The irony has been pointed out many times: When the Unity game engine revealed its new per-install pricing last week, game developers were perhaps the most united they’ve ever been — in disgust. Even developers who don’t use Unity expressed anger or criticized the unprecedented change in terms.
See also: Unity apologizes for installation charging policy
Perhaps the best example of this rallying of game developers occurred this week, when Terraria developer Re-Logic announced that it was giving away $200,000 to open-source game engines as a counterattack against Unity, even though it hardly uses Unity itself.
Re-Logic goes on to say that, beyond simply expressing criticism, it feels a responsibility to “support some other emerging open source game engines,” and to that end, it has pledged to donate $100,000 to Godot and FNA, two free engines under a public license, the former of which has gained particular attention as an alternative to Unity following its new terms. Re-Logic has also pledged to donate $1,000 per month to each project, with the sole condition that they stay on their developer-friendly path.
“All we ask in return is that [open source engine developers] remain good people and continue to do what they can to make these engines powerful and accessible to developers everywhere,” the developer said.
Proposal: Terraria: Constant demand makes it difficult for developers to move forward
Unity apologized this week for the “confusion and distress” caused by the new installation fee and said it would “make policy changes.” That statement did little to appease the game development community. The issue wasn’t “confusion,” League of Geeks studio director Trent Kusters responded in a post on X, but the opposite: that game developers clearly “understood the devastating impact and anti-developer sentiment” of the new fee model.
The gist of it is that, after reaching certain thresholds, Unity wants to start charging game developers every time their Unity-based game is installed — tracked through its own “proprietary data model” — even if their game was published before this policy. Unity has since retracted aspects of the policy, saying last week, for example, that developers will not be charged for reinstalls of their games, after initially saying they would be charged. The latest information on the plan can be found in the Unity Runtime Fee FAQ, though as noted, the company will announce more changes soon.
Re-Logic says that even a full rollback from Unity won't change its frustration with the company or its promise to support open source engines. "Even if Unity retracts its policies and statements, the destruction of trust is not easily repaired," the studio said.
Read also: Unity: Cancels scheduled meeting due to threats
source of information:pcgamer.com
