It's amazing to me how many small business owners don't get that, first and foremost, their business is a BUSINESS. And that their suppliers are also businesses. My best-selling product depends on a material available from exactly ONE supplier. The amount of time I spend trying to find an acceptable substitute is substantial--and a damn good investment of my time.
That obviously isn't possible in video games--changing your software tools completely with no warning isn't really a winning business plan. But time spent on 'what-if'fing to have some idea of what might be done if that tool suddenly becomes unavailable is probably a good idea...
Companies do need to make profit/break even, whatever their business, and so charging more was inevitable. That's really the nature of money over time. I don’t know the history of Unity pricing, but if it had stayed static for a prolonged period of time, backlash would be inevitable.
Still, the need to make money (more or in Unity’s case, “any”) doesn’t excuse the cerebral tuba-fart that was this new pricing model. Yes, the CEO got rolled up into a carpet and thrown off a bridge, and yes, the accountability does lie with him. But in a company of this size, one has to think that this was likely workshopped and developed by multiple hands – finance, accounting, and… well probably not PR. But it seems natural that there would have been more people than the former EA executive behind this doomed endeavor.
This should have increased the odds of someone saying something – that someone raises all the issues of technical feasibility, and the details and nuance of charity drives, demos, reinstallations, everything developers had good reason to riot over… But no. They failed on every aspect, face-planted at every step. The possible explanations are that either no one with any actual domain knowledge of their own business was involved, no one competent with said domain knowledge was involved, or that these concerns and issues were shrugged off by the gormless bean counters who were given dictatorial powers over these decisions.
There’s really no good explanation for what happened that leaves Unity with a valid excuse for what they tried to do.
Either way, the fact that a ball of this magnitude was dropped from so high up suggests that no one in charge at Unity knows their own business. And the fact that they’ve never turned an actual profit supports this idea. Unity is a market powerhouse, and the despair of those trying to switch to alternatives shows that the problem isn’t in the technical aspects of the engine. The developers clearly know their stuff and do it well. But those whose job is, “take this technical marvel and make money from it” simply aren’t up to the task.
One thing I like about this blog is the long term perspective, and that was present here when considering the "million download problem circa 1990" aside.
I do think that this being the controversy that unseated John Riccitiello is odd though. It feels like there was more distance between him and other controvertial announcements, and the fact that Unity has not completely reversed the choice certainly makes me think the change was introduced in line with the board's wishes (as for whoever came up with it first, I have to imagine something like this was an option for years). That is, he seems to be out for doing the thing that the company intends to continue doing, although obviously he was CEO with the most aggressive and poorly messaged version of the thing.
The post points out why he's probably not the best choice of CEO moving forward though, and that is interest rates. I'm actually not sure if Unity's ever been consistently profitable. Certainly that makes a bad thing worse, but my reading is that the lack of profitability was not a sudden thing. Riccitiello, for better or worse, seems to pursue growth through acquisitions, at least as evidenced by his tenure at Unity and Electronic Arts. Not only are acquisitions less attractive in the environment, investors are likely going to be skeptical about the ability for a strategy that has yet to pay off working in a less favourable environment.
So should he go? I think the case above is better founded than the "he called me an idiot and shuttered Bullfrog" takes, but what I think matters is that all present signs indicate Unity will likely do the things people are mad at them for moving forward. I'm sure people will be indifferent between whether or not Weta continues to be a Unity property or whatever, but people seem to like Unity because it's effectively free, and the path forward will involve a combination of cuts (fewer features) and getting people to pay for things (not-free).
All told, the particular gun that provoked the post doesn't seem to have changed at all and, if anything, the owner has reaffirmed their willingness to use it. But the conclusion seems to be the same as the one in the post: acknowledge that switching engines is not without cost and don't make the switch unless you are willing to bear it.
Edit: And if you made it all the way through this ramble, thank you for letting me blog on your blog! First time commenter, long time reader.
I suspect the issue is that they have built their business on an unsustainable model - as you say corporate suicide cheap. A quick search seems to show they have never been profitable. It's not my area, but looking around their customer base seems to be split into hobbyist developers (possibly profitable if they can sell them enough assets), conventional desktop app developers (certainly *should* be profitable if the model is correct), and mobile developers with an incredibly large install base but vanishingly small to zero monetisation on a per user basis.
To become profitable they need to squeeze part of their client base - but not in the way they've done so so far, and without destroying everything whilst they pivot.
It's always a problem when you're provided an unsustainable level of service, and then one day asked to pay the true cost of it.
Third party game engines are a no-go for me because it's a monolithic dependency that gobbles up everything in your game, like a cancer. It becomes very difficult to separate the core of your game from the engine it runs on. Your entire project can get glued to one of these things, and heaven help you if you want to pry it away.
Instead, I practice dependency diversification. I use a variety of tools and programming languages to make my games available on multiple platforms and store fronts. I wrote a Windows platform layer for Windows, a Mac OS one for Apple products, and I keep the core game logic separate from any specific platform it happens to run on.
Not only do I get peace of mind, it's just more pleasant to work this way. I don't have to download this huge bloated several gigs software package to make games. I just need a compiler. I don't have to worry about how the latest updates will affect my games because my games don't get updated unless I sit down at my computer and update them.
It's amazing to me how many small business owners don't get that, first and foremost, their business is a BUSINESS. And that their suppliers are also businesses. My best-selling product depends on a material available from exactly ONE supplier. The amount of time I spend trying to find an acceptable substitute is substantial--and a damn good investment of my time.
