Post by Shiftyhead in Unity game engine will become a virus, change engines now

Viewing post in Unity game engine will become a virus, change engines now

I must the panic attacks from this are a bit overblown considering a couple of facts:

1) InstallCore has been deprecated for a while. If you try to google for it or it's SDK you will find absolutely nothing.

2)InstallCore itself wasn't a virus at all as many people think it was. It was actually an open source installation and content distribution SDK which is where it was classified as a virus because many malware creators used it to create infected installers for programs. Not to mention it was also free and widely used(100 million users according to wikipedia).

3) Ironsource shifted their focus towards mobile app development and monitization and their main area of focus nowdays are mobile apps , ads and games. They even own a mobile game publishing company called Supersonic studio. Many mobile developers use Ironsource for their mobile apps or games even the ones made in Unity.

Unity itself will not become a virus or become overloaded with ads. The reason why Unity merged with Ironsource to begin with was because Unity started to focus more on profit and mobile ads were earning unity a lot of profit and that's where Ironsource is hugely successful.

This merge will only massively change who the provider of mobile ads is going to be thou in reality nothing will change with this merge because you could already use the Ironsource SDK with Unity for a long time(since version 2017.2).

You can still use any older Unity version if you so desire. The only reason for change is because Unity as a company themselves shifted focus from the game engine to profits. The rest is honestly just fearmongering. While IronSource is shady rest assured that this will only affect the mobile game development and mobile ads.

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Ofihombre2 years ago (1 edit)

If what you say is true that it will only affect the mobile games, then fine, I will finish my project with the version of Unity established and for the next one I will change of engine.

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firecat2 years ago

1) No it's not true, the SDK is still around: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-01-28-when-do-deceptive-playable-ads...

They were also sued for breaking the COPPA law: https://www.techdirt.com/2018/05/16/ad-software-dev-doesnt-like-being-called-out...

2) Microsoft has details on it and it is not anything you just said.

3) Yes they only care about profits, the CEO of unity was once CEO EA guy who wanted to microtransaction everytime you reload a gun. They do not care about game or the engine.

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Shiftyhead2 years ago (2 edits) (+2)

1) That's not the installCore SDK. That's the IronSource SDK. Different SDK. One is for installCore the other one is for ads. Also these types of deceptive fake playable ads are nothing really new. Many companies used them and still use them to promote their product. They are deceptive as many ads are ,but usually not malicious.

2)Obviously to you know make ads personal many companies usually collect a lot of data of users. I will say this while this is shady IronSource is 100% not the only company doing this stuff. Google, Meta(Facebook),Amazon even Unity themselves do this. There are bound to be a couple of privacy violations. I think the most famous one is the Facebook one. Google themselves got in trouble with COPPA with Youtube. Again while shady it's really nothing new in the world of mobile app/game development or how ads work in general. You would be surprised with how much Google knows about you.

3)Unity developers can use other ad services other than IronSource or Unity ads.... however reminder that no matter what service they use ads are always going to be shady and deceptive. That's just how ads work nowadays.

What this means for Unity is unknown ,but since IronSource is a massive player in mobile app/games development and one of the massive ad service providers it means Unity will probably use IronSource for their ads. Again this does not mean that every single unity game will suddenly become infested with these ads as Unity ads are an optional package that developers choose to use(unless that changes somehow) and like I mentioned before they can use other ad services. In fact IronSource was one of many ad services Unity developers could and still can use to this day. Some unity developers already use IronSource. Do what you wish with that information.

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firecat2 years ago

you are only looking at the ads which is not how these companies work to make money, anyone can block ads they know this and we know this. The problem is the tracking and lying to get you the player to agree to give up access to your personal data. Unity will require you to sent personal information and other ways you make money. These things are legal for them to do by law, other companies do not offer such because they are not as evil and scammy as installcore.

You can see a almost exact copy of such things in Valve/Steam in the User Agreement, you have given up all your rights to Valve and this is just to play games. Making games as a different effect and has different legal stats.

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