“The team at Re-Logic has been watching the recent events surrounding Unity with both interest and sadness. The loss of a formerly-leading and user-friendly game engine to the darker forces that negatively impact so much of the gaming industry has left us dismayed to put it mildly. While we do not personally use Unity (outside of a few elements on our console/mobile platforms), we feel like we cannot sit idly by as these predatory moves are made against studios everywhere.
We unequivocally condemn and reject the recent TOS/fee changes proposed by Unity and the underhanded way they were rolled out. The flippant manner with which years of trust cultivated by Unity were cast aside for yet another way to squeeze publishers, studios, and gamers is the saddest part. That this move was wholly unnecessary pushes things into the tragedy category - a cautionary tale the industry will not soon forget.
We do not feel that a simple public statement is sufficient. Even if Unity were to recant their policies and statements, the destruction of trust is not so easily repaired. We strongly feel that it is now equally important to get behind some of the other up-and-coming open source game engines. Lighting some candles in an otherwise dark moment.
To that end, we are donating $100,000 to each of the open source engines listed below [Godot and FNA]. Additionally, we are sponsoring each of these projects with $1,000/month each moving forward. All we ask in return is that they remain good people and keep doing all that they can to make these engines powerful and approachable for developers everywhere.
Re-Logic has always been supportive of game developers and indie studios that do things the right way. We feel that our actions in this moment are the best way to carry that mission forward - by accelerating and strengthening competing open source game engines, we hope to empower and assist studios that are struggling with how best to proceed given these recent events.”
FNA is an open-source re-implementation of Microsoft’s XNA Game Studio framework, which is pretty old. It got discontinued in 2013. Terraria was made with XNA, so it makes sense the devs have a soft spot for it.
Did a bit of digging and found this from 2018. FNA is as close to XNA 4 as possible and that’s it. MonoGame really is a “successor” in that it left behind some initial compatibility to keep up with newer hardware (consoles). I can see why someone would prefer FNA in that case.
Major companies messing up are a great boon for open source projects. Much like how Lemmy got support from Reddit messing up, Godot is now having its time in the spotlight. I’m feeling better and better about switching to more open source apps and platforms throughout the year, I only hope the trend continues!
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