The Godot Engine Is NOT A Scam 

At the end, maaaaybe it's better if a Godot forum is managed by someone who properly understand what Godot is 🤔😅 Maybe. I don't know.

@@gregorywatine I AGREEEEEEEEEEE! and thank you @stayathomedev for explaining this stuff!

Thanks for raising concerns. 😉

update: the original Godot forums is ¡back!, thanks to Mike Lundahl taking over leadership.

Thats one to cope with it...

Well, the issue is that Godot followers are not able to recognize it as a scam, or don't want to acknowledge it, since they are too deep into it. This is common among those who got scammed. Would you disagree with this observation?

@@MrXrayez This whole thing has been resolved already. Good luck.

@@cyzaine Resolved in what sense? Many people outside of the Godot community think that Godot is operating in a dishonest manner. Would you be confident in saying that they are all wrong?

@@MrXrayez okay

Thanks for watching!

Juan (lead developer of Godot) and Remi (project manager of Godot) both operate for-profit W4 Games and the non-profit Godot project. Imagine being an investor in W4 Games. While nobody expects W4 Games to donate all their money to Godot, as an investor, you would expect W4 Games to stand behind their publicly declared pledge and support Godot if there were a dire need to secure the jobs of existing contributors who are hired by Godot to work on the engine either part-time or full-time. This is particularly crucial since the business of W4 Games depends entirely on the success and adoption of Godot. Hence, it would not make sense to portray the situation as if Godot is in dire financial straits and entirely dependent on donations from independent developers. Therefore, people have a valid concern about whether Godot is operating in a dishonest manner, aka scam. In my experience, they do. It's a highly sophisticated grift.

@@MrXrayez No, you wouldn't....don't make stuff up! If you are interested in securing the development of Godot itself you can always invest in Godot itself. If you are interested in improving Godot for commercial interests you invest in W4 Games. The people who invested in W4 Games knew exactly what they invested it in and if the money is diverted to something else that would be actually a scam (and probably not even legal). Investment is risk taking, no one expects cash flow from project B to project A when you invested in project B - even if it depends on project A. "Godot is operating in a dishonest manner" Godot is an open source project and doesn't operate in any way...the Godot foundation is. If you are not happy with it, don't invest in it. The only people who call it a scam are the ones who have no clue about investments and how open source works.

@Red_Paper6495 donations are just that - donations. They're legaly defined as the act of giving something without any return expectations. FOSS software developers are in no way obligated to work on the features you want, unless they're under a contract, just as you're not required to donate anything to anyone.

@Red_Paper6495 you clearly don't understand whats going on. did you even watch the video?

@Red_Paper6495where is the evidence the money donated to godot is going to his other company? Or the evidence that his other company is fake as your apostrophes suggest? Should someone who runs a FOSS project not be allowed to have another project? Because so far, that’s all I’m seeing as being the basis (ie nothing) of these accusations

​​​​@Red_Paper6495 W4 raised $8.4m from investors to develop proprietary software that works with Godot to aid the process of porting games to console, among other functions. The purpose of the company is to develop the kind of functionality that only a for-profit, non-open-source company can. The investors are expecting for that $8.4m to return a profit from sales of these tools. While W4 *can* use some money to donate directly to Godot, using a large portion of the investment in this way actually *would* be fraud, as it would be a violation of fiduciary duty to investors. W4 is helping Godot because having the ability to port your game to console is crucial to the engine's future, but it isn't directly supporting Godot financially because that isn't the company's job. I get that not everyone has a firm sense of how business works, but W4 was extremely transparent about what crowd funding for them was paying for. (EDIT: After further research, turns out W4 didn't even crowd fund. Seriously, what the hell are people mad about?) If you didn't understand what they were saying, that's on you.

@Red_Paper6495 you've got to be trolling, there's no way someone can be this wrong with this amount of confidence

Yeah I've run (and completely failed at it lol) a decent (5 employee) sized small business, and the 8.5mil is not the mind boggling number some people think it is. Its pretty easy to burn through that kind of cash on taxes, insurance, rent, employees (hint to those wanting to start a business, it costs a LOT more. than someones wage to hire someone) , lawyers (dear lord these can get expensive), accountants, regulatory/compliance, more taxes. you get the picture. More to the point, that 8.5mil is earmarked to specific projects, and it would literally be go-to-jail fraud against the investor(s) to just give it to a separate non profit for *different* reasons. 8.5 mil seems like a lot of money to a person, and indeed having 8.5mil for yourself WOULD be a lot of money, retire and live the good life money. But for a business with costs, its not as much as people seem to think it is. This is a dumb-ass controversy.

Says a fervent Godot follower... Ask yourself: if you were to stumble upon on a video like this, before discovering Godot, would you have trust in Godot? Doesn't it seem weird to you that other respectable people of Godot community start to talk about this?

@@MrXrayez We have a term for that behavior. "Bandwagoning."

@@MrXrayez "if you were to stumble upon a video like this, before discovering Godot, would you have trust in Godot?" Well, nobody trusts something unknown. But any reasonable person would not gain an implicit distrust of Godot from this video, that's foolish.

