Unity went crazy, what will happen to KSP2 (and KSP1)?

[Lisias]

25 minutes ago, Periple said:

No but my studio employs some!

Good. Please tell me where you work, so I can monitor their game's pricing.

Lawyers cost money, and I prefer to see my money funding game development instead!  

[Periple]

4 hours ago, Lisias said:

Good. Please tell me where you work, so I can monitor their game's pricing.

Lawyers cost money, and I prefer to see my money funding game development instead!  

Lawyers also save money. For example, they can get you out of extortionate contracts!

[Gargamel]

Right, would all lawyers who specialize in contract law that covers all jurisdictions please raise their hands?

No?  Just as I thought.

Because none of us actually have any legal training in this department, anything posted is just guesswork and bickering.  

Please don't post arguments over hypotheticals merely to get the last word in.

[Gargamel]

As I tried to nicely state, unless you have a made your career in law, do not offer legal advice.  Some content has been removed.

[cocoscacao]

On 9/23/2023 at 12:51 PM, Lisias said:

Of course I'm not implying that every Manager is a sociopath - but every manager need to act like one now and then. When they enjoy what they are doing, things get hairy.

Replying a wee bit late... Sure, some situations require certain behaviour to pull through. But this is about making a very obviously stupid decision. Not that I'm unfamiliar with this sort of affair. Recently, in my country, we had a very, very idiotic decision that costed us a lot of government infrastructure, and put us into inescapable further debt. I won't go into the details, but a "minor" inconvenience led to something that totally wrecked the opportunity for politicians to suck even more money out of the system. I get that they're corrupted, but apparently, they're too stupid even to take advantage fully, in the long run. And no subordinates protested against the decision... That scares me.

[Lisias]

On 9/25/2023 at 10:55 AM, cocoscacao said:

Replying a wee bit late... Sure, some situations require certain behaviour to pull through. But this is about making a very obviously stupid decision. Not that I'm unfamiliar with this sort of affair. Recently, in my country, we had a very, very idiotic decision that costed us a lot of government infrastructure, and put us into inescapable further debt. I won't go into the details, but a "minor" inconvenience led to something that totally wrecked the opportunity for politicians to suck even more money out of the system. I get that they're corrupted, but apparently, they're too stupid even to take advantage fully, in the long run. And no subordinates protested against the decision... That scares me.

One of the worst problems that flagellates humanity is that we are not talking mutually exclusive problems here.

You can act as a sociopath while doing managing, and still be stupid.

IMHO, the stupid part of this whole ordeal was offering to wave the install fess to people migrating from 3rd parties ad engine to their own. THIS was stupid, very, very stupid. They brought the Sherman Act over themselves (risking jail time), and surely forced them to took more steps back than they would want.

About the install fee itself, it could be a devious plot to induce people to do what they really want.

There's this class that I remember very well using a very interesting case study:

More than an decade ago from the date of the class I took, the coach of the Brazilian feminine volleyball team was disputing its last World Cup before retiring, and he decided he wanted the Trophy as a retirement gift to himself - "se aposentar com chave de ouro", as we say around here. He had a good team, they had good chances to win - but somehow the team wasn't working together as he need them to do.

So he picked the youngest and most beloved girl of the team (everybody liked the lass very much!), and chewed her. He specifically blamed HER for every point they lost on the game, being by a mishap of the team or pure luck of the adversary. He literally destroyed her morally and psychologically - all in front of the rest of the team. It was as ugly as you can imagine, there was absolutely no laws about at that time.

Obviously, the team revolted against this absurd - strongly revolted, but since the only alternative was to step down and end their career (as any athlete steeping down in the middle on the Cup would never play volleyball again in her life), they had no choice but to ignore the abuses over their youngest team member, or form on her side and fight the coach the only way they could: by bashing their arses out to avoid any situation they know would unleash hell later of the poor girl.

They won the Cup.

The coach ruined his chances of ever work again, as absolutely no athlete on this country ever accepted to be in the same room as him, what to say be coached by him. But who cares? He was retiring, and he reached his goal, he won the Tournament on his retiring, and this is the only thing that matters for him.

That poor girl? No one talked about her on the Case Study, she didn't matter. She could had left volleyball, she could had got traumatised,  she could had to spend a ton of money on therapy - nobody cared to check on that Case Study, the instructor didn't had an answer. And I didn't managed to figure out myself, as Brazil has a good collection of Gold Medals and Championships on this game. Obviously, the name of the coach wasn't mentioned, neither the year in which this happened.

The team mates? Well, they celebrated the Trophy the same. They had won the championship, after all.

The rest of the country? We never knew about, nobody ask questions to the winner, do we?

My take on this Unity ordeal is that the install fee was purposely damaging to the most beloved users of Unity (indie developers). If nobody cared, they would have an extra incoming for sure, but if their customers decided to form on them (as it happened), they could step back a bit, giving the "f….. idiots" the illusion of have won, and then apply a new stunt that would milky everybody both on subscriptions and on shares of revenue - what may be what they wanted all the time, but knew it would be a bitter pill to swallow.

