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The Unity Pricing Controversy: Understanding Both Sides with Josh Loveridge
229 Plays2 years ago
In this special episode of the Player Engage podcast, Greg is joined by Josh Loveridge from Stratton Studios to discuss the recent news and controversy surrounding Unity, a popular gaming engine. They provide an overview of the situation, highlighting the importance of understanding both the community and business perspectives. The episode also touches on the recent pricing revisions by Unity. Tune in to gain a comprehensive understanding of the Unity community and its current challenges.
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Transcript
Introduction to Player Engage Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Player Engage podcast, where we dive into the biggest challenges, technologies, trends, and best practices for creating unforgettable player experiences. Player Engage is brought to you as a collaboration between Keyword Studios and HelpShift. Here is your host, Greg Posner.
Unity Engine and Recent Events
00:00:16
Speaker
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Player Engage podcast. Today, I'm joined by Josh Loveridge. Again, our first guest ever is making a return from Stratton Studios. And we are actually doing a special episode today where we are going to talk about Unity.
Unity's New Pricing Model Controversy
00:00:32
Speaker
The community has been getting a lot of news in the press recently. For our listeners who aren't in gaming, we'll give you a brief overview of what happened and why it's important to know. But we just want to kind of release a special edition so people can understand what's happening. See both sides of it because you obviously hear a very vocal side, which is the community side. But there is a business side that has to be ran as well to understand both sides of it. And there's the recent news of kind of some revisions of pricing. But Josh, before I go too deep into this, you want to say hi or anything?
00:01:00
Speaker
Yeah, how are we doing everyone? Great to be back. I'm honored. I'm honored to have you back. Josh and I got to meet for the first time in Games.com. We had a great conversation and kind of keep this going. And I appreciate you coming back on, Josh, because I do think you have a great view on this.
Community Reaction and Unity's Response
00:01:22
Speaker
Would you like to do it, or should I do a kind of a brief intro of what's going on with Unity and where we are today? I can give a brief kind of a little tale of the tape, so to speak. So I think about a week ago, or maybe a little bit longer than a week ago, Unity came out with an announcement that they were changing. There was a business shift they were doing. They were introducing a runtime fee.
00:01:49
Speaker
that essentially to cut a chart the community wasn't very happy with. The community just didn't like the way it was communicated, didn't like the model that was presented, and it raised more questions than answers, I think was the biggest takeaway that everyone had from the actual initial announcement.
Unity's Fee Structure Revisions
00:02:10
Speaker
Then after a couple of days of back and forth, lots of crazy stuff happening, people getting the pitchforks out as they do. Then Unity, just on Friday, done a fireside chat and a revised announcement where they clarified a lot of the questions that people had, made things a lot more clearer, and laid a foundation for what essentially the new fee structure consists of.
00:02:40
Speaker
So to give people an idea of what these new fees, the new fee structure is, there's two options essentially.
00:02:49
Speaker
And so if your game's over a million dollars, I think in rolling revenue, you have two options to pay the fee.
Monetization and Industry Comparisons
00:02:57
Speaker
There's a 2.5% revenue share that's flat, or there is a fee based upon the number of new players engaging with your game each month. So you have two options. You choose whichever is best for your business model at that point in time.
00:03:11
Speaker
So if your business model has really high number of installs, and that's going to be crazy for you to pay that fee, then you just go with the revenue share, which is 2.5% flat. So that's pretty much the model. And this only applies, though, if your game's over a certain threshold, which the threshold now being, I think, $1 million for that game. And then they made some revisions to how Unity
00:03:40
Speaker
the Unity like personal edition work so they raised a barrier of revenue from 100 to 200K so there was a bunch of modifications made and they've just changed in the way they do business really. So let's run it back and just talk about what you just said here and I'll put some dates on it. On September 12th, Unity announced their new pricing.
00:04:00
Speaker
package updates. The biggest thing that people talk about it is that, and I'm just going to be broad here, it's about 20 cents per install of the game, meaning that if I'm an indie developer, if I'm a AAA game developer, and I create a game, and it has more than a certain number of hits my threshold of users or revenue, I'm going to be charged 20 cents per person that has installed that game.
00:04:25
Speaker
I feel like it faced that. Well, let's continue that. On September 13, they already got a lot of feedback from the audience and their crowd. And the crowd was not happy, for lack of better words. There was a lot of resistance, a lot of just not happiness based on this pricing. How it will affect a lot of companies' bottom lines. It becomes very expensive for these developers, right? A lot of them are trying to be indie developers, especially because the Unity engine is a smaller engine. So Unity is trying to build up their
00:04:52
Speaker
their credentials and now all of a sudden having to look at the potential costs of that. On September 17th, which I think was a week ago exactly today, Unity acknowledged the feedback. Again, letting you know, hey, we heard you and we're going to relook at the pricing.
