Wipeout-Style Racer 'BallisticNG' Cancelled For Switch Following Unity's Policy Changes

Wonder how many more projects are getting cancelled thanks to Unity's boneheaded policy change. Nobody trusts or wants to work with them anymore.

Fair enough. Devs have to eat and Unity are money-grubbing pigs.

Thanks, Unity. Keep up the good work.

I don't think this will be the last game cancellation because of unity. It's safe to say they're rethinking their business choices, whether they planned to revoke the new pricing structure from the start as a PR stunt. I'm getting the feeling that this will all quite backfire on them, even more so than it has so far.

@panthro haha, good one! Right? thats a joke, right?

@panthro If the tool company you bought tools from years ago started charging you a fee every time you or someone in your family used them you'd be singing a different tune dude.

@panthro One does not simply write a game engine.

Personally I wouldn't throw a year worth of work into the trash. The policy has changed to something acceptable, and obviously all trust is lost, but this way they are losing money. The thing would be to release it and not touch Unity again.

I don't see much of a loss here, as the big draw for this game is custom content through mods and workshop. This would be lacking that big thing if it were to release.

A bit silly. The initial policy was absurd, arrogant, nonsensical.

But the backlash worked and the policy has now changed in a dramatic way for the better - you can choose to ignore the absurd "install" metric completely, and just pay 2.5% over a $1,000,000. Or in other words, half of Unreal.

They realize they can port their project out of unity, right? They changed nost of what pissed people off anyway, this sounds like they were doing a poor job at porting it and used the unity thing as an excuse to can it

Press F. With the policy rollback, indeed, being partial to the point of evoking figurative parallels with Soviet moviemakers' "nuke scenes", a fair number of devs may be still opting out of Unity as we speak - which might no longer necessarily endanger released titles now, but WIP ones like this port evidently remain at risk. Only time will tell how deep this rabbit hole goes.

Well... that sucks.

Wiped out then, shame.... Although there is a good alternative already on the Switch (Fast RMX) and there's always Wipeout Omega Collection on PS4/5 if you really want this type of game.

@Ponyolovesgames Yes it's 25k, and that's out of 2 million as the first million is royalty free.

25k out of 2 million? I have no problem with that, despite the absolute audacity of the initial proposal.

Your alternatives are basically build your own engine - which for a modern 3D game is extremely difficult and time consuming - or use Unreal, who take 5% over a million.

And by the way a slight correction to your post - devs who signed agreements under existing versions of Unity can carry on using Unity royalty free just as before, existing games compiled with those versions and those TOS. It's only versions of Unity being released in January onwards that are subject to the new TOS. Obviously that was a major gripe with the initial reveal, the retroactive terms essentially tearing up an existing contract. It seemed sketchy and snakelike at best, illegal at worst.

Thankfully that no longer applies. So for example a Unity game like Yooka Laylee can carry on selling their game without owing Unity any royalties at all, unless they suddenly decide to update it using a brand new version of Unity like 2023LTS or 2024 - which realistically, they'd have absolutely no need to.

@Ponyolovesgames this guy gets it

@Ponyolovesgames Of course there is a defense, as what are the alternatives? For a professional game, basically Unreal. Which again, takes twice as much. So the 25k you think is a big deal from 2 million revenue, suddenly becomes 50k for the exact same indie team.

Not only that, but Unity is currently in the red to the tune of almost a billion a year. Clearly they need to do something in order to survive. They just chose the most absurd, out of touch, and obnoxious plan possible.

Luckily they've been rightfully shocked onto the right path by the intense backlash, with a revenue share that's actually very reasonable - half that of their only real competitor.

Regarding updating Unity - why is that ridiculous? Games that are making money right now on Steam for example, may never even get another update. They have no need to do anything, their game can continue to accrue income based on the existing terms - royalty free.

For new games they have to weigh up whether it's worth using Unity 2023+ and paying a revenue share, or just sticking to a good stable version like 2021. Unity 2023 is generally buggier and worse than 2021 and 2022. 2021 has everything you need especially for a Steam game - access to HDRP, ECS, Burst Compiler, multiplayer. Perhaps the biggest reason to update would be mobile devs, as there'll come a point where in app and purchases and ads will require a more current SDK than those in 2021 for example.

So there's nothing ridiculous about it, just like there's nothing ridiculous about the recent MK1 being made in Unreal 4 rather than Unreal 5. Older more battle tested versions of engines are often more desirable - less buggy, more performant.

And Unity has plenty of advantages over Unreal, just like Unreal has plenty of advantages over Unity. They're both very capable, but very different, with Unreal obviously being more AAA focused.

Even Nintendo uses Unity for its mobile games.

@Guitario He really doesn't. The vast majority of existing Unity devs are better off sticking to Unity, rather than potentially spending months learning Unreal, and porting their existing C# codebase to C++.

The initial plan was inexcusable and insane, and if it stayed that way almost everyone should have jumped ship to Unreal.

The current pricing plan is fair, and really what should have been suggested in the first place.

@Ponyolovesgames The plan starts next year for new versions of Unity, it will be budgeted in the exact same way as Unreal. Only 2.5% instead of 5%.

Time to admit you have no idea what you're talking about, and move on.

