Game Progress Update #92

Game Progress Update #92

Hello world, and welcome to the ninety second Dev with Dave Game Progress update!

This last couple of weeks seems to have whooshed by so fast. It only feels like a few days ago I was busy writing the last update.

I don’t suppose it’s helped that we have had nothing but torrential rain for the last few days, which has spoilt any plans I had for going out and doing things, as well as making the days dark and dreary.

Anyway, lets look over what I have managed to do this update.

Marketing Stuff

As with the last progress update, (which you can read >here<) Pretty much all of what I have done the last two weeks on this project has been to do with marketing and making sure the marketing stuff is ready to go once we have a concrete release date.

I’ve not done much to the actual marketing strategy document (or blog post, I’m undecided currently), focussing instead on the email sequences aspect this time round.

Email sequences

Probably the biggest aspect of the marketing push for Flappy-vaders, other than paid for adverts, is the email list.

The Flappy-vaders website will collect the email addresses of those interested in the game, which will in turn trigger an email sequence to welcome folks and tell them a little more about the game.

I had previously written out a few emails which make up two sequences. The first sequence is triggered when the user signs up. The second will trigger a week or two before the actual launch day.

I decided that the best thing I could do was to create the emails in Brevo (The email sending solution I decided to use as I use it in all the websites I make for transactional emails).

First I had to configure a few things in Brevo before I could do this. I was unable to access the Host control panel, so I still need to setup the DKIM record to help prevent the mails from going to peoples spam/junk folder.

Creating the emails in Brevo was quite simple. They have drag and drop tools which allow you to configure the emails as you see fit with little effort.

It was during this bit that the self-doubt crept in. The more I looked at what I had written, the less confident I was that it would work. It started with a subject line which I thought could be better. But the more and more I read the copy, the less I felt like it was good enough.

I initially opened Chat GPT to bounce some ideas around with regarding the subject lines, but the more I delved into it the more I worried about the content of the emails.

Then I figured I’d try a more analogue approach. So I printed out what I had so far, and had planned on sitting outside under the gazebo as I worked on the emails. The rain ruined this idea, so instead I went and sat on the sofa inside.

Other marketing ideas.

One thing which did distract me for a good hour the other day was the idea of getting celebrities to record promotional videos for me.

I was scrolling on my phone, and saw an advert with Anthony Starr (the actor Homelander from the Boys) for some game or other. (I’m pretty sure it was the real Anthony Starr, and not a deep-fake.). This got me wondering, and a quick Google led me to Cameo.com and possibly wasting an hour of time I could have better used.

A picture of Paul Chuckle

It turns out, I could get a celebrity like Paul Chuckle, or another from a wide range of talent, to record a short promotional video for Flappy-vaders for only a few hundred pounds.

That’s all for now.

And that’s all I have time for now. It’s already twenty past ten. I’m supposed to be playing Fortnite with my buddy at ten, and I still need to finish preparing this post, and then do the social media.

Oh well, hopefully it’ll not take too long.

I will be back, as always, in two weeks with the next progress update.

Unity to cancel the runtime fee

Unity to cancel the runtime fee

The Unity logo

It’s almost a year to the day when Unity announced a hugely unpopular new pricing scheme. This would include a runtime fee for use of the Unity Runtime. You can read about it >here<. This news went down like a lead balloon, with many developers disowning Unity on social media. It only took 5 hours before the public outcry caused Unity to start posting in its defence. Clearing up some of the more ambiguous details, and stating they believed a flat fee was fairer than other pricing models. Today they released a statement detailing their plans to cancel the runtime fee.

A year after announcing the introduction of the runtime fee, Unity have backtracked and cancelled it with immediate effect. Instead they are going to return to a seat based licensing model with annual price increases. The revenue ceiling for the free Unity personal edition has been doubled to $200,000 per year, and $2.5 million for the Pro version. The news has been well received, but only time will tell if it can completely undo the damage from last year.

Unity announces it’s going to cancel the runtime fee

Today, Unity announced that it is going to cancel the runtime fee with immediate effect. They posted this in a message to the community which you can read >here<.

They stated that after consultation with the community of Unity developers and partners, they have decided to cancel the runtime fee. Reverting to the seat based licensing model they used previously instead.

The post talks about their core mission to build a world where great games could be built by anyone, for everyone. And that the introduction of the runtime fee had caused conflict between unity and it’s users.

The post then goes on to detail other changes being made at the same time. Before stating that from this point forwards, it’s their intention to continue to invest in improving game development for everyone.

