Unity Engine | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Thu, 12 Oct 2023 10:20:34 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png Unity Engine | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 Unity CEO abandons ship after recent backlash to business model changes https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/unity-ceo-abandons-ship-after-recent-backlash-to-business-model-changes/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/unity-ceo-abandons-ship-after-recent-backlash-to-business-model-changes/#respond Wed, 11 Oct 2023 15:00:51 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=633841 In recent weeks, Unity has been in hot water with the developer community. Those who actively use and pay for the engine were shocked by new business model changes the company plans to implement, leading to many developers losing trust in the company and speaking out against the new business model. Now, Unity's controversial CEO …

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In recent weeks, Unity has been in hot water with the developer community. Those who actively use and pay for the engine were shocked by new business model changes the company plans to implement, leading to many developers losing trust in the company and speaking out against the new business model. Now, Unity's controversial CEO is officially stepping down. 

John Riccitiello is not a beloved figure amongst gamers. The former EA CEO notoriously pushed for microtransactions and increased costs to gamers, floating the idea of charging for weapon ammo in Battlefield back during his time at EA. Thankfully, the industry hasn't reached that point of price gouging yet, but his push for microtransactions can certainly be felt across the industry today, with the mobile gaming space relying almost entirely on microtransaction spending and many premium console and PC games also relying on microtransactions to support growing development costs.

Riccitiello joined Unity years ago as CEO. Last month, Unity announced plans to charge a Unity Runtime fee, charging developers for new installations of games and increasing costs for using the engine. After significant backlash from developers on this, as well as lingering questions over how accurate Unity's installation tracking is and the potential for this system to be weaponised against developers by groups mass-installing and re-installing games, Unity did make changes to its proposal.

Under the new guidelines, Unity will not charge a per-install runtime fee for developers using Unity Personal or Unity Plus. Additionally, the runtime fee only kicks in for Pro or Enterprise users after accruing $1 million in revenue and reaching 1 million engagements. This fee will also only apply to those shipping projects with Unity's upcoming Long Term Support version, which is due to arrive in 2024, rather than impacting all Unity users across all versions of the engine. Alternatively, developers can self-report installs and gross revenue to Unity and either pay the runtime fee, or 2.5% of gross sales, whichever fee ends up being smaller.

While these changes did help alleviate some of the backlash a bit, many developers are still understandably frustrated with the changes and are making plans to move away from Unity.

As a result, John Riccitiello is officially stepping down as CEO of Unity with immediate effect. While the recent controversy was not addressed in the announcement, the fact that the departure is immediate, with no successor lined up, indicates that this move was unplanned and fairly sudden. Now, Unity will begin its search for a new CEO.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Unity's recent business model changes caused quite the storm. While the company won't confirm if this directly led to Riccitiello leaving the company, from the outside, it seems highly likely. 

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Unity Engine is making its premium game dev tutorials free until June 20th https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/unity-engine-is-making-its-premium-game-dev-tutorials-free-until-june-20th/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/unity-engine-is-making-its-premium-game-dev-tutorials-free-until-june-20th/#respond Wed, 25 Mar 2020 12:13:18 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=458521 If you're currently stuck at home self-isolating and would like to spend your time learning something new, then it appears that Unity is looking to help with that. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Unity is giving away three months of access to Unity Learn Premium, providing access to tons of tutorials on game design, programming …

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If you're currently stuck at home self-isolating and would like to spend your time learning something new, then it appears that Unity is looking to help with that. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Unity is giving away three months of access to Unity Learn Premium, providing access to tons of tutorials on game design, programming and art. 

The Unity engine is still quite popular today, with many independent developers choosing to use it for a wide range of projects. Multiplayer survival games like Rust, all the way to 2D platformers like Hollow Knight make use of the engine. If you've ever wanted to experiment with your own project, Unity Learn has hundreds of hours of tutorials to help you get started.

Normally, Unity Premium does require a subscription, so once the three months are up, you would need to pay after that. In the meantime, Unity Learn Premium is also coming with free access to Create With Code, livestreamed lessons on game development that happen twice a day.

To get started, you will need a Unity account and then you can also download the engine for free. Unity Learn Premium will remain free until June 20th.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Have many of you ever considered learning more about game development? Are you going to try out Unity while the premium tutorials are free to access? 

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ADAM: The Mirror pairs the Unity Engine with visionary Neill Blomkamp https://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/damien-cox/adam-the-mirror-pairs-the-unity-engine-with-visionary-neill-blomkamp/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/damien-cox/adam-the-mirror-pairs-the-unity-engine-with-visionary-neill-blomkamp/#respond Wed, 04 Oct 2017 15:56:43 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=349043 While famed for directing District 9 and Chappie, Neill Blomkamp is no stranger to video games, having directed the Halo 3 tie-in, Halo: Landfall. His new short film delves back into the ADAM universe, with ADAM: The Mirror entirely created and rendered in the Unity Engine. ADAM: Chapter 1 released a year ago, depicting robotic …

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While famed for directing District 9 and Chappie, Neill Blomkamp is no stranger to video games, having directed the Halo 3 tie-in, Halo: Landfall. His new short film delves back into the ADAM universe, with ADAM: The Mirror entirely created and rendered in the Unity Engine.