00:05:09
Speaker
And then September 22nd, which was Friday, I believe. I am not good with days.
Impact on Indie Developers
00:05:15
Speaker
Yep. Unity revised the pricing, as Josh was just saying, based on either 2.5% of your game's monthly gross revenue or revenue share model.
00:05:27
Speaker
This was only for games that have more than a million dollars and the trailing 12 months would be revised. And I think that's an important part of it. Between us, Josh, Unity is a business. And we don't have sides here. We're just talking business. Unity is a business that needs to make money.
00:05:49
Speaker
You know, Steam does something similar, I believe, when you want to post games on Steam. Epic, I feel like it's doing something similar. I know they're trying to undercut Steam, and now Unity also wants a piece of that. They saw a big boom in Surge during COVID of people playing games, and now that boom is coming to an end, but they still need to make money. I mean, is it out of line to say if your game's making a million dollars, 20 cents per install?
Trust and Communication in Gaming
00:06:12
Speaker
Is that crazy?
00:06:14
Speaker
Well, and I think that, I don't think it is. But here's the caveat. And the reason I say that is because remember that most of Unity's populace, the community, is on Unity Personal. They're not making money in the games that they're making. And Unity have now hired that threshold to 200 grand. So you have to be making 200k a year
00:06:38
Speaker
on your game obviously that's gross and you've got to pay people out of that and stuff but still that's like a mini business you know that's a micro business so I mean at that point in time I would like to think that you are starting to figure out okay how are we going to that's you're at that point you're at what I like to call the inflection point of running something for passion rather than a business and then you got to look at okay how can we make this actually a business and so
00:07:09
Speaker
I think that it's pretty reasonable and the other thing is your game has to make a million dollars in 12 months like trailing revenue before it actually is subject to the fee which I mean if your games making a million
00:07:26
Speaker
I would like to say that then you should definitely have this stuff figured out. And 2.5% or the runtime thing. I feel like that's pretty fair. If we look at the competitive market out there, like Unreal, we're talking 5%.
00:07:45
Speaker
I mean, you got, you can't, I get, there's two camps here. There is the camp of, okay, well, you know, it should be free to use, you know, open source, all that jazz. That's great. But I feel like for professional tools, you got to be willing to pay for them. You know, it's just, and I know people already pay you in these subscriptions, like you're pro and all that jazz, but you know, it's still, you know, it's a business. You're going to have expenses.
00:08:11
Speaker
We're in a world of reoccurring revenue, right? And we've got to see how we can maximize that. And it is two sides. I think the big, my thought on it, right? And I don't know where I sit. But again, like you mentioned, a million dollars in the trailing 12 months means your game is making money and you're making money. What was the worrisome part, I think, in the beginning was how the numbers were reported. So for people that don't know, you know,
00:08:36
Speaker
Engine developers may not know how many people actually have their game installed. Or what happens if you download a PC game and all of a sudden it gets pirated and all of a sudden thousands of people start installing that game and all of a sudden you're going to be responsible for someone that pirated your game and it's out of control and
Unity's Business Strategy
00:08:52
Speaker
you can't.
00:08:52
Speaker
monitor that. So I think now that they're, they're revised that where Unity won't be coming up with the numbers, you have to submit numbers to Unity. Maybe that maybe softens the blow, but then you still need a good way to be able to report how many people have your game installed. Yeah. Well, and in that, I think, you know,
00:09:14
Speaker
It's interesting because if we're all being honest, there's no good way to roll out significant industry change and decisions. It's never gonna be perfect, ever. No matter how well the communication strategy is architected, it's never going to be perfect. But the problem with that is with an imperfect communication strategy, you break trust. And trust is one of the
00:09:43
Speaker
biggest assets we have in the game development community. The community was built upon trust in the beginning. And once you break that, then there comes a point where, you know, the consumer centricity that you're striving towards as a business becomes slightly outweighed. So, you know, there definitely was a misstep made there. Like everyone knows that. I don't think anyone can stand behind that and say, you know, hey, listen, this was a great, great communication strategy. It was, it was a misstep. But,
00:10:12
Speaker
I think I value companies, me personally, I value companies not in the decisions they make, but what they do afterwards based upon the feedback they receive. Like if Unity came out and said, hey, listen, we're doubling down. It is what it is. And then I'd be like, okay, well, that's a different case. But I mean, they've revised the plans, they've came out with further clarifications.
