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Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal

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81–90 of 277 posts

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

#81
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…

I dunno this seems clear enough to me - they don't want you circumventing the terms of your license by running the game on a single machine and streaming it to many players. Each game instance requires a separate license. I'm sure this isn't intended to stop you from running your game's central multiplayer server. It's just to make sure you pay an appropriate licensing fee for Unity.

Gotcha, so it's an effort to close a "run the game on the server, stream video back and forth, and don't pay for client-side licenses" loophole?

I'm surprised to hear that's a scalable model and the terms do seem to read more broadly than that, but it's reassuring that it could be something other than a baldly monopolistic power play.

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

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Unity's TOS, like many software agreements, stretch retroactively and proactively across versions. If you use Unity, you agree to Unity Technologies terms, and their discretion to change them, without notice. It's literally in the terms. It's not so much software as it is software as a service.

Its highly unlikely that retroactively changing an agreement like that is actually legal.

A lot of the instincts around one-sided or surprising contract terms come from consumer protection laws in some countries. Not only is that comparatively absent from the US legal climate, it often doesn't apply to business to business relationships (such as between Unity and game development companies) even where it is present for consumers.

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

#83

I sort of find it poetic. If you decide to build on a commercial platform like Unity's you're subject to the whims of Unity Technologies. It sucks, but game engines are by far one of the riskiest investments I've seen across technical subfields. You have all of this engine-specific knowledge, and all of a sudden moving engines is near impossible. Tons of common things across major game engines, but in practice it's n…

Isn't that always the case with frameworks vs libraries? A database can be seen as a library but you build your entire game on top of the engine which makes it like a framework.

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

#84
post #10

I’m surprised the developers can’t simply reject the changes to the Unity TOS and keep using an old version of the engine (especially for production games!) Anyone know why that’s not an option?

Because Unity's TOS, like many software agreements, stretch retroactively and proactively across versions. If you use Unity, you agree to Unity Technologies terms, and their discretion to change them, without notice. It's literally in the terms. It's not so much software as it is software as a service.

The doctrine of illusory promise makes a lot of the 'we can change the license however we want' clauses very weak, as far as contractual robustness goes. There are other similar contractual doctrines that attempt to deal with similar issues, but the issue isn't that the release valves don't exist. It's that they're old, rusted and require a lot of force to turn.

The illusory promise doctrine is very seldomly used which means there's a lot of uncertainty about whether or not it would even work. And that's if the dispute gets into the courts in the first place. Which courts it gets into is another big deal; some T&Cs put requirements that the choice of forum for disputes is a favourable one for them, or they force arbitration to be the primary dispute resolution mechanic.

That said, the illusory promise doctrine CAN and HAS demolished these type of T&Cs in the past. Sometimes they even blow up other contractor favouring terms as they go (like the aforementioned choice of forum/arbitration clauses, etc.) But why are people still putting this language into their agreements? Well...

Even if the court doesn't like that segment of the contract and they sever it, there are other ways for the contractor to indicate that the bargain they've arrived at shouldn't be disturbed - including pointing towards continued performance and a lack of notice from others, so even if you correctly note that the contract is busted, the court might say you tacitly agreed to the changed terms and they're read back in, anyways.

Civilian systems have a different strategy for dealing with these types of contracts, calling them contracts of adhesion. They aren't the product of a negotiation, so they treat them will less lenience and deference.

Common law countries often adopt this style of protection through Consumer protection laws or other similar vehicles where the rules of contract are changed to fix different types of contracts.

Basically, it's very complicated - this is just my top-of-mind snapshot on some of the issues, and that complexity creates cost, and that cost prevents oversight.

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

#85
post #15

This is why I write my own damn engines.

this is no defense of abruptly changing their license, but i feel a game engine vendor controlling licensing of headless servers of their runtime is an insufficient reason to forego the 1,000s of hours that go into engine development

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

#86
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…

I've done a lot of work with multiplayer on Unity. Running a version of the game in the Unity engine as a server is necessary if you want your game to be authoritative to prevent cheating. Fortunately my game uses a custom server that I wrote, but this will be a huge hit to pretty much everyone else.

It says "primarily". If the game runs both server and client side, I don't think there is a problem.

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

#87
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…

If you do have to redo everything, why the hell would you switch to another proprietary technology?! Why not use OpenSceneGraph, OGRE, Irrlicht, Cube2, or one of the hundreds of other free game engines / frameworks out there instead?

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

#88
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

This is not about multiplayer hosting. It's about streaming. Basically, primarily running the engine on a cloud provider and streaming the game to a local client. They even list authorized partners: https://unity3d.com/legal/terms-of-service/software/authoriz...

SpatialOS is not a streaming service, it is a multi-player hosting service that runs the unity engine on multiple servers to support MMO worlds.

Unity allows streaming for approved partners with the correct liscences, but apparently negotiations with spatial broke down. Since unity didn't comment on why, all we can do is speculate.

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

#89
post #87
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…

If you do have to redo everything, why the hell would you switch to another proprietary technology?! Why not use OpenSceneGraph, OGRE, Irrlicht, Cube2, or one of the hundreds of other free game engines / frameworks out there instead?

Because it's easier and cheaper to hire developers who already know Unreal. Also, one reason enterprises pay for RedHat Linux is so that when something goes wrong, there's a business liable for it. You can't get a service level agreement from a community.

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

#90
post #87
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…

If you do have to redo everything, why the hell would you switch to another proprietary technology?! Why not use OpenSceneGraph, OGRE, Irrlicht, Cube2, or one of the hundreds of other free game engines / frameworks out there instead?

Because open source game engines are bad. There is a huge gap between Unity/Unreal and an open source engine, it's not even comparable.
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