#Game Developers

[treasure-mimic]

So, let me try and put everything together here, because I really do think it needs to be talked about.

Today, Unity announced that it intends to apply a fee to use its software. Then it got worse.

For those not in the know, Unity is the most popular free to use video game development tool, offering a basic version for individuals who want to learn how to create games or create independently alongside paid versions for corporations or people who want more features. It's decent enough at this job, has issues but for the price point I can't complain, and is the idea entry point into creating in this medium, it's a very important piece of software.

But speaking of tools, the CEO is a massive one. When he was the COO of EA, he advocated for using, what out and out sounds like emotional manipulation to coerce players into microtransactions.

"A consumer gets engaged in a property, they might spend 10, 20, 30, 50 hours on the game and then when they're deep into the game they're well invested in it. We're not gouging, but we're charging and at that point in time the commitment can be pretty high."

He also called game developers who don't discuss monetization early in the planning stages of development, quote, "fucking idiots".

So that sets the stage for what might be one of the most bald-faced greediest moves I've seen from a corporation in a minute. Most at least have the sense of self-preservation to hide it.

A few hours ago, Unity posted this announcement on the official blog.

Effective January 1, 2024, we will introduce a new Unity Runtime Fee that’s based on game installs. We will also add cloud-based asset storage, Unity DevOps tools, and AI at runtime at no extra cost to Unity subscription plans this November. We are introducing a Unity Runtime Fee that is based upon each time a qualifying game is downloaded by an end user. We chose this because each time a game is downloaded, the Unity Runtime is also installed. Also we believe that an initial install-based fee allows creators to keep the ongoing financial gains from player engagement, unlike a revenue share.

Now there are a few red flags to note in this pitch immediately.

Unity is planning on charging a fee on all games which use its engine.

This is a flat fee per number of installs.

They are using an always online runtime function to determine whether a game is downloaded.

There is just so many things wrong with this that it's hard to know where to start, not helped by this FAQ which doubled down on a lot of the major issues people had.

I guess let's start with what people noticed first. Because it's using a system baked into the software itself, Unity would not be differentiating between a "purchase" and a "download". If someone uninstalls and reinstalls a game, that's two downloads. If someone gets a new computer or a new console and downloads a game already purchased from their account, that's two download. If someone pirates the game, the studio will be asked to pay for that download.

Q: How are you going to collect installs? A: We leverage our own proprietary data model. We believe it gives an accurate determination of the number of times the runtime is distributed for a given project. Q: Is software made in unity going to be calling home to unity whenever it's ran, even for enterprice licenses? A: We use a composite model for counting runtime installs that collects data from numerous sources. The Unity Runtime Fee will use data in compliance with GDPR and CCPA. The data being requested is aggregated and is being used for billing purposes. Q: If a user reinstalls/redownloads a game / changes their hardware, will that count as multiple installs? A: Yes. The creator will need to pay for all future installs. The reason is that Unity doesn’t receive end-player information, just aggregate data. Q: What's going to stop us being charged for pirated copies of our games? A: We do already have fraud detection practices in our Ads technology which is solving a similar problem, so we will leverage that know-how as a starting point. We recognize that users will have concerns about this and we will make available a process for them to submit their concerns to our fraud compliance team.

This is potentially related to a new system that will require Unity Personal developers to go online at least once every three days.

Starting in November, Unity Personal users will get a new sign-in and online user experience. Users will need to be signed into the Hub with their Unity ID and connect to the internet to use Unity. If the internet connection is lost, users can continue using Unity for up to 3 days while offline. More details to come, when this change takes effect.

It's unclear whether this requirement will be attached to any and all Unity games, though it would explain how they're theoretically able to track "the number of installs", and why the methodology for tracking these installs is so shit, as we'll discuss later.

Unity claims that it will only leverage this fee to games which surpass a certain threshold of downloads and yearly revenue.

