PC and Steam: Thread 02

[Neon Ignition]

Nine years on we finally reach the second thread for the evergreen power house that is the PC

https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/news/introducing-the-epic-first-run-program

Epic Store is to allow all launches on its platform to keep 100% of all revenue earned in the first six months of the new games release as long as the game is exclusive to Epic Store for the duration

[MartyG]

It still won't make up for the lost sales of not being on Steam.

[Neon Ignition]

https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2023-amd-reveals-long-awaited-fsr-3-tech-and-frame-gen-for-every-dx11dx12-game

A look at AMD's FSR 3.0

[MartyG]

The reviews for the RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT are coming in today, they seem generally positive, and in terms of raster are beating the RTX 4060 Ti (RT they are still well behind).

However, the Gamers Nexus review shows that AMD's previous gen RX 6800 XT card is beating it in more games than it's losing, which isn't great gen-on-gen improvements.



(it's a percentage advantage chart - 6800 XT bars are the right where it's a win, 7800 XT on the left where it's a win).

It does look like a good value card, it will all depend on if RT is important to you or not, with 16GB frame buffer (which may be beneficial for future AAA games over the 4060 Ti 8GB. The RX 6950 XT isn't much more money (if you can find one now - they were selling for £600), though, so that's another option.

So, a reasonably competitive card - but the GFX card market generally is still inflated overall.

[Neon Ignition]

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[Neon Ignition]

https://www.eurogamer.net/unity-reveals-plans-to-charge-per-game-install-drawing-criticism-from-development-community

Unity - How to destroy your engine and business in one easy move

[briareos_kerensky]

This is yet another nail in the coffin not just for videogames but also other products like simulation and virtual training...we are currently evaluating which realtime engine to go with for a new host of training products at work and with this move Unity is definitely out of the picture. Not that their previous merger with IronSource helped.

[Dogg Thang]

This is likely a really stupid question but I’m struggling to understand the model - the article mentions a subscription cost per install. But that implies an ongoing cost. Is that right? How does that work? I get how that can work before a game’s launch, as in paying a subscription to use the engine in development. But how can that still be in effect after that point?

[briareos_kerensky]

This is likely a really stupid question but I’m struggling to understand the model - the article mentions a subscription cost per install. But that implies an ongoing cost. Is that right? How does that work? I get how that can work before a game’s launch, as in paying a subscription to use the engine in development. But how can that still be in effect after that point?

If you are a small developer, sale figures are used as advertisment and get financing for your next project; if you are a big developer sale numbers are part of your yearly earnings report. If you publish those numbers, Unity will come knocking and ask for the royalties you haven't paid and you have agreed to when accepting the engine's EULA.
I'm curious to see how Unity can track reinstalls and installation on multiple devices under the same username unless they ask Steam and the like for this kind of data, and I doubt the EU's privacy laws will allow for that.

I wonder why Riccitiello sold 2000 shares last week...

[Dogg Thang]

Thanks for the info. Yes, that seems tricky to track and enforce.

[fishbowlhead]

https://www.eurogamer.net/unity-reve...ment-community
Unity - How to destroy your engine and business in one easy move

What could go wrong?

[fuse]

Nightmare news for developers, and undoubtably something that's going to cause huge problems for all sorts of developers. This goes way, waaay beyond just impact to the PC ecosystem. Things like PS+, Gamepass, charity bundles and the like are now have the ability to become costly for developers, and you just bloody know there will already be some ghouls out there plotting new ways to harm developers that have "wronged" them.

[Neon Ignition]

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A roll back of the decision is probably best case scenario at this point. Unity's reputation is dead going forward, no-one will trust them enough to invest the time and money into their engine for future projects regardless of how this plays out.

[Dogg Thang]

The “monthly subscription” part of this is still tripping me up. As it is now, what happens if a dev stops paying Unity? Do their existing games stop working? Is using the engine a subscription charge for the entire life of that game? That would seem nuts even without these extra charges and a big part of me can’t imagine that’s how it works. I had thought it works like Adobe - you pay a subscription to use it but what’s made is made and you can stop your subscription without your pictures vanishing. But in that case, I don’t see how they could charge an extra monthly charge after the fact.

What am I missing here?

[briareos_kerensky]

As of now, developers pay a licence to use Unity, like you would do with Photoshop. Depending on the size of your company, there are several tiers for how much licencing costs. If you're an hobbyist or student with no commercial intentions, Unity is free.
If you don't pay the licence, a published game doesn't stop working or isn't removed from storefronts, but as a developer you cannot modify existing Unity projects or make new ones

On top of this, Unity wants a fixed amount of money every time someone installs a program. This amount is based on the licecing tier and how many installs/reinstalls the program gets. Currently the highest fee is USD 0.2/install, and that's for the lowest selling programs/Unity licence tier. The more a program sells, the less Unity wants