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

[QUOTE="Improbable's final statement]
Developers run their games on Improbable’s SpatialOS, like a managed cloud platform. They have an interaction with Unity software to use it in their game. We have an interaction with Unity to host and manage instances as part of running a developer’s game.
[/QUOTE]

Seems like a breach to general restriction which already around for sometime... at least from 2016...

[QUOTE="Unity's ToS General Restriction]
use the Unity Software for competitive analysis or to develop a competing product or service
[/QUOTE]

Because at that time, Unity already has their multiplayer (UNET) service too I think...

 

If my analysis is correct, this thread alone might have activity than the whole unreal engine forum in the past week?

 

Maybe because Unreal devs are more busy with their games, than participating in unecessary Internet Drama/

 

Funny how it's only actually Improbable doing this. Everyone else is 100% fine with Unity. It's just them. If there really was this big issue with Unity then I'm sure many more instances would've occurred by now.

Don't forget if we work with actual unity partner platforms we know that Unity's accountable in some way, so unity is like this buffer, vs a complete unknown.

I dunno about everyone else but I'd rather the devil I know.

Yeah so that 25m fund is not dramatic, then?

 

https://xkcd.com/303/

 

That's strange nipoco, because I ran analysis on social media, trends, and other metrics, and Unity activity beats Unreal accross the board. I'll post it tomorrow! I guess those Unity devs are just lazy

 

Speaking of funny things, there is a way that both Unity and Improbable could be completely accurate in their statements about communications and I don't believe anyone has mentioned it yet (at least not that I remember).

It's completely possible for emails and physical documentation to be lost. Whether it's because it was misidentified as spam (Unity's emails have been known to be borderline spam-like in the past), was mishandled by the people responsible for sending and receiving them, lost by the carrier, etc.

Edit: Since XKCD was mentioned earlier, here is a semi-relevant one for this post.

https://xkcd.com/1467/

 

Or everyone just decided that the amount they would end up paying would be outweighed by having the rather immense number of developers that exist for Unity using their product. We don't know the actual sum Unity demanded. For all we know it could be miniscule or it could be gargantuan.

 

From some tech stuff ive seen this is definitely something many companies are working on doing for the future. But to my understanding its still a build and not the editor/engine that is streamed.
I guess the difference is many people using one build streamed to them vs loading a build and playing per device. Guessing ads and other $ making things may have issues..?

People are passionate on all sides.

Blind followers of unity that see it as doing no wrong ever.

Some that are here to flame on the bad pr only,

but i think most complaining here want to see unity become/remain an amazing engine - that doesn't include loot boxes and micro transactions aimed at the developers haha.

 

Trust me there might be a couple blind followers but most of us have had at least one bad experience (Lithium) with them and will be willing to shove it in their face (as you can see I still keep mentioning it years later) if they're genuinely guilty.

 

Yeah, unfortunately. I myself like my games running on my own computer, thanks. But Sony and EA will be happy. More loot boxes and more micro-transactions for the games. Or we are going back to the slot-in era. $2 per minute to stream the new Fifa 2034 from the gameflix.

Maybe, but they weren't here. Or I haven't noticed them. Okay, maybe one guy. But the majority isn't like that. We like to give credit where credit is due and we like to kick in the stomach when the kick is due.

I think Improbable is not a "developer". It's a big funded company using Unity technology. End of story. When Unity starts to implement lootboxes for developers, believe me, I'll be in the first row with my nicely sharpened pitchfork and warm and cozy torch.

 

Not for me

 

I recently came across this on the Unity subreddit and I'm trying to catch up here. I've only skimmed this thread so this may have been brought up before, but there's one key thing I'm really struggling to understand and that's the power Improbable seemingly has here.

How is it possible for Improbable to be such a big player? What have they done to secure these massive investments and why do people feel they're worth so much? They're basically just buzzwords and marketing, no? Has their software been used in anything worthwhile? All I've seen mentioned in regards to them or their software are a couple of mediocre indie games and Mavericks Proving Grounds, which in my opinion is clearly not going to deliver the experience they're claiming or that people are now expecting. And I'm seeing scattered articles about them working towards making The Matrix a reality or some bs like that. But seemingly this is enough for people to compare their valuation with something like Oculus or Minecraft which had proven products long before we were talking about these sums of money.

This is probably a bit off topic, but this just makes no sense to me. A year ago I hadn't heard about them and now they are supposedly revolutionizing multiplayer experiences? I'd be surprised if we're still talking about them years from now, but clearly someone has a lot more faith in them than I do.

 

I think we should all consider our safety as developers. There is no guarantee, as of today, that Unity won't shove some surprises (in a negative way) in future. A lesson learned – they have a trigger to mute us and our businesses under some new ToS points, and that is quite scary. No matter what they say, we know it is.