00:10:38
Speaker
people are being heard. And that's what I really love to say. And so I mean, I think it's shaken a lot of trust for a lot of companies, a lot of studios, because they were like, hey, listen, my business is going to be impacted, you know, and this is being forced upon
Emotional Response and Business Decisions
00:10:54
Speaker
me. There's nothing I can do. This isn't fair. And that's not fair either. But I feel like with these with the new plan, the new strategy that you just rolled out, it's
00:11:04
Speaker
It's workable. For a business, it's workable. Like, say two and a half percent of your game. Um, you know, you might have to make some changes slightly, but I mean, I don't think that, like, that's not bankrupting businesses.
00:11:17
Speaker
It shouldn't. No, definitely not, right? Especially because of the $1 million rolling period where you got to be making that much money. But I think there was a few weird issues throughout this, right? One small one that some people have noticed saw was that over some period of time recently, Unity removed their Terms of Services from their website. And people were thinking that was kind of a shady move. And then Unity came back and said it just wasn't getting a lot of views. But it's a legal document, I can't tell you.
00:11:46
Speaker
How often people go into take a look at a legal document. I think again, there's this quote I love from Batman Begins. It's one of my favorite quotes. It's that you either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. And I feel like this happened with Google, right? Like Google original slogan was what? Do good or something like that. And yeah, you know, Unity was...
00:12:07
Speaker
For people that don't know Unity, they own over 50% of the mobile market. Most mobile games that you play are probably built on Unity, and it's a very easy to use. It got us started with a lot of indies, right? People could quickly pick it up, and then all of a sudden, I think it's kind of like, all right, we're going to be putting on our big boy pants now, and we are going to become a big company, which has to happen, right? To your point, it comes down to communication, how you handle it.
00:12:29
Speaker
Sometimes you know you're going to be inferred and you're just going to do it. It's interesting that they doubled down, but it seems like they came around. And, you know, with all this news being said, why, from the beginning, why do you think the pitchforks came out? Why was it just because of it? Do you think, like, people didn't settle with it? People are people are interested. And the reason I like to say that is
00:12:53
Speaker
And this is, this is going to sound a bit wild, but oftentimes people are, because if people really don't, initially, if people don't the math on how it was actually got, how much it was going to cost, I think it worked out around three or 4% of your games revenue.
00:13:09
Speaker
which still was, you know, so it wasn't terrible, but that feature, it was just too, the communication was just off. That was the reason. People got scared. It's like when you take someone's, you know, when you take something from someone without their permission, they get angry, you know? And then what you get is, you get, you know, kind of, it's like the five stages of grief, you know? You get the anger, then you get, you know, all of that jazz. So,
00:13:36
Speaker
People got angry because they felt like they weren't being listened to or they weren't communicated to. Now once that anger was triggered, you got the emotional response that then was moving on from that. So there was a bunch of emotional people, emotional responses, everyone was like, get the pitchforks out, that's it, you know, we're coming for them.
00:13:58
Speaker
But any business person and any person that's been in the industry for a long time knows that in times like this, you got often to take a step back. Because when you take a step back,
00:14:13
Speaker
out of the weeds, the picture becomes a lot clearer. Like, let's look at this from a holistic point of view. And this is the way I've been talking to people about it, and they start to contextualize it. If your game development company was not making money, was not profitable,
00:14:29
Speaker
for since its inception, would you as a company look to change that? And most people would be like, yeah, I got to make money, otherwise I can't live, I can't feed my families. Then why is it different for the engine that you're using to do that? It's not.
00:14:45
Speaker
Just because Unity's a bigger company doesn't mean it's not ran by people. It's ran by people. At the end of the day, and Unity as a company is not one of the most profitable companies out there. All you gotta do is look at the, you know, their public file and stock market, all that jazz. Most people haven't looked at that, so they don't know that. I feel like...
00:15:07
Speaker
If there hadn't been a communication strategy of like, hey, listen, as a business, guys, and as a community, we need to adapt how we're monetizing our model because right now it's not working. We want to deliver the best product for you and to do that, we need more money. It is what it is. If they hadn't just done that, I feel like everyone would have been just been like,
00:15:28
Speaker
Okay. I mean, that's fair enough because at the end of the day, we all need to coexist together. We can't coexist without you. I've seen a bunch of people saying, oh, we're going to custom engine. We're going to do this. As someone who works in custom engines a lot, I can tell you it ain't as easy as you think. It might seem the grass isn't always greener. I can promise you that. And, you know, moving engine, engineers to different engines, more expensive rates go. It's just difficult.
