So I booted up my copy of Unity today, and it popped up an error message saying the layout was borked and I had to either use the default layout or else revert to factory settings.
I clicked default layout because it seemed like it would ruin fewer things. After the project loaded, there were a bunch of errors and no playmaker window. I tried reinstalling Playmaker but that didn't work.
I tried to create a new project so I could import Playmaker fresh and set up a new window layout that includes playmaker, hoping I could save it and import that layout in my now-useless Playmaker-based project I've been working on for a long time.
While Unity would allow me to access the store, it wouldn't allow me to start a new project. Something about an XML error which according to google search apparently only started happening yesterday. (Merry Christmas to us, from Unity Team.)
So I went through the bullshit to renew my Unity Personal seat. Then I started a new project, imported Playmaker, did the pre-install check, imported playmaker again, got my windows arranged reasonably well, saved it, and opened up my borked project.
And WOULDN'T YOU KNOW IT, Unity now crashes without any error messages when loading the custom Layout. There's no Playmaker pull-down in the menu, so there's no way to re-do the update check or the proper second installation in this borked project. Nothing I try seems to fix it, and there's no indication from Unity itself as to what's wrong.
This is just another instance of Unity Team's bullshit business practices hurting independent game developers. Ever since that ex-Unreal executive came in and took over, Unity's business practices have been increasingly anti-consumer. They're not going to fix this. They have no incentive to fix this! I'm a person who hasn't made $100,000 yet, so I'm a second-class citizen.
Never mind the fact that I've been spending money on Unity Perpetual licensees and Asset Store stuff for literally years. I actually put time and effort into my games instead of just slapping together some half-assed asset flip every month and bombarding Steam with them. Clearly I deserve to fail while developers who don't give a shit deserve financial success. Those guys have a slow trickle of money coming in, so they can afford to be Unity Team's precious Recurring Revenue Stream. Meanwhile I buy things only as I need them because I can't afford to rent them, and my punishment for this is to have my project destroyed by Unity Team's bullshit project-destroying pop-ups.
They have no right to do this to us! Why isn't anybody else angry!? This kind of shit happens ALL THE TIME with Unity! It's always one step forward, two steps back. Everything since Unity 3 has been a complete shitshow, and apparently that's the way Unity Team wants it. Apparently, that's the kind of behavior the Invisible Hand of the Market wants to reward. Apparently, I'm the only person who's tired of being shat on like this, because I don't see anybody else complaining.
What's wrong with you people? Why aren't you fighting this? Unity used to be a benevolent, modestly profitable company. Then they decided they wanted to compete with Unreal Engine and all of a sudden it's 6 years of anti-consumer asshattery.
Asset Store instead of Script Wiki. Seats instead of Perpetual Licensees. Renting your tools instead of buying them. Even some of the assets are now Rent-only. It's a culture of greed and cruelty where quality products used to exist.
I'm so angry right now I can't even think straight. Sure, I only lost four months or so on this latest project, but this is indicative of a six year trend. This experience just underscores everything that is wrong with Unity, as a product and as a corporation.
And there's nothing I can do about it. There's nothing any of you can do about it, either. Playmaker is doomed. Unity Team has just demonstrated that they will kill projects made with it at the drop of a hat. I have to stop using Playmaker, or else this will just happen again. And I have no idea if renting a pro license would even have prevented this, (though smart money says if they COULD fix this, they'd fix it only for pro users out of spite.)
Unity. Everything You Need to Fail in Games and VR/AR.