Other changes they are making

Unity personal is going to remain free to use until your revenue hits a certain limit. This limit used to be $100,000 but has been increased to $200,000. The made with Unity splash screen will become optional when the new Unity 6 is released later this year.

If you do break the $200,000 limit, you must upgrade to Unity Pro which will cost you $2,200 per seat. This is an 8% increase over the previous subscription fee.

There is a third tier, Unity Enterprise. But that is only for games which earn more than $25 million per year. I won’t go into too much detail of that one however. I doubt any of us here reading this will ever reach this level of revenue for an indie game.

How developers have reacted.

It’s certainly been a turbulent year for Unity. Many users rather publicly distanced themselves from Unity after the introduction of the runtime fee, including big names like Brackeys.

Whether this change of heart can repair some of the damage done to Unity’s relationship with developers is something only time will tell. But it is definitely a step in the right direction. Already since the announcement, the Unity share price has risen almost 10%.

New Unity CEO, Matthew Bromberg, is hoping cancelling the fee will help restore trust in the engine. He said in a blog post “I’ve been able to connect with many of you over the last three months, and I’ve heard time and time again that you want a strong Unity, and understand that price increases are a necessary part of what enables us to invest in moving gaming forward. But those increases neednʼt come in a novel and controversial new form,”

Rami Ismail, the Business and Development guy with Vlambeer Studios, said “Not only was it a massive blow to people’s trust in the engine and Unity’s understanding of development realities affecting their userbase, but their communication also sent a signal that if the model didn’t go through, the continuity of Unity as an engine isn’t guaranteed – honestly, the one thing that developers need from an engine is for it to keep existing.”

Craig Moore, a designer from DR Studios, said that “If anything good came of it, it’s that Godot is now a much better more supported engine.”

Only time will tell however, if those who lambasted Unity last year, will return to the fold now they have announced their plan to cancel the runtime fee.

Conclusion

I was equally surprised about Unity’s announcement that they were cancelling the runtime fee, as I was when they announced it in the first place.

Although I think Unity did ok with the damage control last year. I can understand why developers felt so betrayed. Despite Unity’s clarification, the runtime fee pricing was at best a big mess, and at worse, completely unworkable.

I think their decision to revert to the more traditional seat based licensing method was the right one.

As I said in my previous post on the runtime fee, Unity is one of the largest game creation tools. I doubt very much that it would simply disappear due to one mistake. But it is reassuring that the new leadership have listened to their users. Even if it has taken a year for them to realise their mistake.

Game Progress Update #91

Game Progress Update #91

Hello world! And welcome to the ninety first Dev with Dave Game Progress Update!

I honestly never expected that this project would have taken this long to do. As I’m sure I have said a few times already, a few rather large problems have presented themselves along the way.

I’ve got to admit also that I’m not particularly enjoying the marketing side of this project, and I will be glad when it’s over. I am first and foremost a coder, and I am happiest when I am sat at the PC coding away.

Still, we are in the final stretch, so hopefully it will all fall into place soon.

Let me tell you about what I have done this update.

Marketing strategy

As I mentioned in the last update >here<, I am still planning on publishing the marketing strategy, but it is taking me a lot longer to finish than I thought it would.

I have been mostly checking all the elements of the strategy are ready to go, and I have noticed a few things which still need doing.

I have not yet configured the email sequences to start. Although I have written the copy for the emails, I have not yet added any visual assets to them.

I also need to create a lot more assets for the adverts and social media posts. (Which I actually had planned to do this week, but circumstances were against me)

Website changes

I reviewed the Flappy-vaders website. This involved tweaking the colours, and also editing the text copy a little.

I reversed the black/grey colour scheme of the background. As I felt that the previous grey gradient didn’t look quite right. Especially with the black bar across the middle for trhe

The website is a simple landing page made with WordPress, demonstrating my Jack-of-all-trades abilities with computers.

I am using Nelio Software’s testing plugin to run A/B tests on the website once the advertising goes live. This will allow me to determine if changes made are effective or not.

If you want to check out any changes made, the flappy-vaders website is >here<

Asset Creation

I was hoping to take some new photos and videos of the game, and people playing it, using a DSLR camera instead of a phone camera.

But, as is always the way, the camera had been left on and the battery was completely flat by the time I went to use it. I charged it up, but I didn’t have time to do anything much with it before I had to write this blog.

I’ve never shot video with the Canon, so I would like to compare the quality of the footage it takes with the footage my phone records.

And thats’s all for now

That’s all I have managed to do this time round. The down side to this marketing stuff is it’s mostly planning and not the easiest thing to write a blog post about.

I will be back as always next week with another update.

In the mean time, I will try and think of a way to make it a little more exciting 😉 lol