00:15:58
Speaker
So I think that was the initial reaction. That's why the pitchforks came out. And then obviously there was a bunch of cascading stuff from there. Then because once someone feels attacked and you know, that's when people start saying silly stuff. And so it was an interesting, you know, kind of thing to watch from the sidelines and kind of because you can almost predict what was going to happen.
00:16:23
Speaker
you know the initial announcement was going to come out then you know give it a couple days then it gets rolled back and then like you know and then people are happy some people aren't happy but then the trust is the trust is the biggest thing that's broken throughout all of this
00:16:37
Speaker
And now it's a matter of, okay, what can be done to rebuild that trust in a way that doesn't ostracize unity from the industry as a whole? And here's something that's very interesting. The court of public opinion often rushes to judgment. It doesn't allow room for errors and second chances.
00:17:04
Speaker
But accountability is crucial.
Market Comparisons and Long-term Planning
00:17:07
Speaker
I will say that. You have to hold people accountable. But we don't live in a world of unforgiven, zero-tolerant stances. Because that gets us nowhere. Anyone can make a mistake. Anyone can make a misstep. It is what it is.
00:17:22
Speaker
Oftentimes, you've got to make missteps to grow and to innovate. It's part of it. You can't not make mistakes and grow. They're mutually exclusive sort of thing. And the community as a whole know that. So one mistake as a whole, that'd be like saying a developer made a bad game, so that's it. You're done. You're finished. Finished for life. One mistake
00:17:52
Speaker
should never warrant the lifetime of exile. That's a quote that I like. I really like that quote because you can't exile people. And here's the interesting other thing. And the reason this is so fueled and so charged is because game developments
00:18:11
Speaker
triumphs based upon the sense of community and shared goals that we all have. We all want to make something that players love and enjoy. I love that because that is the essence of why we do what we do.
00:18:28
Speaker
Directing anger at people distracts from that. It distracts from the collaborative spirit of the community, you know? And that's what fuel the industry's growth. That's what fuel gaming to be bigger than the film's industry, bigger than all the other creative arts, because we are so connected, we're so collaborative, and we all work together to get the job done.
00:18:48
Speaker
So it's all about finding solutions together as a community, rather than, you know, bickering over silly issues. Like, if we've got a problem with people, talk to them, say, hey, listen, this is, and the community did. There was many reasonable people who said, hey, listen, this isn't going to work as a business. What about like the, you know, piracy, you know, all this jazz, that's just not going to work for me. And, and that,
00:19:16
Speaker
then became heard and they made changes upon that so I mean I think it's pretty I think what it shows and is that unity is willing to listen and you know like not every idea is a great one but you know you can kind of run from there
00:19:35
Speaker
I think you brought up a really great point and there's a few things I want to mention, right? I think one thing you're talking about is kind of what I like to consider is that social media effect is where news just gets projected much quicker and more anti-something.
00:19:52
Speaker
very quickly, right? And that's what happened with Unity here. And I think a great example that we're living through right now is also, if you take a look at CG Project Red with Cyberpunk, right? Cyberpunk came out half built, half working. People were hating them, giving them the biggest crap they could. And then this week or last week, I think they launched Phantom Liberty, which is their DLC that's getting such praise. And it just showed that
00:20:16
Speaker
They heard the people's archives. They probably knew they were releasing an unfinished game and they worked and they fixed it and they turned around the social media perception. The problem is it comes at you so quickly, so hard. When there's millions of voices, anonymous voices coming at you from the internet, it gets scary. And I think, I mean, that's what happened with Unity. I mean, it's a great point is that they made an announcement.
00:20:37
Speaker
Pitchforks came out instantly, and maybe they could have done better with the initial announcement. But I think no matter how you deliver that news, it's going to come out poorly. And my one questionable aspect of it as well is they made its whole play in the middle that if you switch to their marketing stack, you won't be subject to this charge. And I kind of thought it almost sounds monopolistic. Like, hey, if you start using our marketing stuff, yeah, you don't have to pay that fee anymore.
00:21:05
Speaker
one part also came off kind of shady to
Unity's Market Share and Engine Features
00:21:08
Speaker
me. It was like weird to throw that in there. But again, I think it's a business decision and it sucks for some people, but it's really not as bad as people are making it blow up to be. Timing. Timing, timing, timing is the key thing. Because think of it this way.
00:21:23
Speaker
If someone is your biggest customer, they're using all your products, you're going to give them discounts across their various different service. That is common business practice. Everyone does it. Think of it this way. If a company came to you as a game development studio and they said, right, I want to hire a thousand engineers from you, but we want you to do some other stuff and decide, can you compromise on the rights a little bit?
