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I don't like to interject my own thoughts and opinions in this newsletter too often, but the obvious elephant in the room has to be addressed, Unity messed up real bad this time. There is still way too much confusion to know how any of this will shake out, or what the final plan from Unity will look like. This post sheds some light on how we got here, and Alan Zucconi's response summarizes why it is so problematic for many.
Whether you are directly impacted by these pricing changes or not, it still sucks for all of us Unity devs out there when the community has been damaged so badly (judging by the outrage online). My sympathies go to all the devs who feel stuck at this moment. A lot of those devs are creators of the posts you've been reading, tutorial videos you've been watching, and of the source code you've been utilizing that has been featured in this newsletter. Many devs make their living selling assets on the asset store, or have patreon accounts powered by their tutorials, or have courses you can purchases to learn from. These devs are hurt by Unity's terrible bungle that has understandably led to many devs looking for non-Unity content.
If you are considering what other game engine options are out there, you should check out GameFromScratch.com's Unity Game Engine Alternatives video. There are a ton of interesting options outside the big ones like Godot and Unreal, including many open-source ones where this kind of Unity pricing debacle could never happen. The ones I am persoinally interested in taking a look at (OSS and Linux support): Godot, Wicked Engine, and O3DE (Stride Engine also looks interesting if it adds Linux support).
If you DO plan to jump ship, I think Rémi Verschelde (Godot maintainer) gives some good advice, namely "I also strongly believe that such decisions shouldn't be rushed, and taken out of spite and anger.", and "Godot is one such option, but there are many others, both FOSS and proprietary. Try out a few before settling again!"
So, what's the plan for this newsletter, which has always been about game dev in general but with a strong slant towards Unity content? That has reflected my own game development, as a Unity dev like many of you, so I include what I know about. In the near-term I will be finishing my current game in Unity, then weighing my options after that. This newsletter will continue to reflect that, including the usual Unity tutorials, and code, but I hope to include even more general game dev posts that are engine agnostic, as well as some content about the other emerging engines out there.
The rest of this issue will include posts on general topics of interest, and posts about other options out there. Next week I expect to return to a more regular format you are used to.
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