I’m not a lawyer who can properly interpret the legalese but I don’t think this is the case.

Selling your game to a publisher or a third party to distribute it counts as the developer making revenue off the game.

Edit: Actually I may be incorrect - The apparent wording of the license says the publisher or distributor would pay the per install fee. I’m not sure how that would work, unless they’re planning to send a bill to Steam/Microsoft/EA/etc. I will have to reread the terms.

There are a lot of cases where this might suck if you’re a full time Unity dev. Getting on Gamepass was already a bit dicey as it cannibalizes sales, but now you got an extra Unity tax on that. (And you may get a LOT of installs on Gamepass)

Give a bunch of keys to a charity auction? Guess you’re paying extra. Got a demo that’s doing wonders on Steam NextFest? Those are installs. Is your game being pirated? Those look like installs, gotta pay up.

I don’t think this will bankrupt any dev, but all those above decisions will hurt.

Oblivion was 2006, Morrowind was 2002.

Regardless, your point still stands.

It’s pretty soul crushing - For some its ‘walk away from the game industry forever’ levels.

A little disappointed - I wish there was a bit more variety in the communities. There are some smaller ones but there are very few people there, so it’s not much of a conversation.

The only other complaint I would have is seeing an article and then 3-4 communities in each of the big 3-4 instances all talk about the same thing. So you’ll be scrolling and see over a dozen conversations about Linus, which is a little annoying.

Age of Empires 2.

I like the mix of challenges the enemy factions bring, the randomness of the levels, and the flexibility of how I build up my army.

Not to be blunt, but there are no ‘ethical’ companies. But at each of those companies, there are good people and good devs who don’t agree with the unethical decisions their management has made.

If there is a game you strongly feel you would enjoy, you can get it knowing you’ll be supporting at least some good people.

All that being said I do still draw a line and there are some microtransaction-hells I refuse to touch.

These are all a little broad. Hand drawn like darkest dungeon, Hades, or like Cuphead? 3D as in realistic or low poly?

Art style should go hand in hand with game thematics. Celeste’s precise platforming goes well with it’s pixel art style, and if they made another version with very high fidelity 3D graphics it would likely hinder gameplay. Likewise, Hollow Knight would lose much of its charm if it went 8 bit pixel art.

All that being said, low poly art can look really good but can also feel really cheap. The same for low bit pixel art. Those aren’t deal breakers for me, but if I was judging purely based on art direction, I would (probably) vote those out.

Edit: Almost forgot, I’d probably lean towards hand drawn for most desirable as it can look very, very good and is usually highly unique.

Yeah I love those diagetic menus/UI elements.

I don’t care if flipping out a lighter is necessary to see what your objective is on a notebook, it just feels better than scrolling down a quest log.