#if anything is no longer accurate

[the-fandom-crossroads]

Unity News Round Up!

So at the very end of last week sep 23 Unity backed off of SOME of the new policy. So my original post about what games will be affected is no longer accurate. Link I am making this post to summarize how things are now and kill a few rumors that are still floating around. So Please reblog this one instead of the older post!

What Unity changed back

Legacy downloads will no longer be counted towards the 200,000 downloads! So older games will not have their downloads counted towards the bill. The 200,001 download to happen after jan 1st 2024 is when the fee will activate.

Cult of the Lamb is NOT being removed from store fronts jan 1st. That was a joke tweet and now it is extremely untrue. But the studio is switching engines for cult of the lamb 2.

Also this fee is not being added to the 2023 version of unity or older nor the Personal plan version. (because a lawyer finally informed the execs that's illegal) It will ONLY affect the 2024 version of Unity. So as long as your game is coded on the 2023 ver and you don't update to 2024 when it comes out your game can be published in 2024 and still not have the fee!

HOLLOW KNIGHT SILKSONG IS SAFE! Seeing as 80 to 90% of it has been coded in the 23 version there's no reason they can't finish it in that version.

But if your game will take longer than a year to finish I still recommend switching engines now. It would not surprise me if in a few years they end service for 2023 or older versions to force people to update to the newer versions with the fee.

Here's a link to the open letter announcing the changes.

Mihoyo/Genshin's connection to all of this.

Mihoyo has not yet made a public statement about all of this. But any change to the international unity tos would not affect them. They are partnered with Unity China which is it's own separate company. Unity China would have to adopt the change for it to affect Mihoyo. Which they have not made any statement implying they would.

The reason Unity China is a separate company is because of China's strict foreign company laws. But convincing the Chinese government to allow even an off shoot of a foreign company to set up shop is hard. Nintendo is still fighting to get their foot in the door. The only reason Unity C got in was because Mihoyo backed them. Unity C owes Mihoyo it's very existence. They are in no position to make demands by changing the current contracts without warning.

There were a few rumors about Mihoyo hiring people to develop their own game engine and that is false. Mihoyo did post 5 or so job listings for folks specialized in game engine coding. But it was clearly for code optimization of their current engine Unity. If Mihoyo decided to start building their own engine from scratch it would require the hiring of at least 100 coders focusing solely on the new engine.

Genshin and Honkai will stay on the Unity Engine. When the 2024 engine comes out Mihoyo might upgrade to it. But they would have a customized contract with Unity China and it would not include the current fee plan.

What about all the other Live Service Mobile Games?

In theory their creators could keep using 2023 and not have to worry about the fees. But as I mentioned I can't see Unity keeping the 2023 version usable past 2025. All of these games will easily pass the download threshold as they are free to download and they will pass the profit cap too.

Pokemon Go, Pokemon Unite, Duel Links, Master Duel, Hearthstone, Fates, League of Legends Wild Rift, and Marvel Snap are all still getting updates and won't be closing anytime soon. I don't know how important updating to the newest version of Unity is for these development teams. But in theory all their parent companies can afford the increased fees, they just won't like it.

With Mihoyo off the table Pokemon GO is the big fish Unity execs are aiming for. It gets a couple million new downloads every year and goes well past the profits cap and definitely isn't made using Unity Personal nor is Nintendo/GameFreak allowing Unity ads to play on their mobile game (those are all ways to lower the bill). Pokemon Go can't be moved to a new engine and has too many current users for Nintendo to risk dropping the app entirely to start over with pokemon go 2 on a new engine.

Nintendo has not yet made a comment, but if they do cave and pay the fees. Then there's no way the middle tier games devs can argue against it. even if the couple 1,000s in fees hurts the indie dev more. Unity can point to the couple million Nintendo is forking over for all their mobile games and say "if they can do it why can't you?"

So keep an eye out for what Nintendo does because of all this.