ADAM: Chapter 1 released a year ago, depicting robotic inmates being released into a battered sci-fi world. Of course, this marries perfectly into Blomkamp’s aesthetic as he takes the reins on the second episode alongside Oats Studios.

The Mirror is even darker than the first, giving concrete context as to who these robots are and why they are following the grim reaper-like leader that freed them. The ending leaves a lot to be desired but for those that are invested in the dystopian world and the fates of its robot inhabitants, the next episode is due out soon.

While Chapter 1 was created to push the Unity Engine to its limits and show graphical improvements to the engine itself, Blomkamp’s involvement in The Mirror shows that the software isn’t exclusive to video game development, but holds promise for the filmmaking world.

The detail presented on the robots is astounding, not to mention the elemental effects of fire and electricity. Blomkamp isn’t shy about delving into the more humanoid appearance with the engine either, with the introduction of new character, The Mirror.

KitGuru Says: I’ve followed the story of ADAM since it debuted, so it’s good to see that his story is picking up and with the backing of such talented artists. Have you been following ADAM’s adventures?

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Unity engine now natively supports SteamVR https://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/matthew-wilson/unity-engine-now-natively-supports-steamvr/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/matthew-wilson/unity-engine-now-natively-supports-steamvr/#respond Thu, 11 Feb 2016 17:50:28 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=283793 Virtual reality technology is set to finally hit the consumer market this year and as you would imagine, a lot of work is being done on the software side to ensure that there will actually be games to play when the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive hit this year. Now developers working with the Unity …

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Virtual reality technology is set to finally hit the consumer market this year and as you would imagine, a lot of work is being done on the software side to ensure that there will actually be games to play when the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive hit this year. Now developers working with the Unity engine can work on VR games as the engine now natively supports Valve's SteamVR technology.

This is actually a pretty big deal as millions of developers use the Unity 5 engine so having freely available tools to work with SteamVR opens up a lot of doors.

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Valve's Gabe Newell even had some good things to say about the Unity engine in a press release: “We made many of our Vive demos using Unity, and continue to use it today in VR development. Through that process, and in working with VR developers, we found some opportunities to make Unity even more robust and powerful for us and really want to share those benefits with all VR content creators.”

Valve has been doing a lot behind the scenes to help developers get into SteamVR, which is further proved by this partnership with Unity. The company also recently held an event to showcase ten upcoming SteamVR games.

KitGuru Says: SteamVR titles will launch alongside the HTC Vive in April and it seems that Valve is doing a lot on its side to ensure development support for the headset. 

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Unity addresses ‘asset flippers’ in blog post https://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/matthew-wilson/unity-addresses-asset-flippers-in-blog-post/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/matthew-wilson/unity-addresses-asset-flippers-in-blog-post/#comments Tue, 21 Jul 2015 12:45:48 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=259997 The Unity Engine has been used to power plenty of good games, ranging from indie hits like Thomas Was Alone, to Kickstarter success stories like Pillars of Eternity. However, recently the engine and more specifically, its asset store, have been placed in a somewhat negative light due to a shady practise known as ‘asset flipping'. …

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The Unity Engine has been used to power plenty of good games, ranging from indie hits like Thomas Was Alone, to Kickstarter success stories like Pillars of Eternity. However, recently the engine and more specifically, its asset store, have been placed in a somewhat negative light due to a shady practise known as ‘asset flipping'.

There are some developers who like to abuse systems like Steam Greenlight or Early Access by buying pre-made Unity assets, renaming them and throwing them up on a store in an attempt to make some quick cash. This issue can also affect mobile titles on the Play Store and iOS App Store.

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Recently, The Guardian suggested that Unity may have an image problem, so the team behind the engine has spoken out on these concerns in a new blog post titled: ‘Asset Store: A force for creative goodness'. The blog explains that the Unity asset store is meant to be a sharing tool for art and exchanging code between developers.

“At its core, the store is an extension of behavior that we observed evolving organically in the community. On our forums and wiki, Unity developers were sharing and exchanging code, art and other assets informally. We saw an opportunity to create a marketplace which would serve the interests of our developers as well as provide an income to the talented people who create and sell content.”

The post then goes on to denounce those that are giving Unity a bad name by purchasing demo assets and throwing them up on marketplaces like Steam in an attempt to make some easy money:

“Alas, there’s always going to be folks who exploit a good thing for personal gain without giving something back. I’m referring to the handful of Asset Store users out there who have taken Unity demo products and Asset Store starter products, slapped their name on it without contributing or creating anything original, and uploading it for sale on popular online game marketplaces.”

