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End of the Machinery Game Engine

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: End of the Machinery Game Engine

#21

Post by jsheard »

ivraatiems wrote: post #11

Can we see a screenshot or some other confirmation that this happened? Not saying it didn't, but it'd be a great way to tank a competitor's business if it were fake. I wanna be sure before I get a pitchfork out. To the extent this is legitimate, it definitely seems like grounds for a lawsuit. IANAL, so can't say if it'd succeed, but I am not convinced the last-minute EULA change would save them.

Aside from second hand copies of the email, you can see that nearly all links to ourmachinery.com now 404.

They deleted everything besides the frontpage and EULA page, a shame since their blog was a good resource.

Re: End of the Machinery Game Engine

#22

Post by faeranne »

faeranne wrote: post #13
faeranne wrote: post #12

I'm sorry, is this in any way legal? Did they just tell people to delete their games? Like... I'm pretty sure this kind of rug pull would destroy any company that relies on this engine. 14 days for a full re-write is insane.

Actually, I might know someone who can answer this. Or, at least they'll have to figure it out. I didn't realize this was that platform. A friend started a company last year to build a game based on this, and I'm pretty sure they already released said game.

They're gonna reach out and see how far this extends. According to 3.B, the game would be a "derivative work", and as such shouldn't be subject to this requirement. They've already started working on replacing it with Godot.

Re: End of the Machinery Game Engine

#23

Post by Accujack »

jwitthuhn wrote: post #6

This looks pretty shady. The current EULA on the website includes a bit that says they can terminate your license and ask you to delete all source and binaries entirely at their discretion[1]. The latest copy on the wayback machine from May does not have that bit.[2] 1. https://ourmachinery.com/eula.html 2. https://web.archive.org/web/20220529230958/https://ourmachin... So they used the 'we can update the eula at any…

That's not how licenses work. If they change the EULA, users of the software have to agree to it again for it to bind them. Usually what happens if a library license changes is that users are stuck on an old (potentially unsupported) version if they don't want to agree to the new EULA.

I doubt the EULA as written is enforceable.

Re: End of the Machinery Game Engine

#24

Post by [deleted] »

jsheard wrote: post #21
ivraatiems wrote: post #11

Can we see a screenshot or some other confirmation that this happened? Not saying it didn't, but it'd be a great way to tank a competitor's business if it were fake. I wanna be sure before I get a pitchfork out. To the extent this is legitimate, it definitely seems like grounds for a lawsuit. IANAL, so can't say if it'd succeed, but I am not convinced the last-minute EULA change would save them.

Aside from second hand copies of the email, you can see that nearly all links to ourmachinery.com now 404. They deleted everything besides the frontpage and EULA page, a shame since their blog was a good resource.

[deleted]

Re: End of the Machinery Game Engine

#27

Post by myrryr »

echelon wrote: post #9

> all licenses are terminated as of 14 days after the date of this notice, and you are requested to delete The Machinery source code and binaries If I had invested a year into building a game on their engine, and they told me to delete my game , I would sue. This is serious monetary harm being inflicted upon developers. If they're going to drop the engine as a product, I would expect a perpetual "same-version, no fur…

Patent / Copyright issues would fit this.

Re: End of the Machinery Game Engine

#29

Post by kragen »

jsheard wrote: post #3

Ceasing development is one thing, rug pulling licensees by demanding they delete the framework they've built their projects on is another thing entirely. The hell happened at Our Machinery? The Machinery was a young engine but it had pedigree as the spiritual successor to Bitsquid, which did ship in a number of commercial games until it was killed by Autodesk after they acquired it. The main developers went on to fou…

Maybe this is part of an out-of-court settlement with Autodesk to avoid a lawsuit.
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