Devs React To Unity's Newly Announced Fee For Game Installs: ‘Not To Be Trusted’ 

Quote:Unity, the cross-platform game engine that powers games like Rust, Hollow Knight, and Pokémon Go, has introduced a new, controversial fee for developers, set to take effect next year.

The new Runtime Fee, announced in a September 12 Unity blog, is based on the number of installations a game built with the Unity engine receives, as well as the revenue it generates. Though it won’t start until January 1, 2024, the Runtime Fee will apply to any game that has reached both a previously established annual revenue threshold and a lifetime install count.

This is nightmarish.

If  you're a hobbyist, now's the time to get into Godot Engine, if you can, the most viable and well-supported FOSS alternative to Unity. But, obviously, it's not Unity, and this is going to be nightmarish for people in the industry.

https://twitter.com/cultofthelamb/status...1663425897

Quote:Buy Cult of the Lamb now, cause we're deleting it on Jan 1st. ?

https://twitter.com/InnerslothDevs/status/1701731398498013575

Quote:We use Unity to make [Among Us].

This would harm not only us, but fellow game studios of all budgets and sizes. If this goes through, we'd delay content and features our players actually want to port our game elsewhere (as others are also considering). But many developers won't have the time or means to do the same.

Stop it. Wtf?

roblox brings you: thread

ever since i moved back into a house that has an actual internet connection i fell VERY HARD back into a roblox kick. the platform is super interesting to me from a game design and community standpoint, plus for the past few years i've been searching for roblox games (or "experiences" as apple's app store TOS kind of forced their hand to call them) that appeal to my demographic of players so.

some topics i could write about (putting this here as a reminder to myself)

•  the various cooking games i've been trying (also listed in the try-out list below)
  
• tower defense games (in general)
  
• thoughts on the games i find myself coming back to (super bomb survival, evade, tower heroes, minus elevation) and some games i used to go back to repeatedly (midnight horrors, doors, random rumble)
  
• games i have been trying in the past couple of weeks alone (mini megafactory, super scuffle, bribbleco-adjacent games, dingus, the trolley game, dare to cook, generic cooking game, running from the internet, the storage, balls.rng, plates of fate: remastered, burger game, recollection, become forklift certified obby)
  

additionally: i know a lot about roblox's general community culture and history, i have a bunch of dev friends, i have an age verified account that can access the voice chat and those weird ass 17+ rated games, feel free to ask me questions

Containment thread for this topic.

WEAR A MASK!

I really need somewhere to post about my ongoing renewed Pikmin fixation so here it goes.

Recently I went to Walmart and they had a Pikmin 4 demo and that obsession has pretty much immediately taken over my life again. I haven't played a Nintendo game since Omega Ruby and I want to play this game so fucking bad. I can't justify it to myself but I want it

Anyway, since I made a pact with myself to not buy Nintendo titles anymore (NEARLY TEN YEARS!!!), I have been replaying Pikmin 2. (This is because I tried to play Pikmin 1 and the time limit made me feel like I was going to have a panic attack, but maybe I will go back and play Pikmin 1 later, idk)

I'm about 12 in-game "days" into Pikmin 2 and just hit 70% of the debt, so who knows how long this thread will even last, but maybe there's enough postgame stuff to keep me entertained, and I also have to finally try Pikmin 3 too so we'll see how that goes.

I DID NOT like Pikmin 3 when it first came out because I thought it made Olimar and Louie too mean and dumb respectively, but I will make myself try it and I will probably like it.

I have a Pikmin bag from Club Nintendo and it is in horrible condition and I have had it forever and it is my main bag that I carry everything in. I took it to church back during the stage of my life where I was going to church (I do not go to church anymore and I am not religious so don't ask me about it). The pattern was subtle enough that no one has ever really commented on it. It's just my Pikmin bag.

You could ask me anything and I would have a lot of opinions on it

I covered Threads a bit already here but it looks like it's time for its own thread. I'm still working on my Twitter writeup but obviously that's been a bit delayed.

Threads has launched early! You can just go to the App Store and download it!

