Recent ToS update blocks the use of SpatialOS to make games in Unity

We know many of you have questions about our ToS. We'll continue working over the weekend to clarify the language to make our intention as clear as possible rather than rushing and adding to the confusion. Rest assured we will never do anything that works against the better interest of developers. We’ll have an update in the next few days. Thank you for your patience.

 

If you disagree with the ToS especially once you read clause that allows changes to other clauses, then you shouldnt (or cant) use Unity in the 1st place.

Then there's something bothers me, some said that Improbable doesnt use unity runtime at all for their spatialOS service, but then why development halted when unity stop their license? If they only use unity to create their sdk for unity engine, they could just drop their support for unity engine and continue developing for other engines

also, for those who really curious with the tos, have you ask them by emailing to terms@unity.com instead of speculating and bashing around the tos and unity..

 

Hippo has since stated that he hopes the ToS is cleared up so I think we're best moving on.

 

Thank you for the continued updates. I'm sure it sucks being on the receiving end of such criticism, but I'm hopeful behind the legal nonsense we're all on the same page.

 

That's precisely what they're doing, hence Epic's involvement.

 

Im just hanging out waiting for the new tos.. Looks to be a long wait unfortunately.. Maybe next week sometime if were lucky ...But i fear the truth will be that only unity or its "Partners " will be allowed to do much on servers hosting.. Likely they will allow little teams to do their own thing without any harassment but if you strike it big, best plan on paying an extra fee that will be figured out behind doors...

 

Wow, a 4-5 days wait huh? How ever will you survive? /s

 

Really, all this speculation, I am guilty too. Let's let Unity figure it out and get back to us. Or if you wish, wait until Improbable figures it out.

Either way, the same thing is being repeated over and over again. Lots and lots of defending and accusing with only what we see written in one Unity blog and three Improbable blog posts.

 

Have you ever actually gotten a prompt email from Unity?

 

Yeah, plenty of times thanks.

 

We don’t know the details of what happened between them. Probably never will. The phrasing in the unity blog post says the violation was broader (branding marketing and such). Most of the improbable claims center around how they interpret the new tos and how it affects users. Not really addressing their dispute with unity. It’s also worth noting that if they were an enterprise customer, they signed a different contract than the consumer tos. One which includes (at least it did in the past) confidentiality. So we really don’t know the nature of the dispute, both sides address it differently and neither are going to publicly divulge confidential details.

 

Business decisions usually aren't made "promptly", so you don't need prompt reply. Unless you're Tim Sweeney and decide to just throw a couple of millions at a company which has been accused with breaching another company's ToS.

 

Yup. Usually. It does take longer for obscure stuff though. (Edge case bugs, etc..)

 

Of course you will, I mean you can always play rhetoric games and say that every change is to 'ensure the profitability and continued survival of the company' which in turn is in the 'better interest' of your developers, but play those games enough and anything becomes tenable.

Unity is reaching out in to every related space, creating services for analytics, networking, ads, etc. They are tightly integrating them in to Unity. This tight integration makes it harder for anyone else to compete: Unity's services are rarely best of breed, but they are omnipresent and maybe just good enough.

This expansion also dilutes the focus and talent pool of Unity, and quite simply you aren't very good at some of these things: Unity Connect is the worst website experience I have ever had the displeasure of being forced to use, and the attempts at networking and online multiplayer have so far left much to be desired.

Your actions in regards to Improbable suggest that maybe you will become even more aggressive about hampering the competition.

Expanding your footprint and reducing competition is good for Unity, it is not good for your developers.

PS This doesn't mean there aren't many good things happening, but statements like that quoted are meaningless PR crap.

 

Indeed I think I heard about them before, but this whole fallout just created interest and Epic has jumped on board with 25mill in funding lol...not at all shady timing at all, I know they got fortnite cash to throw around but jeez you'd think they'd do something like support c# if they wanted a slice of the Unitys game dev base.

THEN AGAIN.. at least that is 25mill probably better spent than Unity's last 20mill going on to buying up Multiplay s.. talk about jump the shark Unity you barely have a working Network solution with features we want to use and you want to us to use your cloud servers.. was a little baffled by that and still don't see worth in it a year later.

So yeah really wish they would improve multiplayer. The sad thing about all of this outside of Unity's EULA needing a clarity update, is that SpatialOS networking features are a thing many do want to use for multiplayer games but actually supported directly by Unity and where we can still run our own servers for it ..I repeat our servers hosted however we choose. I remember waiting for improvements and phase 2 of Unet.... never came, now Unet has been scraped off, 2019.1 alpha doesn't have the networking stuff of Unet thus breaking a bunch of assets that were using it for various (useless things) thus making updating projects to that version to test things an extra hassle or waiting for others to update there S***.