So they sugarcoated the pill by creating a yet more painful situation, making the poison acceptable by comparison.

The CEO got royally burnt on this? Yes, but… Do we really know if he cares? He may be just looking for his final Trophy before retirement.

Unity may had hugely compromised its future? The CEO surely doesn't care about - all he wants is the money, and he will be not around when the ship capsizes in a way or another.

The million USD question here (literally) is… What the BoD have to say about? They are planning retirements too?

Edited September 28, 2023 by Lisias
Entertaining grammars made less entertaining.

[uglyduckling81]

Probably the only positive thing about T2 owning this company is that Unity won't mess with them.

The unity changes will only affect small developers.

Edited September 26, 2023 by uglyduckling81

[Periple]

56 minutes ago, uglyduckling81 said:

Probably the only positive thing about T2 owning this company is that Unity won't mess with them.

The unity changes will only affect small developers.

Originally they said that they expected Microsoft to cover the install fees for GamePass. So much for "only small developers!" 

[Royalswissarmyknife]

On 9/26/2023 at 8:33 AM, Periple said:

Originally they said that they expected Microsoft to cover the install fees for GamePass. So much for "only small developers!" 

Even so companies like Microsoft can deal with it MUCH better then small indie Dev's.

[Superfluous J]

On 9/26/2023 at 8:33 AM, Periple said:

Originally they said that they expected Microsoft to cover the install fees for GamePass. So much for "only small developers!" 

Microsoft probably spends more on toilet paper than this would cost them.

Meanwhile, any indie dev smaller than the FTL guys would go bankrupt upon receiving the first bill.

[Lisias]

13 hours ago, Royalswissarmyknife said:

Even so companies like Microsoft can deal with it MUCH better then small indie Dev's.

They can just pass the cost to their users, they are also locked in. And they don't want that this matter reaches the Court, because they do it themselves.

 

12 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

Microsoft probably spends more on toilet paper than this would cost them.

One of the oldest Internet joke available, my first site made on 1996 had this picture. Humm… I need to fix my site and find a place to it .  

 

12 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

Meanwhile, any indie dev smaller than the FTL guys would go bankrupt upon receiving the first bill.

The paranoid that lives on me salutes the paranoid that lives on you. Sometimes it's hard not to wonder if it's by design.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Lisias
Broken link to image. Found a copy on webarchive.

[Gargamel]

Feel free to talk about the License agreement, how it applies to the industry, etc etc.   But as soon as we start trying to apply it to any one jurisdiction, people get confused and arguments arise.   To avoid any needless bickering over topics the vast majority of us have no official training in, please don't give legal advice.  Some more content has been removed. 

[Lisias]

I have this feeling that Unity Technologies didn't finished with the layoffs yet...

The ad boycotting is royally screwing them, with a incoming decrease risking getting even bigger than the increase they expected to get with the install fee stunt.

https://mobilegamer.biz/the-unity-boycott-worked-its-ad-network-and-ua-business-have-both-taken-a-hit/

This is getting interesting...

[Lisias]

On 9/18/2023 at 9:01 PM, Lisias said:

But, not being enough, they also decided to OPENLY BREAK THE ANTITRUST LAW by offering to wave the install-fees to anyone willing to exchange their current ad system to Unity's one!

This is not even negligence, imprudence or inexperience anymore, we are talking about Criminal Conspiracy! We are talking Sherman Act here, we are talking about jail time!

Oh, crap. Apparently my paranoia paid off - we are really dealing with a Sherman Act violation here!!!

Quote

The larger goal with the Runtime policy was reportedly to eliminate AppLovin, a software platform which previously attempted to merge with Unity last year before talks fell through. At the time, AppLovin decided it would be better to maintain its own independence. 

<…>

"It was IronSource and Unity’s play to increase their mediation business," they continued. "Developers have been caught in the crossfire of this mediation war that’s been going on for a couple of years."

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/report-unity-runtime-fee-small-devs-applovin-targeted

Additionally, also from the linked page:

Quote

Despite all that's happened, at least one source told the outlet they don't think Unity's moves were made out of complete malice. "They need to do something to make more money. Sadly, it wasn’t delivered well, but the need to make more money is still there."

THIS is where the "stupid" part played a role - you just don't try to play a plot when you are weak and miserably relying on a positive outcome to stay alive - it's one of the most basic and simple lessons from the Art of War from Sun Tzu, you don't start wars that you can't afford not to win!.  

Terrible times to be on the Game Industry, the chilling effect of this craft will shatter (is shattering?) the whole Eco System.

 

On 9/28/2023 at 4:19 AM, Lisias said:

The paranoid that lives on me salutes the paranoid that lives on you. Sometimes it's hard not to wonder if it's by design.

“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.” 

― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

 

[Periple]

7 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Terrible times to be on the Game Industry, the chilling effect of this craft will shatter (is shattering?) the whole Eco System.

Yeah it’s a weird one, terrific year for releases, miserable for the industry.

[Lisias]

Oukey, it's some time already since the crapstorm from Unity Technologies, and some people are talking about their experiences on the transition on Reddit.

Interesting reading. TL;DR: some people are managing it, someothers didn't got a grasp on it, and some others could not afford the time to migrate. Not really a surprise, but it's interesting to see their reports.

One of the most interesting talked about Road to Vostok, the developer decided to ditch a ongoing game in Unity to Godot  - with success!

Spoiler

 

 

[Lisias]

On 10/27/2023 at 2:54 PM, Lisias said:

Terrible times to be on the Game Industry, the chilling effect of this craft will shatter (is shattering?) the whole Eco System.

“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.” 

― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Gee… How much to end this year? It's about time!

Unity to lay off another 265 staff, drop Weta in 'company reset'

Quote

Reuters reported that the company will dismiss 265 employees – 3.8% of its workforce – as part of the termination of its agreement with Weta, which is owned by movie director Peter Jackson.

 

[Lisias]

On 11/30/2023 at 10:21 PM, Lisias said:

Gee… How much to end this year? It's about time!

2023 is going to bite us until the bitter end! 

Quote

Armello studio lays off over half its staff and 'indefinitely' pauses development on its ongoing early access game because 'almost all funding and investment has evaporated from the videogame industry'

https://www.pcgamer.com/armello-studio-lays-off-half-its-staff-and-indefinitely-pauses-development-on-its-ongoing-early-access-game-because-almost-all-funding-and-investment-has-evaporated-from-the-videogame-industry/

Jumplight Odissey was one of the games I was watching. Damn.

Edited January 8 by Lisias
replacing a screwed image.

[Gargamel]

As this is no longer KSP specific, but Unity in general, it has been moved to the Lounge. 

[Vl3d]

[Lisias]

41 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

Unfortunately, things are still rolling on the rest of the industry too. 

• Banner Saga Publisher Has Shut Down and Laid Off . On Xmas Eve… 
  • https://gamerant.com/versus-evil-banner-saga-publisher-shut-down-lay-offs/

• Stray Souls developer Jukai Studio announces closure

  • https://www.gamesindustry.biz/stray-souls-developer-jukai-studio-announces-closure

• Archiact, the veteran studio known for a host of VR titles, announced it’s laying off a portion of its staff.

  • https://www.roadtovr.com/doom-3-vr-studio-layoffs/

And not only on gaming. Things are escalating pretty badly also on the Big Techs… 

https://www.axios.com/2024/01/03/tech-layoffs-google-microsoft-employees-impact-anxiety

There's a light in the end of the tunnels, however (let's hope it doesn't "peeweee" on us):

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/it-hiring-starts-to-pick-up-after-a-lull-for-two-quarters/articleshow/105999713.cms

Traditional, "boring" and less glamorous jobs appears to be the future biggest employers in the industry.

I think there're some lessons to be learnt on this whole ordeal - and this includes, indirectly, who KSP¹ and KSP2 will gather traction on the modding scene in the next months (or years?). But I think is still a bit soon to talk about, I want to observe the new Zeitgeist before risking opening my big mouth.

[Vl3d]

On 9/15/2023 at 2:13 AM, Lisias said:

On 9/14/2023 at 6:12 PM, Vl3d said:

Then how was Unity making money for research and improvements?

They weren't. They laid off 600 of their workforce last may. There's no research anymore, and I doubt it will be any further development - I'm betting that whoever is left, will be only closing issues from now on.

Imagine this being a shock that they deleted 25% of employees after the developers' reaction to a an alternative business decision which was supposed to balance the books. This is all on the devs.

[Lisias]

1 hour ago, Vl3d said:

Imagine this being a shock that they deleted 25% of employees after the developers' reaction to a an alternative business decision which was supposed to balance the books. This is all on the devs.

Not entirely.

A lot of business, Unity included, hired as there was not tomorrow during Pandemics. Unity, in special, also spent a huge amount of money on side business, neglecting their core ones.

Following the Pandemics, we have what I call the Pandemonium - too much workforce hired for a shrinking demand - you see, with people being allowed to get out of their homes, they… GOT OUT OF THEIR HOMES! It's the backslash, whatever they had to do while locked down, they definitively want distance now that they are free again.

And this include gaming.

The whole Tech Industry spent the cheap money the Government were granting to them expanding their business to whatever side they could, completely falling into the Infinite Demand Delusion. Heck, even the Hardware Supply Chain got screwed by this.

Well, the cheap money is over, investors wants their money back with interests and the demand just wasn't there - a receipt for The Perfect Storm. But, now, on the IT Industry.

Expecting the Game Developers would pay for this bill is the same as expecting that the home owners would just take the hit on the Subprime Crisis. Just plain unfeasible.