Quote:Threads has an algorithmic feed full of posts from everyone on the app and…that’s it. Unlike Twitter, Mastodon or Bluesky, it doesn’t seem possible to only view posts from people you follow. There’s just one feed full of people and brands I don’t follow. Very annoying.

(Very interesting: I found this through a Tumblr screenshot which preserved the original ending text of "It kind of sucks". Softening it for defenders? Or maybe clarifying it really sucks?)

No Instagram Threads app in the EU: Irish DPC says Meta's new Twitter rival won't be launched here

Quote:The new Threads platform is designed to import data from Instagram, including behavioural and advertising information.

In its US format, the platform tells users that it will collect a wide variety of data from users, including health, financial information, browsing histories, location, purchases, contacts, search history and sensitive information.

HEALTH?!?!? Why does Instagram have that information in the first place???

Reminds me of a related article about Google, which I actually didn't link because I thought it was too cynical, but here we go:

AI developments detect Parkinson’s from your mousepad and won’t tell you

Quote:Researchers at Stanford reported in March 2018 how digital tracks left by a computer mouse may reveal involuntary tremors or shakes, most commonly attributed to Parkinson’s disease. Eric Horvitz, one of the researchers, believes this information, along with other user web search data, could help diagnose Parkinson’s in people before they’re even aware of it. Or, Google could indirectly raise premiums by alerting that individual’s insurance company.

Finally, here's a sample of their quality content:

I have a whole writeup I've been doing. But I have some ~Exciting~ news to post first that made me want to start this thread sooner, so consider this post...

RESERVED

I haven't been able to go to Goodwill in weeks and I am MISSING IT. I wanted to go this week so I could get some storage bins for the move but, um, gestures at wildfires

Show me stuff you've found! And maybe it'll motivate me to go through my photo collection too.

The area I live in has been at 220+ air quality for two days now; that's Purple for "Very Unhealthy".

• 0 to 50: Good - Air quality is satisfactory, and air pollution poses little or no risk.
  
• 51 to 100: Moderate - Air quality is acceptable. However, there may be a risk for some people, particularly those who are unusually sensitive to air pollution.
  
• 101 to 150: Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups - Members of sensitive groups may experience health effects. The general public is less likely to be affected.
  
• 151 to 200:  Unhealthy - Some members of the general public may experience health effects; members of sensitive groups may experience more serious health effects.
  
• 201 to 300: Very Unhealthy - The risk of health effects is increased for everyone.
  
• 301 and higher: Hazardous - Health warning of emergency conditions; everyone is more likely to be affected.
  

I stepped outside today (in retrospect, dumb, but I wanted my interlibrary loan and the Volcano Burrito. Dumb.) and instantly went back inside to grab the N95s. I haven't been exposed to much smoke in my life that wasn't cooking-related. It smelled like the entire parking lot was an ashtray.

Lucas claimed at one point to see ash particulates. I might have seen the same but I can't tell the difference between that or regular old pollen. BTW, I have to imagine this is like, the worst possible time for allergy sufferers.

I had to haul my wheelchair out of the trunk today because Paula was too sick. The physical exertion left me gasping and I thought I was gonna pass out.

Nightmarish situation. And people are saying this will probably become a new annual event.

This goes hand-in-hand with the Reddit issues, but I figured I'd make this its own thread, since it keeps coming up.

Actually, what prompted me to start this thread was THIS bold move from YouTube:

I don't think I've seen them pull something quite this evil before.

I've written about YouTube already here. I have been watching YouTube less and less - it's hard not to when you become painfully aware of the blood it's powered on - but I genuinely don't know if blocking it would be possible for me.

I don't have the anti-adblocker popup(?) yet. People are saying it's easy enough to bypass. I still think it bodes poorly.

New Furbies:

I........ DO NOT like them. I'm not gonna be a hater cos I can already see one of my friends likes them. Just curious to see if anyone else dislikes them as much as I do. I liked Furby for being creepy and this misses that. But I will admit to being a contrarian who liked 2005 Furby for the skinlips.

(Positive opinions are OK too!)