As of now, we are sitting on a closed-source proprietary black box with a paid dark skin (oh, the irony). We invest our time and skills in a tech that can die under some stupid business idea, and Unity does nothing about it. Unity's C# reference sources was a quasi-open-source joke under a license, that is not known to the industry.

As a community, we can do a lot more than whine, as some say (and they are partially right). We may come together and start implementing something like an open-source Unity API. That's absolutely legal as WINE case have shown, APIs may not be copyright, only the implementations may. It may be implemented as part of Godot's C# version or maybe something new. We can go step by step, implementing the most needed features, so the transition can be as painless as possible.

Don't get me wrong, Unity still can figure out a business model that is developer-friendly and revert the whole damage done to it's public image. But a closed source engine-as-service thing is clearly not the case.

 

FYI there is a new official respond in the blog post about the real purpose of 2.4 : https://blogs.unity3d.com/2019/01/1...orking-on-your-spatialos-game/#comment-399880 *somehow it does not go to Joachim's post

On a lighter note I would turn this whole thing into a chance. As a nice excuse I think I might try going through UE's walkthrough tonight while the topic is hot. (It appears after opening the program with glowing guide and stuff, so nice!) I have been wanting to be able to objectively compare feature parity between different engines for sometimes. Most devs I encountered are too "cultish", worshipping only their own is not enough but must try to obliterate the other side.. or just simply "try it and you'll know why it is better" rather than addressing a specific advantage.

 

Joachim’s half dozen or so additional comments are very helpful. He clearly states new licenses do not apply to old versions of Unity, so hopefully that is being changed in their ToS. For me, that change to the ToS will fix things so long as the current license terms are acceptable.

But there are still a few problems. Where, specifically, is the line when something becomes a third-party platform. Mods are a thing in games. Mods make a game a platform where others use a product that has Unity integrated to create derivative games. I can even charge money for a mod someone else made and split the proceeds with the creator of the mod. I can even make that mod a stand-alone product not requiring the original. So where is the line when Unity would say this is a problem?

Another problem is how do we, as developers, know what cloud services we can use without concern those cloud services can be shut down? Because I don’t only care that I’m not legally liable, but equally care that my project won’t be disrupted. Is the line any time a SDK provides Unity integration directly? What if it doesn’t offer integration, but offers a one-click solution to connect a SDK and a Unity application you uploaded?

And I absolutely hate that Unity is taking actions where I have to ask these questions. They have lost a massive amount of ground in future considerations because they are allowing negotiations with companies I have absolutely no relationship with to impact my business and waste my time. They now are like that supplier who you need to constantly waste time on because they’re sending you the wrong information or asking irrelevant questions. I hope they think about that in the future before letting their inability to negotiate become a headache for every one of their customers.

 

@Shorely that's definitely my guess too, they have a business model that isn't conducing to riding success, hence why they multiplied "services" initiatives. They also benefited from the only time they were pro active (riding the mobile game success boom with multi platform compilation), but now they are mostly reactive (therefore lateand being compared to reference) and following trend instead of setting them. With fortnite epic got a huge head start on stuff that will be important to the future (online services games) which has been notoriously clunky to do in unity (poor streaming, poor online, poor scalability), just marginally improving over the concurrence won't help either, they are in danger of loosing substantial market share.

 

Bottom line: improbable wanted to ride on Unity hard without paying the piper, we all know that sketchy or not, legally, Unity is in the right else they'd have settled behind closed doors.

If it was a legal solve for improbable, then they would've... well.... done that instead of a well-organised smear campaign that takes way longer than 12 hours to pull off: PR releases, 25 million agreement with epic. These are well-organised fallback plans that take a lot longer to engineer.

Isn't your code sent to improbable's server where they execute it with a Unity runtime? That's all kinds of serious dodgy and why nobody else is actually infringing... why is nobody looking at how SpatialOS actually works? It's designed from the outset to avoid a platform license while technically infringing it. You have to try really hard to do that.

Kind of surprised Unity hasn't reacted further than just pulling licenses.

 

I think Unity could claim compensation of 25 million. That should settle matter once for all.

 

Probably Tim would pay it in an afternoon.

 

In this situation the only winner is Epic Games.

 

Actually, that is a very important point - thank you for pointing it out, and apologies for missing it!

 

The UFOs are multiplying. SEND HELP.

 

This is silly. Just because someone believes Unity in this instance, it does not mean they are blind followers. Some of us are logical pragmatic people and we look at the evidence and come to a tentative conclusion that can easily be changed if more evidence comes out.

