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Closing a chapter.



My last post was so full of darkness, I hate to follow on with another sad article. Life does not always allow for happy moments interspersing the less happy.



For countless years ( honestly, I can't count this time in the morning ) I have been engaged in a hobby project writing a fairly massive software library of routines for use in adventure and combat simulations I call Zulu. When I started the project way back whenever I did weeks of research trying to determine the "best" game engine to use. Factors like ease of use, rendering quality, support, and cost all were gathered, then ground in the number-cruncher to determine a winner. In the end, Unity3d was the clear winner.

In the last two weeks Unity announced a series of changes to its Terms and Conditions including how it charges for applications built using Unity that put a huge burden on developers, especially the smaller groups.
 



The reaction from Unity's clients was extremely strong. Not at all positive.





There are dozens if not more YouTube videos and blog postings covering the details along with analysis of the matter. A quick search will get you all the info you'd ever want. Comments range from confusion to language I will not reproduce here. The term "betrayal" gets bantered about a lot.





Unity has tried to clarify it's position and has partially withdrawn some of the offending changes. There still are new terms and conditions though.

I will only speak on this matter as the developer for Zulu. The changes in terms, both in original as well as revised form could place a financial burden on me that would be very large. That cost, the uncertainty of this and future charges, plus the fact that these changes were imposed without consultation, much less any warning to the client community make use of Unity impossible. Hence I am discontinuing usage of any and all Unity products along with de-installing those same products.



Like many other developers I now have to decide what to do instead. Some are looking at Open Source game engines like Godot, others at Unreal Engine. I've looked at both, doing evaluations of the current state of the art. I've installed Unreal to replace Unity for now. It's possible I will settle on something else or just shutdown work on Zulu altogether. Time will tell.


Comments

  1. GreggSFriday, October 13, 2023 9:24:00 AM

    On Monday the 9th I got one of my wishes - the ( figurative ) head of CEO John Riccitiello cut off and stuck on a pike. Without comment or fanfare, John was no longer CEO, on the board of directors, or apparently working for Unity in in any way. Many are cheering this news, as John has been a troubling force wherever he manages to work. Shortly after he had joined Unity some years back the company got rid of licenses in perpetuity and rearranging the license types. Which cost me the pro-level license I had paid for and forced me down to the freebie "hobbyist" level. I was so upset I ceased work for over four months. So, in the same manner Vir Cotto once did, I look up and wave at John's head....

    So now what? Do I return to the fold? No, not yet. I'm still experimenting with a rewrite of my polyaxial classes into C++. Ugh, the juju this requires is far more than the original version. Still worth the attempt. If those items are translated the rest of Zulu can fall into place as new code adapted for Unreal Engine.

    It's going to take more from Unity than the head of John R. A good start, but there are some serious fences to repair too.

    ReplyDelete

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