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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

#91

Post by ricardobeat »

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…

Doesn’t this also make services like Nvidia shield in breach of the terms for any Unity games?

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

#92

Post by dave_sullivan »

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…

I don't know why people are still using unity instead of UE4 except for historical reasons where users of the engine are hesitant to switch and have to relearn some things.

Unity is not open source, it does not come with batteries included (so you end up buying a bunch of poorly maintained unity assets/plugins to do stuff that UE4 does out of the box), and I think they're struggling as a company more than people realize (having raised large investment rounds and now seeking ways to monetize to an extent that would justify such investment). The best thing Unity has going for it is its dedicated user base.

Meanwhile, UE4 is a really good deal and keeps getting better with every release. It's really just a better put together engine all around.

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

#93

Post by ricardobeat »

bengotow wrote: post #72
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…

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.

As far as I understand you needed your own Unity / Unreal / Cryengine license to develop using SpatialOS, they don’t do streaming the way you described.

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

#94

Post by cwyers »

Figs wrote: post #87
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…

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?

The commercial offerings are far more used, which means there's more tools, there's more prebuilt assets you can buy, there's more documentation and StackOverflow answers. I would bet that either of Unity or Unreal have more dev resources going into them than all of the ones you mentioned there combined, too.

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

#95

Post by lordnacho »

fijal wrote: post #44
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.

Isn't Unity Danish?

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

#96

Post by nortiero »

Thaxll wrote: post #36
baldfat wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Godot and Phaser are not "Suck Big Time" engines. It depends what you are making, but again there is no reason why we must be stuck with closed source engines.

Not to offend anyone, but those are toys engine. Godot is probably the most advanced and it's nowhere in term of what proprietary engines can do. I mean look at their showcase: https://godotengine.org/showcase The game engine world is really different from what you usually read on HN like libraries, frameworks, DBs, languages ect ... it's a closed world where everyone built something custom.

Urho3D is a competent engine https://urho3d.github.io, and fast. Godot has a pretty home page.

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

#97

Post by brianwawok »

dave_sullivan wrote: post #92
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…

I don't know why people are still using unity instead of UE4 except for historical reasons where users of the engine are hesitant to switch and have to relearn some things. Unity is not open source, it does not come with batteries included (so you end up buying a bunch of poorly maintained unity assets/plugins to do stuff that UE4 does out of the box), and I think they're struggling as a company more than people real…

Doesn't unity make it "easier" to be cross platform still?

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

#98

Post by ufo »

Could someone please clarify what SpatialOS actually does? Even in the updated arstechnica link I still don't quite get what is going on and how it breaches the new terms of service.

Are the game clients used by the players running Unity? Is the server running Unity? How is SpatialOS's setup different from other multiplayer games?

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

#99

Post by holtalanm »

Gaelan wrote: post #5
holtalanm wrote: post #2

damn. I was looking forward to playing Worlds Adrift someday. Hopefully they can get this resolved.

Worlds Adrift says they're still up for now.

that remains to be seen for how long. if they are operating against the Unity ToS, I would expect it to be down soon as a result.

Like I said, I really hope they get this fixed, because that game looked good.

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

#100

Post by reificator »

dave_sullivan wrote: post #92
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…

I don't know why people are still using unity instead of UE4 except for historical reasons where users of the engine are hesitant to switch and have to relearn some things. Unity is not open source, it does not come with batteries included (so you end up buying a bunch of poorly maintained unity assets/plugins to do stuff that UE4 does out of the box), and I think they're struggling as a company more than people real…

> Unity is not open source

Important to note, neither is Unreal really. It's not a pedantic distinction here either, as it affects how far you can take a project that modifies the core engine.

Not that I'm against Unreal in any way, it's just important to keep in mind.

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