I really hate it when people are so black and white. There are those who blindly follow someone right off a cliff but not all of us do.

Reminds me of science in this day and age. There are those who are black and white..."A" does not exist because "B" can happen. True science says... "A" may be true but we need to test it over and over again and see.

In this case, we need to see if there is more information that may need to be "tested" to see what the truth might be.

Please, be a little more gray and a little less black and white in your thinking. I am sure the truth is somewhere in between but by accusing those you disagree with as being "blind" you shut down the entire conversation. I am really skipping the bulk of the "sky is falling" posts because I see little logic in them.

I know many are venting and hurt and confused and that is okay. But please, talk about how YOU feel and think, not slamming others. It makes the responses much more credible.

 

Isn't your code sent to Amazon's server where they execute it with a Unity runtime? That's all kinds of serious dodgy and why nobody else is actually infringing... why is nobody looking at how GameLift actually works? It's designed from the outset to avoid a platform license while technically infringing it. You have to try really hard to do that.

 

I don't ask for close of this thread just because of the expected announcement of the new wording of the EULA. Instead of that having a little bit of fun.
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the <del>Bomb</del> Thread.

 

Yeah the same with consoles and other approved platforms Unity is actually already working with.

For any company where the business model is a %, this is never a problem. Ever, because they will get paid. All Unity wants is the same respect, but Unity's customers do not want to pay a % royalty.

I wonder if they would've even used Unity if it was a flat 5% of all profits passing through that touch it? 5% of 500m is 25,000,000. Fun coincidence?

 

Do you know if Unity has a deal with them or whether they are in negotiations? I doubt you do know, just another speculation.

 

What do consoles have to do with this? Can you please show me source that states amazon gamelift is partnering with unity? They are not mentioned anywhere I could find:

https://unity3d.com/legal/terms-of-service/software/authorized-streaming
https://unity3d.com/partners

I don't. But there is no mention of them as partner I can find, so they must be breaking the same agreements as Improbable for considerable amount of time. Do they also have licenses revoked?

 

Have you announced every license agreement you signed to the public? No? Same applies to Amazon.

 

I suggest you call them and ask. I am sure they will be more than happy to help.

 

How is that technically different to uploading a WebGL build to, say, Dropbox, and people running it in-browser? Or running any Unity game on any server?

EDIT: To clarify, to my understanding, you upload a binary to the SpatialOS servers and they run it. I'm pretty sure you can upload any binary that implements the SpatialOS API. Their servers don't run on Unity, if that's what you're thinking.

 

It's completely different because a WebGL build is not run off of a server. It's downloaded to the user's computer and then it is executed. Same applies to Dropbox except that the user is having to manually go through the steps rather than let their browser do all of the work.

 

Ok, but that's "distribution", which the ToS also prohibits. And again - what about authoritative server multiplayer games?

 

Using Unreal with SpatialOS was supported along with Unity since at least July 2017. So yes, they would likely use Unity "if it was a flat 5% of all profits passing through that touch it" and it was popular with the developers.

Good idea, I have contacted them, will reply once I get word back.

 

See this is why people who don't understand the ToS need a lawyer rather than trying to understand it themselves. By your logic we would be forbidden to distribute our games in any way, shape, or form, but that's clearly not the case. We can sell our games (eg on Steam). We can make them available for free (eg on Itch.io).

 

I think it is the time to hold off these arguments until they amend the EULA. It is clearly not their intention and you're just couple of people who read this on this way. The majority understands that it is not the case. And they already told you that they will try to make it more clear. So this argument is pointless and just running in circles all day long.

 

Can we get an option from Unity's side to have terms like Epic's ones. 5% royalty + everything is open source. I would sign for that personally. Those who want to pay for subscriptions may use those, I don't care.

 

To the best of my knowledge this isn't feasible right now. It isn't that they couldn't charge royalties. It's that the way the engine's middleware (Enlighten, SpeedTree, etc) is integrated makes it impossible to just hand off full access to the source. UE4 has a very plug-in oriented approach to handling middleware which is why it's legal for them. Unity would have to do the same.

By the way, and I doubt you truly meant it this way but it's important to mention just in case, UE4 is not open source. You have access to the source, can modify it, can pass modifications back to Epic, can use modifications in your own project, but it isn't "open" in the same sense that "open source" is open.

Actual open source can be distributed to anyone for any purpose. Epic Games has limits on both of these for UE4.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software

 

SpatialOS has their own backend which is their core IP. It can support any number of 'worker' implementations including Unity and UE but also lower level implementation such as C++. There are benefits in terms of integration and also simplicity for developers in using the same technology in the game front end and in the worker. But essentially its just a thin wrapper to get you access to the core backend of SpatialOS.

