In Light of Unity TOS Changes, Epic Games and Improbable Reaffirm Commitment to Devs

This could be a big gamble on Epic's part.

25 million is a lot of money, and if they plan to invest all of this on getting developers of unity cloud hosted games onto the UE4 platform, they must be expecting to get it back in shares of profits from the games when they release.

That is putting a lot of confidence in these developers to release and turn enough of a profit to get a return on that investment. I wonder if other things were agreed behind closed doors, like Epic now owning some share in SpatialOS in exchange for helping them out and the good PR they have generated?

Either way it doesn't help Unity's cause and things like this can cause irreparable damage to reputation regardless of the original intention behind the ruling.

1 hour ago, Brain said:

25 million is a lot of money, and if they plan to invest all of this on getting developers of unity cloud hosted games onto the UE4 platform, they must be expecting to get it back in shares of profits from the games when they release. 

I think this is PR money with added benefit of some developer conversions.

This might pay for itself if few million copies of these games get sold but it doesn't need to.

Epic's been burning money recently for PR and investment.

Their store fee is always 12% (even if you use Unreal) but other engines are welcome and they give out one free game every two weeks.

It's not even that much between them considering the investment that Improbable got and how loaded Epic is due to Fortnite.

And Tim Sweeney seems genuinely against walled gardens (his UWP reaction), he was bashing Unity on his Twitter for this.

Unity is scribbling around in their ToS during a riot and these two just announced they'll throw money at people.

$25M is a lot of money for most devs, but Unreal is playing a different game with much higher stakes. The market they live in is worth billions of dollars a year, and if they can peel off 2% of Unity developers for a few tens of millions in good will dollars that'll basically pay off in no time.

And yet you failed to post a news post where Unity pointed out the whole Improbable thing was because they had been in breach of the TOS for a year?

Way to tell only the liars side of the story guys ?

I'm SO curious how this all will end for Unity and what the new ToS is gonna say.

Some somewhere have pointed out how Unity3D approached Improbable about their alleged ToS breaking soon after they got the $500 million investment. Investment was in May 2017 and Unity approached them 'over a year ago'.

Someone also pointed out that maybe part of 25 millions comes from Improbable's money that they have stashed away planning to pay Unity for becoming a partner so now that negotiations died they use it for anti-Unity pro-Unreal PR budget instead. Sounds reasonable but it's not like Epic couldn't bankroll that themselves and it's essentially an Unreal advert in every tech media outlet done on the cheap.

OTOH Improbable still lists Unity GDK on their website and if you didn't know from elsewhere you'd think it's fine to use which is very misleading since Unity's blog post exemption (see below) is only for existing developers using it. They had it up there even when their doomsday "pull the plug on your game cus it violates new 2.4" post was up and before Unity responded.

Unity also updated their blog post twice so far:

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Update: We understand there are still some questions about our TOS. We’re currently working to make the TOS clearer. If you are worried about your particular situation please write to terms@unity3d.com and we’ll address your question.

Update (Friday 4:30PM Pacific): 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.

And there's a comment under it by Joachim Ante from Unity (he also wrote the blog post but he is posting from his 'personal' account so his comments aren't blue like other employee's comments are) that 2.4 isn't intended to apply to game developers (the "morphing Unity into a different game engine" part sounds especially strange to me):

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1. We are saying that existing games that have started production already can continue to do so. We are giving those developers & Spatial OS an exemption. We do that because we believe developers should never be held hostage over such a dispute.

2. We believed that we would come to an agreement with improbable.

3. We are working on an update to the TOS that does that.

The intention is that nothing in section 2.4 should apply to game developers specifically.
As a game developer you should be able to do whatever you like with the unity runtime in the cloud or your own servers.

The intent of section 2.4 is that “Third party cloud service providers” can’t build their own platform on top of the unity runtime without having a partnership with us. Where the Unity runtime is executed in the cloud with custom SDK extensions, essentially morphing Unity into a different game engine and then selling it as a platform / service that builds on our technology. We are super happy to partner with anyone, and obviously do so with many many companies.

And here's the (still up on their website) 2.4 from December (they didn't update it yet):

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2.4 Streaming and Cloud Gaming Restrictions.