What about Demos, Charity bundles, or game subscription downloads?

The Updated version described in the open letter mentions the game devs being responsible for recording the number of downloads. Most likely because there isn't a legal way for Unity to truly monitor it and so their numbers would never have been trustworthy. If devs are reporting the numbers it's very easy to say downloads before a certain date are only the demos or keep track of how many charity bundles are sold and not count those downloads towards their total.

For Subscription Services, Unity has started to intentionally keep the answer vague. The first time they said developers would pay it like the legacy downloads. In an interview before the correction letter above the Unity President said the subscription hosts would pay the fee. After the correction letter he clarified that he "misspoke". AKA Microsoft and Playstation said "hell no!" that's super illegal to charge us in a contract we never signed we'll sue you to oblivion if you do that. But Unity is being unclear on if that means developers are back to footing the bill for Game Pass downloads. X

To understand exactly how vague they are being. A Reddit FAQ says developers will not be responsible for the fee of game downloads from subscription services. While the site FAQ section answers the question "Are Downloads from Subscription Services required to pay the download fee?" with "Yes" and Nothing more.

TOS Changes and How bad it really is

So the reason we don't know who is paying in some of these situations is because the final version of the 2024 licensing contract is not yet finalized. All Unity did was announce this new fee would be in the 2024 contract. That is why they were able to so quickly go back on what they said. It's just back spacing on a google doc it's not redacting and adjusting an actual legal document yet.

That means this might not be the only change they put in the new contract. This is just the only one they bothered to mention. most likely to convince shareholders they were going to be boosting profits in 2024 even if 23's Q4 is really low.

There being more unmentioned changes is a bad thing because they removed the github extension that updated you on changes made to the TOS. They argue it was because "traffic" was too low. There reasoning for removing an archive of Legal documents was click through rate being too low. They also argued that the TOS was available the entire time on their website. But please understand that is only their current TOS. So being able to compare changes from past TOS's wouldn't be possible on that page. X

The Possibility of this all being a Stunt

One of the theories going around is that they knew this would go over badly to some extent. Not this bad, but still drop the stock value a bit. Enough that the company would look cheap enough for a buy out from another company. The possible buyer being Apple's Mobile Gaming division. So far Apple has not shown interest in buying them and no solid evidence of this happening on the back end has shown up.

But it is pretty well known that the CEO sold stocks the week before this news came out. Which is called insider trading and super illegal. Unfortunately it looks like he might get away with it, with the argument that the sale of those stocks was scheduled months before this announcement was planned.

But that doesn't change the fact that he's sold over 50,000 shares this year alone. Two other officials have sold 37,000 and 68,000 of their shares this year. It's very clear they see the writing on the wall and are trying to offload stocks before the final numbers for the year reach the shareholders and the value of shares plummets. X

If they truly believed in the chance of a buy out they wouldn't be offloading so much of their stock. Because when they are bought Apple would have to pay them based on the number of shares they have at the time of the buy out. So they don't believe they'll be bought any time soon but they do believe the value of Unity stocks are only going to continue to go down.

Even without this stunt the end of Q4 report would have shown losses and caused the stock value to drop. This was most likely their last ditch attempt to show their shareholders something that implied the possibility of future profits.

That's the important thing to remember. They didn't care about how the devs reacted. They knew there were going to be complaints but they didn't care because they saw how much money they could milk if they charged every game to ever use unity for every download of that game. And they knew that would show profitability and increase the value of the company. They only back peddled when it became clear the news was affecting the stock more than anticipated.

Even then the .20 per download was never removed they just pushed back the cap and the downloads counted in hopes that would shut protests down enough for the stock value to go back up. as of Sep 29 their stock value has still not recovered.

Conclusion

Don't trust Unity. Anything they say now is just PR to try in get the stock value to go back up. They did pull back on some of the worst parts of the original agreement and older and most indie games are now safe. But Mobile F2P games and Game subscription games are still at risk of getting hit with the bill. They have also kept things vague enough to allow them to change things in the future once the dust has settled.