Only games that meet the following thresholds qualify for the Unity Runtime Fee: Unity Personal and Unity Plus: Those that have made $200,000 USD or more in the last 12 months AND have at least 200,000 lifetime game installs. Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise: Those that have made $1,000,000 USD or more in the last 12 months AND have at least 1,000,000 lifetime game installs.

They don't say how they're going to collect information on a game's revenue, likely this is just to say that they're only interested in squeezing larger products (games like Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, Fate Grand Order, Among Us, and Fall Guys) and not every 2 dollar puzzle platformer that drops on Steam. But also, these larger products have the easiest time porting off of Unity and the most incentives to, meaning realistically those heaviest impacted are going to be the ones who just barely meet this threshold, most of them indie developers.

Aggro Crab Games, one of the first to properly break this story, points out that systems like the Xbox Game Pass, which is already pretty predatory towards smaller developers, will quickly inflate their "lifetime game installs" meaning even skimming the threshold of that 200k revenue, will be asked to pay a fee per install, not a percentage on said revenue.

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Hey Gamers!

Today, Unity (the engine we use to make our games) announced that they'll soon be taking a fee from developers for every copy of the game installed over a certain threshold - regardless of how that copy was obtained.

Guess who has a somewhat highly anticipated game coming to Xbox Game Pass in 2024? That's right, it's us and a lot of other developers.

That means Another Crab's Treasure will be free to install for the 25 million Game Pass subscribers. If a fraction of those users download our game, Unity could take a fee that puts an enormous dent in our income and threatens the sustainability of our business.

And that's before we even think about sales on other platforms, or pirated installs of our game, or even multiple installs by the same user!!!

This decision puts us and countless other studios in a position where we might not be able to justify using Unity for our future titles. If these changes aren't rolled back, we'll be heavily considering abandoning our wealth of Unity expertise we've accumulated over the years and starting from scratch in a new engine. Which is really something we'd rather not do.

On behalf of the dev community, we're calling on Unity to reverse the latest in a string of shortsighted decisions that seem to prioritize shareholders over their product's actual users.

I fucking hate it here.

-Aggro Crab - END DESCRIPTION]

That fee, by the way, is a flat fee. Not a percentage, not a royalty. This means that any games made in Unity expecting any kind of success are heavily incentivized to cost as much as possible.

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A table listing the various fees by number of Installs over the Install Threshold vs. version of Unity used, ranging from $0.01 to $0.20 per install. END DESCRIPTION]

Basic elementary school math tells us that if a game comes out for $1.99, they will be paying, at maximum, 10% of their revenue to Unity, whereas jacking the price up to $59.99 lowers that percentage to something closer to 0.3%. Obviously any company, especially any company in financial desperation, which a sudden anchor on all your revenue is going to create, is going to choose the latter.

Furthermore, and following the trend of "fuck anyone who doesn't ask for money", Unity helpfully defines what an install is on their main site.

While I'm looking at this page as it exists now, it currently says

The installation and initialization of a game or app on an end user’s device as well as distribution via streaming is considered an “install.” Games or apps with substantially similar content may be counted as one project, with installs then aggregated to calculate the Unity Runtime Fee.

However, I saw a screenshot saying something different, and utilizing the Wayback Machine we can see that this phrasing was changed at some point in the few hours since this announcement went up. Instead, it reads:

The installation and initialization of a game or app on an end user’s device as well as distribution via streaming or web browser is considered an “install.” Games or apps with substantially similar content may be counted as one project, with installs then aggregated to calculate the Unity Runtime Fee.

Screenshot for posterity:

That would mean web browser games made in Unity would count towards this install threshold. You could legitimately drive the count up simply by continuously refreshing the page. The FAQ, again, doubles down.

Q: Does this affect WebGL and streamed games? A: Games on all platforms are eligible for the fee but will only incur costs if both the install and revenue thresholds are crossed. Installs - which involves initialization of the runtime on a client device - are counted on all platforms the same way (WebGL and streaming included).

And, what I personally consider to be the most suspect claim in this entire debacle, they claim that "lifetime installs" includes installs prior to this change going into effect.