And while the abandoned Unet is out of Unity 2019 onwards, the replacement is still in a state that isn't ready at all.. I mean wtf they aren't even putting certain features that other unity networking frameworks already support on there roadmap.. I mean how in the hell is this happening ...the networking stuff in unity needs ramping up and fast.. forget all the cloud server S*** and services, they should be using the money on getting more developers to work on networking features and an architecture for it that is modular and that we can all use please, and push it so unity assets developers start using it so we don't get this situation where asset packages that ideally really should support a multiplayer framework but don't support any because the main one by Unity is a freakin mess, and half dozen third parties ones are all over the place in support/features/pricing.

I dunno about that, but not having a replacement for something that has been phased out is just silly, honestly have so little faith in the new multiplayer stuff right now, in terms of where they still seemed to be at in it, just a wonder down to Connected games sub forum and read the pinned topics.. I'm completely out of faith on all of it, that and 2019 whatever they do finish will still be incomplete for multiplayer imo.

Still I'm wondering why everyone who isn't using SpatialOS (probably like 99% of the people complaining about the EULA they never read anyway) even has a issue with things.. If Joachim writes a blog post stating what is and isn't fine then I'll go with it and continue. I mean most EULA's will only put you off anyway, better to work on your project and not care about it until you start getting legal letters, then ignore it for as long as possible and finally if your project/game is successful just write a blog post about it and let the news media lap it up for the ad views.. then maybe a competitor company that has been drowning in cash from an awfully overrated game that makes big bucks on character skin transactions will come along.

 

The fastest email response I ever got from Unity was when I couldn't fix a seating issue that affected my ability to build without a splash screen.

It was the fastest response I got and that still took eight goddamn days.

 

I believe it’s safe to say you are the exception to the rule.

 

Yeah of course! my crime is that whenever there's a discussion I just like to explore the entire thing, end to end rather than just go with what everyone's saying. Of course, in the end logic prevails

 

Um

 

And... I'm pretty sure everyone in this thread will agree when I say that Unity's networking solution coming had better be absolutely amazing

 

It can't possibly be worse than the last time.

 

It needs to be as good as all their other services combined actually.

 

If this is any indication, Unity's ECS + Networking is going to be insanely good: https://forum.unity.com/threads/showcase-enet-unity-ecs-5000-real-time-player-simulation.605656/

 

That said whether Unity's ECS + Unity's networking will be just as good is another matter.

 

dunno, most of the time they emailed me 1st . but when I happend to email them they usually reply within 1-3 working days

 

IF you will never do anything against the better interest of the developers then STOP impeding progress and reinstate Improbable's License keys so we ALL can get on with our development. You can say crap all you want about how developers using SpatialOS can continue working on their games but who in their right minds would continue pouring money into a project where the major middleware they are using can no longer be supported, improved on, or bug fixed. Let's end this nonsense and all get back to work!

 

Wow, chill dude, they said they wanted to take time to do it properly, let them have the weekend so they don't have to do things like blogpost then do another blogpost cos they messed up, then whoopsies, make a 3rd blogpost! Nobody is that silly, right? ...er...

 

Where's the fun in that? Reading between the lines of what Unity's actual nefarious intentions are, and generally declaring the end of everything Unity, is much more entertaining it seems.

 

Have to admit that sounds too improbable to be true.

 

Yep, ran out of popcorn about the same time I ran out of new conspiracy theories and things to speculate about.

 

Not in the last two years, just a normal pro subscriber. Before that, yea, enterprise was more direct. But as a pro subscription, virtually everything license related was -24 hours.

 

2 posters above have 3 posts total. Each have an original post from years ago. Seems a bit shady.

 

There were several posters who showed up because of the announcement made by improbable. They were seeking more information and obviously impacted by the situation. Only a small portion of Unity users participate in the forums. Because they aren't regular posters doesn't mean they aren't part of the community or are not welcome.

 

???

 

Why is that shady? I probably never posted before yesterday. I don’t recall ever having a reason to post. Anything I needed answered was answered from Reddit or whatever other resource. This issue only Unity can address, so this is the logical place to discuss it.

 

lol, you think that the people who post on these boards all the time are the ones making games?

 

People are welcome to post when they have something to say, I hardly think post count matters if I'm honest (and I hope it doesn't judging by the horrifyingly-procrastinated amount I have).

 

To be honest that was likely the smart thing to do. Admitting to building an MMO tends to be met with mixed results at the best of times.