00:21:46
Speaker
You'd say, sure, yeah, we can make that work. You know, volume. Unity just did the same thing. The problem was when they announced it. It was a bad time to say a few days later, oh, but if you use this, then we're going to give it to you cheaper. It wasn't architected. It was knee-jerk reaction.
00:22:03
Speaker
I'd say and a lot and perfect example I like to give this is we've seen this before. Think of No Man's Sky. No Man's Sky came out, the pitchforks were out bad. The pitchforks, that was a good example of it. People hated it. But No Man's Sky is covered today because
00:22:24
Speaker
While they made a misstep, they worked backwards from it and they came back to rebuild that trust. The one thing I always like to say is, there's always a lot of noise in cancellations, the public court of opinion cancellations. It's an interesting paradigm.
00:22:43
Speaker
When all the noise that comes out of it, knee-jerk reactions and stuff like that, it's always best to just wait a week or two, the two-week cycle, as I was saying to you earlier, is that's what happens. And then after two weeks, you really figure out what's going on. And then once all the emotions gone out of it, then things are clearer. The one thing I will say is, regain and trust, the big thing is, regain and that trust is a marathon, it's not a sprint. How long does it take no man's sky? Four or five years?
00:23:10
Speaker
It's going to require a lot of time, transparency, consistency, that demonstrate the commitment Unity has made to its developers. And right now, it's OK for us to be critical, demand accountability, be all that, be upset. That's natural. These are human emotions. And at the end of the day, Unity is run by people.
00:23:36
Speaker
That's, that's it. Like, that's the one, that's the one thing I feel sorry for now. You people think of unity as some weird shadowy cabal. That's like, you know, like, like there, you know, yeah, I know we're all creative people and we like to, you know, make stories of everything. But at the end of the day, unity is ran by people.
00:23:56
Speaker
and people make mistakes, and that's okay. I think the interesting bit though is, as long as they're committed to that path to regaining that trust, then we're good. People are going to still use Unity. Why? Because the tools are good. It makes our lives easier. Get anyone that says, oh, we're going to do a custom engine, that's it.
00:24:21
Speaker
We'll see you in a couple of weeks because everyone will come back because at the end of the day, it's challenging to do that. There's a reason. Nobody wants to reinvent the wheel. Do I think it's going to hurt their market share a little bit? 100%. I think we have seen a bit of an exodus, so to speak.
Choosing Game Engines
00:24:43
Speaker
That's all emotional knee-jerk. I'm sure people will come back eventually if they like put it this way and this is the bit I love about this with this new monetization model It's going to bring a new age of the Unity game engine That's not a lot of what a lot of people have thought about think of it this way Unity as a company is going to have more money to invest in their product and make it better faster
00:25:07
Speaker
That's exciting to me. That is super exciting to me. More innovation, more tooling, more investment. That's cool. Like, you know, a profitable company is a good company because the users then get the benefit of that.
00:25:23
Speaker
All we have to do is look at other use cases in the marketplace. And I think it'll all work out in the end. I think for the next few years, the new developers that are coming in are going to have a bad impression of Unity. I do think that. I think it's going to be a long journey to recover that. Everyone's going to be like, oh, don't use that sort of thing. Learn something else.
00:25:49
Speaker
I think at the end of the day that will pass with time until the next cancellation comes along. Because remember, the court of public opinion moves on pretty quickly. Just wait until there's another drama and then people will move on. Because that's what people do. They feed on that cycle.
00:26:08
Speaker
Well, the one devil's advocate to that would be the fact that with a game like No Man's Sky, I could turn it off for two years and come back after some updates and play where games are still being created today, right? And you didn't create 85% of a game and drop it to say, hey, I'm going to port this to Unreal because
00:26:24
Speaker
That is a lot of work. That is a lot of money. And people aren't going to do that. So Stratton Studios, you're helping your customers build games. You're co-developing. You're doing different parts of it. So you don't necessarily get to choose the engine. Your customers are coming to you saying, hey, we're building this in Unreal, or we're building this in Unity. Do you foresee, I guess, have you talked to your employees, like, hey, we might want to start learning things like Godot or some other engines as well, just to start saying there might be a change coming?
00:26:54
Speaker
As a business owner, and this is me talking as a business owner, I like to be the Swiss army knife. You gotta be ready for anything. And at the end of the day, a requirement to work at Stratton is that you know multiple engines anyway.