So I would heavily encourage those in the early stages of their games development to look for a new engine. If you have any Unity Stocks and haven't already sold them for whatever reason I'd find the time to start selling them. Unity might recover for a bit but they are not going to last long with business decisions like this and even the board members know that.

Oh wow this got so long I am so sorry. But It's all important information and I tried to link to actual articles as much as I could. As of the end of September this information is as accurate as it can be. Nothing major should come up until Unity announces the finalized TOS rewrite or Nintendo comments on the Pokemon Go fees.

PLEASE reblog this one if you reblogged my initial post about Unity Games that were at risk. It's important for people to know those games are no longer at risk of being removed from store fronts. Oh and feel free to reblog with a summarized version.

[anemicjellyfish]

So Blitzø has an "Emergency Horse" in the Stolas Sex trunk. Which is likely used in the event one of them calls out a Safe Word

Do you think their Safe Word is...

"Hold your horses"

[ruporas]

[ TW: child harm ]

collection of old drabbles

[miraluking-respectfully]

felix being referred to more or less exclusively as "your soldier" in-game speaks to how little the writers put into his character beyond his noggin full of sith secrets & his relationship with the consular; still, i do find it kind of sweet and funny, in a way. he's not a republic soldier, not even your personal bodyguard; he's your soldier. the consular is a small nation-state in and of herself

[wolvertooth]

ok i just realized a big part of the reason i ship sabrevine is probably cuz i never got bullied in school. so i dont understand how the whole bully dynamic thing works. oops

[virtualpeople]

went and had a go at making a couple of pirates

[qi-rong-enjoyer]

putting pei ming under a microscope and psychonalyzing him.

[cocolacola]

it's sertegra saturday once again!!

holy moly have some more music

ok byeee

[icewindandboringhorror]

I’m always paranoid of my tumblr being deleted or malfunctioning or something like that someday, so here’s other places to find me/follow me, just in case lol

~ instagram - https://www.instagram.com/lucalicatte/

~ main youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/LucaLiCatte

~ games/sims youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@cloudycatte

~ facebook page (I rarely use this because I hate facebook but.. it at least allows text posts better than instagram does, so idk maybe I’d use it more if tumblr went away? lol) - https://www.facebook.com/cloudycatteart/

~ Other Links (stuff I don’t use often/isn’t Main enough to list here, like twitter, neopets, other tumblr sideblogs, youtube channels, etc.) are here - http://icewindandboringhorror.tumblr.com/otherlinks )

[altruistic-meme]

i want to get started on the Full Hands List but i am waiting on my apartment people for scheduled maintenance and i don't really want to start until they leave but i also have no idea what time they'll make it to my apartment so we're just playing the waiting game now

[skitskatdacat63]

Now that all is said and done(and most importantly: resolved), I have to say, the comedic timing of the penalty was incredible. Literally exactly a minute after the last shot of the podium(and about 3 after he received his trophy)

[nezuscribe]

(previous part)

it's been a week since you've spoken to arranged!gojo, and he feels like he's about to start going crazy.

you don't speak during your meals, not even when he addresses you in a question. sometimes you spare him a glance, but he'd still rather see your icy glare than see nothing at all.

and he knows he fucked up. he knows that you seeing him alone with anya was perhaps the worst possible place you could’ve caught him, but he's been almost begging you to listen to him, to hear his side. but every time he goes to explain you leave abruptly, leaving him alone, feeling the looks of pity from those around the two of you.

and you know you're being petty. after all, the two of you are only bound by words, nothing else. if anything, the two of you were just becoming friends, so this shouldn't hurt you as much as it does.

but you hear the whispers of the ladies, hear of their secret proposals of how gojo would surely bed them if they just asked. how miserable he must be trapped with you, how this marriage is ruining his life. and you know anya, know about her history with him. before you were his wife you were the higher echelon wallflower, listening to all the gossip, observing from afar.