You may not directly or indirectly distribute the Unity Software, including the runtime portion of the Unity Software (the “Unity Runtime”), or your Project Content (if it incorporates the Unity Runtime) by means of streaming or broadcasting so that any portion of the Unity Software is primarily executed on or simulated by the cloud or a remote server and transmitted over the Internet or other network to end user devices without a separate license or authorization from Unity. Without limiting the foregoing, you may not use a managed service running on cloud infrastructure (a “Managed Service”) or a specific integration of a binary add-on (for example, a plugin or SDK) or source code to be integrated in the Unity Software or Your Project Content incorporating the Unity Runtime (an “SDK Integration”) 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. Additionally, you may not integrate the Unity Runtime with a Managed Service or SDK Integration and offer that integration to third parties for the purpose of installing or using the Unity Runtime on the cloud or a remote server. For a list of Unity authorized streaming platforms, Managed Services and SDK Integrations, click here.This restriction does not prevent end users from remotely accessing your Project Content from an end user device that is running on another end user device. You may not use a third party to directly or indirectly distribute or make available, stream, broadcast (through simulation or otherwise) any portion of the Unity Software unless that third party is authorized by Unity to provide such services.

I still don't get why Unity is such a control freak (e.g. 2.3 above 2.4 pretty much prevents mass made physical digital art pieces, LCD picture frames and embedded appliances UI from being made in Unity):

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2.3 Embedded Software Restriction.

You may not directly or indirectly distribute your Project Content installed on more than 1,000 electronic devices or systems if your Project Content provides the user interface or primary functionality of such electronic device or system without a separate license from Unity. This restriction does not prevent you from distributing your Project Content pre-installed on personal computers and consumer electronic devices such as mobile phones, tablets, televisions or set top boxes as long as your Project Content does not provide the user interface or primary functionality of such device.

This all also doesn't explain who would get in trouble and how for you uploading a game to streaming platform (the ones that get input over the network to cloud from user and send user the graphics and audio, like PS Now, but that one is approved) other than the four they approve.

The cloud gaming platform never agreed to any ToS, they just run your exe (or is this what's forbidden or assumed to be agreeing to a ToS, but you do not get prompted with any pop up or told to pass some --agree-to-tos option to the exe like some software tells you to do), and Joachim said 2.4 doesn't apply to game developers.

Twitch isn't listed as approved so it'd be curious to see if Unity would shut down (or claim they could due to ToS violation, since they apply it unevenly already but seem to claim they could shut down all SpatialOS games right now if they didn't give them an exemption) a Twitch plays Pokemon style even if it was a game made on Unity that's being played.

And if 2.4 doesn't apply to game developers at all then why did current developers running and making games on SpatialOS get an exemption from it (or is it a temporary fix until they add language to 2.4 saying that it doesn't apply to developers).

And people thought GPL was limiting and viral.

@FRex I'm not sure you're understanding the distinction between how SpatialOS was mis-using the Unity Runtime(themselves) as opposed to other sites(itch.io) where they just host a Unity Runtime-Integrated Distribution created by another Licensed Developer. This is a big distinction and one that makes all the difference in this situation. Improbable isn't just some vulnerable developer out there trying to get by. They are a massively venture funded company with every responsibility to pay their own bills and read/comply with licenses just like every other company who pays through the nose for access to these technologies at this level.

The only thing that happened here was a single non-paying customer of Unity's got shut off. Then they(Improbable) tried to make it look like it was about something more noble, because they had the leverage of a poorly written TOS to help do so. They might even get away with it to some extent... Hard to say just yet, I think Monday will be interesting.

And as far as Unity going after some of the 500mil..

If you had a customer who owed you money but you're not going to make a big scene because PR.. Then all of a sudden they win the lottery.. What do you do? You try to get what's owed is what you do. And then if/when they refuse you simply because they think they can, you're supposed to just keep letting them breach your TOS?.. No, you shut them off, without any publicity and hope they take the high road and amicably resolve the situation, not go to the public opinion machine and try to make you look like the big bad boogy-man.

The use of Clause 2.4 in this whole matter is nothing more than a red herring.

It did need addressed though, and I'm glad it's getting attention.. but really..

37 minutes ago, Septopus said:

I'm not sure you're understanding the distinction between how SpatialOS was mis-using the Unity Runtime(themselves) as opposed to other sites(itch.io) where they just host a Unity Runtime-Integrated Distribution created by another Licensed Developer.  This is a big distinction and one that makes all the difference in this situation.

Then what is the distinction and which point of old ToS was broken? Unity won't say other than saying very vague stuff in blog post that also contradicts the ToS and then literally say "oh, we made an exception for now, keep using it all". And I'm not sure where did you pull itchio from, they aren't a cloud hosting or SDK maker.

