Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:chuappgame, by Xiong Dongdong

To put it simply, it's not just that Unity has a profit problem and wants to seek a breakthrough by raising prices-- it's that everyone is out of money or is in some kind of industry predicament. If everyone's emotions don't break out on Unity, they will choose the next carrier, but in the end, everything will return to normal.

In 2004, Unity was born in a basement in Copenhagen, Denmark.

It was born in a very humble environment, and there are only a few young people on the development team. With the phrase "so that game developers all over the world can use a low-cost and easy-to-use game engine", Unity began its mission. From its debut at Apple's Global developer Conference in 2005 to occupying 45% of the global market share of functional game engines in 2023, Unity has been at the forefront of the times to some extent. In many people's minds, it looks like a story about giving and receiving, belief and touching.

On September 12, 2023, Unity officially announced that it would implement the new fee standard. In addition to the original annual fee for the provision of staged engine services, there will be an additional charge according to "installation volume". For example, after the income of the personal version reaches $200000 or the number of installations reaches 200,000 times, the developer will be charged $0.20 for each installation. The fee for the professional version and the enterprise version will be lower, but it is also a lot of extra expense.

The detailed list of fees released by Unity on September 12th people tend to believe that head companies can play an exemplary role in the development of the industry, but Unity's decision seems to have many obvious loopholes at a glance.

In response to changes in consumer standards, Unity mentioned that they have a patented data model that can detect the number of pirated installations, and players will not double charge for deletions and reinstallations on the same device. However, according to the analysis of Zhihu respondent and the producer of Cytoid, Unity does not have the technical ability of "100% anti-theft". "Unity has every commercial incentive not to solve the problem of malicious installation, because the money will end up in their pockets, and it is accurate that most companies simply cannot compete with the legal department of Unity." Similar remarks are rampant in the domestic game industry, gradually forming a storm of public opinion against Unity.

Unity failed to make it through the first week of the new charging scheme. On Sept. 18, Unity issued an apology, saying it would adjust the new charging scheme. On September 23, Unity officially released an open letter to the community and said that it would change the fees released on September 12 (hereinafter referred to as the revised version).

There are not many changes: lower the threshold for free use of Unity personal version and do not charge for its installation fee; use the old version of Unity development, currently under research and annual income of less than $1 million projects do not have to pay installation fee; for the pursuit of "small profits and quick turnover" high installation volume projects, you can choose another set of income-sharing charging scheme.

The apology letter was released by Marc Whitten, the head of Unity Create. Now, it seems to be a clich é story that "brave people are defeated after becoming evil dragons."

Unity's attitude has changed a lot in just 11 days, and this may be the hottest topic for the domestic game industry recently, with almost everyone chatting with their colleagues during the morning break at the workplace.

Toule also interviewed some practitioners in the game industry. From their emotional words, we can see why Unity's new charging scheme is an earthquake for the industry.

The "domesticated" younger generation and market for the vast global game market, Unity has been in a dominant position for a decade. The term overlord is used to describe Unity, not only because it far exceeds the second market share and the versatility and convenience of the engine itself, but also because it has been benign "domestication" for practitioners.

This kind of "domestication" is particularly serious in the Chinese market, where the number of Unity developers ranks first in the world. Take the planning position as an example, if a newcomer who has no experience in the game industry wants to join the game planning industry, the first engine to learn is often Unity.

First, the vision of domestic newcomers is often limited. In China, game design majors are only offered in a few universities, and most of the game developers are non-professional. For newcomers, before entering the profession, the knowledge of game design can only be self-taught on the Internet. There are a large number of Unity learning documents on the Chinese Internet, while there are few documents for other engines.

Bilibili on Unity has sufficient teaching resources in the domestic game market, there are many well-known works developed by Unity, such as "Arena of Valor" and "the original God". And the "original god" to Unity "magic change" is well-known in the industry, which also proves that Unity has a high degree of expansion. For a newcomer who wants to enter the game industry, choosing Unity represents not only a wider choice of employment, but also a higher probability of joining a promising project group.

Second, there is a certain degree of inducement in the domestic channels of obtaining information. On social networks, affected by big data's push, newlyweds who want to join the industry can always see such ads-click to participate in the "game development 5-day training camp" for free, and Xiaobai can also make a game Demo-- seductive slogan with "empty Knight" CG from scratch, which makes the newlyweds feel relaxed and happy.

You can often see advertisements for Unity teaching courses on Zhihu. In the "job requirements" displayed on the recruitment software or on the official recruitment website of game companies, you can always see the entry "those who are good at using Unity first". In almost every school recruitment group in the game industry, you can often see one or two college students with "many years" development experience frequently imparting the experience of using Unity to their friends.