@@wegner7036 Any reasonable person who comes across such a video will immediately initiate their own research to ascertain whether other members have discussed anything regarding the subject.

It's better to have faith in Buddha than in Godot at this point. 🙃 Remember, according to Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot", Godot never came, and Vladimir and Estragon's initial enthusiasm turned into despair and cynism. Godot Engine was named after "Waiting for Godot", according to Juan, the lead developer of Godot. Are you sure that Godot is not a scam?

I think if W4 Games fails to generate revenue, in several years Godot will go downhill. It's already happening, in fact, the existence of videos such as this is one of those signs. You should read what former members of Godot said years ago...

Agreed...the real issue is the loss of a community resource in godotforums.org. I really do hope that it comes back online (and honestly, I think it will)

@@stayathomedev I doubt it will, but it'll remain archived and reachable from search queries for the foreseeable future.

@@stayathomedev Just in case - it is back under new leadership.

💥🌉💥

Honestly, I believe it's for the best, most of all I expect caution, empathy and presumption of innocence from people curating any important *community* platform. I feel like u/cybereality is really upset and it's understandable: managing such a community is a very stressful job. Perhaps, there is also an issue of Godot Foundation not feeling like a team, that they are, or not including community managers and administrators to that "team" group. I just hope in the end, that this doesn't affect the attraction of Godot Engine as an engine for the people around, those kinds of instabilities sometimes kill projects

I understand the issue of money, funds, where it all goes. That said...to me, everything seems pretty transparent (with the non-profit they have to be). Like you said, hope it's just a flash, and the godotforums come back online.

It's not a misunderstanding, it's deliberate. Some of the bigger detractors have released competitive engines. I know at least two have admitted to it.

No, it's more like the final straw that broke the camel's back. There exist dozens of other issues with Godot that are outside the topic of this video. Collectively, broken expectations contribute to the notion of Godot operating as a dishonest scheme (aka scam, refer to a dictionary).

It's even more confusing because the guy who started this has been involved in Godot for a while. Last I saw of him on Discord, he seem kinda disillusion but not like.. call-out post angry.

I mean, it's really clear-cut that it's open-source and free. Them asking for money is just them asking for money...while not withholding a thing that has already been provided... So, I don't see that guy's problem. What them already having money has to do with anything is beyond me, and as you say, this was misrepresented in the first place, as W4 and Godot Foundation are different things. My thoughts are this is yet another narcissist on the internet who needed something to make people hate to feel good about themselves. It's a short-sighted attention grab that wont amount to anything.

"they're completely different" "w4 supports Godot" Which is it

@@dragonwarriorz1 Both. They're completely different entities. One supports the other.

@@dragonwarriorz1 Money invested into developing support for proprietary tools can not be used for open-source engine developed and maintained by separate non-profit entity. Otherwise it would creates a greater risk that investors would demand making engine itself a closed-source.

wikipedia gets its money from corporate and nonprofit grants, not individuals. and it is very much a valid concern for integrity.

@@skyworm8006 Yeah I know, I'm saying it's the same model Godot is using and that's a good thing. W4 of course is a bit different because are in a unique situation but it's the same in spirit. Neither the wikimedia foundation or W4 or anyone involved are selling out by funding the way they are, and it isn't greedy or deceptive to ask for donations from the community when they need more on top of the other funding they are already getting. Things cost money. It's the same model public radio and TV use. And I donate to Wikipedia, so yes they do get funding from individuals even if it's just my monthly five bucks 😉

@@skyworm8006 Wikipedia also used to do(don't know if they still do) occasional public donation runs. I know, I have donated to one such in around 2013 or there about.

And thankfully they literally can't sell out because they don't own the engine. Godot is the only one of the big game engines that can't just be put in the trashcan by an executive that decided they weren't making enough short term returns. RIP Unity.

You compare apples to oranges here, and I hope you understand the difference here. I recommend doing your own research, don't jump to conclusions. This video is misleading and does not cover the entire picture of what actually happened.

Ad hominem.

@@MrXrayez "Ad hom." Calling people cultists is an ad hom. Bruh, I'm actually surprised you're comments are tolerated on any of these videos.

@@ClockworkGearhead did he just call me a cultist ?? The fuck

@@Nylnezz How did you go from me talking to someone else about what _THEY_ said to you pretending to be offended like you were personally accused? Dip.

Easier said than done tho.

This will happen more often in the Godot community though. It's not a matter of if, but when.

@@MrXrayez found Unity employee

@@kooostia16 I'm a co-author of Godot. Read "Waiting for Blue Robot".

Not falsehoods, but valid concerns. Please, read what former members of Godot said in the past.

Because it is a lie. 99 out of a 100 fork doesn't work comunity gets fragmented and project dies slow agonising death I have seen it 100s of times

@@FeniksGaming And yet all it takes is that 1 successful fork.

@Megalomaniakaal and yet 99 out of a 100 projects that split die

@@FeniksGaming So keep forking. :p

@@FeniksGaming Of course they die, not everyone can make their copy of the engine successful. A few are widely used (mostly 1), and rest just are to fulfill niche use cases that few individuals had.