Will this fee apply to games using Unity Runtime that are already on the market on January 1, 2024? Yes, the fee applies to eligible games currently in market that continue to distribute the runtime. We look at a game's lifetime installs to determine eligibility for the runtime fee. Then we bill the runtime fee based on all new installs that occur after January 1, 2024.

Again, again, doubled down in the FAQ.

Q: Are these fees going to apply to games which have been out for years already? If you met the threshold 2 years ago, you'll start owing for any installs monthly from January, no? (in theory). It says they'll use previous installs to determine threshold eligibility & then you'll start owing them for the new ones. A: Yes, assuming the game is eligible and distributing the Unity Runtime then runtime fees will apply. We look at a game's lifetime installs to determine eligibility for the runtime fee. Then we bill the runtime fee based on all new installs that occur after January 1, 2024.

That would involve billing companies for using their software before telling them of the existence of a bill. Holding their actions to a contract that they performed before the contract existed!

Okay. I think that's everything. So far.

There is one thing that I want to mention before ending this post, unfortunately it's a little conspiratorial, but it's so hard to believe that anyone genuinely thought this was a good idea that it's stuck in my brain as a significant possibility.

A few days ago it was reported that Unity's CEO sold 2,000 shares of his own company.

On September 6, 2023, John Riccitiello, President and CEO of Unity Software Inc (NYSE:U), sold 2,000 shares of the company. This move is part of a larger trend for the insider, who over the past year has sold a total of 50,610 shares and purchased none.

I would not be surprised if this decision gets reversed tomorrow, that it was literally only made for the CEO to short his own goddamn company, because I would sooner believe that this whole thing is some idiotic attempt at committing fraud than a real monetization strategy, even knowing how unfathomably greedy these people can be.

So, with all that said, what do we do now?

Well, in all likelihood you won't need to do anything. As I said, some of the biggest names in the industry would be directly affected by this change, and you can bet your bottom dollar that they're not just going to take it lying down. After all, the only way to stop a greedy CEO is with a greedier CEO, right?

(I fucking hate it here.)

And that's not mentioning the indie devs who are already talking about abandoning the engine.

[Links display tweets from the lead developer of Among Us saying it'd be less costly to hire people to move the game off of Unity and Cult of the Lamb's official twitter saying the game won't be available after January 1st in response to the news.]

That being said, I'm still shaken by all this. The fact that Unity is openly willing to go back and punish its developers for ever having used the engine in the past makes me question my relationship to it.

The news has given rise to the visibility of free, open source alternative Godot, which, if you're interested, is likely a better option than Unity at this point. Mostly, though, I just hope we can get out of this whole, fucking, environment where creatives are treated as an endless mill of free profits that's going to be continuously ratcheted up and up to drive unsustainable infinite corporate growth that our entire economy is based on for some fuckin reason.

Anyways, that's that, I find having these big posts that break everything down to be helpful.

[yumykon]

"Ah… it wasn’t gonna be that easy, huh?"

Enigma of Fear is a horror and mystery game by the Brazilian game studio Dumativa. For horror and mystery fans like me, is a real treat, full with puzzles, investigation mechanics and a intriguing story

Wishlist it on Steam! - 11/28/24

[meo-eiru]

DUDE I JUST PLAYED THROUGH THE GAME, WHY IS IT SO SADDDD😭😭😭

and why is he hot

Starling went through quite a few redesigns through the entire development process so let me talk about it a bit :3

It all started with this notes app drawing I made with my finger

Right from the start we knew his tail would be made out of tongues but figuring out how many and placed how was quite hard, I really had to girlmath my way thru

This was the first actual drawing I made of him. The story wasn't complete yet but I went ahead and designed something anyway. Here he was definitely "scarier" and his scar was also placed differently. He had gills on his neck but as you will see I changed their location to under his arms later on. We were actually considering not giving him a tongue of his own so I wanted to make his mouth terrifyingly big and empty.