Xiao Wang, a 23-year enrollment student who worked as a plot planner at a medium-sized manufacturer in Beijing, secretly congratulated himself that he had studied Unity for several months in bilibili at 03:00. "companies now require Unity, and plot planning is no exception," Wang told Toule. "for example, to configure tasks, you need to use various editors written by programs, and when you do plot animation, you need to understand the plug-in Timeline. When I first started in the business, I found it extremely difficult, but I really learned it immediately in a few weeks. I haven't used any other engines, but I think Unity should be very friendly and easy to learn for newcomers."

Unlike what people think, the plot designers of the game industry are not the same as the screenwriters of the film and television industry. Although screenwriters in the film and television industry also need to understand film and television knowledge such as lens language or lighting setting, they usually do not need specific operation in the implementation, only need to reflect the theoretical guidance in the script. As for plot planning or copywriting planning, "being able to write" is only the most basic requirement, and most planners have to deal with engines in their work. "when the company is planning a drama, it only examines the ability of plot design, and there is no way to check whether it knows how to run the engine. Before, it recruited several people from Nortel background to come in, and none of them passed the probation period."

The picture shows the Unity engine interface Unity, from issuing new charging rules, to apologizing, and then to releasing a changed version, Xiao Wang's attitude is consistent. "just change it. Now the environment is not good, so it's good to find a job. I plan to learn Unity now. I'm also afraid to find that I can't learn it after contact with other engine software, and then become anxious and affect my work."

Little Rabbit, who just graduated from college this year, works as a battle planner in a medium-sized manufacturer in Xiamen. Like Xiao Wang, he thinks it doesn't matter. By comparison, however, his indifference seems to be more confident. Little Rabbit is an undergraduate majoring in computer science in a well-known university in the UK, and has accumulated sufficient experience in using Unity and UE. On September 12, he predicted the Unity's new charging rules: "it is just lifting the roof and opening the window. Now we are talking about a very outrageous plan to adopt a conventional price increase strategy after arousing the effect of public opinion. The only disadvantage is that it will cause a crisis of confidence."

"in the short term, Unity is still more suitable for beginners, and other engines have some problems. For example, UE has considerable optimization problems, and mobile development costs are high, which is a commercial deficiency. Many domestic UE project teams are short of people, but they all need at least 3 years of experience, and they will not even look at the newcomers."

What the bunny said is true, and there are intuitive examples in the market. For example, the "magic tower" of the two-dimensional open world is made with a UE engine, and the bunny uses a flagship model of a first-tier brand two years ago to play, often stuttering and flickering, and the mobile phone has serious fever. But on the same model, the original god made with Unity is extremely smooth. According to bilibili's "Up domestic QQ Mobile Games observation", the data collected and estimated that the PC revenue of "Magic Tower" far exceeds that of the mobile end, which also proves that the poor optimization problem directly affects the user data.

In the video, basically only the data of "Magic Tower" are compared and estimated by the total amount of mobile devices, whether for the Chinese market, which is "only know mobile games, but not PC games", or for enthusiastic newcomers in the industry, Unity has automatically become the best solution.

After the release of the changed version, Little Rabbit said with emotion: "for small games, Unity has even reduced the price, but even if Unity has caused a crisis of trust, it is useless. At present, the most powerful commercial engines in the world are Unity and UE. Some people may think that Unity is going to fail, and other game engines are going to rise, but let me give an intuitive example." Everyone knows that N cards and A cards are two giants in the graphics card world, but if one day the performance-to-price ratio of N cards becomes very poor, someone suddenly pops up and tells you that Intel cards are going to send N Kabi down, do you think it's funny? "

The best commercial engines are not just bunnies. Most respondents share the same view: Unity and UE are the best commercial engines and cannot be replaced. Both of them seize the small and medium volume niche and general niche developed in the industry respectively. For example, UE has completed a full 25 years of technology accumulation from the original engine in 1998 to the current UE5. If a developer wants to pull a team to do a mass game like "Black Myth: Wukong", then the preferred engine is UE5, of course, you can also use Unity, but the adaptation may not be so high. In addition to volume fit, there are also differences in the performance style of the engine: for example, many two-dimensional games are developed in Unity, Unity has a retro or celluloid "two-dimensional flavor", while UE is more realistic and modern.

The determination of "best" is due to the strong functionality of these two engines, which can be illustrated by examples-many large manufacturers use self-developed engines, which gives non-practitioners the illusion that engines are not easy to create a "monopoly". The existence of self-research engine is only to meet the specific needs of large factories, if not, this self-development engine can only have a negative effect. For example, Bethesda, an American game company that developed the "Ancient Scrolls" series and "Star", has been dealing with engines for decades. Its self-developed engine can make small objects complete precise physical collisions, which is difficult for Unity and UE to do at present, but these two engines are far more versatile than Bethesda's self-developed engine.