Hello, I'm that guy who Juan got banned. It's amusing to observe you talking about things without even spending time doing your own research. 😂

You made your entire internet personality and activity based on that fact. That tells me all I need to know.

@@Bezimienny My condolences.

@@MrXrayez Or you're just a sad, hurt loser looking to get some payback...

Godot sucks

Try, as much as humanly possible, to keep your emotions reined in. Emotional response is quick and "natural" for us human beings, but such responses tend to work against us in the long run. You're, or should be, in control of your emotions, not the other way around. Do it for your own benefit, that of your loved ones and the species at large.

The reason why you say "can feel life-threatening" is that you're feeling too strongly attached to a project and feel highly dependent on it. If I were you, I'd start researching what former members of Godot have been saying about it, and seek alternatives, regardless of how deeply in "love" you are with Godot. Be strategic.

@@MrXrayez it’s MIT licensed, even if the original creators were to abandon the project I can change it myself, even more realistically, community would pickup the project themselves. We are not locked in and on the mercy of some company. Life treating was with the tongue in the cheek. What it can feel like before noticing the though and observing it in the mindfulness manner.

@@DarkPaladinX thanks for your thoughts. Emotions are just happening, we can choose how to react. I am a fan of Marshall Rosenberg work on non-violent communication. Highly recommended.

@@sapbucry For some reason, Godot followers think that the freedom to modify Godot is the most important aspect of Godot, almost as if it’s Godot's inherent feature. The problem with this false sense of empowerment, as in "it's open source, so anything I may need I can do myself, the possibilities are endless!" is that in many cases, you don’t know how to do it yourself. And that means that you will spend a lot of time learning how to develop the thing you need, compared to someone who already got the skills to do so. And relying on some luck factors, like believing that the community will be able to gather together and make an alternative, practically suggests that using some commercial solution isn't a bad idea after all... Due to all the above, you may find yourself working on a tool rather than working on your dream thing using a tool. Therefore, you either pay with money, or your work. Time is expensive. Even as a proponent of free software myself, I say that there’s no such thing as freedom in this particular context, I think it’s a myth when we talk about maintenance and support specifically.

Isn't W4 doing console exports like that soon?

Both of those things were what W4 was supposed to be. If memory serves correct, W4 was founded by several core members of the original Godot development team with the explicit purpose of handling the financial end of things that the Godot Foundation could not handle due to its open source nature. Specifically the console porting which would bridge the gap between public availability and proprietary use with some talk of a marketplace for assets and plugins in the same vein as the Blender Marketplace. Not sure exactly what occurred here, but I think it comes down to a lack of communication and transparency between them where W4 received investor funding and someone on the Foundation side expected a portion of that to be immediately passed on in the form of donation.

@@Dilligff What it seems like to me, is that it's not lack of transparency. It's one guy who has seems to be having some serious trouble understanding difference between Godot (as a whole) and W4 doing for godot. Like, two completely different things, and W4 having money does not equal Godot Foundation having money. Which is like... not exactly difficult concept to understand. But some people... man.

​@@Dilligff no,w4 games is not doing the asset store, that the godot foundation.

@@Dilligff What do you think about the purpose of Godot being allegedly non-profit, then? To clarify, both for-profit W4 Games and Godot as a project are controlled by Juan (lead developer of Godot) and Remi (project manager of Godot).

When the lead developer of Godot managed to raise $8.5 million for his private for-profit W4 Games company and neglected Godot, it was not interpreted as a scam by Godot followers. But when Unity gets merged with ironSource, all of a sudden this creates mass hysteria. 🤡

Keep in mind that all cults are designed to be welcoming. While you may have had a positive experience with Godot, it's crucial to acknowledge that the organization may not be operating with complete honesty. In fact, Godot may be acting in a completely dishonest way, and you will never know about it until you research this issue yourself. The fact that such a video exists should give a hint to you that there's something wrong with Godot as an organization, don't you think?

@@MrXrayez Yo, tell us about your "Godot is a cult," video.

@@ClockworkGearhead Sure, since you explicitly asked for it, I can describe it for you. My video draws parallels between certain unethical practices in the Godot community and those found in other cults. It is intended to be a satirical expression of the inner workings of Godot, including inducing guilt, suppressing criticism, suppressing doubts, ostracizing dissenters, and labeling critics as conspirators (some use different words for this, such as "detractors"). While it is ultimately up to individuals to make their own judgments about whether or not Godot is a cult, as a former member, I strongly advise staying away from it, at least from the community of core developers. Godot Engine has a following that some consider cult-like, though it is focused on IT rather than physical practices. While many people only see the user side of Godot and may think that there are no issues with the community, it's important to recognize that cults often appear welcoming on the surface but can be abusive internally. Some respected members of the Godot community openly acknowledge its cult-like nature, but they don't see it as a negative trait. It's true that not all cults are inherently harmful, but when we examine other cult characteristics, it becomes apparent that Godot exhibits signs of toxicity. Some of these signs manifest as subconscious cognitive dissonance. If you are a contributor to Godot, the information I provide will be particularly useful to you. There is a lack of clarity among Godot contributors regarding the project's vision. If you attempt to address this issue or ask about Godot's leadership or governance, you may encounter passive-aggressive and unappealing behavior from overzealous followers. In fact, these individuals may even label those who criticize the group as "cultists". Ironically, it appears that the more aware they become of this aspect of their group, the more they project this label onto others.

@@MrXrayez Your video is propaganda. I watched it. It's ridiculous.

@@ClockworkGearhead have you donated to Godot already?

That's an interesting theory, but as with all theories, they must be proven. In contrast, we're discussing concrete issues with Godot.

Let's go!! Haha. Thanks for signing up. I am actually going to use it for real so your effort won't be in vain

Look at what former members of Godot say, then.

@@MrXrayez No one cares.

There is free cheese available in a mousetrap. Go get it! 😁

@@MrXrayezWell, I used Godot and my hand was, in fact, _NOT_ crushed by a mousetrap. Your response?

Don't get into the trap of confirmation bias.

@@MrXrayez the same applies for those who really believe that Godot is a scam because of videos which go towards this bias. Godot Engine and W4 Games are not the same thing. The funds raised by the foundation for W4 Games are not meant to finance the development of the engine itself, but the development of the integration of the engine with development kits from Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft to make Godot be able to export games to their commercial hardware.

@@andermetalbrasil At the time when Juan Linietsky found himself bombarded with criticism over his and other PLC members’ business ventures tied to Godot (W4 Games, Lone Wolf Technology, Ramatak Inc., Prehensile Tales B.V., etc), he craftily employed a little spin. He cunningly referred to these companies as “satellite” communities, allegedly separate from the official Godot project, which posed him as a highly hypocritical individual. Quote: Juan: "It’s just amazing for me to see that Godot has grown so massively, even this past year, that not just the official communities grew huge, but there is now an infinity of smaller satellite communities unattached from the official one.." Juan made those statements in an effort to distract from the scandal. He urged people to donate to Godot as if it was on the brink of bankruptcy, even though they had received $8.5 million in funding from venture investors at W4 Games: Juan: "The project tapped into reserves to do more hires in order to complete Godot 4.0 (and now 4.1). This was successful and you can now enjoy it! But money is running out as the funding went cashflow negative.." Whereas W4 Games, a for-profit company founded and operated by Juan himself, pledged to support Godot’s project financially: W4 Games: "Additionally, W4 Games pledges to support Godot financially with no-strings-attached donations to the project." Imagine being an investor in W4 Games. While nobody expects W4 Games to donate all their money to Godot, as an investor, you would expect W4 Games to stand behind their publicly declared pledge and support Godot if there were a dire need to secure the jobs of existing contributors who are hired by Godot to work on the engine either part-time or full-time. This is particularly crucial since the business of W4 Games depends entirely on the success and adoption of Godot. Hence, it would not make sense to portray the situation as if Godot is in dire financial straits and entirely dependent on donations from independent developers. A respectable community member of Godot accurately outlined this situation: Cybereality: "To say W4 Games “is unrelated to the Godot project” is pretty disingenuous. That investment was made on the popularity of Godot, not you and Remi personally. And now to say “money is running out” and “development pace will probably go down” when you have $8.5M is a total scam." It’s worth clarifying that one of the definitions of the word scam is a dishonest scheme. Examining these facts, it becomes increasingly challenging to arrive at any interpretation that would deny Godot’s status as a hybrid organization now. The emergence of multiple commercial enterprises operating under the umbrella of Godot, overseen by the very leadership of the project, and the subsequent departure of Godot from SFC (Software Freedom Conservancy), serve as unmistakable evidence that Juan’s earlier assurances are, at best, fallacious. Do you disagree with my analysis of this situation? If yes, what exactly do you find problematic?

Thank you sir, and for the work you do 🙏

I like that, "God-oh Guy" haha

lol he says it more like gah doh

No. Most are just liars, and have competitive products out that lose against Godot.

@@ClockworkGearhead It seems that followers of Godot tend to dismiss any doubts raised about their beliefs and instead label them as misunderstandings or conspiracies. When faced with criticism, they often cannot tolerate it and adopt a black-and-white mentality of "you're either with us or against us." They may even accuse those who voice concerns of acting in bad faith, seeking revenge, or being biased and angry. Some may even suggest that these critics need professional help, insinuating that they might be insane. Have I missed anything? 😉

@@MrXrayez My comment was 3 weeks ago. _You're still here starting a fight._

​@@ClockworkGearheadI knew that you'd say this, and I find it unreasonable for you to bring up the delay in online conversations. You seem to understand this, yet you use it as a means to make me feel guilty and discourage a productive exchange of ideas, which is ridiculous. By framing my comment as an attempt to start a fight, you only prove my initial point. Followers of Godot, such as yourself, view critical discussions as an attack rather than a means of discovering the truth. I genuinely want to have a constructive conversation with you, but you continue to ignore my questions in my previous comments. 🤡

I wouldn't say it's unfortunate really, just confusing.