That obviously isn't possible in video games--changing your software tools completely with no warning isn't really a winning business plan. But time spent on 'what-if'fing to have some idea of what might be done if that tool suddenly becomes unavailable is probably a good idea...
I love this blog so much
Tell your friends! It's free!
I already did! I know I got you at least one other reader ;-)
Companies do need to make profit/break even, whatever their business, and so charging more was inevitable. That's really the nature of money over time. I don’t know the history of Unity pricing, but if it had stayed static for a prolonged period of time, backlash would be inevitable.
Still, the need to make money (more or in Unity’s case, “any”) doesn’t excuse the cerebral tuba-fart that was this new pricing model. Yes, the CEO got rolled up into a carpet and thrown off a bridge, and yes, the accountability does lie with him. But in a company of this size, one has to think that this was likely workshopped and developed by multiple hands – finance, accounting, and… well probably not PR. But it seems natural that there would have been more people than the former EA executive behind this doomed endeavor.
This should have increased the odds of someone saying something – that someone raises all the issues of technical feasibility, and the details and nuance of charity drives, demos, reinstallations, everything developers had good reason to riot over… But no. They failed on every aspect, face-planted at every step. The possible explanations are that either no one with any actual domain knowledge of their own business was involved, no one competent with said domain knowledge was involved, or that these concerns and issues were shrugged off by the gormless bean counters who were given dictatorial powers over these decisions.
There’s really no good explanation for what happened that leaves Unity with a valid excuse for what they tried to do.
Either way, the fact that a ball of this magnitude was dropped from so high up suggests that no one in charge at Unity knows their own business. And the fact that they’ve never turned an actual profit supports this idea. Unity is a market powerhouse, and the despair of those trying to switch to alternatives shows that the problem isn’t in the technical aspects of the engine. The developers clearly know their stuff and do it well. But those whose job is, “take this technical marvel and make money from it” simply aren’t up to the task.
It was a wild mess, that's for sure.
When I first researched Unity, 20 years ago, I remember thinking, "Wow. This is CHEAP!" It didn't ring alarm bells the way it should have.
I didn't use it, in the end, because I would rather write cruddier games using an engine I have the source code for.
One thing I like about this blog is the long term perspective, and that was present here when considering the "million download problem circa 1990" aside.
I do think that this being the controversy that unseated John Riccitiello is odd though. It feels like there was more distance between him and other controvertial announcements, and the fact that Unity has not completely reversed the choice certainly makes me think the change was introduced in line with the board's wishes (as for whoever came up with it first, I have to imagine something like this was an option for years). That is, he seems to be out for doing the thing that the company intends to continue doing, although obviously he was CEO with the most aggressive and poorly messaged version of the thing.
The post points out why he's probably not the best choice of CEO moving forward though, and that is interest rates. I'm actually not sure if Unity's ever been consistently profitable. Certainly that makes a bad thing worse, but my reading is that the lack of profitability was not a sudden thing. Riccitiello, for better or worse, seems to pursue growth through acquisitions, at least as evidenced by his tenure at Unity and Electronic Arts. Not only are acquisitions less attractive in the environment, investors are likely going to be skeptical about the ability for a strategy that has yet to pay off working in a less favourable environment.
So should he go? I think the case above is better founded than the "he called me an idiot and shuttered Bullfrog" takes, but what I think matters is that all present signs indicate Unity will likely do the things people are mad at them for moving forward. I'm sure people will be indifferent between whether or not Weta continues to be a Unity property or whatever, but people seem to like Unity because it's effectively free, and the path forward will involve a combination of cuts (fewer features) and getting people to pay for things (not-free).
All told, the particular gun that provoked the post doesn't seem to have changed at all and, if anything, the owner has reaffirmed their willingness to use it. But the conclusion seems to be the same as the one in the post: acknowledge that switching engines is not without cost and don't make the switch unless you are willing to bear it.
Edit: And if you made it all the way through this ramble, thank you for letting me blog on your blog! First time commenter, long time reader.
This blog gets very high quality comments.
I honestly don't understand the process behind the Unity mess, and I would love to have been a fly on the wall for choice moments.
These people are trying to play 9-D chess to solve a simple "Spend Less, Earn More" problem.
I suspect the issue is that they have built their business on an unsustainable model - as you say corporate suicide cheap. A quick search seems to show they have never been profitable. It's not my area, but looking around their customer base seems to be split into hobbyist developers (possibly profitable if they can sell them enough assets), conventional desktop app developers (certainly *should* be profitable if the model is correct), and mobile developers with an incredibly large install base but vanishingly small to zero monetisation on a per user basis.
To become profitable they need to squeeze part of their client base - but not in the way they've done so so far, and without destroying everything whilst they pivot.
It's always a problem when you're provided an unsustainable level of service, and then one day asked to pay the true cost of it.
Third party game engines are a no-go for me because it's a monolithic dependency that gobbles up everything in your game, like a cancer. It becomes very difficult to separate the core of your game from the engine it runs on. Your entire project can get glued to one of these things, and heaven help you if you want to pry it away.
Instead, I practice dependency diversification. I use a variety of tools and programming languages to make my games available on multiple platforms and store fronts. I wrote a Windows platform layer for Windows, a Mac OS one for Apple products, and I keep the core game logic separate from any specific platform it happens to run on.
Not only do I get peace of mind, it's just more pleasant to work this way. I don't have to download this huge bloated several gigs software package to make games. I just need a compiler. I don't have to worry about how the latest updates will affect my games because my games don't get updated unless I sit down at my computer and update them.