00:27:11
Speaker
You need to know C++, a lot of our engineers do. Why? Because a lot of the work we do in Unity anyway is native plugin work at the core level. So, you know, we're doing that regardless. Building custom systems, thorny technical stuff is our, that's what we do. And so, I mean, all of our guys are very adaptable and stuff like that. Adaptability in it.
00:27:36
Speaker
technological industry is a key that's the metric of success is how quick you can pivot if you need to do i see there being this massive tidal wave of you know kind of shift that company now i just said i sat everyone down i said listen guys
00:27:53
Speaker
I was like, I know some people aren't happy with this, I know it is what it is, but as a company, we'll get through it together, whatever the impact, whatever the outcome, together we're stronger and we'll get it done. That's what we've always done. We'll figure it out. As the great Irish saying goes, it'll be grand.
00:28:12
Speaker
You know, it will be grand. There's, I'm not worried at all. I think that, you know, anyone that is needs to just calm down a little bit. Um, you know, take a week or two, take a week or two, step back, reevaluate and say, right. Okay. Is it because I get that where people saying, Oh, listen, I've worked my games, 80% done in unity. Now I have to figure this out.
00:28:37
Speaker
If 2.5% of your game's revenue makes or breaks your business,
00:28:44
Speaker
That's scary. I'd be more concerned about other things. I really would. Maybe you need to look at how cash flow works and stuff because that's scary. Like two and a half percent should not be concerning at all. That should be it. It should be easy. Two and a half percent should just be like, oh, great. More stuff I can write off for tax, sort of thing.
00:29:10
Speaker
You know? And there's also the, uh, I mean, kind of build on that. There's so many unity developers out there that it's probably cheaper to get a unity developer than an unreal developer or, or some other studio. So you might be saving money just in cost there. Flooded the market with people at no unity. Yeah. Well, put it
Market Shifts and Developer Salaries
00:29:29
Speaker
this way. We, we have both internally and I can tell you now our unreal devs are the ones who get paid more. They get paid quite substantially more actually.
00:29:40
Speaker
because the skill set is harder, it's harder to learn, you know, it is what it is. If someone's good at Unreal, generally they're gonna be a good candidate for custom engine work too. So it's, you know, that is something that game companies are gonna have to take to account. And say if someone switched to Unreal, they're gonna be paying 5% anyway, so that kind of, that puts that out of the running straight away. The other option is Godot. Now,
00:30:10
Speaker
Is Godot an option and viable for people? At 100%. If you can build what you want in the tools, go have fun. But I would be willing to put a pretty penny on it that any game that is really striving to monetize, make revenue, and stuff like that,
00:30:34
Speaker
is not going to want to use open source tooling that may need some work done to it and stuff like that to get it where it needs to be. They don't have time for it. Time is money for a lot of game companies, it really is. And every second you have to spend working on your tooling rather than taking away, you know, is taking away your development time on the game. And that exact whole nuance is what keeps strattling business, you know? It's people not wanting to do the technical, thorny stuff.
00:31:02
Speaker
They want someone else to do it, so I don't see there being this massive, like, you know, thing. Now, maybe if Unreal came out with, like, a mobile, made a massive push for mobile, maybe then there are two different markets, in my opinion. Two different verticals, there's room for everyone, you know. Some will move, some won't. It's just really, yeah, it's just a bit of a shift.
00:31:25
Speaker
Well, in the world of Unity, it will be interesting to your point. Now that they're going to start making money, they'll be able to improve their engine. And one place Unity always kind of came short compared to Unreal was for AAA titles, right? Most massive hits there, or massive games that are put out there are built on Unreal just because the tool set is more polished. It's got better.
00:31:42
Speaker
quality assets along with it. So maybe now that Unity can start putting some money towards it, they'll be able to start competing with Unreal at that level. I mean, then you got the complete opposite where Godot is going to be cheaper than all the options. The thing is, you're going to really need to know what you're doing. You're really going to go into the weeds with that, right? So it's funny. It almost seems like, and I wasn't really
00:32:04
Speaker
familiar with the gaming space when Unity launched. But it seems like Godot is where Unity, when Unity launched, and Unity is now trying to step more up to Unreal, and the whole power dynamic is shifting. Well, Unreal did this exact thing, what was it, five years ago? Well, it's god, I'm getting old. It was more than five years ago. And I think it was 2015 when they shifted. But they did a whole marketing campaign. If you love something, set it free. It was very well architected, very well communicated.
00:32:31
Speaker
And they were like, hey, we're open-sourcing the engine, we're going to charge a 5% royalty, and people didn't care, really. There was a bit of kick up about it, but it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't get the pitchforks out and slay them. But I think the internet was a different place at that time. The internet was not as vitriolic as it is now.
