this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2023
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[–] Dessa@hexbear.net 75 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Finally, a Unity less reliable than left unity

[–] keepcarrot@hexbear.net 21 points 1 year ago

haha that's what I thought it was going to be about when I clicked the picture

[–] roux@lemmygrad.ml 69 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I for one am eager to see the rapid uptick in Godot usage.

[–] CliffordBigRedDog@hexbear.net 64 points 1 year ago
[–] FloridaBoi@hexbear.net 64 points 1 year ago

The Enshittification will continue until morale improves

[–] zifnab25@hexbear.net 57 points 1 year ago (5 children)

On the one end, you've got the F2P game that offers you a zero upfront cost to downloading and playing the first few levels, then slowly constricts the quality of the gameplay until you pay them to relieve the pressure.

On the other end, you've got the AAA game that hypes release for months and tries to get as much money out of you as physically possible at launch by flooding social media with FOMA. Then they rapidly sheds support for the product until its another forgettable crap title on the pile of forgotten sequels.

In either case, it almost feels like the goal of modern video games is to inflict anxiety and distress on their audience. Like, the point of the game industry is to make the player miserable and then accept payment to provide relief.

[–] PKMKII@hexbear.net 44 points 1 year ago (3 children)

You forgot the part where the AAA product is released in a beta state and doesn’t get up to proper release-level quality until a few months worth of patches.

[–] zifnab25@hexbear.net 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I won't lie, I was really enjoying D4 until the end. And then I just kinda went slack jawed because... oh, its a cliffhanger. They're never going to resolve this, are they? Season Passes? No. This is fucked. Oh well...

[–] doublepepperoni@hexbear.net 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If you're talking about Swery's D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die, that whole business still depresses me to this day. He signed on to make a Kinect-focused episodic adventure game (never do episodic anything, at least we've all learned this by now) only for it to come out just after Microsoft finally dumped the stupid thing

The whole debacle soured Swery's relationship with his old company and he got hoofed after the unsuccessful PC version and his career has never really recovered

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[–] FloridaBoi@hexbear.net 19 points 1 year ago

Heh when Batman Arkham Knight released it was literally unplayable unless you had like 12GB VRAM in 2015. I would say that it wasn’t even in beta since it didn’t even work once on recommended specs

[–] SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

I could go on a whole fucking rant about how whatever potential good things about the Early Access model (and basically anything that isn't "release the full game as a complete product with no other potential added features. aside from DLC that are purely further additions to the game and not part of its main functionality", including seasonal games) have been almost totally subsumed by it just being an excuse to release games shittily and then go "Oh no worries, we're going to keep adding and developing it over time!" and then either don't, or spend three times as long doing that if they had just kept the whole project under wraps.

look at Elden Ring for instance. the game was kept so under wraps by Miyazaki and co that even like a year before it fully released, there was virtually no information about it at all. no early access period, no "Welcome to the April 2019 Elden Ring Early Access Update #3, where we have added Caelid! Go explore and give us tips on how to improve!" no, the dev team just dumped the whole game on us (aside from very minor things like the pvp colosseums and pvp was already a full feature before this) and it's already probably in the top 5 games of the decade and it was only 2022.

it's one thing if it's legitimately a small company doing this shit, I get that you need finanacing under capitalism and shit sucks in general, it's another thing entirely for larger, proven companies

not sure if every single professional game tester has just dropped dead in the last 10 years or what, but I'm not sure why we have to be unpaid game testers now. hell, we have to pay to be game testers in fact.

Baldur's Gate 3 is the exception that proves the rule

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[–] regul@hexbear.net 40 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Shinhoshi@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 1 year ago

sad Miegakure waiting noises

[–] Radicalized@lemmy.one 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] zifnab25@hexbear.net 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think it is more intrinsic to video game marketing than, say, grocery shopping.

[–] comrade_pibb@hexbear.net 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] ScrewdriverFactoryFactoryProvider@hexbear.net 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just realized we 100% have this to look forward to

[–] comrade_pibb@hexbear.net 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Shopping for apples sometimes makes me think we're already there

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[–] culpritus@hexbear.net 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

the bazinga marketing factor can be utilized in both domains, even if it is a better fit in one over the other

just walk down the cereal aisle though

[–] zifnab25@hexbear.net 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think I've ever been convinced to spend an extra $20 to get Coco-Puffs 24 hours early.

