Unity’s new “per-install” pricing enrages the game development community | Fees of up to $0.20 per install threaten to upend large chunks of the industry.::Fees of up to $0.20 per install threaten to upend large chunks of the industry.
While I’m a huge open source advocate this has little to do with open vs closed source software.
The issue of having to put up with software changes you dislike is solved when you (or 3rd parties) have the freedom to change the software in ways you like.
It is my hope that people see this as very much a proprietary vs free software issue. I hope this leads to further introspection; it’s bad when an engine mistreats them (game devs) so maybe they should give software freedom to their users too.
The problem is, free software model is actually difficult to make profit with. Red hat has long been touted as the prime example of how to do it, by selling service and support instead of software, and even they try to limit the customers’ freedom as much as possible now. Turns out a lot of people don’t need support. And the better the software the less support is needed.
I struggle to see a way to make a game engine available so that it’s free software and the customers can just take it if they don’t like your pricing policy, but still make money from developing it. Or even break even. What would the engine developers sell? What would the game developers sell if the code could just be redistributed for free?
If programming is how one earns a living then the perceived risk of earning lower (if that’s generally true, or not) will make moral arguments for free software less receptive.
Earning at distribution is not the only possible time to get funding. Godot engine gets grants from companies that request features, then devs implements them after already being paid. If that method would work for game devs, and earn enough, I can’t say.
Free software being more difficult to earn profit is the other side of the coin of proprietary software being easier (for bad reasons). Artificially limiting the availability of software so users can only get it from you makes it easier. Being able to force changes that help you financially at the users’ expense is easier. It’s my hope that proprietary software is not viable long term as users will demand software freedom, but that’s just my wish. In the short term I hope people switch from Unity to Godot.
A patron model is my personal future hope; “pay me if you want to see this game continued to be developed and get more games by me”. In the meanwhile I have a full time job, wish we had a universal basic income!
Redhat was bought by IBM for 34 Billion dollars.
IBM knew their proprietary crap could not compete with FOSS alternatives.
Unity could make plenty of money on the asset store, and would never have to worry about Godot eating their lunch if they open-sourced their game engine. But this type of stuff will force people over to Godot.
This has everything to do with FOSS.
If a company can get away with pulling the rug on you, they will.
Once you’ve heavily invested in using a a piece of software, the company behind it has leverage over you, but if you could pay for updates to that software from another company, the original company has no leverage over you.
The only reason these companies refuse to release the source code is because they are planning on fucking you over in the future. As consumers we need to demand open source products to prevent this sort of abuse.
