As some you may have heard the news (check this if you haven't), Unity suddenly decided to charge $0.20 for each install of the game. This fee has to be paid by the developer of the game directly to Unity.. quite like a subscription model.
This applies to all games that generate more than $200k in revenue and have more than 200k downloads. I doubt that The Galaxy Rider will reach these numbers, but other game developers are affected by this change.
This change mostly affects the mobile markets, where charging 20 cents per install is insane.
Since The Galaxy Rider is being made using Unity, I think I have to share my thoughts and actions about this too.
So, let's get this straight, what happens to The Galaxy Rider? Well, nothing, it is still in development and we'll still be using Unity for it, as it most likely won't be affected by the change.
This doesn't mean we agree with Unity's decision. Changing the rules in the middle of the game is something no game developer can agree with. If they did it this time, there's nothing stopping them from doing it again, and next time, our games may be affected too.
I also think that the installs number being estimated by the Unity Runtime "UsInG Ai" Is an even dumber idea, prone to vulnerabilities and exploits. I don't agree with this, and I believe that the number should be sent to Unity by the stores, not directly estimated by the application.
I would've jumped on the game developers hate train and start working from scratch on The Galaxy Rider using another engine if.... THE GAME WASN'T ALREADY STARTED FROM SCRATCH 4 TIMES. If I start it from scratch again, it may never see the light of day. That's why we are still working on it using Unity. It's a compromise between finishing the game and protesting against a greedy company.
Will we be using Unity for future after the release of The Galaxy Rider? Most likely NO.
The only thing that could make us use Unity for future games too is if they remove the install fee, they apologize to the developers, and the management of the company is changed.
For the next games, this is probably the tech stack that we'll be using:
Raylib + ENTT + Box2D/ Bullet Physics - For any 2D/ 3D game that doesn't require a visual editor
Godot - For 2D games that require a visual editor
Unreal Engine - For 3D games that require a visual editor
Until The Galaxy Rider is released so I can get rid of Unity, here are some memes I found on the internet about this whole thing:
