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.
Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal
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Re: Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal
#132damn. I was looking forward to playing Worlds Adrift someday. Hopefully they can get this resolved.
From the Worlds Adrift blog, they've apparently heard back from the Unity side:
"Bossa has been informed by Unity that Worlds Adrift should not be affected by the situation between Improbable and Unity. Thus, Worlds Adrift remains live as normal."
Re: Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal
#133So right now we know the "what", but not the "why". What Improbable really has, or claims to have, is a way to scale massively multiplayer games where everyone is in the same world. They have a back end which is basically a synching system for small data elements between computers in a data center. Think of it as being like the way a shared memory multiprocessor synchs its memory system. Some data items belong to a s…
They have this tech for sure, and have been working on it for a long time. I cant get into many details, but I beta tested a game that made a very short teaser announcement at either pax or E3 one year by dean hall. He was working with IO on the tech and a game, but the deal must have fell through. Dean went on to do a solo project (space engineers) which has nothing to do with any of this, but maybe inspired in some ways. When I beta tested the game, they had already successfully made it where the UI was basically streamed over the servers, so even mouse clicks was server side. The 3d rendering was done client side. It was buggy, but had stronger potential than anything I have ever seen up to that point. So this news is very interesting to me.
Re: Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
UE4 focuses on high-end console/PC. For rapid development of mobile games, Unity is basically the only choice.
> For rapid development of mobile games, Unity is basically the only choice. Why? Unreal Engine has targeted iOS + Android phones for 5+ years now, successfully. (Fortnite, PUBG, Dungeon Defenders, Horn, etc). More mobile developers are experienced with Unity over Unreal today , but that's largely inertia more than anything else.
UE4 has always pushed high-end rendering tech hard and not prioritised mobile. There’s little awareness of the current state of its mobile capabilities, with few big UE4 hits on the App Store (and hundreds of Unity success stories including Pokemon Go and Hearthstone)
F2P mobile dev is also very UI heavy, and UI work with Unity/C# is easier than dealing with C++/Unreal.
And Unity has a wealth of ready made plugins that can be quickly integrated into a project for things like IAPs, advertising, analytics, etc. Although maybe UE is catching up in that area by now?
Re: Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal
#135Just curious, how does the godot engine compare to Unity and UE4? Is it suitable for AAA studios or are there any major pieces missing?
We don't know yet if it is suitable for AAA studios yet, as no yet tried. But Unity itself for quite a long time was not suitable for AAA studios, and just quite recently AAA games using Unity popped up. I'd say that Godot has got the essentials, and most of what is missing is pretty easy to add yourself. Maybe the last thing that stops AAA studios from using Godot is that it still uses OpenGL ES 3.0 for rendering, b…
> most of what is missing is pretty easy to add yourself
What's missing in Godot?
Re: Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Yes, UE4 is not FOSS as per GNU, it is open source in that you can see the code and there's a large community contributing fixes and additions with every new version. I think the distinction is pedantic for most users.
"Source-available" seems to be the preferred term for what UE4 is.
> I think the distinction is pedantic for most users.
In a technical discussion, there's no reason not to use the proper terms for things.
Re: Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal
#137Illegal is the wrong word, but still, fuck. My game uses dedicated servers built on Unity. Seems this applies even to me. Kinda shitty.
Yes, breach of contract is more accurate. The lesson is make sure your product doesn't depend on clickwrap terms that can be changed at any time.
Re: Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal
#138Twitch streaming is pretty important to most gaming markets. This announcement sounds like it also has the result of making twitch streaming against the Unity TOS. > You may not [distribute Unity or your Unity Project Content via] 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…
> 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 devices
I could be wrong, but the "is primarily executed on" bit sounds to me like it is more aimed at preventing creation of a service like geforce now or playstation now where a user plays the game but it is streamed from the remote system where it is actually running
Re: Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal
#139> 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…
For a lot of us we started with it, and once you know it, if it meets your needs, switching doesn't make sense.
Does now though [walks into corner growling] :/
Re: Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal
#140> 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.
That may be what they meant, but the wave of confusion and fear says that they communicated it poorly. (Also the fact that I had to go this far down the thread before anyone even attempted to answer "why".)