One of the big winners of the Unity debacle is the free and open source Godot Engine, which has seen its funding soar to a much more impressive level as Unity basically gave them free advertising.

  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    My wife has a few things on YouTube she made with Godot, and she has noticed a significant increase in traffic, since Unity made their blunder.

    Godot really deserves their increased popularity and donations, it’s absolutely amazing what they have achieved as a true Open Source project that is absolutely 100% free to use, and gives 100% control to game developers.

  • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Yeah, now I’m concerned this might happen with Unreal Engine, even though they’ve given no indication that it will. Once Godot works out the kinks with level and texture streaming, and has a landscape editor I will be going back to Godot.

          • jimbo@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            When did the term “open source” start including specifics about licensing terms? My understanding from the past few decades was that “open source” meant the source was available for people to look at and compile.

            • WaterSword@discuss.tchncs.de
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              9 months ago

              Open source has always meant under a free license. Being able to fork and publish your own versions is integral to the open source philosophy.

              • abbotsbury@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                Being able to fork and publish your own versions is integral to the open source philosophy

                No, that is an enumerated freedom of the free software movement, not open source

                • WaterSword@discuss.tchncs.de
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                  9 months ago

                  Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. from Wikipedia

                  The same article also talks about the difference between open source and source available:

                  Although the OSI definition of “open-source software” is widely accepted, a small number of people and organizations use the term to refer to software where the source is available for viewing, but which may not legally be modified or redistributed. Such software is more often referred to as source-available, or as shared source, a term coined by Microsoft in 2001

            • AProfessional@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              Ideas started in the 70s, Free Software Movement happened in the 80s, the term Open Source from the 90s as an alternative to “free” to be more clear.

              It always meant this.

          • abbotsbury@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            It is source available

            Yes, open source.

            Not Open Source

            You mean free/libre? Open source literally just means you can see the source.

            • AProfessional@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code,[1] design documents,[2] or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized software development model that encourages open collaboration.

              https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source

    • Epicurus0319@sopuli.xyz
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      9 months ago

      Long-term I think corporate tech as we know it is screwed. Their explosive growth from the pandemic making everyone terminally online is drying up as more and more people go back to touching grass, so now the bill’s coming due and it’s only a matter of time now before Unreal also does something stupid we can’t even imagine for a quick buck

      • elscallr@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        People were terminally online well before 2019. It exacerbated the problem but we’re not going back. I don’t really think that’s a problem, technologically it pushed us further ahead which is always a good thing.

        You’re right in that we are starting to rediscover what it means to be physically social again. I think that’s a good thing, too. People that got away with shit before aren’t getting away with it any more.

      • WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        The problem is that interest rates have gone up after being extremely low ever since the 2008 crash, so investors lost their endless supply of debt-fuelled free money. They can’t pump money into companies operating at a loss anymore, so suddenly those companies have to find a way to turn a profit.

        • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          And some of them realistically can’t. Every other commercial game engine is developed for the studio first; Cry, Source, Unreal etc. These engines were made for, well, Far Cry, Half-Life 2, Unreal Tournament. The studio saw returns for engine development in the sales of games, then they said “We could probably further monetize the work we’ve already done if we license the engine and SDK out to third parties.”

          Unity on the other hand is trying to have the Autodesk/Adobe business model of “We have a free student or hobbyist tier, and then a commercial license that’s $100,000 per minute per seat.” The thing is, Autodesk and Adobe really don’t have realistic competitors in their market sectors. Unity very much does. Unity competes directly with GameMaker Studio, Godot, Unreal, Source 2 among others, the development of which are either directly supported by the sales of first party titles (or are outright FOSS projects in the case of Godot). So Unity has to set their prices to compete in that market, without the support of first party game sales.

          You can see how that’s working out for them.

    • RockHornet@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      The biggest thing about Epic is that it is NOT a publicly traded company.

      It doesn’t mean that it’s not subject to the “Infinite Growth Disease” but look at their biggest investor: Sony and Tencent.

      Both Game companies that SHOULD be more interested in having access to a good game engine than to make every dollar’s possible.

  • librechad@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    I’m donating $5, not much but I love to see companies like Unity burn.

    • sebinspace@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Unity’s take is 2.5% past $1m in revenue.

      I’m never, ever going to hit those numbers, but if do, I’d rather willingly commit that 2.5% to Godot.

      • cxx@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Unity’s take is 2.5% past $1m in revenue.

        Is that before or after they backtracked?

        The point isn’t even whether the terms are acceptable anymore. They tried to change the deal retroactively because they felt they had a strong position in that game developers are already invested into their ecosystem.

        They may have gone back to saner terms for now but unless the entire management structure resigns, there’s no reason not to say they won’t try again in the future.

        You can’t go good business with bad people.

        • Chailles@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          It doesn’t even matter of their management as a whole changes. No matter who it is, what matters are their actions going forward. The only way to get out of the hole they dug themselves in is years of sitting around being good.

        • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          They tried to change the deal retroactively because they felt they had a strong position

          I’m honestly surprised that I have not seen by now a meme pic of Darth Vader telling Lando that the deal is being changed, but the face of Darth Vader is instead the CEO of Unity.

  • froggers@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Very nice. This money will enable them to make it better. One day when I might start learning how to make games I hope that Godot will be one of the best choices out there.

    • elscallr@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Unity’s recent fuck up is a massive boon for them, I really hope they can capitalize on it. This is one of those moments that only happens once, if they push their development and marketing over the next 12 to 18 months they can snag a really significant share of the market and use it to vault themselves to the next go-to engine.

  • ColorcodedResistor@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    as a life long gamer who has had to ‘grow up’ and learn trades to survive and pay bills. it would be hella fun and possibly cathartic to mess with a free game engine. I’ve been playing games for 30 years. Maybe it’s time i take all that knowledge and frustrate myself on a passion project. Thank You Unity for showing me GODOT.

    • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      You don’t have to pay for Unity/Unreal either

      I’d recommend just using mod tools if you are looking to play around because it covers a lot of the work