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

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by PolarTron, Jan 10, 2019.

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  1. hard_code

    hard_code

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    Completely agree. This is a PR disaster. I have spent enough time jumping between engines to know that Unity is the right engine for me, but many others will use this as a reason to not use Unity in future unless they do a really good job of fixing the situation.
     
  2. MadeFromPolygons

    MadeFromPolygons

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    Yeah your probably right. Its surprising to everyone so it must be a mess up on the communication or wording of it, because I really dont want to believe a company that pushed so hard for game engines for all, would do this!

    Who knows at this stage though, with everything going on in the world right now I am starting to doubt my judgement!
     
  3. tgienger

    tgienger

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    Last edited: Jan 10, 2019
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  4. J_P_

    J_P_

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    Companies shoot themselves in the foot all the time and sometimes the course is only corrected because of community backlash. As long as it's civil, it can be productive.
     
  5. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    It's not "bad wording" as Unity actively revoked licenses from Improbable.

    https://twitter.com/MarcFielding/status/1083420155684835328
    upload_2019-1-10_13-3-9.png
     
  6. tgienger

    tgienger

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    Very bad move if so. If they had something that compared to spatial I would pick it over spacial, price depending, but if they really do disallow spatial I'll move to unreal.
     
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  7. rasto61

    rasto61

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    But because of the agreements between Unity and Improbable that you and I have no clue about.

    Yes, but the new TOS would disallow any kind of multiplayer games not hosted on your own server, and the last sentence would prohibit distribution on any third party service. So pretty much all popular platforms. So unity would be mostly useless. Which doesn't make any sense.
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2019
  8. Simon-Roth

    Simon-Roth

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    Problem is that it's wording in a legally binding document, and they have already taken action on this by revoking licenses.

    They aren't about to be shooting themselves in the foot, they have already shot themselves and are now bleeding developers and partners.
     
    elias_t likes this.
  9. MadeFromPolygons

    MadeFromPolygons

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    Wow that is so much worse handling of the situation than I had thought. Thanks for posting this, I wouldnt have realised they literally pulled them overnight without this! Makes the situation a bit clearer (unfortunately for the worse :( )

    EDIT: that said, we havent heard from unity and have heard from improbable, so its worth us all waiting to hear them out. Maybe improbably were doing some bad stuff we didnt know about? (idk just spitballing here at this stage until we hear the real word)
     
  10. Murgilod

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    Apparently what happened was that the ToS was updated in December and, between then and last night, revoked those licenses and basically made it so that Unity+SpatialOS projects had to be axed without telling anyone in what can only be a gross display of extreme incompetence and callousness.
     
  11. J_P_

    J_P_

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    That's why people want them to change the terms to be more clear.
     
  12. ShilohGames

    ShilohGames

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    Wow. This is shocking, and could have easily been avoided by Unity. I am not personally using SpatialOS for any projects. I developed my own custom game server code completely from scratch so I did not need to use a headless Unity build or anything like SpatialOS in my newest project. So I am not personally affected by this issue between SpatialOS and Unity, but I definitely feel for anybody who is currently affected by this.

    Unity has somehow managed to egg themselves with this stumble. Hopefully we will see a prompt, concise explanation from Unity regarding SpatialOS, headless servers in the cloud, and changes to the ToS.
     
  13. rasto61

    rasto61

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    I'm not disagreeing with that. That would be great.
     
  14. theunitydev

    theunitydev

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    Yeah, doesn’t sound like a “miswording of the terms.” Seems like they are standing by it.
     
  15. Deleted User

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    Guess we can't use Playfab Multiplayer anymore. They allow you to upload unity game headless runtime and run them as servers.

    Unity is this change to force people to use your crappy Google Cloud servers? Bad Move. I for one don't like Google Cloud services. I prefer anything else.
     
  16. phil-harvey

    phil-harvey

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    Well lumberyard has restrictions as well.
     
  17. ShilohGames

    ShilohGames

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  18. hard_code

    hard_code

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    Google is in partnership with Improbable so I don't think that is the case here.

     
  19. tgienger

    tgienger

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    I'll repeat again. They revoked improbables licenses...
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2019
  20. J_P_

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    Aiursrage2k and RogDolos like this.
  21. Deleted User

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    So this is just of case of Unity wanting money from them running Unity Runtime on their servers? Thats scummy. You don't see Unity charging game customers to run Unity games on their devices. The developer pays a fee to use the engine that should be it.
     
  22. Karlbovsky

    Karlbovsky

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    ...to install or execute the Unity Runtime on the cloud or a remote server, unless such use of the Managed Service or SDK Integration has been specifically authorized by Unity.

    By reading this, even my S***ty headless server build on Digital Ocean is illegal at this point, am I misinterpreting?
     
  23. Teila

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    Could it be they are distributing Unity on their cloud servers?
     
  24. LukeDawn

    LukeDawn

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    That is my main worry too. The build window allows headless builds which can only be for servers, and the text seems to read that this is now disallowed. Also would like clarification on Steam and other stores.
     
  25. Murgilod

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    If they were, this would have been shut down far sooner because that's an entirely different section of the ToS.
     
  26. mikerz1985

    mikerz1985

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    SpatialOS just runs an instance of unity as a worker on their server; it uses the physics system and embeds arbitrary libraries such as ECS in order to execute the code on the server. They're not doing anything with the editor or editor runtime. Honestly, this one issue is going to make or break my use of Unity for the time being, which is alarming.
     
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  27. DreamPower

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    This is very troubling, I work for a company that occasionally does research projects by running multiple copies of an app on the cloud, we even bought a number of extra Unity Pro licenses (for the full year of course) for one time we temporarily needed to run those projects in the Unity editor (this is only for access by the one person in the company doing it). Apparently we can't even run built-apps on our own licensed cloud servers anymore without breaking the TOS?
     
