement.
The PR team ALREADY backtracked their inital statements, and offered some studios a 100% Runtime fee waiver if they switched over, which was what led to the eventual conclusion that Unity was out to kill AppLovin, as you mentioned in the first place.

And as for your retelling of the AppLovin vs Unity story, it seems to have warped the timeline in the frankly justified Riccitiello hate.

I recall AppLovin was the 3rd party to the original Ironsource+Unity merger, making a late offer to breakup the deal. That offer would have kept John Riccitiello as the CEO of the combined company, so unhappy people were the Unity board which would have been left with a 49% stake, losing controlling interest and that was the likely , even if PR team tried to claim "shareholder interest".


No doubt this current move is a strong internal push from the IronSource people and the Unity C-suite board in the face of AppLovin's growing dominance but that doesn't absolve them of anything including bullying their customers into more expensive higher tiers, quiety editing their own ToS before blindsiding everyone with controversial "trust me bro" fees and forcing their inferior ad system to avoid their blackmail.

We are pretty much in agreement that Unity made some very poor choices, lets just leave it at that.
 
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c3p0

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And all that can be easily spoofed, there are free VMs out of the box that can circumvent that tech now. Which is why I mentioned they needed to develop the tech intrusive enough far beyond calling APIs. Because "good" anti-fraud tech is a constant cat and mouse game with hackers that never ends.
Are VM's often used for gaming? The overhead of VM's (sure, depeding on the HW support for the particular VM solution) is something that I wouldn't put on "gamers" as they in part disable eg. their antivirus for higher performance.
 

JakaiD

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It is Godot for me going forward. Best to start getting experienced in it since it is open source and will only get better. Pretty much how Blender has taken over the scene for most lone wolfs and indie teams.
 
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anne O'nymous

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And all that can be easily spoofed, there are free VMs out of the box that can circumvent that tech now.
As long as you know the algorithm used to generate the key (because you'll not fake every single string for every single components of the computer), and also know the exact values return by the right fields of the used components for this computer. What already mean that you have full access to the computer...
And, of course, as long as you know how to alter the drivers used by the VM in order to change the serial numbers, UID, and whatever fields (because they aren't part of the configuration), that they'll return. What mean that you have more than an average tech knowledge.

And it happen that when you have full access to the computer and more than an average tech knowledge, you absolutely don't need to use a VM to solve this issue. A script of a dozen lines and you get the key. Another script of a dozen lines, and you get the file once deciphered thanks to that key.

Plus, there's no interest to configure a VM in order to fake a computer that would stay constant in regard of its component. You don't change your computer every year, so at most you would count for two, perhaps three, installs in the game lifetime.
The only case where this would be useful in regard of the topic would be if tenths of thousands peoples would use the same VM hardware configuration... What will never happen.

Plus, this don't apply to the core target, that are mobile devices.

And, of course, if the intent is just to avoid Unity to spy on you, well, just configure correctly your IP filter. It should already only allow explicitly authorized connections, and do it at application level. What mean that Unity games can't phone home.


This being said, you are totally out of topic:
[...] Because "good" anti-fraud tech is a constant cat and mouse game with hackers that never ends.
What, with the VM part, would be a good argument, if what they wanted to achieve was an anti-fraud tech.
But they don't care about frauds, they want to know how much they can extort. And they also don't care this much about computer installs, targeting mobiles is way more interesting because people change theirs way more often than they change their computer, and, for those who have both, you can expect them to install the game on their phone and on their tablet.

Plus, I just answered to your part implying that only a advanced spyware could achieve their "unique count" goal. And I only gave one of the possible answers.


Even ignoring VMs etc, how are they going to detect pirated copies?
They can't, and they know it. But as long as their users are dumb enough to believe them, they don't care. And it happen that John Riccitiello is already convinced that everyone related to video games (except him of course) is an idiot.


All these assuming of course, that is something they legitimately want to do, but just from their statements expecting future devs with issues coming to them with a ticket, "accurate tracking" seems very low on their list of priorities.
Have you even read the thread before entering it ? You're stating a blatant truth that everyone agree as being their obvious intent.



You seem to be confusing the PR team's response with Unity devs in my statement.
The PR team ALREADY backtracked their inital statements, and offered some studios a 100% Runtime fee waiver if they switched over, which was what led to the eventual conclusion that Unity was out to kill AppLovin, as you mentioned in the first place.
You mean that they "[tried] " ? I wonder where I have read this...

Oh, yeah, in the post you are responding too, but clearly without having took the time to read more that one line here and one line there ; and even less cared to take a look at its links.


I recall AppLovin was the 3rd party to the original Ironsource+Unity merger, making a late offer to breakup the deal.
And so, what's your point exactly ?
That AppLovin wanted to buy Unity because they fear the concurrence ? Yeah, it was (perhaps just implicitly, I don't remember precisely) said in the links I provided.
That John Riccitiello wasn't happy with the decision because he would loose its control over a company that he intend to make him rich ? Yeah, it was relatively explicit in what I said.
That Unity board is full of John Riccitiello fans ? Well, the fact that he's still the CEO today (, and also the fact that he was put at this place, say it clearly.