Same. That said I don't post because I need assistance. I post because I like to assist others. Plus posting to assist others forces me to become better in ways that I wouldn't have thought I needed to improve. Just a thought for anyone thinking that it's a waste of time to post on the forums.

 

Very glad that you are taking the time to make it clear, and I look forward to reading it.

Unity Technologies deserves a lot of credit for providing excellent tools over the years, and I'm optimistic. That said, there are two major aspects that need to be addressed. First, Unity depends on its ecosystem of third party tools and services. That community is what distinguishes it in the game engine market. If this comes down to using your position to leverage a stake in "cloud services", please do not try and pass it off as "in the best interest of developers". We will see through that. It is a fact that many devs are facing a very difficult situation and Unity is just as much responsible as anyone else, at the very least because of their unclear ToS.

Second, you need to work out a different structure for your EULA so that major changes do not apply retroactively. This is simply a deal-breaker for many developers. You cannot claim to be acting in the best interest of developers and expect them to just trust you that you won't make future changes that are harmful or catastrophic to their activities.

Please genuinely follow through on this promise. We will hold you to it.

 

yes don't take that bit seriously

 

Which makes them straight liars. That was a joke, right? You didn't think that your statement is defending them?

 

Or maybe not, the advantage of unreal is that they eat their own dog food, reading patch update note of unreal 4 after they implemented fortnite knowledge (ie a multiplayer open world with frequent update, destructible environment, and real time events) was full of "I didn't thought about that", which is like the main issue with any unity implementation, they don't think about stuff and do a very generic idea implementation that only works for generic games. For example their pathfinding is very performant one trick pony that cannot do terrain reasoning or have any hook for it. Or the timeline missing the very basic and needed event triggering key to gameplay.

Unity is heading that way:
https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/9tv799/steve_jobs_explains_why_a_companys_product/

Unreal is still obssess with craft and have kinda lackluster formal pr presence, mot of the good will comes from actual demonstration of craft by themselves (not outsider hired gun like for the adams demo), like showing actual state of the art rt character rendering, both as tech demo AND used in actual game (paragon) and then they talk about the nuances of both issues in highly technical talk peppered with highly practical issues they encountered (like having to deal with artist practical needs).

 

My fourth and last shady post

I think UT is probably right to request a partner license and ask for more money from SpatialOS. But they handled this wrongly. They could warn SpatialOS in public a year before so that people would decide to take the risk to start a project with Spatial OS. Or they could take this matter to the court.

For me it is meaningless to say that existing Unity games and on going projects won't be effected, In their last response, SpatialOS says that "Unity Games can stay live, but we cannot legally support them". It is clear that unless Unity allows SpatialOS to work, existing Unity Clients are not covered. Unity guys and some people may claim otherwise...

TOS is always broader. As other posters mentioned, it is the reputation of the company that matters. This issue with another company damaging mostly Unity. I spend some money on Unity asset store, some time on tutorials. Frankly I don't care about the other company, because I would never need/use their product but I am concerned about Unity clients harmed in the process. It is possible that I may be in their place in the future.

Actually I am working on an mobile education app. I seriously considered to use Unity but after weighting pros and cons, decided to go native for other reasons. If I had chosen Unity, I would have reconsidered it after this SpatialOS thing. On the other hand If I was working on a single-player game project, I would not think about it. This is a honest feedback to unity guys.

 

them as Improbable? what makes you think I'm defending them? I'm just pointing the probability... I'm on unity's boat all the time...

 

Guys, check this out! The Xenko main developer just released a proof of concept server/client game that you can run easily on SpatialOS:

https://twitter.com/xenko3d/status/1084054260436758528





The cool thing is, this is just normal .NET code...

 

For me and some others, the main issue is not the individual incident, it is that Unity have changed the ToS and the only way it has become widely known is through conflict.

I suggest it would be good practice in the future to blog about any ToS changes before they come into effect, with comments about the reasons for the change.

 

I mean yeah, but Unity has gotten into the habit of changing things silently for way too long. I don't see that changing now.

 

Awesome so they will have no problem making it compatible for Unity customers without using Unity's own propriety technologies like the DOTS stack without due payment.

Should've done that in the first place.

 

Do you have info we don't? Where is this coming from?

 

I have not approached any Unity staff for clarification and no Unity staff has been in contact with me. I simply don't bother talking about legal with a business... why would I even try? It's bad form with only one answer: wait for legal to get paid!

I'm not that silly or rude, so I'll wait for official announcements like everyone else.

In this case, simply poking around SpatialOS github and their documentation told me pretty much a lot of what I needed to know... that it's plundered Unity's ECS from end to end for various, and that could easily be used to power games on other platforms. It's a bit much IMHO.