BallisticNG is so good! I play it on my laptop and steam deck and absolutely love it. wipEout is my favorite racing game and I was excited to play this close take off on it on my Switch. This sucks! Hopefully we'll get it at 120fps on the Super Switch!
I know it's very unlikely, but I'd still love to get wipeout 64 on Switch with the same enhancements that Doom 64, Turok, and Episode 1 Racer got (higher res and locked at 60fps). I can easily imagine wipeout 64 being my favorite racing game on Switch if it got caringly brought over (maybe even a 64 mode like fzero 99!).

@Ponyolovesgames Yes I am, and have been for over a decade.

@Ponyolovesgames That's right, the "updates" are marginal at best and rarely what people actually want, which is exactly why I said most people are better off sticking with Unity 2021 on the old terms, at least in the near future until it's no longer viable.

Unreal 5 looks incredible, but I'm not sure how viable it really is now. Nanite and Lumen look stunning, but bring a SeriesX to its knees.

Which is exactly why new games like MK1 are still using Unreal 4.

I never said I love paying fees, I actually recommend staying on 2021 LTS for now to circumvent the fees.

It's got nothing to do with deserving either. It's to do with making a sensible decision that's not based on emotion or a kneejerk reaction.

Almost everyone who is currently using Unity, would be better off staying with Unity.

I like Unity the engine, I don't like Unity the company, the way it's managed is horrendous, it's been pulled every which way, it's overspent, and dug itself a hole. That's the situation it's in, and it clearly needs to do something to start turning a profit.

The way they pulled the rug from under everyone's feet was insane, but this new policy is a step in the right direction, it's fair and kind of necessary for Unity to survive.

What engine do you use?

@JagGentlemann It isn't acceptable, at all. And the higher-ups who pulled this stunt still have jobs.

@axelhander It is acceptable in the sense that they can publish the game that it's mostly done without really any drawbacks. It makes sense that they don't want to continue using Unity for future projects, though.

I'm all for this mostly because I'm tired of games developed in Unity and their samey feel. But it probably means studios will all just flock to another engine and continue to produce samey games.

@120frames-please Given your username I'm surprised you're not playing it on a Rog Ally at 120fps

The first of many, I can only assume. No developers in the small to middle sized are going to start projects with Unity. I figure that most who do have a game in development are weighing the sunk-cost fallacy of either starting over with a different engine or canceling the projects if it isn't shipping by Q1 2024.

@Raffles I almost didn't get a deck because the screen is only 60fps. I'm glad I did though because I've learned how nice 40, 45, 50, 51, 55fps can be when you set the screen's refresh rate to them. I don't think I'll get any other gaming thing until switch 2 comes out. ROG ally sounds good, but I'm not in need of it. I can also just play games at 144fps on my laptop.

@120frames-please 100%. I also love the response times and fluidity of high frame rates, but yeah especially on a small screen, 60hz feels great. Even 40hz feels good as you said, it's a weird phenomena that 40 feels closer to 60 than 30. I guess it crosses a certain threshold of looking/feeling nice and smooth.

I also have a 165hz laptop and a 120hz OLED screen, but I'll be honest I'm generally satisfied with a solid 60fps. Anything over 120hz it's hard to notice the difference, and I think people just like the response times.

I also have a Steam Deck and love it, I don't regret not getting the Ally. And same, the next games machine I buy is probably a Switch 2 or Steam Deck 2

I might need clarity on this one, but why is only the Switch version affected? Are the other versions not built on Unity?

I get the EA-level stupidity the Unity team unleashed on the world of game development, but this seems less like a protest on Unity's policies and more like an easy excuse out of developing for the Switch.

Damn, man. I was really looking forward to this one. It's a total clone, but I don't really care.

“Nintendo has a rolling Unity version requirement for game releases and we’re already behind the threshold by two years,”

Honestly, f@ck Nintendo! Pretty bold of them to ask for newest version of Unity when their consoles are far from being state-of-the-art.

@calbeau Seemingly Nintendo policies forces devs to use the newest version of Unity available at the year of the release, unity new policies will now only apply to newest versions of the engine, so as along as they keep the project in the version that they have been using, they won't be affected by the changes.

Sad to see the loss of a potential Switch game, but expected and understandable after the bulls--- Unity tried to pull off. Honestly, I hope we see more of this because the entire industry--not just Unity, but their direct competitors--need to get the warning. Not only does Unity need to be kept in check, but developers of other development tools need to be reminded that there are consequences for their actions.

In the meantime, developers jumping ship and no longer relying on Unity for the future is a good thing, even if it means cancelling some of their projects or delaying them as they port them out of Unity.

Cool game, sad that Unity came to ruin it. Hopefully they rework it via Unreal Engine 5 for the next Nintendo console.

@fenlix Ah, that explains it. Thanks for the clarity.

I thought Unity backtracked and went back to their original business model after all the backlash? I swore I read that the other day...

@Zulzar They did, until you use the 2024 version of the Unity engine which won't take effect until 2024 of which they'll use a lesser version of the milestone fee and possible other complications (like fees) the Unity CEO could possibly announce. Some developers don't want to take that looming hassle.

@Raffles I can't remember the YouTube video name, but there is a very interesting one about frame rates and motion blur. He uses a very high frame rate camera to show motion blur on his LG C2 vs his Sony high refresh rate CRT computer monitor. The Sony blows the C2 out of the water. He estimates that the Sony is roughly equivalent to 900fps. It's a great video. It made me realize that motion blur is one of the things that gets me wishing for higher and higher frame rates. Anyways, I could type about frame rate stuff for way too long!