No doubt this current move is a strong internal push from the IronSource people and the Unity C-suite board in the face of AppLovin's growing dominance but that doesn't absolve them of anything including bullying their customers into more expensive higher tiers, quiety editing their own ToS before blindsiding everyone with controversial "trust me bro" fees and forcing their inferior ad system to avoid their blackmail.
Yeah, so in fact you really haven't read a single line of my post. You just randomly selected parts you'll randomly answer too, hopping that it will make sense :/
 

anne O'nymous

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Are VM's often used for gaming?
No.
Too high latency due to the virtualized component. Strong issue with some optimization, especially regarding the screen. Loose of all benefit you can get from material optimization and dedicated technology. Artificial load increase in terms of CPU and memory.

Strictly speaking, and assuming that your VM configuration match your computer configuration, you still need to downside by two steps the performance compared to what you'll get without the VM. And even when it's a cheap game, there's no interest in playing it in an even uglier mode that you would.
 

TheDevian

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They don't need to have invasive spyware to do this. They don't even need an effective spyware.
All they need is to use the OS API to get information regarding the OS and the hardware (card ID, etc), to chain all this in a big string then to generate an SHA 512 hash of that string. The result will be both unique and totally anonymous (since it's a hash you can't know what are the information). It's a method that was already used in the early 2000 (modulo the way the hash was generated) to generate ciphering keys to protect local sensible data.
Then the game just have to send a "hey, I'm project [x] running on [the hash]" to home. The server will see if it already have this hash for that project, and increase, or not, a counter due to this.
As long than they don't try to look it the hash is used for another project and don't care about the IP address, it's compliant with all privacy protection laws, including the strict EU ones.
As far as I am concerned, that is spyware. Sending ANY info about my computer to someone else, is spyware.
 

Winterfire

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It is Godot for me going forward. Best to start getting experienced in it since it is open source and will only get better. Pretty much how Blender has taken over the scene for most lone wolfs and indie teams.
I've looked into it, and unfortunately Godot (while promising) is in too early stages. It'll need to bake for a few more years still imho.
 

anne O'nymous

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As far as I am concerned, that is spyware. Sending ANY info about my computer to someone else, is spyware.
I agree on this, but strictly and legally speaking, it's not an invasive one. A difference that, obviously, only matters when your on the side that is spying through it.
 
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zapzero

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Are VM's often used for gaming? The overhead of VM's (sure, depeding on the HW support for the particular VM solution) is something that I wouldn't put on "gamers" as they in part disable eg. their antivirus for higher performance.
Oh, that was mostly in reply to yet another one of anne's random rants against my previous one liner joke about Unity's potential to abuse their new business model. Barely read a few of his comments, and I already get why he needs a grumpy tag to preface his issues.

As for whether VMs are used for gaming, there's a growing niche for it in cloud gaming. Geforce Now, Playstation Plus, Xbox's Cloud gaming etc all run virtualization. The latency varies depending on the provider and your personal internet connection. GeForce was able to achieve 40ms on CS the last time I tried it, good enough to play and probably an option if you don't have a rig. Heard the others have far more variance in latency.

Though I find the technology not mature enough for a bigger use case, along with lotsa IP issues that these platforms have to deal with making their selection of games limiting. Been hearing good things from the youtube side that they have some virtualization intergration on alpha phase that might go live though. Like they took parts of the failed stadia team and are making stuff like enabling you to play game demos straight from the youtube interface. Sounds pretty cool if they ship it, but it's Google and they have a million failed projects that get abandoned after devs lose interest.
 
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c3p0

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As for whether VMs are used for gaming, there's a growing niche for it in cloud gaming. Geforce Now, Playstation Plus, Xbox's Cloud gaming etc all run virtualization.
Wasn't the use of VM's in this case to have more privacy? Then using whatever 3rd party streaming service doesn't add to it.
 
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zapzero

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Wasn't the use of VM's in this case to have more privacy? Then using whatever 3rd party streaming service doesn't add to it.
Oh that? The use case I described was initially for efficiency reasons. Again, before anne's rant which I then explained a possible ahem "security" use case since he dragged it there.
 

zapzero

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Funny enough, Unity's PR team are now on mode.
Claiming possible "confusion" over their announcements and followups.

Yet again they will have another new announcement with "clarifications" soon.

Looks like the big distributors and developers must have really gone on their ass this time for them to start apologizing this much within the same week.
Imagine attacking Microsoft, Sony, Steam, Apple and Netflix all at once, along side Indie devs with their wonky runtime fee on top of their increasing pay per seat pricing.

But I bet they will only walk it back halfway in their new post and try to claim praise now.

 
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Tompte

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According to their apology, we're all confused. So they're clearly going to rewrite it in a way that's leaves no one confused about the new runtime fee, right? :ROFLMAO:

Personally, I somehow doubt they'll keep it in. It's become poison in public opinion.

Developers started turning off Unity Ads and IronSource in their games (remember, Unity is huge on mobile) which seems to have made a bigger impact than troll memes and fake death threats ever could. If they really do keep the runtime fee in, I believe that will spell the demise for the engine. At least for a majority of their user base. If they reverse it entirely, everything should go back to normal. Trust will be bruised and people will look for open source alternatives, but switching engines isn't something many devs could do unless they had absolutely no other option.
 
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