you've gathered some ideas in your head as to why he might want to speak with you. perhaps he wants to gently break the news that he's found a mistress, one that he actually loves. or that maybe he's already had one and now you know why he's been so secretive.

so the more he tries to talk to you, the more you pull away. you don't know why he cares so much, why this even matters to him. if anything, you feel like he should be content with your silence.

but he's not, and gojo grows more restless by the hour.

he decides he can't live like this anymore. tonight he's going to make you listen to him, even if you want nothing to do with him.

you're holed up in your room, talking with alina as she dabs lavender oil on your neck before you go to sleep. you know she knows about your silence with gojo, but ever friend, she does nothing to bring it up.

well, she wouldn't have to if he didn't come knocking feverishly at your door.

you watch in your mirror as she peeks her head out, her gasp of surprise causing a sinking pit to form in your stomach. you can hear how she scrambles with the titles of my lord, how she explains that you're nearly about to go to sleep.

it's late, the only light is the flickering of the candles on your nightstand. he should be asleep by now.

gods, you wonder for the millionth time this week, why does he care so much?

alina finishes up, closing the door slightly as she turns to you, her eyes finding yours in the mirror.

"i'm sorry my lady," she bows her head almost apologetically, "but my lord wants to talk to you. he's requested me to leave...if you'll excuse me," she bows, quickly leaving, not giving you any time to actually excuse her. you know she can't stay any longer, but you do wish she put up more of a fight. you watch her skirt bustle away, the door being left slightly ajar.

you try to act nonchalant, continuing to dab the oil onto your wrists as you look down, even when you hear the door click shut, even when you can feel his presence several feet behind you.

you sigh through your nose, heat rising to your cheeks.

"what?" you bite out, your own voice shocking you. you want to get this over with, not too desperate to hear about how he's ready to take on a mistress and shun you away.

you can hear him take in a deep breath, your eyes briefly looking up in the mirror to catch his, the same ones that make your knees weak, and avert your gaze.

"you haven't spoken to me in over a week," he says after a beat of silence.

you shrug indifferently, despite the fact that he could probably ask you the specific amount of hours it's been since the two of you had talked and you'd give an accurate number.

"i've been busy," you murmur, taking your earrings off as you place them gently in the little glass bowl to the side.

he doesn't say anything about your blatant lie, just nods slowly, as if he understands.

"i missed hearing you talk," gojo tells you quietly, almost as if his voice had been stuck in his throat, and you wonder if any man before him had ever tried to sweet talk his wife before he told her about his new mistress.

you don't say anything, still refusing to look at him as you stand up from your seat, turning off one of the candles near you as you smooth out some of the wrinkles of your nightgown.

"is this what you really want to tell me gojo?" you say bluntly, looking to the side momentarily, getting a longer look at his bulky figure, how he tries to make himself seem smaller, "that you miss my stupid jokes and dull stories?"

"they're not stupid," he quickly cuts in, his voice a little stronger, brows furrowed, "and i like your stories."

you roll your eyes, moving around the bed, to the side where he's not, and fluff your pillows. you've never found this useful, but it gives you something to do with your hands other than fidgeting with them.

truth be told, you're reflecting. you're scared of what it is he has to say, and so you try to appear stronger, and less caring, despite the fact that it's tearing you apart.

you try not to feel self-conscious of the fact that this is his first time ever seeing your room, or the fact that it's so bland. you didn't come to this estate with many things, and so you've tried to spruce up the space as much as you can, but aside from the few flowers and paintings on the wall, you fear it looks bland compared to everything else he's seen.

"and no," gojo adds, running a hand through his already tousled white hair as his arms crossed over his chest, and you finally allow yourself to stare at him, "that's not all i wanted to say."

he paused for a second.

"i don't know why i followed her out, or why i even stayed to hear her speak, but she kept saying these things about..." he trails off, gnawing on his lips as your eyes narrow slightly.