People realized millions were moving through W4 and, out of jealousy or greed, wanted a say in how it was spent after being a "contributor" to Godot, and they got told a firm no. I'm speculating, of course, since the _only_ drama I see in this situation is _from_ the people calling Godot a scam. I see literally zero from the Godot side at all. Every once in a while you see this. A project gets popular, and a couple of bullies think they can take over by attacking people's character and forcing their way. This time they lost, and pretty hard, so they're out to destroy the entire thing. They failed on that, too.

@@ClockworkGearhead As you acknowledged, I confirm that what you say is speculation, and frankly a strawman. I am a co-author of Godot and a former maintainer of it. My comment is from Godot's side, as I used to be part of their inner circle of developers. I already anticipate your response. If you go and say "See, you're the only one", I hasten to disappoint you because I'm not. Why do you think that the current members of Godot would label it as a scam? This doesn't make sense. They would immediately be banned by Godot's toxic leadership for merely saying this. Moderators are even banning videos like this one when posted in Godot's Discord. Believe it or not, some current members of Godot reach out to me to express their disapproval of leadership, since they are so afraid of retaliation by Godot's leadership. I'm not going to list them here for obvious reasons. Time will reveal the true nature of Godot, videos like these are the first step.

@@MrXrayez Yes, and they kicked you out for starting problems. That's why you're mad and try to paint them as a cult. You've made a book and a video attempting this and spam comments in every single video attacking and pissing off anyone that doesn't bow to your psychosis. You've been doing this for _years._ There is something genuinely wrong with you. Seek help.

Yes, Godot needs more people like you, who don't recognize their agency. 🙃

You misrepresent the argument. We are talking about Godot as a project, not as a piece of software here. However, Godot's own flaws in terms of software does contribute to the notion of Godot being a scam, due to broken features and expectations.

This is truth, and you will find those professionals in the Unity and Unreal discords, because Godot fails for anything but small games as Godot doesn't scale. Most of Godot's users are hobbyists, and few will ever push the engine beyond a small games-- so they won't hit the wall. Those of us who have tried to use Godot in larger, professional projects... had to move to other engines as Godot was far too problematic, lacks performance, incapable of loading large scenes without crashing, etc. Even Shmellyorc who made some of the largest 2D pixel worlds in Godots is now building his own engine because Godot's 2D performance is bottom of the barrel when a game starts to scale. As I like to say about Godot, you don't know what you don't know until you do know it. And until you build a large game with Godot, you don't know how bad it is going to be. Godot is great for small scale games-- but the engine does not scale, at all, to larger ones.

@@lillybyte Godot has its niche and gives opportunity of growth for small studios. It does very well its job in its niche. I just want to point out the thing you said about most users of Godot being hobbyists: as do Unity.

@@lillybyte Boy are you going to be in for a shock with my experimentation in Godot 4, it's way more capable than people realise.

Every generation or so, some people write long essays about how OSS projects are just for hobbyists, happened to Linux, happened to almost all database servers, happened to Blender, "does not scale", "it's not for professionals" are usually the arguments.

@@lethn2929 I've always said, I'll be open minded about Godot running larger games. But, it has been 7 years for me, it hasn't happened yet. All we get are demos, but when those demos scale to larger games-- they suffer performance problems. I have always said, when Godot manages it, I'll recognize it. It isn't there yet.

At the time when Juan Linietsky found himself bombarded with criticism over his and other PLC members’ business ventures tied to Godot (W4 Games, Lone Wolf Technology, Ramatak Inc., Prehensile Tales B.V., etc), he craftily employed a little spin. He cunningly referred to these companies as “satellite” communities, allegedly separate from the official Godot project, which posed him as a highly hypocritical individual. Quote: Juan: "It’s just amazing for me to see that Godot has grown so massively, even this past year, that not just the official communities grew huge, but there is now an infinity of smaller satellite communities unattached from the official one.." Juan made those statements in an effort to distract from the scandal. He urged people to donate to Godot as if it was on the brink of bankruptcy, even though they had received $8.5 million in funding from venture investors at W4 Games: Juan: "The project tapped into reserves to do more hires in order to complete Godot 4.0 (and now 4.1). This was successful and you can now enjoy it! But money is running out as the funding went cashflow negative.." Whereas W4 Games, a for-profit company founded and operated by Juan himself, pledged to support Godot’s project financially: W4 Games: "Additionally, W4 Games pledges to support Godot financially with no-strings-attached donations to the project." Imagine being an investor in W4 Games. While nobody expects W4 Games to donate all their money to Godot, as an investor, you would expect W4 Games to stand behind their publicly declared pledge and support Godot if there were a dire need to secure the jobs of existing contributors who are hired by Godot to work on the engine either part-time or full-time. This is particularly crucial since the business of W4 Games depends entirely on the success and adoption of Godot. Hence, it would not make sense to portray the situation as if Godot is in dire financial straits and entirely dependent on donations from independent developers. A respectable community member of Godot accurately outlined this situation: Cybereality: "To say W4 Games “is unrelated to the Godot project” is pretty disingenuous. That investment was made on the popularity of Godot, not you and Remi personally. And now to say “money is running out” and “development pace will probably go down” when you have $8.5M is a total scam." It’s worth clarifying that one of the definitions of the word scam is a dishonest scheme. Examining these facts, it becomes increasingly challenging to arrive at any interpretation that would deny Godot’s status as a hybrid organization now. The emergence of multiple commercial enterprises operating under the umbrella of Godot, overseen by the very leadership of the project, and the subsequent departure of Godot from SFC (Software Freedom Conservancy), serve as unmistakable evidence that Juan’s earlier assurances are, at best, fallacious.

