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Author Topic: Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal  (Read 3104 times)

KynloStephen66515

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Unity Engine games developed with SpatialOS' cloud-based multiplayer Game Development Kit (GDK) are now in violation of Unity's terms of service, according to SpatialOS maker Improbable. The decision imperils the operation of many in-development game projects, including some that have already been released to the public.

Since its open beta release in 2017 (in partnership with Google), SpatialOS has allowed developers to easily integrate mass-scale multiplayer into their games by running a persistent version of the game in the cloud. But Improbable now says that a recent change in Unity's terms of service means the SpatialOS is essentially blocked from working with the Unity Engine.

The newly updated clause 2.4 of the Terms of Service now specifically excludes "managed service running on cloud infrastructure" which "install or execute the Unity Runtime on the cloud or a remote server." Though the terms of service were changed on December 5, Improbable says Unity confirmed directly to them this week that the update "specifically disallow services like Improbable’s to function with their engine. This was previously freely possible in their terms, as with other major engines."

Read Full Story: https://arstechnica....ialos-games-illegal/



Unity is at it once again it seems.  Perhaps they are prepping to release their own (worse) version of SoS or something, so had to think of a way to kill off competition.  Either way, it's nice of Improbable to be giving financial assistance to developers affected by this (and other help such as porting) whilst they try to resolve the issue.

wraith808

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Re: Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal
« Reply #1 on: January 10, 2019, 02:46 PM »
Unity is at it once again it seems.  Perhaps they are prepping to release their own (worse) version of SoS or something, so had to think of a way to kill off competition.  Either way, it's nice of Improbable to be giving financial assistance to developers affected by this (and other help such as porting) whilst they try to resolve the issue.

Nothing really nice of them to be doing... as you stated unity is looking to clear the field, which would include their operations.  You see companies provide help to developers that are affected quite a bit.  I remember MS coming into a contract to help get it going on .NET when .NET was a new tech in order to steal a client from the competition.  Borland wasn't looking, so lost a lucrative contract when they moved away from Delphi.  Earlier, Borland had done the same to get a different contract that I was on.

KynloStephen66515

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Re: Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal
« Reply #2 on: January 10, 2019, 02:54 PM »
Unity is at it once again it seems.  Perhaps they are prepping to release their own (worse) version of SoS or something, so had to think of a way to kill off competition.  Either way, it's nice of Improbable to be giving financial assistance to developers affected by this (and other help such as porting) whilst they try to resolve the issue.

Nothing really nice of them to be doing... as you stated unity is looking to clear the field, which would include their operations.  You see companies provide help to developers that are affected quite a bit.  I remember MS coming into a contract to help get it going on .NET when .NET was a new tech in order to steal a client from the competition.  Borland wasn't looking, so lost a lucrative contract when they moved away from Delphi.  Earlier, Borland had done the same to get a different contract that I was on.


Sorry, I should have pointed out, Improbable are the owners of SoS (the main thing affected), and they are providing financial assistance to other devs affected by Unity screwing them over.  Unity has taken the "f**k you...deal with it...not our problem" stance.

Deozaan

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Re: Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal
« Reply #3 on: January 11, 2019, 01:05 AM »
Unity has responded. Here's an excerpt (with some emphasis added by me):

Partnering with technology companies is key to our approach in providing a robust game engine across many platforms. As such, we were excited to listen and explore ideas with Improbable when we started discussions more than two years ago. Unfortunately, Improbable chose an approach which doesn’t involve partnering with Unity, but instead involves making unauthorized and improper use of Unity’s technology and name in connection with the development, sale, and marketing of its own products.

More than a year ago, we told Improbable in person that they were in violation of our Terms of Service or EULA. Six months ago, we informed Improbable about the violation in writing. Recent actions did not come as a surprise to Improbable; in fact, they’ve known about this for many months.

Two weeks ago we took the action of turning off Improbable’s Unity Editor license keys. This is a unique case — and not a situation we take lightly — but Improbable left us no choice. This was the only course of action to protect the integrity and value of our technology and Unity developers.

We believe that even though Improbable is violating our EULA, game developers should never pay the price for that. We have been clear with Improbable that games currently in production and/or games that are live are unaffected, and we would have expected them to be honest with their community about this information. Unfortunately, this information is misrepresented in Improbable’s blog.

And also:

We’ve made it clear that anyone using SpatialOS will not be affected.

Projects that are currently in production or live using SpatialOS are not affected by any actions we have taken with Improbable.

[...]

We have never communicated to any game developer that they should stop operating a game that runs using Improbable as a service.

Read more at the Unity Blog

Deozaan

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Re: Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal
« Reply #4 on: January 16, 2019, 05:40 PM »
Unity updated their Terms of Service once again, to clarify things and as a response to recent feedback:

Today’s change in our TOS means Improbable is no longer in breach by providing you a service, and that we are able to reinstate their licenses. But we do not consider them a partner, and cannot vouch for how their service works with Unity as we have no insight into their technology or how they run their business.

We know Improbable was in violation even before the December TOS update and misrepresented their affiliation with us. Although SpatialOS is not a supported third-party service, it can continue to be used for development and shipping games.

They also made a nice change going forward so that changes to their ToS won't affect you retroactively:

Retroactive TOS changes

When you obtain a version of Unity, and don’t upgrade your project, we think you should be able to stick to that version of the TOS.

In practice, that is only possible if you have access to bug fixes. For this reason, we now allow users to continue to use the TOS for the same major (year-based) version number, including Long Term Stable (LTS) builds that you are using in your project.

Moving forward, we will host TOS changes on Github to give developers full transparency about what changes are happening, and when. The link is https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/TermsOfService.

Read more at the official blog: https://blogs.unity3...ng-an-open-platform/
« Last Edit: January 16, 2019, 06:10 PM by Deozaan »