This is a great opportunity to tell people about Godot, a free open source engine that has been killing it lately.
Here's link to it, https://godotengine.org/
I’m a dad with a full time job and 2 toddlers. If I wanted to dip my toes into game development for the first time and I wanted to use Godot, what kind of project should I do first? Something that’s great for starting out and learning the absolute basics.
As typical as it is for the current indie game dev climate, making a 'Vampire Survivors' type game is probably a really good starting point for game development. 2D games are somewhat easier to make than 3D ones, so a 2D roguelike could be fun (but get's very complex very quickly) or a old-school Zelda styled game would also be pretty cool in my opinion while remaining fairly simple.
Here's are a couple other avenues to learn off the top of my head:
Follow along with one or two of the large amount of tutorials they have for the engine and adding new features and gameplay mechanics to them when you feel like it.
Think of a cool but simple idea and try to execute it yourself through trial and error, referencing the online docs and asking questions to the Godot game dev community.
It can be super daunting as there is a lot to learn. Try to learn by working on something that you yourself think is fun and that'll keep you more motivated :)
Shoutout to Bevy as well. It's not as user friendly or polished as Godot but it's a lot more powerful. If you're a talented game dev I'm sure you could do some amazing things with Bevy.
RIP Unity. First they partnered with Ironsource. Who are the people behind InstallCore it's a wrapper for bundling software installations. It tricks people into installing enough browser toolbars and other bloat to hurt their PCs. Windows Defender and MalwareBytes blocks it. Now Unity does this shit.
The enshittification of the tech industry continues...who's next? Place your bets.
As soon as AV2/H.266 becomes standard, i'd say Youtube would be at risk.
Edit: Added AV2 to my comment.
How would that make youtube worse?
They'll find a way, I'm sure
I'm not saying that AV2/H.266 would make Youtube worse.
I'm implying AV2/H.266 would allow us to migrate to a platform other than Youtube.
Edit: Added AV2 to my comment
Why do we need h.266 for that? (Looking at PeerTube)
Why would that be? If h265 is anything to go by, MPEG will probably charge an arm and a leg for h266, and the entire industry will pivot away from MPEG and move to AV2. I'm not even sure YouTube will ever implement h266
Godot FTW
Darn! Beat me to it! Been using it for 7 years after switching from unity and haven't looked back!
And that's how Unreal become a monopoly in 3d game development
What a gift for epic games. Glad I never wasted my time learning Unity.
Yep, hopefully Godot ends up being the real winner, because with as many AAA studios that have started to abandon their own in-house engines in favor of Unreal, it's starting to feel a bit like Epic is going to end up with more than a healthy share of the market.
Goodbye, unity. It's been okayish.
I'm going to install games heaps of times so I can bankrupt any small game companies
You you really are a jerk Spez.
I was shocked until I read the username
Calm down, Satan.
The in game ads already do that these days.
Just try to hit that X, haha, tricked you! Installing.
Any touch of the phone for 30 seconds auto installs...
Why tech companies keep getting worse and worse and worse?
Do you know how many times I install and uninstall a game before I even play it? I could probably destroy a small game company on my own with this fee structure, and I'm sure I'm not alone with the constant installing and uninstalling.
Where were you when unity killed itself?
On the shitter. That's when I browse the news at least.
The entire Unity userbase:
As if Epic needed any more help completely obliterating Unity in every conceivable way.
I brought this up in another thread:
They expect Game Pass titles to have their bill footed by Microsoft.
There's kicking the nest, and then there's kicking the fucking queen bee.
Must have come from the Reddit play book
Good way to kill your business. Way to go, you greedy jerks.
Finally, the company announced that it’s discontinuing Unity Plus subscriptions starting today to “simplify the number of plans we offer.” It says existing members on that tier will receive “an offer to upgrade to Unity Pro, for one year, at the current Unity Plus price” via email in mid-October.
Well sssshhhiitt
It's kinda amazing how Unity shot themselves in the chest with this one. No, I don't mean foot, they are now actively bleeding from the torso.
No Dev or Publisher is going to be okay with this, none. This basically leaves Devs on the hook for unlimited liability. Even with their walk back of "only initial installs" doesn't help. I myself have both a Desktop and a SteamDeck. That's possibly two installs out of the gate from one customer. Then any time I make an upgrade in the future, or heck maybe even switch Proton versions on my Deck, the Dev could be on the hook for more cash. There's zero transparency with how these "installs" are detected or counted, so there is no way to budget or plan for the expenses.
Businesses hate unpredictable fees.
They'll deal with utilities upping rates, because who are you gonna switch to in a monopoly? But if you're just a tool for them, they'll ditch you as soon as they're able and never use you again.
And again, publishers will care about this too, since their whole job is distribution. Any Dev looking to sign with a publisher, even a subscription service like GamePass, will now be asked which engine they're using, and I bet you 9/10 times the Dev will get rejected if they're using Unity now. That puts even more pressure on Devs not to use Unity.
Unity will price gouge their existing customers(Devs), but will ensure that nobody ever buys their product ever again. At this point I doubt their reputation will ever recover even if they can walk this back. The fact that they believe they can unilaterally add enormous fees at the drop of a hat means they've ruined any trust their customers had in them.
Unity: I can charge you any fees I want, any time I want.
Nevermind desktop games.
The real hit is free mobile games. Paying per install can be crippling when you naturally have low retention rates.
You can accidentally success yourself into debt if you don't have preditary monetization.
I'm building a game ATM that's meant to be fun and fair, monetization is really low. If it shot up as a front page item for some reason that now went from a huge success to a massive stress point as the number of installs would easily put me into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to unity overnight.
Who TF wants to take on that kind of risk? Does this not push mobile games into being even MORE preditary?? Since it's now impossible to build a mobile game with Unity, and just release it as something free.
preditary
Predatory
I don't mean to be rude, just giving a heads up since it's written there twice with the same spelling
Time for Godot to shine brighter
Is this a cry for help? Do we need to get them some therapy?
Fuck unity tech, they haven't made a single intelligent decision in 10 years.
The engine was perfectly fine and they ruined ALL OF IT.
I wasted so much fucking time because of them, everything they do is garbage.
Just let them go bankrupcy.
As someone who's been following Unity's development since 2.0, this doesn't surprise me. They've always struck me as a company that doesn't care about developers. And while all companies are trying to make money, there's a difference between "pay for our product because we need money to operate" and "we love Adobe's subscription model and want to outdo them - and we will squeeze you as much as possible." Have a little heart, Unity.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