Here I tried giving him bigger eyes like a fish. This was when his playful and childlike personality had started shaping as you can see from the expressions. I definitely liked this direction better but it also wasn't perfect just yet so I went ahead and did a few more changes

I slowed down on trying to figure out his design a bit after that and instead focused on how his sprite would look. He is a merman after all, he can't just stand straight like a lot of the other visual novel characters. This stage was PAINFUL.

These were the first ones I sketched, we ended up deciding we liked the 3rd one the best.

I carried that 3rd one over to another canvas and started playing around with how we could place his tail, we started entertaining the idea of having him sit on a big rock

This is when his pose really shaped up. The animated Little Mermaid movie was actually a big inspiration, I sat and rewatched the entire movie and studied how they animated her tail

And after that I finally finalized his design. We decided to change the end of his tail to be more eel like for aesthetic purposes (normal tail shape looked weird with tongues)

And for anyone wondering this is what Maelyn looked like at first. Since the story wasn't complete yet I thought it'd take place in a more modern setting and designed her with that in mind but we decided to have the story take place in 1800s so I changed the design based on that. I did a lot of research on glasses and corsets to make the design as accurate as I could.

Yes glasses! We didn't use the sprites in the main story but Maelyn does wear glasses and looks very pretty in them if you ask me. You will be seeing more of it in the bonus episodes!

[thoughtsroamguy]

Meet our titular Xivo, Goddess of Chaos and Life. The infinite expanse of void that she existed in was cold and lonely, so she created the universe and everything in it. Her thoughts can become reality in an instant, but it seems to never be enough for her, until one pivotal creation.

Find out why she cried in Tears of Xivo.

[twoconfusedgamedevs]

Birbs! I'm definitely learning that I enjoy making small things much more than large things in pixel art

[anim-ttrpgs]

Come listen to us discuss the TTRPG industry on the Chatsunami podcast!

Back in March, two members of the A.N.I.M. Team were guests on the Chatsunami podcast!

Initially, we were actually supposed to be talking about Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, but the way things went we ended up talking a lot more about the TTRPG industry, game design, TTRPGs as art and a hobby, barriers to entry in the hobby, and a bunch of other stuff.

If you know us from tumblr, some of these topics will be very familiar to you, but if you know us from bluesky, definitely have a listen for more in-depth discussion and insight into the kind of stuff that the stupid character limit prevents us from posting.

Also it was just a fun time.

[posthumanwanderings]

some interesting / funny bits reading this 2011 Yu Suzuki interview: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/yu-suzuki-still-wants-to-make-shenmue-3/1100-6301637

[omeletcat]

I have had this joke stuck in my head for weeks now and i finally decided to crudely draw it i'm sorry y'all this is the peak of my comedy skills.

[artistotel]

this isn't a classic 'whodunit' story. you already know who did it. the catch? you must not tell anyone.

hey everyone, my game for the game off jame is up! its still just a demo, but i plan on finishing it eventually, so any kind of support is welcome!

its playable in the browser so you dont have to download anything either c: give it a go, check it out! any kind of comment/critique is very welcome!

[nitrosodiumgameanglia]

Why Sound Design is so Important in Games

Sound design is a key point in games, though it is often neglected in college games where we do a lot of work without speakers on. Having some good audio in a game really helps elevate the experience beyond just being a solely visual medium, as much as audio changed silent movies. The games with the best sound design are often those with realistic sound systems, or ones that elicit the desired emotional response. Good sound design can make you terrified to turn a corner; it can make you cry in the game's saddest moments; it can turn a level from a selection of rendered polygons to a truly real-seeming experience. Obviously our game's sound design isn't that deep, but it doesn't add nothing to the game either.

