Waiting for Blue Robot - A free eBook

[Xrayez]

As you may know, despite using Godot, contributing to its development, and being an actual maintainer of Godot for years as a volunteer, I don't use Godot any longer, for anything. Not even prototyping. I also don't intend to fork Godot. You can find out the reason why in a book I wrote titled Waiting for Blue Robot.

You can find out the reason why I wrote the book in the Preface. Godot acting like a commercial organization is just a tip of the problem that I covered in the book, but it's also worth recapping this here.

Is Godot community-driven?

Read the Community-Driven for a comprehensive understanding.

You should be aware that Godot's leadership has been breaking promises regarding the focus and direction of the engine. Godot left behind Software Freedom Conservancy (they label it as a so-called graduation, a typical newspeak of Godot), and formed a syndicate of commercial companies around Godot such as W4 Games, Lone Wolf Technology LLC, Prehensile Tales, Ramatak Inc etc, again, all founded by Godot leadership.

Their task is to sell Godot in whatever shape or form, using whatever medium or service, everything else is secondary and auxiliary to their true purpose, which is banal fame and money. They maintain the image that they care about software freedom, but in reality, they exploit contributors by convincing and/or misleading them that they are in charge, and overpromising users that a particular feature is going to be implemented "eventually", as they say. Nothing good is going to come out of this. Their success is not necessarily your success.

I personally do not believe that Godot will succeed, but if it does, Godot is likely to become analogous to Roblox corporation in terms of organization which is known for financial exploitation. They may not do this directly via Godot project, but satellites such as The Mirror. I suspect that such companies will be used as one of the front groups for Godot. The allure of Simplicity makes users believe that it's the game engine that they've been waiting for, but even the origin of "Godot" name suggests a very sophisticated grift in the context of Godot Engine, read Value of Waiting chapter.

I'd like to emphasize again: that the core issue with Godot is hypocrisy and unmet expectations. The release of Godot 4.0 further confirms this, such as a broken physics engine. They cannot be trusted. They will betray everyone on their way, including contributors who invested so many hours into this bottomless pit of anti-utopian, Orwellian-like despair.

Watch this comprehensive video by someone who used Godot but eventually abandoned it.

Alternatives

It's not my intention to promote anything. However, since people who reached out to me often asked me for alternatives, I decided to compile a list of potential replacements here.

See also

• Investigation: Are Godot advocates infiltrating Unity? Are Unity community moderators sabotaging the public image of Unity?
  • This started to happen way before Unity pricing changes.
• Godot Engine and Red Hat: Investigating Relations
• Godot: The-Game-Engine-That-Must-Not-Be-Named
• Banned from Godot Engine?

[mgarcia-org]

This was a great read, very insightful!
I can't speak to the community management side, but you correctly identified the gaslighting, and manipulation... very cult like 100%

"This is not a company, there are no bosses here." ... sure it's a hobby lol
And hiding in appeal to authority

It sounds like they manipulate and gamify or funnel their supporters but I think this "business model" is pretty common with crowd funding and social movements, Wikipedia comes to mind.

web 2.0.... soft bigotry of low expectations :/

The really cynical in me, thinks sometimes FOSS code is extra cryptic for others not to be able to easily contribute, maintain or fork the code, but giving money is always easy ;)

[Xrayez]

Thanks for commenting!

As you may notice, and readers of this thread, that this thread will likely be downvoted. In my experience, most of them will be Godot cultists, obviously. None of this is allowed to be discussed in Godot. And if allowed, the entire information is likely to be misinterpreted as an anti-Godot propaganda. Such are cult apologists. 🙃

Your reference to appeal to authority is spot on as well. Due to this, I also don't want people to believe me. They can verify mostly everything for themselves.

"Do not believe anything but doubt only what is worth doubting." - George Pólya.

If you've found a mushroom, you made your first discovery. Therefore, look for more: mushrooms grow in clusters. 😁

[Conundroy]

I never had the pleasure to clash with the Godot leadership but the community on the other hand, its cultish behavior like you put it was absolutely revolting. I saw cracks before stumbling on your book but I still held out hoping things would get better, this just proves to me there's no help for Godot going forward until its current leadership is removed...

On a more positive note, what alternative would you recommend that is more akin to Unity?

[Xrayez]

Hey, thanks for reading! You're correct. However, even if Godot leadership changes nominally, I'm afraid that it would still be managed by the original leadership due to the hierarchical nature of such a cultish organization.

On a more positive note, what alternative would you recommend that is more akin to Unity?

Update on August 2023: Upon numerous requests, I have compiled a list of alternatives here.

Note how Godot rarely if ever suggests alternatives like above. Again, this is because of us-vs-them mentality, and the grandiose narcissistic image that the Godot community attempts to project onto the game development industry. Read on if you're curious about the inner social dynamics behind Godot.

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Many leaders of such organizations may even declare that they would like to "move away" from anything related to governance, but it's rarely the case, and frankly, a lie to make people have false hopes. Once they established a community around something, they will milk money out of it (in addition to Godot companies managed by Godot leadership I described above, a few others have spawned recently, like Ramatak Inc (recent), Godot Foundation (recent), again, all managed by Godot leadership). This is in contrast to organizations such as Blender, who are not hypocritical about it and operate under a single entity, again, in contrast to Godot.

You might ask: "Does it really matter if Godot leadership has given us something for free?" Yes, this fact matters to contributors-volunteers who are deluded to think that they have decision-making powers over Godot's development and waste time banging their heads against the wall, like trying to add features from other engines while Godot leadership is antagonist against other game engines (not just Unity) and frankly explains the reason behind why community needs are so heavily neglected in Godot nowadays. The success of Godot is directly correlated with contributors willing to put their free work into Godot.

Unfortunately, given the community's cultish behavior, it tends to attract and spawn similar people around Godot's leadership... I think the only hope for "Godot" would be when someone decides to make a fork of Godot, but even then, Godot members may start to claim ownership over a fork. This may sound absurd at first, but in reality, this is what cultish behavior leads to.

1. Someone may create a popular plugin/module/extension/fork.
2. Godot community and leadership may start to see it as a part of their "ecosystem", as they usually put it.
3. Author of plugin/module/extension/fork feels love bombarded, and eventually feels obligated to give away access to Godot members to manage the author's project.
4. Author no longer feels in control of their own decisions (while never admitting it publicly), and moves on doing other things due to various reasons.
5. Godot members, with its leadership, are now in control of the popular plugin/module/extension/fork.

Here's an analogy from a real-world example: Cult Awareness Network was overtaken by a cultic organization. It might sound unusual initially, but as time passes, you'll grasp the underlying message. Unless they shift their mindset from groupthink to actively participating in constructive discussions and embracing diverse perspectives, they're likely to become even more adept at functioning as a cultic organization.

Update on October 2024: See how Redot, a new fork of Godot, has been attacked recently.