"me?" you finish for him, and his eyes dart to yours.

gojo nods a little bit, arms bulging a little bit as if remembering what she had said.

"i'm used to people staring at me, i lived with it my entire life. but with you, people..." he struggles to find words, "people stare longer. and i don't know why."

you raise a brow.

"do you want me to explain?" you say and he looks at you briefly, almost in a brazen way.

he shakes his head as if he had steered off track.

"that's beside the point. what i wanted to tell you is that she...she was saying some nonsense and i was about to leave until she offered for me to stay at the hostelry she was at." his blue eyes are wavering, his finger itching to get closer to you. this stupid bed is in the middle of you two and he wishes it were gone.

your breathing hitches a little bit, and you hope he doesn't see the sad tilt on your lips.

"so i banished her. or, well, i guess you saw her and then i banished her, but i would've done it regardless," he explains hurriedly, "look, i'm sorry...really sorry. if you want me to-"

"you banished her?" you cut him off, voice raised slightly in confusion.

his mouth gapes open for a second, and then blinks slowly, nodding.

"of...course," he tilts his head, his gorgeous head, slightly "you know that i am married, right? to you? she was offering to-"

"i thought you were going to tell me that you slept with her. o-or i don't know! that you were going to make her your mistress or something!" you spew out, your voice raised as you pace around the floor, moving a little bit closer to him as his eyes widen.

"why would you ever think that?" gojo says in a panicked tone, nothing like the man who commanded the northern army, but more like somebody who was watching his world burn in front of him.

"why?" you exclaim, shocked, "why? are you daft? every single woman wants to sleep with you! every single time we host those dinners, o-or we go to those parties, they look at you and they look at me and they pity you. i hear the whispers of the ladies, how they wouldn't mind being the other woman."

gojo hears the way your voice wavers, how your lips tremble, and the way you try not to let your bottom lip quiver. he sees the way you try to stay strong, to keep your image unbridled, but right now he feels like he's watching you break and he doesn't know what to do.

"so? what makes you think i'd do anything with them?" gojo argues, his voice raised a little bit, not in shouting, but in genuine disbelief.

you take a moment to step back and observe his behavior, and a nagging voice in your head tells you that he's telling you the truth. that he's concerned and worried, that maybe all he came to tell you tonight was an apology.

but that can't be correct.

so you sigh, your arms crossed over your chest protectively.

"i...i don't know," you murmur, "you sleep in another wing, you're always away. i thought...maybe..." you can't meet his eyes, fidgeting with the ring on your finger.

gojo takes a step forward, lips parted, cheeks rosy and flushed.

the two of you don't say anything for a minute, his chest heaving up and down. you feel like there's a weight both removed and added onto your shoulder.

"why didn't you say anything?" he whispers, "did you think...did you think i was...?" he can't finish the sentence, the words themselves too gruesome.

he doesn't say anything as he takes another tentative step closer.

you watch him, your eyes mirroring one another.

"i made a vow to you," his voice is heavy, traveling across the spanning stone walls, going deep into your bones, "and even if you prefer me to be your friend, i'll keep to that vow till the day i die."

your eyes gloss over, lips trembling.

you don't say anything, taking a couple steps forward as you smash against his chest, face crumpling against the stone wall of his torso as you hug him tightly, hoping that he can't feel the tears that seep through his nightshirt.

never in your life has somebody made a promise to you. and never in your life has somebody kept to that promise.

"thank you," you murmur, your voice muffled as his arms wrap around your body, steady and strong.

"and anyways, i'd prefer to be married to you than those miserable women any day," he mumbles into your hair and you laugh wetly, squeezing your arms tighter.

"really?" you say, tears blurring your vision.

"really," he hums, not able to say anything because he fears what you'd say if he told you that he'd rather be your husband and your friend. but he'd keep that inside, respecting your wishes.

if only he knew you wished the same.

[practically-an-x-man]

big pet peeve of mine is when artists draw bird wings by just slapping feathers randomly in all directions

which makes things difficult when my all-time favorite character is a guy with wings

[strangeangel22]

i love being transgender i love doing my silly little t shot every week i am so proud of who i am and what ive done to get to where i am now I LOVE BEING TRANS!!!1!!!1!😸😸😸

[moe-broey]

Although I do want to add, if you're someone who relates to my feelings about "Winning at being a man" (or a similar sentiment!) and often copes/deflects/expresses themselves with humor, it's important to take a step back and remember Why "Winning at (an abstract concept)" is such a funny thing to say in the first place!

The joke is rooted in the same vein of, "Getting a good grade in therapy, something reasonable to want and possible to achieve".

It's an absurd premise, that entails you having an unrealistic goal and setting out to achieve an impossible task.

Using my example: You can be a good man. That is within your control. You cannot Win at being a man. Winning implies measuring yourself against and outdoing someone else. Which, on paper, you Can do. But in performance, you're measured Not Only by yourself, and your own standards of manhood -- you're also measured by forces outside of and beyond yourself, of which you have no control over (see: no control over whether or not you Do "Win". You're subjected to whatever standards these forces Have, which again, goes back to it being an unrealistic goal and impossible task).

And, the most important takeaway, even if it sounds cliché -- the people who will see you as you are, just do. They respect you. They love you. They Know You. You didn't have to earn that. You didn't have to win it.

[teaboot]

Because a few have asked

Teaboot's Super Okay Guide To Developing A Brain That Makes Art Work

Or: How to get your eyes to talk directly to your hands without your brain micromanaging you

Or: How to draw better

⚠️ Warning for super fast gifs cause they all gotta be 5 seconds or less or else my phone shits the bed ⚠️

1. Do the following exercises. Don't just think about doing them or figure out a clever way to not do them, just do them. Yes even the boring ones and the ones that look ugly

2. If you have any pride, crush it. Kill it. Crunch it up into itty bitty bits and feed it to the ducks at the park. You have no talent and don't know anything and everything you make is hot garbage. Believe that. Make yourself believe that. That is where you live now. Surrender any indignation or shame you have to the void and embrace rock bottom.

3. Read step 2 again and actually do it this time. My methods will not work if you try to make this process pretty. Don't.

4. No drawing from your imagination on these. Actually draw from real life. If it's boring like eating day old oatmeal in in beige room but your usual art still feels wonky then I'm talking to you specifically. You can't write poetry until you learn words and yes learning words is as dull as horseshit sometimes but do you wanna be Robert Frost or not

5. Pick up some cheap paper and a ballpoint pen. Grab a small object, between the size of your hand and the size of a microwave. Set a timer for fifteen minutes. Put the tip of your pen to the paper and press "start".

Now without looking at your paper, only looking at the object, draw the object in as much detail as you can. Do not break contact between the paper and the pen tip until the timer goes off.

This is a continuous line drawing, and you're doing it in pen because you need to know what rock bottom looks like and rock bottom looks like no eyes no erasers no shading no do-overs.

6. Sit down in a public place. As someone walks by, draw their their body in as much accuracy as you can before they are no longer in view. Once you can't see them anymore, the drawing is done. No adding details. Pick someone else and do it again. No "base sketch". Just them. If it barely looks human you're doing great

7. Get a black pen. Put a small object on a dark, flat surface. Now draw the surface without drawing the object. Don't draw the outline of the object. Don't do a sketch. Just draw the surface that is visible around the object until only a silhouette remains. No time limit just do it.

The ability to draw accurate proportions from sight comes from learning to see what exists between a thing and the absence of a thing and if that hurts to think about then you need to do it more

8. Keep doing these until you are Ready.

9. You will know when you are Ready. It will make sense when you are Ready. You will Understand.

10. Unwind with some goofy shit so you don't forget why you wanna improve to begin with