The self-developed engines of large manufacturers will have some "old problems" more or less. More functional and more versatile engines may replace Unity and UE in many years' time, but not now.

"I am much luckier than others," Xiao Wei, a full-stack R & D worker in Beijing Zulong who has been working on a UE project team, told Toule. "companies like Zulong, which used to use UE as a technology tree, may have a greater advantage in the game market later. Developers with long working years generally study multiple engines and don't have to worry that they won't be able to find a job because of their narrow technology."

"Innovation" is the word Xiao Wei mentioned most frequently in the process of communication, and it is put forward in a perceptual tone. For example, Xiao Wei mentioned that UE5 has a cool interface, which really gives developers the illusion that they are "playing games that can change the world." this sounds more like a joke, but Xiao Wei's love of UE is also obvious.

"in fact, I don't know why when other large and medium-sized factories are working hard on Unity, Zulong wants to choose UE, only because it is bold and wants to bet …... this is just my guess, and I don't know the real intention of the top management." Xiao Wei said to me.

In the industry, R & D personnel generally have two ways to rise, one is to be a "master XX", "producer" and other positions that take a lot of time to manage, and the other is an "expert" who specializes in a certain direction. Xiao Wei belongs to the latter, he only needs 5 days to quickly grasp the basis of an engine, will not be affected by any increase in Unity prices. He spent most of his time on the project team using Unity and was disgusted with Unity because he did a lot of unartistic commercial games. When he came to Zulong, he felt that using UE was "really playing games."

Just like AI painting, which caused a sensation in the industry in the first half of the year, at first people just thought it was "fun". When a company laid off a large number of artists after laying off the AI workflow, it was difficult for grass-roots R & D staff to laugh and wonder when the sword of Damocles would fall on them. Grass-roots R & D personnel with this experience obviously have a higher sense of crisis, and they will pay special attention to any changes in the industry.

Some sharp practitioners realized early on that only Unity is a high-risk behavior that narrows the road. Xiaohua, a junior system planner in a large factory, started learning UE last year. He said UE brought him a lot of surprises. " My project uses the Unity engine, but I think if UE can solve some "hard wounds", it will certainly become the best functional engine in the future. I heard that it is difficult for newcomers to use UE5 directly, so I began to learn from UE4. Sometimes before it's time to get off work in the evening, Leader passes by and sees me learning UE. As long as my work is done, he won't object. "

Up to now, Xiaohua has been able to do a more experiential level Demo. "I am a person who is resistant to writing code, and my programming ability is relatively poor. But UE is different from Unity. Its visual blueprint makes it easy for me to achieve some ideas. For planners, being able to achieve creativity is the most fulfilling thing."

Photo shows that after the release of the modified version of the UE5 blueprint function, Xiaowei and Xiaohua still have no opinion about it. Toule also interviewed a number of other non-core leadership R & D staff, who have a unified attitude: these are the concerns of the leadership.

The leaders of game companies pay more attention to the details of the incident than ordinary R & D employees.

The CEO wind of Wuhan style games was the most affected among the respondents. The change in fees has brought him some direct losses, and he looks a little tired when it comes to the projects the company is developing. " Our company has been doing some small beautiful girl Galgame, the pursuit of fast launch and fast profit. In previous projects, we used convenient, templated and visual Ren'Py and GameCreator. Although these two engines are very suitable for Galgame, they have a low upper limit and many functions cannot be realized, so our new project is using Unity, but it suddenly says that it will be charged according to the amount of installation. Although it says that only 10% of people will be affected, how is that possible? "

The well-known meta game "Doki Doki Literature Club!" has been produced with an engine similar to Ren'Py since mid-22, and it has been difficult for wind games to find investment from the outside world. Guifeng said that "as the general environment gets worse, the management is becoming more and more cautious", while the change in Unity fees is undoubtedly even worse for wind zone games. " I can't accept the price increase. Everyone (domestic practitioners) is very sad now. People outside the industry may see only small percentage changes, but they have no idea how cumbersome it is to open a studio or a company. "

"does it cost money to rent an office building? do you have to pay Internet fees? do you want to pay wages to your employees? do you want to pay meals? outsourcing is a lot of money, isn't it? do you have to pay a fee for sending a platform? do you have to pay a tax on the profits of the company? how much money can be paid to Unity in the end? only those who have not accounted for the account at all will think that the price increase is reasonable. If we can survive before, we can't now."

After the release of the changed version, despite his complaints about Unity, Gale plans to wait and see for a while. After all, Unity is really good for him.