Yeah because Juan is sitting on 8.5 million dollars

@@dragonwarriorz1 yeah.. juan is sitting on the money, but the question is, is that his money? Nope, thats the investor's money, Juan is just a manager, the holder of the investment money, he can use that money but with the authorization of the investors or if its aligned to the deal that was made between Juan and the Investors..

I thought this too; that it was an attempt to destroy Godot reputation. Instead of improving their own engines, they resort to corporate espianage lol. This is in jest; but I wouldn't be surprised if it was true. I am currently learning Unreal Engine; and I will say that Godot is extremely easy in comparison. I hit a creative brick wall with it and needed something to inspire me, so I went with Unreal since Unity was a bug ridden broken mess. Well guess what, Unreal is a bug ridden broken mess, that is difficult to use. Just try to import anything other than a character rig with IK, and you will find it nearly impossible.

There exist Godot evangelists inside Epic Games, such as Martina Santoro that have connections with OKAM Studio, who have used Godot for their projects. I guess they work from within the organization to convince CEOs to sponsor Godot. These Godot advocates are found falsely portraying Godot as one of the “world’s third biggest game engines,” a claim that starkly contradicts reality. What’s more alarming is the notion of overthrowing the established engines in favor of Godot, fueled by such misleading assertions.

Yeah their main other complaints were that the devs 'stole' code from another project in the beginning and that there were many bug reports on github that were not being filled, it's interesting how like others this person set out with the objective of trying to make Juan look bad but instead ended up making themselves look far worse by stirring up e-drama instead. No one is going to want CyberReality near their project after this lol. I don't blame the devs at all for taking the forum off the site.

If you want proof, you can read "Waiting for Blue Robot". It focuses on mostly the organizational culture and governance of Godot but also covers technical aspects of Godot. To be honest, there exist enough testimonies to confirm that Godot does have technical issues.

​@@lethn2929No one from *Godot's overzealous followers* going to want CyberReality near his project after this. Don't generalize this to the entire game development industry. In fact, those who use engines like Unity happen to agree with people like CyberReality about Godot.

Indeed, would love if they'd reconsider power distribution in the organization, to have people not tied any way to W4 Games, responsible for the non for profit

That's literally his project. Open source doesn't mean democracy

@Zaphispo noone is asking for democracy. You can put that strawman away. Just pointing to the fact that when you have the same group of 5 to 8 people involved in EVERY decision around Godot and money are involved you are bound to bum into conflicts of interests if W4 was set by people who are not a part of main decision making this discussion wouldn't be happening right now. To say W4 and Godot are separate is like to say that Instagram and Threads are separate. Technically true but in practice run by the same people. Just like CEO of Threads will never disagree with CEO of Instagram nor will ever CEO of W4 will be in disagreement with Lead dev of Godot and that is a lot of influence over the "comunity driven project" when serious money starts to be involved. Again Godot is NOT a scam but if it ever wanted to be one structures currently in place are perfect for it

@@Zaphispo indeed, it's all about what they want from this project. If Juan does want for people to be cautious of donating towards Godot Foundation (and thus financing the growth of the project) because of shady governance, or wants to have a huge bus factor in the project, because they are the sole ruler of every major platform and account, then it makes total sense to keep going with the authoritative approach. After all, there are its own upsides Though in case Juan wishes more utilization of Godot in more commercial projects, growth of the capabilites of the engine and increase of its spread in the gamedev community, which also would boost W4 Games capitalization as they have certain degree of association with the engine itself, then the more "checks and balances" like governance fits better.

@@sealoftimeThat’s already the case. The non profit is helmed by a board of 9 people, with a strict rule that no single entity can be represented in this group as a majority. Juan is not the sole leader of the project, he is the lead developer and one of two founders. All legal matters are decided by a collective consensus of the board (previously PLC). And the executive director of the foundation is Emilio, who is not a part of W4.

My understanding is it's less about money and more about having proprietary knowledge from those consoles and how they work (via the SDKs) that closely connected to open source software.

@@stayathomedev in many cases you also have to be able to present knowledge about the plattform at least in some form of already produced game or a similar demo in order to be granted access. At least it used to be like this. With the opening of console game stores for many more indie titles those restrictions may have loosened up. Ultimately it is also just as possible to get an SDK from Nintendo or Sony like before and program all the plugins yourself. It just requires a lot more money, time and knowledge on the production side. Unity is able to deliver a closed source exporter that only needs the SDK rights from the company and thus make it easier for the users. Godot cannot do this because Open Source and SDK/NDA reasons. I hope W4 games will make a good job in offering Godot SDKs and ports. Godot could benefit from an easy system a LOT and even potentially even make it a tad more accessible than even Unity or Unreal is able to do, right now. But only time will tell, there.