The post wraps up by calling on those who notice “someone from the Dark Side” misusing Unity assets to go ahead and call out the developer in question and inform the vendor.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: There are several developers out there that simply piece together assets from the Unity store and throw the copy and pasted mess up on to Steam or a mobile app store. Fortunately, it looks like Unity is starting to notice the effect this is having on its public image so who knows, maybe one day it will do a proper crackdown on these practises. 

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Reactive in-game music system, PSai, comes to Unity https://www.kitguru.net/professional/design-create/jon-martindale/reactive-in-game-music-system-psai-comes-to-unity/ https://www.kitguru.net/professional/design-create/jon-martindale/reactive-in-game-music-system-psai-comes-to-unity/#respond Tue, 06 Jan 2015 10:03:35 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=229099 The Unity engine is one of the most versatile out there at the moment, providing a solid back-bone for games big and small, on platforms from the PC to the tablet. However it isn't particularly well known for its artistic merits, at least when compared to some of the juggernauts of the industry. That is …

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The Unity engine is one of the most versatile out there at the moment, providing a solid back-bone for games big and small, on platforms from the PC to the tablet. However it isn't particularly well known for its artistic merits, at least when compared to some of the juggernauts of the industry. That is slowly changing however, and it's about to get a little auditory boost thanks to Psai, an adaptive score system that can now be found in the Unity Asset Store.

psai

Psai is a game-score system that allows you to create music and not only implement it in your game and have it play at appropriate times, but have it adapt and shift depending on what the player is doing. If you want jump inducing stings, or tension ramping rises and falls just at the right moment, it's designed to give your game that, and thanks to its new Unity integration, games that are powered by that engine can now use it too.

Perhaps the best part however, is that it works with both Unity Free and the Pro version of the engine, so even those that can't afford the full license can make use of it. It's currently priced at $5 (discounted from $50) over at the Unity Asset Store.

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1gDyl5ICRk'] Skip forward to 5:50 for a quick demo of how an “evil painting” can affect the score

Psai is already being used in a number of titles, as Gamasutra points out. They include the likes of Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord, as well as Black Mirror III.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Do we have any budding game developers among KG readers? If so, feel free to get in touch, perhaps we could do a little exposé on your title. 

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Garry Newman’s latest game ‘Rust’ is coming to Steam https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/garry-newmans-latest-game-rust-is-coming-to-steam/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/garry-newmans-latest-game-rust-is-coming-to-steam/#comments Wed, 11 Dec 2013 16:40:08 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=166944 Garry Newman, the man behind the popular sandbox game ‘Garry's Mod' has been working on something new this year. In a departure from his original game which now houses a series of fun game modes and modded mini games, Garry along with his company, ‘Facepunch Studios', is moving on to a new survival style game …

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Garry Newman, the man behind the popular sandbox game ‘Garry's Mod' has been working on something new this year. In a departure from his original game which now houses a series of fun game modes and modded mini games, Garry along with his company, ‘Facepunch Studios', is moving on to a new survival style game called Rust.

The game started off as a Zombie survival game but the Zombie's have since been removed in an effort to distance itself from the popular DayZ mod, instead it is now taking on an approach similar to Minecraft in that you are just thrown in to the world with other players and you must gather resources and survive:

“The aim of the game is to survive. To do this the player should gather resources. Hitting a tree with a rock will give you wood, hitting a rock with a rock will give you rock and ore. You can then craft a hatchet from the wood and rock, allowing you to gather faster. You can go out and hunt a variety of wildlife such as boars, chickens, rabbits, bears, wolves and deer. Once you have killed an animal you can butcher it to gather its meat and skin. You can craft a fire using wood and cook the meat inside the fire. Then you can eat.”

Rust Screenshot

Don't get the wrong idea though, Rust's world will be harsh and unforgiving: bears and wolves will eat you alive but it's not just animals you need to worry about, you'll need to stay warm and eat plenty of food as starving or becoming too cold will also kill you. Radiation will also play a factor, sort of like the radiation in Fallout, it will poison you and eventually lead to your death.

Other than the environmental conditions of the game, you'll have another crucial enemy- other players. Not everyone will be friendly, there's always that one guy who just wants to kill and steal. That said, the developer does hope that people co-operate with each other to create towns and help each other out: “you can make friends and help each other survive. Rust’s world is harsh – so you might need to make friends to survive.”

Rust went in to Alpha earlier this year and is now coming to Steam as an early access title, the release date on the official website indicates that it will release today at some point. It'll cost $19.99 for early access so we'll be paying around £12.99 here in the UK.

KitGuru Says: This game has been through some changes but I'm pretty glad they chose to get rid of the Zombie's as they are really starting to get a over done, we don't need another Zombie game right now. With it's change towards focusing on survival and player interaction, I think this game could set itself apart from other offerings. I'm looking forward to trying this one out, what about you guys?

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