Its worth noting, Improbable was, until recently, a major supporter of Unity and their Unity worker is the most developed.

---

You build your own worker by compiling a Unity binary which includes the SpatialOS plugin and upload it. SpatialOS then runs and manages this worker.

Its extremely similar to hosting your own build on AWS where you compile and upload and then run it on AWS. But building and running your own services on AWS is okay according to Unity. Whats the difference, why doesn't AWS need to pay a fee and SpatialOS does?

Plugins? Obviously your own build run on AWS could include plugins such as integration with photon or an ads server so this is not a difference.

Management? Spatial OS manages these workers, starting and stopping them as required. This could be a difference. Of course if you built something on AWS that is automatically scalable, for example by creating new instances when load spikes, you would be managing these instances too. This is pretty standard AWS and I doubt Unity's current stance would be to disallow you automatically starting and stopping servers.

Ownership? In some sense, and its pretty vague, it feels like you as the developer have a bit more ownership of an AWS instance compared to a SpatialOS worker; you can interact with it more directly. However once you bring elastic scaling in to the AWS picture its getting pretty tenuous to classify this as a key difference.​

The only key difference I can think of is that Improbable advertises a Unity compatibility, whereas AWS does not.

On the surface the use cases look quite different but when you delve in to the details technically at least there is very little difference between the two use cases. I think calling Improbable dodgy and saying that they designed their system to avoid licence fees is not a very fair call. Their solution doesn't require Unity, the Unity integration just makes it much more accessible to Unity users.

I think Improbable has acted poorly, particularly in regard to the way they threw their customers under the bus by implying they had to immediately tear down their live games due to Unity's actions, but the core of their offering is real valuable IP which has a only a thin link to Unity's technology (and can, if required, completely live without it).

---

 

See this is why it confuses me that they wouldn't just pay the fee. Unless it's truly exorbitant I can't imagine they wouldn't be able to make it back. My only conclusion is that they believe they can bully Unity into changing their ToS or that their users will be willing to drop everything and migrate to a new engine.

I can't imagine the former will have any real effect and the latter is very unlikely to work for the majority of developers as switching engines mid-development will not be inexpensive.

 

UE4 is indeed an open-source project. It's just not FOSS (free-open-source), which I'm fine with, actually.

 

You're free to view it how you want but the majority of developers won't see it that way.

 

That was a point I made earlier and why I figure Unity must have come in with a pretty hard line stance. I just can't see Improbable not paying a reasonable fee, say low seven figures per year (unless it was a moral stand or maybe a negotiation breakdown due to emotions/personalities).

 

Amazon does not have a GDK written in Unity. They have a generic .NET SDK.

Maybe they got a better deal from another game engine. I wonder who would that be...

 

Which is just silly for a company that has investors. Last thing you want to do is tell the investors you decided not to go with the most popular engine on the market because you wanted to make a statement only to not say anything of the sort in any of your press releases.

 

But many, many other providers do have (i.e. just about every third party networking service, ad service, etc).

It seems crazy for Unity to punish someone for writing their API's in Unity instead of generic .NET. Such APIs bind people more tightly to Unity whilst improving the developer experience.

And surely the dispute doesn't go away if they rewrite their GDK in pure .NET.

 

I really don't care what you think is crazy. This what Unity said. They (Improbable) breached the ToS long time ago using Unity tech promoting their own product without any proper agreement. I just took a look at SpatialOS website, it's full of Unity stuff, reference to Unity tech. Written documentation how they made their GDK upon Unity's technology which is according the OLD EULA is not permitted.

End of story.

 

Since everyone seems to agree there is no way to tell if a given service needs a separate deal with Unity, and everyone seems to agree we have no way to know if required deals already exist or are still being negotiated, does anyone have any clue how to know what services you can safely use with zero risk of Unity shutting it down in the future?

Gamelift is a good example. According to Amazon’s own advertising, “the Amazon GameLift SDK easily integrates” with your project. So it would be an integrated SDK running the Unity runtime on a cloud service. It sounds like it’s against the rules, but Unity said Amazon cloud services are okay. I really hope the new ToS does an awesome job covering all of this confusion, because lawyers sure as heck don’t understand this either.

And this is even more annoying because even corporate contracts with Unity don’t protect against this stupidity. Even if I know with 100% certainty that I will not be liable for anything, I still have no idea if I can actually use any given service while using Unity. This whole thing is just stupid, and needed to be handled behind the scenes.

 

They also make a GDK on unreal and GDK on C++. These are simply ways to interact with the underlying system.

But I'm not disputing that Unity is within their rights to do this. I just think thats its driven by a desire to push out competition in a space they want to enter rather than 'the best interested of their developers'.