Best, perhaps. Perfect? Far from it.

@@MrERJ1992 it's definitely not perfect, collision in 3D is very unoptimized, animations can have a few issues, and general workflow with the code editor like refactoring and features from other languages are missing, but other than that I'd say Godot is almost the perfect game engine once it fixes those last few issues, and also importing 3D objects in some formats is broken and also importing skeletons for 3D is broken too

@@rytif because no triple aaa studio has given it a shot because no one has shown what it can do yet, moment someone makes a large 3D popular game with lots of features some company will

Apparently they were paying for it out of pocket on their own so I'd say they're justified in doing whatever they want with it. This might be a knee jerk reaction but it's their financial situation funding it.

No.

No you do not have to.

> If SDKs are proprietary, how can they be added into Godot? A closed/proprietary fork of godot for the specific console/platform. Mind, all that's really needed is the export template with the runtime in it.

Juan previously assured the community that, "We are not here to sell a professional product or make money from you." However, by accessing consoles, they would essentially be doing just that. Hence, it seems odd that they established W4 Games in the first place. What are your thoughts on this?

Which activation?

i registered. however when i try to login it says wrong password. if i try to resend activation mail it will not show up in inbox. If i try to reset password nothing will show up in my mail. if i try to sign up again it will tell me my email is in use.

Don't particularly care for the owner of the forums, but I'm glad homophobia and transphobia didn't find a place on their platform. And neither should it here.

@@Anvilfolk Objecting to blatant political pandering is not homophobia or transphobia, get over yourself, I can sniff out people like you in five seconds just based on what sort of buzzwords you're using.

@@Anvilfolk This may sound homophobic, but the same goes to the opposite. Just simply put, any kind of hate, may it be against straight, christians, conservatives, etc. is just as worse as hating on lgbt+ stuff. Godot shouldn't be a place where you voice your own opinion and be political. It should be a place for learning and the love for videogames, whether you yourself are a creator or not. And if someone were to make a controversial game, it's up to them to take responsibility and handle the consequences.

@@RenceAsANoob Fortunately you didn't see me criticizing or making generalizations about christians/religious folks 🤷 Plenty of Godot contributors are queer one way or another, and damn proud of it, because it's hard to be queer in many spaces and still contribute to them. That includes society in general as much as it includes the godot contributor community sometimes. So anyone who argues that queer folks shouldn't exist, or that complains at the mere sight of a pride flag, is part of the reason why pride flags and anti-oppression efforts are still so important. Let's not compare "I don't think you should exist" with "stop attacking me for believing you shouldn't exist", yeah?

@@Anvilfolk As expected you're making a massive stretch in order to justify attacking people you disagree with and yes, that's exactly what you're doing, don't deny it, everyone knows what you are, the joke is actual LGBT people hate people like you because of how you make them look bad with your behaviour. Stirring up drama and trying to cause shit wherever you go and I wouldn't be surprised if there was some aspect of that going on here with CyberReality. Nothing satisfies you beyond full throated virtue signalling and you can't just leave people alone because you're that entitled you think that simply not flying that stupid pride flag is a sign of homophobia and you even admit to this yourself so this is a total mask off moment and I love it because it means I don't have to waste time exposing you. By the way, which pride flag are we talking about? You can't even decide on what flags you want displayed, are we talking about the traditional rainbow flag, the trans flag or the stupid racial/trans pride flag that makes you look like a bunch of inverted Nazis? This is a warning to any would be or current devs that are thinking of supporting this, @Anvilfolk is operating a political extortion racket and it's all under the guise of supporting the gays when in reality they just want to be able to hijack whatever project you're making and if you happen to be lucky enough to make money out of what you do they will infiltrate your company and eventually take over and they will ruin everything because they know nothing about game dev to begin with. It recently happened to the SkullGirls dev and the people who took over barely even worked on the project, ignore my warnings about these people at your own peril.

They invested almost nothing and ran the forums for only two months before shutting them down and them pimping their own engine.

Nothing they are yet to spend it, If you're talking about the 8 mil, The money the godot project has currently however we don't know, they might have very little in comparison.

Ironically, neither Godot Foundation nor W4 Games provide financial reports last time I checked.

A scam is a dishonest scheme by definition. This definition applies accurately when we talk about hybrid organizations, which Godot represents de facto.

Godot is true open source. I don't know what you're getting on about. It's MIT licensed chad.

I can't believe that so many Godot followers believe this video. Humanity is screwed. Look at what former members of Godot say. It will open your eyes to many things.

so it's possible that the telemetry will be implemented in Godot then?

​@@borob.5168 When I brought it up on Twitter, one of the devs replied and said they had "discussions" about it. But, I know those discussions were much closer to arguments, and demands about "what the investors" of W4 want, as I've heard it from multiple sources now. I don't care about telemetry, but it is FOSS... why does a FOSS project that is, supposedly, "impartial and separate from W4" need telemetry? I find the statements of impartiality to be incredibly tone deaf, especially since Juan and Remi are leaders of both Godot AND W4. There's no impartiality there.

