Unity is coming out with a new pricing model for 2024, where game developers will have to fork over money every time someone installs their game. this includes redownloads of already bought games, and downloads of games from places like game pass. it also applies to game demos and free games. it even applies if someone transfers a game from one device to another.
the policy applies if your company makes over $200,000 in yearly revenue and the game has been downloaded over a certain number of times in its entire lifetime.
there are rumors that gambling games and gotcha games are exempt.
https://blog.unity.com/news/plan-pricing-and-packaging-updates
What are the alternatives? I want to make free games. Not interested in making money just want to share my games with friends.
Text-based, 2D, or 3D? If you're artistically inclined, use something quick and easy like rpg-maker, ren'py, or game-maker studio to get your feet wet. If you're more interested in programming, make a CLI or TUI game to get your bearings on the fundamentals of a game engine and your desired programming langauge. 3D: mess around with Godot or Unreal Engine 3, or Blender for the models and animation.
A recommendation you're not going to find in a generic web search is Open Croquet, although it's early 00's educational tech.
RPG-makers with story images require a lot of 'artistic' work.
Quick and easy should be quick and dirty. A complete project that 1000+ people will enjoy takes devs with some prior experience at least 10 months to make. I started programming with Al Sweigart's Invent With Python, but I'm loathe to recommend a dedicated SJW. That series of dead simple games like hangman is my idea of a dead simple game you share with 2 friends before deciding if you want to dedicate to the hobby.
Warning for those who do decide to use UE3/UDK: if you do decide to upgrade your project to UE4/UE5, the old codebase from UE3/UDK is not compatible with UE4/UE5.
I haven't used Godot, but UE4/UE5 is very poorly optimised for small projects with small footprints. If you're making a big, visually grandiose game for multiple platforms then UE5 would be a good option, but for something compact and simple with great performance, nearly anything else is better.
Thanks, slip of the tongue. Don't mess with older engines unless you're modding older games. Godot aims for beginner-intermediate friendliness, while UE5 is to get familiar with modern tech rather than make your own small game.