The fallout from Unity's recent ridiculous pricing changes and terrible communication continues, with developer Robot Gentleman now waving goodbye to Unity and joining up with Godot Engine. Robot Gentleman created the popular 60! series like 60 Seconds!, 60 Parsecs! and 60 Seconds! Reatomized.
In a statement posted on X (Twitter) they said (copied into text, as it's an image):
The recent Unity runtime fee license change and the way it was introduced has been a shocking development for all of us at Robot Gentleman. The predatory nature of this misguided decision poses a significant threat to the work and independence of many game developers, including ourselves. We do not accept this, and we cannot simply stand by, watching this outrageous violation of trust.
We are bidding adieu to Unity. For good.
Our next project, which has been in development for 4 years, will be migrated to the Godot Game Engine. Furthermore, all our released games from the 60! series will be ported away from Unity as soon as possible.
But there is more. We have been supporting Godot financially since July 2022. We have now decided to increase our support to 1500$/month, effectively redirecting the value of our Unity licenses to Godot. Our engineers will also contribute to the development of the engine, as we pursue our next and future projects in Godot.
The chosen direction is challenging, but in the face of Unity's conduct this was the only decision to be made. This change is likely to introduce a few twists and turns and cause delays in our ongoing projects. However, once we navigate this transition, we believe we will find ourselves in a much better space to continue our independent journey.
There's a lot of developers looking at alternative game engines and tech now to move away from Unity. This seems to have been a wake-up call for many on how the rug can be pulled from them when relying on proprietary software. Like how Terraria developer Re-Logic just donated $100K to Godot + FNA and will continue funding monthly.
Expect more of this to come. Even if Unity change their tune — the damage is done.
You can check out the games from Robot Gentleman on GOG, Humble Store and Steam.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
QuoteOur engineers will also contribute to the development of the engine, as we pursue our next and future projects in Godot.This is how key FOSS projects pick up speed, catch up with paid alternatives that have been well established market leaders and sometimes end up surpassing them.
Many thanks to Unity3D leadership for the huge help pitching Godot for everyone.
A shame it had to happen in such a painful way for so many game devs...
Last edited by Marlock on 20 September 2023 at 4:40 pm UTC
dziadulewicz Sep 20, 2023
it is totally free, open source and Linux is number one. Just think about that.
Quoting: Purple Library GuyI'm actually starting to feel sorry for some other open source projects that don't have as much name recognition and momentum as Godot. Everyone's reacting by supporting Godot (and in Terraria's case, FNA, which is cool) but Liam had an article listing quite a few other alternatives, some of which are both open source and seem pretty neat, and I hope some of those get a bit of love too.
What we, FOSS enthusiast, see as options, competition and customization others see as fragmentation. And there is a point there, many of these companies are switching out of necessity and they need these tools to keep working so it makes sense for them to focus resources in the next thing best established, with more features and biggest community.
I am sure all other engines will (somewhat) benefit from this too but I think this is mainly Godot's opportunity for big growth. I, for one, am rooting for them
Quoting: Purple Library GuyI'm actually starting to feel sorry for some other open source projects that don't have as much name recognition and momentum as Godot. Everyone's reacting by supporting Godot (and in Terraria's case, FNA, which is cool) but Liam had an article listing quite a few other alternatives, some of which are both open source and seem pretty neat, and I hope some of those get a bit of love too.
"The reputation-game analysis has some more implications that may not be immediately obvious. Many of these derive from the fact that one gains more prestige from founding a successful project than from cooperating in an existing one. One also gains more from projects that are strikingly innovative, as opposed to being `me, too' incremental improvements on software that already exists. On the other hand, software that nobody but the author understands or has a need for is a non-starter in the reputation game, and it's often easier to attract good notice by contributing to an existing project than it is to get people to notice a new one. Finally, it's much harder to compete with an already successful project than it is to fill an empty niche.
"Thus, there's an optimum distance from one's neighbors (the most similar competing projects). Too close and one's product will be a ``me, too!'' of limited value, a poor gift (one would be better off contributing to an existing project). Too far away, and nobody will be able to use, understand, or perceive the relevance of one's effort (again, a poor gift). This creates a pattern of homesteading in the noosphere that rather resembles that of settlers spreading into a physical frontier - not random, but like a diffusion-limited fractal. Projects tend to get started to fill functional gaps near the frontier (see [NO] for further discussion of the lure of novelty).
"Some very successful projects become `category killers'; nobody wants to homestead anywhere near them because competing against the established base for the attention of hackers would be too hard. People who might otherwise found their own distinct efforts end up, instead, adding extensions for these big, successful projects. The classic `category killer' example is GNU Emacs; its variants fill the ecological niche for a fully-programmable editor so completely that no competitor has gotten much beyond the one-man project stage since the early 1980s. Instead, people write Emacs modes."
— Eric S. Raymond, 1999.
Edit: I forgot to say why I was citing that essay; additional funding for Godot will shuffle the prominence of different projects, but they'll still exist to fill whichever ecological niches remain.
Last edited by CatKiller on 20 September 2023 at 7:36 pm UTC
Quoting: elgatilDon't get me wrong, it's not like I'm not happy for Godot. And I understand pretty much why things are working that way--of course, they're the biggest, most fully featured, and by far the most well known open source competitor for Unity, and their reputation is very good. Of course that's the direction people will be going. And it's great, in the sense that Godot was kind of on the cusp of critical mass already and this could be a very valuable boost helping propel Godot into the status of acknowledged full competitor to the big proprietary boys. Could be a major upset that puts free software into contention in an important software niche.Quoting: Purple Library GuyI'm actually starting to feel sorry for some other open source projects that don't have as much name recognition and momentum as Godot. Everyone's reacting by supporting Godot (and in Terraria's case, FNA, which is cool) but Liam had an article listing quite a few other alternatives, some of which are both open source and seem pretty neat, and I hope some of those get a bit of love too.
What we, FOSS enthusiast, see as options, competition and customization others see as fragmentation. And there is a point there, many of these companies are switching out of necessity and they need these tools to keep working so it makes sense for them to focus resources in the next thing best established, with more features and biggest community.
I am sure all other engines will (somewhat) benefit from this too but I think this is mainly Godot's opportunity for big growth. I, for one, am rooting for them
It's just, well, Godot's gonna be fine. And Godot was already gonna be fine; their progress was rapid, they were getting features and kudos and adoption and momentum already. And there's these other projects looking at me like cute puppies going "Couldn't we have a couple of the scraps from this, too?" That's all I'm saying.
robertosf92 Sep 20, 2023
It will take a few years to see the results of this, but I think the outcome will most likely be good for us FLOSS enthusiasts
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