[–] culpritus@hexbear.net 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

ya, it's at a different scale

but very similar mechanics involved:

[–] zifnab25@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago

Ah, fair enough

[–] pillow@hexbear.net 21 points 1 year ago

gamers are truly the most oppressed class

gamer-gulag

[–] What_Religion_R_They@hexbear.net 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

genosh impact is free and good throughout 😤

[–] zifnab25@hexbear.net 10 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Working my way through a pirated copy of BG3. But I'll keep an eye on it.

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[–] emizeko@hexbear.net 49 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

it sure is fun having every form of art and media in your life experience enshittification

[–] ProxyTheAwesome@hexbear.net 15 points 1 year ago (4 children)

falling rate of profit goes brrrrrr

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[–] wild_dog@hexbear.net 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

this is why i feel lucky to have been able to use my stimulus checks on music production gear bc the golden era of cool cheap music equipment is almost over. everything is gonna get shittier but at least i can make annoying music in my apartment.

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[–] ScrewdriverFactoryFactoryProvider@hexbear.net 46 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’m pretty sure the entire Hexbear game dev server uses Godot. So literally… Fuck Unity all my homies hate Unity.

[–] WayeeCool@hexbear.net 23 points 1 year ago

And if you need a more advanced engine then Gadot, then you can always use O3DE.

[–] nightshade@hexbear.net 36 points 1 year ago

It gets even worse:
https://unity.com/pricing-updates

Can I get a discount on the Unity Runtime Fee?
Qualifying customers may be eligible for credits on the Unity Runtime Fee based on the adoption of Unity services beyond the Editor, such as Unity Gaming Services or Unity LevelPlay mediation for mobile ad-supported games. This program enables deeper partnership with Unity to succeed across the entire game lifecycle. Please reach out to your account manager to learn more. For details on Unity LevelPlay, please contact your account manager for ad monetization, or contact sales here about ad monetization.

What is Unity LevelPlay?
Unity LevelPlay is an industry-leading end-to-end ad mediation platform for game and app developers. It supports everything your business needs to scale. With Unity LevelPlay, you can:

  • Generate revenue with monetization tools and ad sources through Unity LevelPlay mediation’s competitive real-time auction and optimization tools.
  • Gain transparency and data availability with granular breakdowns to pinpoint opportunities immediately. Acquire users at scale using exclusive user acquisition solutions and automated targets.

Just what the games industry needed, even more advertising.

[–] keepcarrot@hexbear.net 36 points 1 year ago

Also, according to my friend: "Unity Execs sold shitloads of their own shares days before announcing a change to the engine pricing structure that makes this meme a reality"

[–] GVAGUY3@hexbear.net 30 points 1 year ago

Rip any company that made a game with Unity. Hollow Knight Silksong, if it is being made with Unity is never coming out.

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] keepcarrot@hexbear.net 20 points 1 year ago

Even if you take this in good faith the "distribution via streaming" clause could be very liberally interpreted.

[–] blobjim@hexbear.net 13 points 1 year ago (4 children)

It's 20¢ per install max so even if that policy is literal it isn't quite that extreme. But I do wonder if they'll have a policy for someone downloading repeatedly. I have my browser disk cache disabled so I wonder if it's actually literal in terms of install/initialization or if it's more about having some kind of Unity tracker cookie that identifies users.

[–] jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de 43 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It isn't extreme until you realize it forces game companies to collect and share a bunch of ~~monetizable personal data~~ sorry "telemetry" from their users, and will probably preclude installing games offline.

[–] Lojcs@lemm.ee 19 points 1 year ago

Unity already provided data for a study about the effectiveness of China's gaming time limit laws for kids, so they definitely already collect your data

[–] blobjim@hexbear.net 16 points 1 year ago

I think they've already been doing that for some time.

[–] mayo_cider@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago

They are going to use unity's built-in telemetry, so you'll have to trust their numbers on top of it all

[–] UmbraVivi@hexbear.net 30 points 1 year ago

1 cent per install would be extreme. It's a preposterous proposition, devs already pay for the fucking engine.

[–] envis10n@lemm.ee 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not only is it per install, it is also retroactive.

It's also ridiculous. They already have their deals in place for successful games made with their engine. Why they don't simply increase the royalty fee instead is beyond me.

[–] Shinhoshi@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 1 year ago

Why they don’t simply increase the royalty fee instead is beyond me.

To set precedent if they can get away with it

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