The first game I am looking at is Thief: The Dark Project. This game came out in 1998, but I would say it still holds up today with a few patches to make it run on modern systems. The game has a unique stealth system that lets you hide in shadows, but the main thing we're looking at is the sound. Different surfaces are different levels of loudness when walked on - carpet is perfect for sneaking, but metal catwalks are loud and clank under your feet. This isn't just set dressing either, because enemies are more likely to hear you if you're clanking about on steel grating. Then there is the ambient sound, where you can hear nearby guards muttering or whistling (in a great bit of game design, this helps you keep track of them when they're out of sight), torches crackle, and strange ambient screeches echo down hallways. The ambient soundtracks in each level are interesting, and use a lot of electronic synthesiser noises, which gives them an 80s John Carpenter vibe. They help make the environments foreboding, but also help tell the story in a way that 90s graphics simply could not. For example, as you enter the deepest annals of an ultra-religious Hammerite compound, the ambient whirr of machinery gets replaced by solemn choir and hymns. Caves can have dripping water and the occasional crumbling rock, while more twisted forest environments have the endless chirring of insects and chuckling from unseen nymphs and satyrs. The actual sound technology is also really good for the time, because it supports sound cards, even though they aren't used too much anymore. With them enabled, you can listen against a door and gauge how big a room is based on the echo of the guard's voices inside. Even for today that is fairly advanced, and as far as I know, not present in many other games.

The next game I am looking at is Hunt: Showdown. It is a 2018 horror shooter taking place at the end of the 19th century, where you play as a bounty hunter trying to kill various cryptids and monsters. The game uses the Cry Engine, so it already looks good on a visual front, but the audio is also phenomenal. Most of the quality comes from its directional sound system, which is so specific you can tell where players are through buildings, which is useful for lining up shots when you don't have a good visual read on their whereabouts. Every gun also has a unique sound and echo, which allows an educated player to guess what weapon has been fired, from what direction, and even from what distance. The way that the game calculates sound waves travelling is a very unique and realistic system; a gunshot ringing out over an open field will be louder and clearer than a gunshot fired in the middle of the thick backwoods. I assume this is a built-in feature for CryEngine V because I know of no other games with this level of realism when it comes to sound - I can only assume it calculates for windspeed and other factors and then runs the sound effect through various in-engine filters.

Finally, I will look at The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. One of the lesser-mentioned qualities of this game is its environmental sound design, which help the various holds of Skyrim seem like realistic places. The wind whistles about your ears, giving you a good sense of your player's altitude and the temperature around you. In the mornings and evenings, you can hear crickets chirring and birds chirping. The rushing of rivers sounds different depending on the course - swelling into a roar of white noise in the rapids, but dissipating to a trickle when the river becomes a lazy stream. Then there are more ethereal sounds, like the creaking of the aurora borealis on winter nights. Towns have their own soundscapes also, with the creaking wood of huts and the crackle of flaming torches. The ambient music by Jeremy Soule (the same guy behind the LOTR soundtrack) also adds a lot to the game's atmosphere, with majestic orchestras making even a simple walk through the valleys a much more emotive and captivating experience. However, you can play with the sound turned off and just listen to the layered soundscapes.

From my research, I can see that the main theme that makes a soundscape good is attention to detail. Not just having one sword hit sound, for example, but several, altered depending what material you strike, and echoing with a different resonance depending on where you are. I would say that with Wallpaper of the Mind, we have achieved this as best we can in four weeks, with the different footstep surfaces. The sounds I myself provided were more stock quality, but it doesn't matter, because how sound is used mechanically is just as important. I will make a blog post on this soon.

[glugslove]

I am really excited this area is fully added into Rhell now

It is the first ever environment I modelled for my indie game, so having it just there in the open world is very satisfying (⁠｡⁠・⁠/⁠/⁠ε⁠/⁠/⁠・⁠｡⁠)

[fippydarkpaw]

[thoughtsroamguy]

Meet Sahkyō, another core cast member, the no-nonsense quartermaster and generally not a fan of lies. If she doesn't like you, she'll say it to your face, if you don't like her, you better say it to her face. Getting supplies to keep the team going is one part of her job, the other is supporting them on missions with defensive magic. I'm sssssure she looks forward to meeting you all in Tears of Xivo!

[kijodev]

[Portrait] The Hunter and Gold Ardeo, from Bloodborne. 48x48

[twoconfusedgamedevs]

Made a silly little abstract cat based on the genetically modified glow cats (I love them)

reference below