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Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal

arstechnica.com

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Re: Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal

#41

Post by mattigames »

tcfunk wrote: post #30
wishinghand wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Spatial was not doing that, they are an integration with Unity. Developers still needed to install Unity with a license, get the SpatialOS framework running as their net code, and then write a game.

I'm not so sure. Maybe I am misunderstanding but the terms prohibit the "use [of] a managed service running on cloud infrastructure...to install or execute the Unity Runtime on the cloud or a remote server". Which leads me to believe they are installing or running the Unity Runtime on their servers? If not I'd love a better explanation :)

Yes they are running unity runtime on their servers, there is nothing in the TOS against that, what is illegal is to share any of the data from that runtime online with other Unity instances. Which has nothing to do with "re-distributing" Unity has a SAAS.

Re: Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal

#42

Post by thrillgore »

wishinghand wrote: post #25

Godot is a game engine licensed with the MIT license. Unity just proved that free != yours.

Godot is also behind the curve on content pipeline tools. I love it to death, but I would never be able to convince anyone outside hobbyists to use it because it has no goddamn FBX support, or an easy ECS framework.

Re: Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal

#43

Post by tjbarkley »

Reedx wrote: post #34

Improbable's response: https://improbable.io/company/news/2019/01/10/unity-blocks-s... "Worryingly, this change occurred during an open commercial negotiation with the company to find a way to do more together." So they had an ongoing negotiation and Unity just went ahead and made the change? Yikes. Also kudos to Improbable for setting up an emergency fund for partners affected by this.

Maybe it's a shady negotiating tactic? I wonder if they had come to an impasse.

Re: Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal

#44

Post by fijal »

lordnacho wrote: post #16

This is directly relevant to that Cory Doctorow article from yesterday. In real world inventions someone could make a compatible piece and users could just buy it and plug it in. Say you have a clever new attachment for a vacuum cleaner. In cyberspace you can make things incompatible by law, and it's very effective to police. So what should you be allowed to do this with?

There are protections against that in the EU - you can reverse engineer and otherwise circumvent all the protections for the sake of making things interoperable.

Re: Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal

#45

Post by tcfunk »

mattigames wrote: post #41
tcfunk wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure. Maybe I am misunderstanding but the terms prohibit the "use [of] a managed service running on cloud infrastructure...to install or execute the Unity Runtime on the cloud or a remote server". Which leads me to believe they are installing or running the Unity Runtime on their servers? If not I'd love a better explanation :)

Yes they are running unity runtime on their servers, there is nothing in the TOS against that, what is illegal is to share any of the data from that runtime online with other Unity instances. Which has nothing to do with "re-distributing" Unity has a SAAS.

Re-distributing was the wrong word to use. But it seems to me that the Unity Runtime is a part of the stack of their SaaS.

Re: Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal

#46

Post by aboutruby »

ivraatiems wrote: post #21
asien wrote: post #18

In September and January of last year Unity raised a considerable amount of cash [0]. It seems like VCs want their growth number up and Unity has a very clear plan to run their engine in the cloud to create artificial growth by being the sole vendor of Unity Multiplayer Hosting. This is the shadiest move I’ve seen in the Industry, even worst than MongoDB. [0] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/unity-technologies

What did MongoDB do?

Probably the licensing change: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MongoDB#Licensing

Re: Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal

#47

Post by vkou »

EamonnMR wrote: post #11

This is why I tend to shy away from proprietary tools like Unity-an event like this is sort of like an asteroid strike, it's improbable but there's no defense against it and if it happens you are wiped out.

Do that, and your game will never ship - because developing your own engine is a beast of a timesink.

The open source offerings are toys compared to Unity/Unreal.

Re: Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal

#48

Post by dx87 »

izzydata wrote: post #35
umvi wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve pretty much abandoned developing everything but Steam. You'll still see a few token projects come out of Valve, but it seems like they've basically turned into Steam, Inc.

It's not really that surprising. That can do 1/10th the work as before and make 100 times the revenue. Until something seriously disrupts the online PC game market they can sit back and ignore game development.

They actually had a new game, Artifact, come out the end of November. It didn't have a good reception, mostly due to unrealistic expectations set by people in the beta, but they've commited to supporting and improving it for a long time.

Re: Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal

#49

Post by [deleted] »

ezekg wrote: post #37

> You may not directly or indirectly distribute the Unity Software, including the runtime portion of the Unity Software (the “Unity Runtime”), or your Project Content (if it incorporates the Unity Runtime) by means of streaming or broadcasting so that any portion of the Unity Software is primarily executed on or simulated by the cloud or a remote server and transmitted over the Internet or other network to end user d…

[deleted]

Re: Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal

#50

Post by radicalbyte »

ivraatiems wrote: post #21
asien wrote: post #18

In September and January of last year Unity raised a considerable amount of cash [0]. It seems like VCs want their growth number up and Unity has a very clear plan to run their engine in the cloud to create artificial growth by being the sole vendor of Unity Multiplayer Hosting. This is the shadiest move I’ve seen in the Industry, even worst than MongoDB. [0] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/unity-technologies

What did MongoDB do?

Their product wasn't fit for purpose for the first five years or so*. Of which their marketing mentioned nothing and they were extremely misleading when questioned.

It's a shame really because they did the whole onboarding really well, you could literally get it up and running in a couple of minutes and it was extremely easy to use for developers.

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