37 minutes ago, Septopus said:

Improbable isn't just some vulnerable developer out there trying to get by. They are a massively venture funded company with every responsibility to pay their own bills and read/comply with licenses just like every other company who pays through the nose for access to these technologies at this level.

It's irrelevant who they are or how much money they have. This is about Unity's attitude and supposedly Unity breaking negotiations and updating ToS and cancelling keys out of nowhere, seemingly because their patience ran out during the negotiations.

37 minutes ago, Septopus said:

The only thing that happened here was a single non-paying customer of Unity's got shut off. Then they tried to make it look like it was about something more noble, because they had the leverage of a poorly written TOS to help do so.

If Unity can't get their ToS clear and then interprets all vague stuff in its own favor that reflects badly on them.

Improbable was paying for licenses with which they made their SDK and people who made games in Unity had to pay for it or qualify for free tier as they always do with any store or cloud.

24 minutes ago, Septopus said:

The use of Clause 2.4 in this whole matter is nothing more than a red herring. 

Then why was it changed literally a month ago, just before this started and why does it look like it targets Improbable's SpatialOS specifically with what was added and why does Improbable claim that Unity said that's what they broke now?

37 minutes ago, Septopus said:

And then if/when they refuse you simply because they think they can, you're supposed to just keep letting them breach your TOS?

I'm still waiting to know which part of Unity's ToS Improbable broke over a year ago with SpatialOS. Unity has not said yet and Improbable claims they didn't break the old ToS. I think so too and I don't see Unity's point. I agree they break new 2.4 since it's literally aimed at them.

Like I'm not an idiot, my M. Eng. of CS included patent, copyright and trademark class and I'm fairly well versed in these from own reading. I'm an amateur and if I make some shitty 2D game I use only FOSS tools. Unreal, Unity, Epic and Improbable could disappear tonight and I'd not care. So why am I not siding with Unity on this if this is so clear cut? What am I missing?

19 minutes ago, FRex said:

It's irrelevant who they are or how much money they have. This is about Unity's attitude and supposedly Unity breaking negotiations and updating ToS and cancelling keys out of nowhere, seemingly because their patience ran out during the negotiations.

Knowing you are in violation of a TOS for more than a few weeks is too long, knowing for more than a year is ridiculous, that is by no means out of nowhere... smh.. My patience would have run out with Improbable a LONG time ago if all I was interested in was money.

19 minutes ago, FRex said:

If Unity can't get their ToS clear and then interprets all vague stuff in its own favor that reflects badly on them.

True, and they stated they would be working on it over the weekend. We all hope they sort it out the right way.

19 minutes ago, FRex said:

Improbable was paying for licenses with which they made their SDK and people who made games in Unity had to pay for it or qualify for free tier as they always do with any store or cloud.

None of this has anything to do with normal unity developers. Making an SDK/Platform out of the Unity Runtime is the caveat that 2.4 was intended to address, according to your own quotes from Unity. This is a partner level agreement who's negotiations failed. \

Section 2.4 sucks, everybody agrees there..

19 minutes ago, FRex said:

Then why was it changed literally a month ago, just before this started and why does it look like it targets Improbable's SpatialOS specifically with what was added and why does Improbable claim that Unity said that's what they broke now?

Improbable is going to claim whatever they can that makes their side of the story look better... feel free to prove me wrong there. I'll say I was wrong if I am.

19 minutes ago, FRex said:

I'm still waiting to know which part of Unity's ToS Improbable broke over a year ago with SpatialOS. Unity has not said yet and Improbable claims they didn't break the old ToS. I think so too and I don't see Unity's point. I agree they break new 2.4 since it's literally aimed at them.

I'm sure it's the very same clause, the fact is, legal language is only revised when it has to be. It's generally only updated when somebody finds a loophole. Finding a loophole might mean you have a legal right to act on it, but it doesn't make it moral. jmho..

19 minutes ago, FRex said:

Like I'm not an idiot, my M. Eng. of CS included patent, copyright and trademark class and I'm fairly well versed in these from own reading. I'm an amateur and if I make some shitty 2D game I use only FOSS tools. Unreal, Unity, Epic and Improbable could disappear tonight and I'd not care. So why am I not siding with Unity on this if this is so clear cut? What am I missing?

