The Unity Game, the Game Engine, and the Bloomberg Debacle: John Riccitiello, CEO and the CEO of Massive Monster, Cult of the Lamb
The pricing debacle has taken a dangerous turn. In a new report from Bloomberg, the company has reportedly canceled a town hall meeting due to what the publication called credible death threats. John Riccitiello was supposed to speak to employees Thursday morning, but the meeting was canceled and two offices were closed because of threats.
Charity bundles will not count as an install as Unity stated that developers could flag malicious activity. It further clarified, however, that installing a game across multiple devices would still be subject to fees. Microsoft would be charged instead if games were included as a part of subscription services, as stated by Unity.
It seems that without a full-scale retraction, Unity has irreparably damaged its brand and its customers’ trust. And even if the company reverses course, there seem to be developers who will not come back or are exploring other engines like the open-source Godot, which is similar to Unity.
Riccitiello himself became a central figure of the controversy as some see him as the driving force behind the new model. The loot box was added to the game, but he was CEO at the time. He made a big deal out of calling developers “fuck idiots” for being reluctant to introduce monetization schemes earlier in the development process. Riccitiello was on a shareholder call talking about how Battlefield players should be charged a dollar to reload their guns. The Unity CEO also raised eyebrows this week when it was reported that he sold off 2,000 Unity shares right before the company announced this news — with the stock price seeing a significant drop thereafter.
Many developers shared a similar sentiment, explaining they were considering abandoning Unity as a game engine. Massive Monster threatened to delist its game Cult of the Lamb completely, as the official account for the game stated on their website.
Source: [Developers respond to Unity’s new pricing scheme] “Apologies to the employee of the Spokesman for a Commissioning Action”, J.P. Pearce et al
“Know also that all of the concerns that are understandably blowing up at the moment have been raised internally by many weeks before this announcement,” the alleged employee wrote. I cannot speculate on why this was rushed out in this way.
Source: Developers respond to Unity’s new pricing scheme
Comments on Unity, the Engine of Facepunch Studios, and Other Game Engine Developers: Why We Really Have a Hard Time Buying a Game
“Let me be clear.. The cost isn’t a big issue for Facepunch Studios. If everything went according to plan, the tracking was flawless and it was only 10p per sale. If that’s what it costs, then that’s what it costs. But that’s not why we’re furious. It hurts because we did not agree to this. You have to pay for the product before it can be shipped, so we used the engine. We weren’t told this was going to happen. We weren’t warned. We were not consulted. We have spent 10 years making Rust on Unity’s engine. We’ve paid them every year. The rules have been changed.
The other people weighed in on this. Other game engine companies and publishers expressed their dissatisfaction, some more creatively than others.
Devolver Digital, notable for being both an indie developer powerhouse and for its unorthodox communication style, posted, “Definitely include what engine you’re using in game pitches. It’s important information,” which seems to suggest that it would look less favorably on future games developed in Unity for the unknown costs they could incur.
“One of the cool things about RPG Maker is that once you buy the engine, you can sell your game as many times as you want and never owe us another dime,” RPG Maker, the engine for games including Yume Nikki, Corpse Party, and Always Sometimes Monsters, posted.
The developer of Dusk wrote that he hopes this Unity thing will be like the ones before because none of them were as bad. “That said, regardless of what happens, Butcher’s Creek will be my last game on Unity.”
Others put it out in the open. The developers of Slay the Spire will be moving to a new engine if the changes are completely reverted. “We have never made a public statement before. That is how bad of a situation you were in.