Lao Fan, a former Lilith producer with 19 years of experience, has also expressed concern about the new charging plan. He is in the start-up stage and has a semi-pro bono project on hand, using an Unity engine. This project requires "running volume", that is, small profits and quick turnover, which obviously puts his game on the list of charges on Unity. "if a game chooses the form of low profit and quick turnover, it is almost easy for a game to have 200000 installations. but how much revenue can each user bring? if you deduct a large amount of money for the promotion of the game, wouldn't I be doing charity?"

Lao Fan tried to analyze to me why Unity suddenly behaved like this. " When there is something wrong with Unity's CEO, he is greedy for this small amount of money in other people's pockets. He used to have this tendency when he was the CEO of EA, doing 'micro-transactions', stealing a little here, touching a little there, and having a bad idea that war players have to pay 1 cent for each change of magazines. Maybe there is something wrong with the internal funds of Unity, and there may be an imbalance between the income and expenditure of various departments, all of which CEO has to solve, but he finally took measures to raise prices directly, just like Blizzard's Codick CEO. "

Now Unity CEO John Riccitiello has been CEO at EA for six years. From Lao Fan's words, we can directly feel how much impact such decisions made by people who have enough say in the industry can have on the industry.

After the revised version was released, Lao Fan changed his attitude and became soft-spoken when talking about the prospect of Unity. " Unity is still the best solution for individual developers, and there is no need to put Unity Logo at the beginning. Many small games actually do not meet the fee threshold for changing the version, but for large-scale games or capable developers, changing the version is not very friendly. If the income can reach a sufficient level, why not take the money allocated to Unity and invest it in the self-research engine? "

Lao Fan said that when his team lacks sufficient talent and technology accumulation, he will consider Unity for the time being. Once you have accumulated, if you want to make more money, you have to choose other engines. After all, for small teams, the profit of the team as a whole is the top priority.

In the face of Unity, large manufacturers have enough knowledge and self-research ability to ignore the price increase behavior of the head engine, but most of the enterprises in the game industry are only small and medium-sized, and they lack considerable anti-risk ability in the engine link.

And at present, the domestic game industry is still facing a cold winter, it is possible that any next sentence of Unity will cause a huge butterfly effect.

Conclusion although choose to apologize, or even "price reduction", but Unity can not erase the psychological shadow caused by this incident to game developers. After all, changing orders from day to day is the most terrible, just like those "collapsed house" stars, once the trust crisis begins, it can not stop, can only let it pass with time.

Among the interviewees, someone told an old joke about this: chef Lao Wang spent 200000 a year on rent to open a restaurant, and the business was so booming that the landlord felt uncomfortable and asked for the rent to be raised to 300000 before the contract expired. Lao Wang chose to withdraw the rent immediately. Since then, some merchants wanted to do business here, but they all chose to avoid the shop after hearing about the landlord's deeds. The landlord had no choice but to reduce the rent to 150000, but few inquiries were made.

Unity bears some resemblance to the landlord in the joke, but Unity obviously has more capital. The most obvious difference between jokes and reality is that Unity is not used at all. Even if what practitioners need is the Unity that used to make it easier for game developers all over the world to develop games, rather than landlords who now raise rents for no reason, they have no choice.

Enthusiastic newcomers in the industry will choose Unity, whether it is to pursue the ease of finding a job or the upper limit of career, Unity is the best; veteran R & D personnel who have worked for many years will choose Unity, which engine does not matter to them; for small and medium-sized enterprises that lack technology and talent accumulation, their decision-makers will still give priority to Unity.

Some people think that Unity, as a manufacturer of head engines, is engaged in monopolistic behavior. Over the past two weeks, there have been a lot of emotional statements about Unity on social networks. As far as the situation is concerned, Unity is wrong. It does not play an exemplary effect. When a leading enterprise in any industry applies commercial means, it should take into account some kind of "industry obligation" it should undertake. In terms of reason, the fault lies not only in Unity, although it is a historical necessity that the refinement of the industrial division of labor has led people to rely more on engine tools, and the inspirational stories of the 1990s in the Apocalypse of Doom can hardly be repeated in 2023, when the head resources are more concentrated, but the wrong decision of one company can cause the whole industry to shake, which shows that several production chains in the industry have been rusty.

Doom, which launched on December 10, 1993, was made using the id Tech 1 engine, which is the world's first modern general-purpose game engine. To put it simply, it's not just Unity's profit problems, looking for breakthroughs through price increases-- it's that everyone is out of money or in some kind of industry dilemma. If everyone's emotions don't break out on Unity, they will choose the next carrier, but in the end, everything will return to normal.

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