  28. Murgilod

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  29. PartyBoat

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    And Unity continues to be completely incompetent when it comes to networking...
     
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  30. Viggy1996

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    Hey! Does this mean I can't deploy headless dedicated servers for my games (built using Photon Bolt) as it has Unity Runtimes on, say, Amazon servers ?
     
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  31. thelebaron

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  32. tiggus

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    If nothing else I learned a lot about SpatialOS...It seems very interesting. I am also impressed how they already have Unity ECS integration with their server ECS system.

    I don't see why running other people's games on your servers would require you to pay money to Unity, sounds greedy. Unity gets Pro licenses from developers using SpatialOS, now they are trying to shift the paywall further(at least in SpatialOS specific case).
     
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  33. Teila

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    Do they? Can they not just use the free version?
     
  34. LukeDawn

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    elias_t likes this.
  35. nxrighthere

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    A typical situation when two business machines are trying to occupy a niche in a certain area, and one side is trying to slam another, but at the end users with their projects get hurt.
     
  36. tiggus

    tiggus

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    They can, I was trying to say the serious projects certainly have some members using copies of Pro.
     
  37. JBR-games

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    Unity is following a typical business.. They started off small for the indy developer "democratizing games" and over the years have gotten so big thats its now all about money and greed..
    They done a great job of f@$#ing up the asset store ..banning asset developers that complain..

    Now Pissing on the game developers that have been working years building projects LEGALLY, all this just to coat their pockets with a little extra cash... After many years of using unity this has got me on the edge of moving on..

    @Everyone..
    What they are doing is saying at any point in the future they can change the terms of service.. And add any kind of fee or simply remove your game at their will.. If they want too..
     
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  38. PeterJK

    PeterJK

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    If I may offer some feedback:

    If this terms change refers purely to the where the editor runtime can be executed, then please just clarify and we can all move on.

    If this change refers to where we can run instances of our own game builds, client or server, then please stop and reconsider!

    This would be a terrible breach of trust. Unity itself should not erect any barriers to where a developer can run or distribute its games beyond the technical. If, for example, I build my game for an open distribution platform like windows, I should be able to run instances of that build - client or server - on whatever windows machine I like, certainly without deferring to unity for extra permission.

    This is a really fundamental principle of ownership. It’s completely reasonable for us to expect to have been able to run instances of our OWN games on open Operating Systems however we wish. To be able to roll our own server infrastructure, be it for multiplayer or cloud distribution/streaming of their games, UGC within our games etc.

    To make this change, let alone retroactively, would be a huge mistake for unity.

    So bad in fact, that even if Unity rolls this back, I feel it will have to commit to per version terms that cannot be changed - as other engines do - if it wants to retain trust going forward that this won’t happen again. People need stability to build business on.

    I’m so sad about this if it is what I think it is. Thanks for listening.
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2019
  39. Murgilod

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    It does not, as SpatialOS doesn't actually do this in any capacity.
     
  40. mikerz1985

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    Completely agree. It's shocking that the TOS can retroactively tank your game.
     
  41. BeefSupreme

    BeefSupreme

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    Wow, ToS section 2.4 is pretty damn far-reaching and restrictive.
     
  42. Errorsatz

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    I'm 99% sure this isn't intended to bar distribution on Steam, or prevent individual games' servers. However, I think Unity did shoot themself in the foot, and it does make me less confident in them going forward.

    The problem is that a EULA which can be modified unilaterally at any point in time is a ticking time bomb to have embedded in your game / company. The only reason it was acceptable before is that Unity had made a pretty good case for "Trust us, we're not going to do anything stupid or evil with it."

    But now they appear to be using it to throw their weight around in negotiations. That's a huge red flag. What guarantees they won't pull the rug out from under any given company if they decide one day they'd like a larger slice of the pie? And while I seriously doubt they'd go after anyone small this way, we can still be collateral damage.

    At a minimum, they need to resolve the current situation in a reasonable way. But what I'd like to see is a change to the EULA that makes things like this impossible.
     
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  43. Flurgle

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    After all the cool upgrades, ECS, shader graph / vfx graph, and new scripting stuff, open sourcing things, more transparency on github, they pull this? They were doing everything so perfectly!

    It's just weird
     
  44. hard_code

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    They have raised a ton of money. They are essentially a startup unicorn and all those investors need their 10x-100x cashout. Unity is going to have to go public or sale itself to a mega corp at some point.
     
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  45. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    What's weird is people jumping to conclusions before Unity makes an announcement... oh, who am I kidding? :p
     
  46. Errorsatz

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    I know, right? After the last Unite, right up until today, I was thinking - "Man, Unity just keeps getting better!" :(
     
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  47. Flurgle

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    @Ryiah agreed, and what I hope is that Unity will offer a way to onramp services that host unity server side. Maybe their timing and planning was really super bad.
     
  48. tgienger

    tgienger

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    I was
    I was glad I choose it over unreal... Was
     
  49. labandunga

    labandunga

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    Unity, what little confidence you earned through ECS, rendering pipelines, burst and others. You undid everything overnight, I think that's an accomplishment, also shows that Unity will always be a second tier engine. Treating their user base as children. This pattern started way before the Unity 4 release, when they decided to seal GameObject and Transform classes for no reason other than saying "it's not the Unity way". If Unity doesn't back away from this TOS decision many companies will be forced to switch to competitors, and rightfully so.
     
    elias_t likes this.
  50. knr_

    knr_

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    Thank God for Epic Games and their actions that demonstrate democratizing game development, as oppose to just saying it then doing the exact opposite. If this isn't the straw that breaks the camel's back, its coming awfully close where teams will start jumping off the Unity ship to be picked up by the Unreal lifeboat.
     
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