Adaptability in Game Development
00:32:51
Speaker
The internet is like, you know, it's a heart out there now. It's like, you know,
00:32:57
Speaker
It's a bit like the Thunderdome from Mad Max, if I'm honest. So it wasn't like that back then, whereas now it is. So I think that it was always going to cause the pitchforks. It was always going to be a thing. But if you talk to any Unity developer that has staged their business on it, and I've talked to a lot, a lot of them are kind of being like, oh, this is something we're going to have to account for. I see some concerns from people that publishers are just going to use that as a way to
00:33:29
Speaker
take more money away from the end developer, and anyone that's saying that, I'm like, well, that's a conversation you need to work out with your publisher. But again, it comes back to if you're really struggling over 2.5%, I mean, that's scary, in my opinion. I can tell you, I couldn't run a business. I couldn't do it. If 2.5% was the bread line for me, I'd be worried.
00:33:59
Speaker
So kind of wrapping this all together here at the end, first a different question would be, if you can go back 10 years, Josh, and start learning a platform, would you still choose maybe a Unity because there's a lot of information out there? Or would you be more interested in open source like a dough or a polished one like Unreal? What would your wisdom say other than learn all of them because that's what you want to do? So I didn't start in any of them.
00:34:27
Speaker
So this is difficult answer. Let's get let's give it let's give a throw back. Let's let's go back a little bit to a younger Josh. I started out and blend their game engine.
00:34:37
Speaker
Nice. The OG Blender game engine and Scratch before that. So I went from Scratch to Blender game engine, then from Blender game engine to Unity.
00:34:57
Speaker
them from Unity to Unreal, then Unreal to Custom Engine. That was my path of progression. Would I do it any differently again? Not a chance. Because at the end of the day, that has made me the developer that I am today. And I feel like you got to go through the fire a little bit. You got to
00:35:19
Speaker
You know, Unity has a lot of resources. Listen, if you want to go full tilt and learn C++ straight off the bat, it's more challenging. Like, you know, I see the guys internally that are training on it and they find it more difficult. Working in something like C sharp first and then porting over to C++ is much easier once you have a good fundamental understanding of, you know, kind of how it runs, how it works and what you should be doing and what you shouldn't be doing.
00:35:46
Speaker
You know, whereas diving straight in can sometimes be misguided. So I mean, there's tons of resources out there for unity. They're all very valid. A lot of, see, here's the thing. Uh, and I always, and this is one thing I always preach internally. It does not matter to tools you are using to do something. It matters the technique on when and why you should do that, you know? And.
00:36:13
Speaker
Like, and the analogy I like to give is, if you gave like, you know, a carpenter, like a nail gun or a hammer, he's still gonna be able to build a door.
00:36:26
Speaker
If you give me a custom engine that I've never worked in before, give me a week or two to learn the editor layout and stuff like that. I'll build you a game, no problem. Give me a new programming language that I've never touched before. If it's object oriented, great. I'll learn the syntax. Give me a week or two, I'll be good. That is the real, obviously it might take a little bit longer to become a master of it, but one thing that people always say is,
00:36:56
Speaker
The jack of all trades is a master of none. You know, that's it. People love that comment. But they always leave out the last line, you know, which is a jack of all trades is a master of none. But a master of all is better than one or an expert at all is better than one, whatever that thing. But the analogy is that essentially it's good to be a multi tool person rather than a master of one thing.
00:37:23
Speaker
because if you're a master of one thing, your egg is in one basket.
Unity's Future and Community Opinions
00:37:28
Speaker
You never want to have all your eggs in one basket. You want to be spread out because things change. Think of it this way. Back in the day, what happened to all the Flash developers who only knew Flash, and that went out? They were up a certain creek without a paddle, as we would say over here.
00:37:49
Speaker
It's just one of those things you gotta be willing to adapt you gotta be willing to change where in an industry that changes every every day just think about you know when mobile free to play came out. It was literally everyone was like god this is crazy that's never gonna work use a crazy given your game for free that's that's notes and then and then what happened.
00:38:11
Speaker
It became it blew up the industry it change things the way we do business now is different because of that and fundamental shift so i don't worry about stuff like this i think it's like you know i think you could worry about it and you could sit there all day and you can say all this is this is bad like you know what.
00:38:31
Speaker
Just pivot, just learn new things, be open to change, be open to the nuances of what we're doing, and enjoy the process. That's what I think people miss out on a lot on, is join the process. Change is good. It's going to impact the industry in a few new ways. We're going to see. It's like getting a new level. It's like a new DLC just launched. Unity just launched a new DLC, and now we all got to figure out how we're going to beat it.