There are two parties involved here, one was using the IP of another against the legal interpretation of that IPs Terms of Service. I'm not trying to sway you, nor anybody else, I personally don't care what comes of any of this either. I just think that important facts should not be dismissed because BIG COMPANY BAD and so-and-so wrote a blog and offered $25mil to "help".. There's an aweful lot of misdirection and PR work going on here for it to be entirely what they say it is. Which is likely why Unity is waiting out the sh*t-storm for a more level-headed Monday morning.

Like I said, just my humble opinion...

45 minutes ago, Septopus said:

Knowing you are in violation of a TOS for more than a few weeks is too long, knowing for more than a year is ridiculous, that is by no means out of nowhere... smh.. My patience would have run out with Improbable a LONG time ago if all I was interested in was money.

Unity claims that with no other details or explanations given, not even quoting the section that was violated or why it was violated.

Improbable claims they weren't violating it and were negotiating (for whatever reason).

Then new anti-SpatialOS 2.4 dropped and Unity revoke those keys and now Unity is angry Improbable pointed out new ToS forbids SpatialOS.

What did Unity want Improbable to do? New 2.4 (and Unity claims old one did too) literally bans game developers (but Joachim Ante says the 2.4 doesn't restrict game developers at all) from using SpatialOS.

The only reason SpatialOS games are okay for now is because Joachim Ante said they are giving them an "exception" to the ToS on the blog.

Would that happen if not for this entire drama that Improbable started in the media or would Unity go around revoking keys of developers of those games or demand more money from them silently?

The "out of nowhere" part seems to refer to abrupt end of negotiations from Unity's side and revoking of keys and updating the ToS.

Unity also claims they approached Improbable first soon after they got that investment which just looks HORRIBLE from the outside.

And Unity is getting into cloud too now.

So the ToS is so broad it's extremely easy to violate it and they do not enforce it until they see someone who gets big or competes with them.

Joachim Ante right now claims that section 2.4 "doesn't apply to game developers" despite this section literally saying to everyone: "do not use managed services we do not approve". Seriously - go look at their blog comment to see what he says, then go read the ToS - they contradict.

This looks very shady for Unity so far.

This is literally dictatorial tactics of overly broad laws that literally everyone breaks but that get used only to imprison opposition.

The "don't worry, you don't make millions of dollars so they won't target you" point that some people (and you, kind of) make is insane and no way to license anything.

I'd expect more of an engine that was described as "democratizing game development".

45 minutes ago, Septopus said:

None of this has anything to do with normal unity developers. Making an SDK/Platform out of the Unity Runtime is the caveat that 2.4 was intended to address, according to your own quotes from Unity. This is a partner level agreement who's negotiations failed.

The way I understand what SpatialOS does (and maybe I'm wrong) - they give you a generic SDK, you build an exe that uses it, you upload it to their cloud and they execute it many times and handle networking/seamless worlds.

They just happened to have 'GDKs' for two/three popular engines, including Unity, and now Unity killed keys they used to develop their GDK for Unity because 'negotiations failed'.

And Unity added anti-SpatialOS language to 2.4 last December so it's now completely forbidden (but Joachim Ante claims that section 2.4 doesn't apply to developers who can do anything they want and is giving out "exceptions" in comments on blog right now?).

45 minutes ago, Septopus said:

I'm sure it's the very same clause, the fact is, legal language is only revised when it has to be. It's generally only updated when somebody finds a loophole. Finding a loophole might mean you have a legal right to act on it, but it doesn't make it moral. jmho.. 

If old ToS had a loop hole then Improbable didn't break it. That's the definition and point of a loop hole. Even in real life there are loop holes like double jeopardy and jury nulification and tax havens.

And now new 2.4 abruptly closed that loop hole (that Unity never even claimed exists, just you do) and let Unity revoke keys for breaking it.

Any moral, ethical or friendly arguments are long out the window since Unity uses purely legal/ToS arguments for its point and justifications, never even claims there was no loop hole, says that old ToS was broken and revoked keys.

45 minutes ago, Septopus said:

Section 2.4 sucks, everybody agrees there.. 

Joachim Ante says right now that it "doesn't apply to game developers", which makes no sense since the responsibility is on developer to not use non-Unity approved managed clouds/services. This literally makes no sense to me.

45 minutes ago, Septopus said:

Improbable is going to claim whatever they can that makes their side of the story look better... feel free to prove me wrong there. I'll say I was wrong if I am.

And Unity is going to claim whatever they can that makes them look better, like breaking of old ToS, or defending game developers or that new section 2.4 was a total coincidence so why side with Unity instantly?

