is unity still an "avoid at all costs, too much risk they're gonna screw you" game engine in 2025? or did they fix that part?

i don't hate godot but i don't love it either
unity really seems like it would have been a decent-ish option if not for the whole runtime fee thing tho

@eclairwolf so context: i’ve worked primarily with unity since college which is a Really Long Time, so unity is kinda my comfort zone.

i spent about a month using godot and developing a game in it and i want to write a blog post about it, but for me the switch wasn’t worth it. i spent the vast majority of my time writing tools and utilities because i couldn’t figure out the path of least resistance (which is partially my fault, but also some things just Aren’t There Yet). unity has gotten rid of the runtime feed, started development on their new technology stack again (UI Toolkit, DOTS/ECS, the new Input System, etc) as well as a bunch of new goodies. it’s honestly felt really good getting back to it

if you have a hangup about the company or history or the fact that it’s not foss, that totally makes sense. but as far as features, usability, tooling, etc; i really don’t think godot can compare at all. the only engine i know that comes close is Unreal.

@rowan yeah, i'm not far enough into Furo development that it'd be a problem switching to unity. what was giving me pause was the possibility that i'd get screwed if they decided to do another runtime fee-style VC-brained "extract money at all costs" thing

and it's really reassuring to see that they're investing in the engine and DX again - i'm starting to consider switching over, so expect some unity-related questions in the future

@eclairwolf always happy to help where i can! :3 yeah i’ll write out my thoughts sometime this week or weekend and i can send you something more concrete about my experiences, but i feel pretty comfortable moving back to unity from a “please dont fuck me out of my earnings” perspective. it seems like they’ve taken a very different direction since they yeeted the old ceo. i don’t love the company or anything, but the software is really good

suddenly remembers the twitter thread where Christine Love would post the same "this makes me hit the desk" image every time unity crashed when she was making Get In The Car Loser, and how many posts long it was actually,,,, on second thought,,,,,,

@rowan yeah tbh i'd been considering making the switch for a bit ever since i had to use it for my vrchat avatar - it's SO much nicer than the last time i tried it (which was, uhhhhhhhh, 2011 or so? lmao)