00:38:58
Speaker
I think that's fantastic. I think maybe we're coming to the same conclusion here where the biggest issue was communication and the way it was communicated. I think it's fair that a company that's building an engine can start to profit off the engine itself other than just the monthly subscription fees that they get. But again,
00:39:16
Speaker
I guess also by putting a limit of hay within the last 12 trailing months, you need to have at least made a million dollars because then you know there is money. You're not robbing from the poor. You're making sure that your profitable guys are the ones to the development aspect of it. I mean, there's just so much education about unity out there and how to build and how to code and
00:39:37
Speaker
That's not going away. And I think that's going to be the most powerful part of that. If I had this type of information when I was in college, I may have actually passed C sharp and C plus and continued down this road. But I quickly backed out after that because there's no great way to learn it back then. And now it's just so easy in that our fingertips. I think my sentiment is that this was a bump in the road for unity.
00:39:58
Speaker
pitchforks came out very quickly and made them look like the bad guy, which in theory they were. They communicated something that people weren't happy with. But I think your biggest point was if you're living off of a 3.5% or 2.5% margin month to month, and this is what's really affecting you, there's some other more underlying issues that you should be focusing on rather than just the install or the fee to
00:40:21
Speaker
You can't really go if that's it is what it is you'll never be able to make a game in unreal and that's straight off the bat you'll you'll only be able to do open source and i would say and if you're in that boat i would say you're fitting under the category of uni personal which is you know
00:40:38
Speaker
Games that are made up to two hundred k or whatever like two for it solo dev two hundred grand if you're doing it yourself that's that's a good like you know you live off that so to speak that you have a really good life actually cuz like what is it after like a hundred and something k your your quality of life like the
00:40:56
Speaker
it's like you're at the top of the bell curve so i mean yeah i think you know it all in all it was a bit of a it was a bit of a speeding ticket they've got you know they went a little bit fast and but you know listen at the you know if you're if you're going fast and doing something i think
00:41:15
Speaker
I think that's okay. I think it's good to see them that they want to improve what they're doing, in my opinion. I think that's actually, that excites me. I'm actually excited for the new features in the engine. I'm excited for the new tooling that's gonna come out. The more money they have, the more toys they give me in my little toy box. So I mean, and you know, I'm always open to getting more toys in there. Spoken like a true creator, ready to go and learn more.
00:41:42
Speaker
Josh, I think this was a great session. I love being able to talk about actual true current events as they're happening. This probably should have happened last week. But here we are. We've learned. I think we both feel the same way about what it is. And I think probably within a month or two, most people will probably forget this conversation in general just happened, which probably the best thing for everyone. That means everything worked and goes on. But if you are affected, I'd love to be able to hear how. Leave us a comment. Let us know what pisses you off about this, because there are reasons to be on both sides of this.
00:42:12
Speaker
We're just staking a claim of what we believe, but everyone has different thoughts and feelings. Josh, anything else you want to share? I really do appreciate you coming back on today. No, thanks for having me back on. And yeah, the only thing I'd say is that
00:42:28
Speaker
You know, before making a judgment on someone else, try put yourself in their shoes. Try thinking of the people behind the product that people are using because it's ran by people. You know, just think when you get a bad review on your game, how you feel.
00:42:45
Speaker
It's not very nice, so that's the only thing I'd say I hate to see the industry term each other down. Let's all talk about, you know, making games and making cool product and, you know, doing stuff that everyone else says can't be done. That's what I want to talk about with people. I don't want to talk about, you know, okay, well,
00:43:03
Speaker
you know this and that and bickering it's like it's like a fight between siblings that's what it is it really is it's like or a hard breakup that's what this has been like but you know hopefully we won't have to get to the stage of divorce
00:43:17
Speaker
I think that's a good thing for anyone to know about any company is a company is made up of people. It's not those people's choice that this company did it. It's an executive level that just happens to trickle down. So don't get pissed off at the support person that you talk to or someone else that talks to you. If you download a game that you dislike, don't get mad at the developer of it. They're just following orders. They're not the... Well, they work for the company, but don't get mad at the person. They are human too. Yep.
00:43:47
Speaker
Josh, again, I thank you and I hope you have a great rest of the day. For anyone that's listening, I'd love to be able to hear your side of it too. I normally don't say this because it's weird, but leave a comment and let us know how you feel about it because we'd love to continue to build off this and see where it goes. So thank you for listening. Josh, again, for the 15th time, thank you. And I'm looking forward to the next time you're back on here. So thanks a lot. See you guys.