Will the Unity debacle affect VCS releases?

[zzip]

I don't know how many of the existing and upcoming VCS games use Unity, but it's been a recommended platform for VCS development.    Do you think this situation will result in upcoming titles getting postponed or cancelled, or existing games being pulled?

[Tinman]

I must have missed the news.  What’s going on with Unity?

[zzip]

6 minutes ago, Tinman said:

I must have missed the news.  What’s going on with Unity?

The way I understand it:

 

Unity is changing their pay structure and will start charging developers per installation.   (something like 5 - 20 cents per install)

 

While that doesn't sound bad in itself,  developers are worrying about things like 

* Do developers get charged every time a customer re-installs a game?  or installs on multiple devices they own?

* What about when a pirated copy gets installed?

 

It seems Unity will be keeping metrics on installs and determines what counts as a chargeable install,  and people don't trust them

 

Seems like there's quite a backlash among developers to this.

[tripled79]

[+Cafeman]

Actually this is an interesting question.    davpa one mentioned using Unity for Atari 800 VCS games ... but could you use Godot as well?   I've heard that Gadot isn't as user-friendly when aiming at the console market development.  If anybody is more experienced, feel free to expound on the subject. 

[zzip]

4 minutes ago, Cafeman said:

Actually this is an interesting question.    davpa one mentioned using Unity for Atari 800 VCS games ... but could you use Godot as well?   I've heard that Gadot isn't as user-friendly when aiming at the console market development.  If anybody is more experienced, feel free to expound on the subject. 

As far as I know, Godot can be used as well, or any other Linux development tool.     I do remember Davpa saying the VCS was designed with Unity in mind, and I think there are a number of Unity-based games in the store, but I don't think developers are locked into that.   But if your code is already on Unity, porting to something else will be a chore.

[Wildstar]

If the game developer was using Unity then that debacle could have an impact. Game developers using non-Unity game engine would not be effected by Unity's matters.

 

Any game engine that can target either to web or to Linux should be able to work but may take a little added stuff for AtariOS idiosyncracies... VCS.

 

Edited September 29, 2023 by Wildstar

[Wildstar]

On 9/22/2023 at 10:16 AM, zzip said:

As far as I know, Godot can be used as well, or any other Linux development tool.     I do remember Davpa saying the VCS was designed with Unity in mind, and I think there are a number of Unity-based games in the store, but I don't think developers are locked into that.   But if your code is already on Unity, porting to something else will be a chore.

basically, yes and yes. 

[Wildstar]

On 9/22/2023 at 10:10 AM, Cafeman said:

Actually this is an interesting question.    davpa one mentioned using Unity for Atari 800 VCS games ... but could you use Godot as well?   I've heard that Gadot isn't as user-friendly when aiming at the console market development.  If anybody is more experienced, feel free to expound on the subject. 

It has to do with Godot is opensource. Most of the consoles are closed proprietary systems and proprietary stuff are held behind the NDA wall which is the reason they can't legally talk about anything behind the NDA wall because if they did, they could be sued in the multi-million dollar levels. Nintendo has it litigious history well known.... even with notorious reputation.

 

[zzip]

30 minutes ago, Wildstar said:

It has to do with Godot is opensource. Most of the consoles are closed proprietary systems and proprietary stuff are held behind the NDA wall which is the reason they can't legally talk about anything behind the NDA wall because if they did, they could be sued in the multi-million dollar levels. Nintendo has it litigious history well known.... even with notorious reputation.

If Godot had Sony/Nintendo console integration, it would expose proprietary APIs, is that what you mean?

[Wildstar]

44 minutes ago, zzip said:

If Godot had Sony/Nintendo console integration, it would expose proprietary APIs, is that what you mean?

There is some kind of third party extension of sort. However, discussing anything not in public that is obtained under NDA (non-disclosure agreements) exposes liability of lawsuits. Exposing potential proprietary API without permission gets into a legal issue as well. How willing are Sony or Nintendo to 'open' their API while retaining control of their IP... ? That's the proverbial question. The game console industry is somewhat ridiculous and overprotective of APIs. They could be more open and in turn encourage more developers to develop for their system. It's this sort of magic black box syndrome. What is inside isn't that different then a mini-ITX pc. It isn't so different like they were in the NES/SNES, SEGA GENESIS Era. They don't have completely custom graphics chips, custom support chips and so forth. 

 

It's more like a miniPC repackaged and marketed as a game console. Nintendo is probably the most unique with most effort to custom proprietary hardware. That's Nintendo for you. Sony and Microsoft are both more like miniPC in a stylish case