Is this The End?

If you've been on Twitter (I will NEVER call it X), threads, or any game development-centric circles in the last few days you'd be aware of Unity's new Runtime Fees.

For all those unware Table Ball is created in the Unity Engine, this means that if somehow Table Balls multiple DLC reach over 200k in profit (We're nowhere close but still), and the game gains about 200k installs Lockyz Dev will be required to pay Unity 0.20usd per install, even though we use a version of Unity created before this tos update (especially since unity updated it's tos to no longer protect those who use older versions of the software), we would be required to pay 61 thousand Australian Dollars (I have zero idea what the conversion to usd is). Yes, if we take 61k out of 200k the total is still a large amount of money, but that's not the point here. Let's now say Table Ball totals 200k in revenue, then let's say we manage to get over 1 million downloads, that's 200k, the entirety of what would have been earnt off of Table Ball, making it impossible to pay our developers, testers and other team members.

Allow me to get personal for a second. Table Ball was never created to earn money, it was created as a learning opportunity to learn the Unity Engine from someone who's never made a game before. Table Ball has gone from a simple pong clone to a pong clone with extra features. I have created Table Ball as a single developer from day one, and eventually have been joined by my friends and family members, and having the 5 (or so, can't say the exact number) of active players. It is with a heavy heart that I announce that I will be ceasing the development of Table Ball. We will continue the next 2 updates, and then on August 4th 2024, Table Balls second anniversary, the game will be taken down from the Steam Store. We've already removed the games Google Play Store and itch listings. You will still be able to download and play the game if you own it now, but after that no one will be able to purchase the game.

Whether Unity decides to rescind this TOS update or not remains to be seen. But Lockyz Dev will no longer use Unity, nor will we allow our games made with it to continue when it carries such great risk of bankruptcy.

All this aside I would also like to talk about the counter added to the menu scenes in the last update, it was previously added to be a countdown to another game we're working on. This counter will instead be changed to the exact day and time we hope to remove the game from the steam store.