​@@lillybyte "since Juan and Remi are leaders of both Godot AND W4" keep repeating that until you believe it. Doesn't make it true tho

@@filipecoelho9855 Then if I were you, I'd be asking how/why W4 was pressuring Godot for telemetry. And why some Godot devs were arguing pretty heavily /for/ telemetry in Godot because of stakeholder interests. If they were impartial from one another, it wouldn't have been an issue. I doubt Godot users are out there demanding telemetry in their open source software.

​@filipecoelho9855 lol Juan quite literally has the last say on anything that gets Inplemented(hes the main reason there is no terrain)

You seem to look at this from the standpoint of a user of Godot. If you lure people into providing free labor to create a hammer, assure those people that they are in charge, and then turn around and sell it without giving anything back to the community who contributed to its creation, that is undoubtedly a scam. You can find an analogous situation in Godot, given enough research. However, the issue here is not about money, but the hypocrisy of Godot's leadership and how they exploit their non-profit status to gain unfair economical advantage. They simply cannot be trusted, and the issue that this video brings up is just the tip of the iceberg.

My experience with non-profits (and I'm no lawyer), is that while many parallels exist with LLCs/Corps, there are differences in how you can procure funding, what that funding can go towards, and how those decisions are made. They could start a non-profit and SELL the engine if they wanted to but to separate more commercial ventures from the Foundation make sense. Plus, W4 Games is only partly made of Godot Engine vets (only 2 I believe).

I’m a little confused here, i may be totally mistaken but W4Games raised investors money to run a services company focused on providing commercial services specifically targeting the Godot engine (i.e. console ports, networking services and likely other things. I don’t think there was ever a claim made they were doing this to fund Godot. They’d probably get sued by their investors if they did just that. That many things they do benefit the project, sure. They do sponsor the project and Godot was able to have a large booth at GDC mainly thanks to W4G, but also thanks to Ramatak, another professional services company. They are also far from the first or the only ones, not to mention that this is incredibly common in the FOSS world. Most see a healthy eco system of professional services spring up around them often started or employing key people. It’s a benefit to all.

Sadly, cybereality was heavily misinterpreted by Godot followers, which gave rise to many strawman arguments from Godot fans. This is not the only issue with Godot, cybereality also talked about the technical part of Godot, which was mostly ignored by Godot followers. Collectively, these factors contribute to a notion that Godot is operating as a highly sophisticated grift.

The documentation has everything and the engine itself has the documentation built in

​@@stayathomedev okay lol i found it but send people there first instead of acting like they just need more help your profiting off me

@@stayathomedev no see this is what im saying whoever wrote that shouldn't have signal =Defines a signal. func =Defines a function. static =Defines a static function its useless for what it is

@@stayathomedev defiantly a scam right down to the guy making the website not wanting to define the actions

Godot did not, a group of rich investors gave Juan and W4 (he's comsony that supports Godot) 8.5 million, keyword is invest, meaning he has to use that money to Make money. In no way is this money used to help godot directly unless it's of the interest of the investors, such as console SDK used to make console ports.

Godot foundation *never* had 8.5 million. That was money invested in W4, a completely differenct legal entity. Did you watch this video?

@@Sprogster I did. Seems You missed the sarcasm in my comment

Nah, that moron had issues with Juan/godot before taking over the forums and used his emotional drama to get some attention. If you've read his previous posts, he meant exactly what he (stupidly) said.

Eh. One person might not have meant it, but she did use the word, and now everyone _else_ does mean it. And no. You don't prove a negative. If someone claims, "Scam," bring the receipts. Accusations are not proof enough.

@@ClockworkGearhead An audit would be proof enough; including an investigation of proof of legitimacy on all parties involved. But who's going to do and pay for that?

​@@rremnarthe irony is that Godot Foundation does not currently provide financial reports of any kind, nor W4 Games. This is at the time when Godot's leadership hypocritically claims to be fully transparent.

@@rremnar MrXraye is exactly the type I was talking about, and he waltzed in and proved my point for me. He's got hundreds of comments across every "Godot Scam" video, all of them attacking Godot users left and right. All of them eluding to vagaries but no substance. You need to bring actual proof I'm being scammed, because I, as an amateur user of Godot, have seen zero damages on my end. Otherwise I don't care for all this pettiness. The person who _HAS_ caused harm to this community, however, is a guy writing a book calling everyone a cultist and another guy shutting down the forums out of spite. Why would I care what they have to say?

How much of that is free games with ads as well as designed around microtransactions and/or gambling? If someone doesn't want to make a game like that, I think PC and console are better options.

@@skyworm8006 doesn't matter. The reality is that mobile games are making times more than Consoles or PCs. Ignoring such fact is ignoring more than 50% of the gaming market.

Whatever might be the reason, censorship is common in Godot community.

Untrue I can see your comments clearly, you might have worms in that brain of yours, either that or you lack one.

@@kmouratidis Noted. I stand corrected. But you know what i mean. :)