You keep parroting Unity's talking points about how ToS was broken, sorry for vague 2.4, Improbable lies, Improbable knew, but you gave me 0 concrete answers.

Improbable also has less holes in their story and Epic/TS (and most people online really) on their side.

And by that logic every two party dispute is instantly invalid because it's always two sides that both make themselves out to be in the right. "A thief stole your stuff? That's just your claim! They claim you gave it to them for free! You're gonna claim anything to make yourself look good! I side with them!".

45 minutes ago, Septopus said:

True, and they stated they would be working on it over the weekend. We all hope they sort it out the right way. 

Then they should do that first before revoking any licenses or doing anything at all.

If Improbable didn't attack first with such efficiency then would anything change at all or what was Unity planning to do with those games that are in breach f ToS by using SpatialOS?

Right now we have blog comments deeply contradicting the ToS with a promise on blog that ToS will soon change again.

All we can do is parrot, because none of us knows anything that hasn't been published... Those that do aren't interested in stirring up any more drama.. Me either.

I hope it all works out for all parties involved and everybody can go back to their business as usual game making selves.

I have no insider knowledge of any kind either and after going through all the blog posts this is my conclusion for now.

The timeline is:

1. Improbable makes SpatialOS and a pre-made convenient GDK for it for Unity and gets lots of funding.
2. Unity approaches Improbable to either tell them they are breaching the ToS or to try get them to become a partner.
3. (Optional: only if Unity did tell them they breach the ToS) Improbable claims they don't breach the ToS and lawyers up.
4. "Negotiations" (friendly or not, that doesn't matter) occur and fail.
5. Unity updates the ToS to make it clear SpatialOS is in breach and revokes the keys they use to make their Unity GDK.
6. Improbable writes a piece outing this move and to tell developers to not use SpatialOS with Unity since it's against new ToS.
7. Unity claims no wrong doing and that it's okay to use SpatialOS for ongoing games as an exception given via their blog post.
8. Unity promises to update the ToS soon again and makes claims on its blog that directly contradict it right now.

This actually fits all the claims in all the blog posts.

Unity says they said Improbable breached the ToS - maybe they did and Improbable disagreed with that interpretation?

Maybe for last six months it was a slow lawyer letter exchange until Unity said fcuk it and updated the section 2.4 to kill them off.

Points 5, 7 and 8 reflect poorly on Unity in various ways.

Point 8 also gives more credibility to Improbable because it's like if Unity doesn't understand its own ToS.

Unity didn't do anything illegal of course (I never said they did) but no matter how I slice it it makes them look bad in my eyes.

13 hours ago, _the_phantom_ said:

And yet you failed to post a news post where Unity pointed out the whole Improbable thing was because they had been in breach of the TOS for a year?

Way to tell only the liars side of the story guys ?

They did post that, it's linked at the top...

And while I'm sure that Spatial OS is spinning things in their favor here / outright lying... Unity also come across as putting out spin in their response / outright lying too.

Their response mentions that they "clarified" the TOS in December and then revoked Spatial's licenses. They don't mention that this clarification was actually quite a big change in legal wording though, which could have moved a lot of people from non-breaching to breaching.
They also don't mention that 6 months ago (the same time when Unity claims they first infomed Spatial in writing of a breach), they actually first added the text that bans cloud hosting... Before that time, there was no such restriction.

So Unity is telling us that they've been in breach the whole time, but didn't mention that they actually changed the TOS 6 months ago to create a situation where Spatial was in breach...

That alone makes it sound like everyone is acting in bad faith here. Everyone is lying / spinning ?

Lastly, if they're in breach the whole time, there wouldn't have been a need to add new restrictions to the TOS that seem to be specifically worded to ensure that spatial was in breach... And that situation really makes it sound like Unity was negotiating in bad faith.

Do you have any magic insider info that explains Unity adding new terms written specifically to put Spatial in breach during the negotiations with Spatial, or why they tried to gloss over this fact in their blog?

The whole "we see this as a platform" wording is so vague. From the sounds of it, Unity is ok with people doing whatever they like with EXE's produced by Unity, but have a problem if people integrate the Unity editor itself into their products, and then rent that product on to customers. If so, that's a fair enough situation to be in... but no one is explicitly saying this at all. Instead they've put out wording that sounds as if putting your Unity EXE onto Steam for distribution is a breach of terms....

31 minutes ago, Hodgman said:

So Unity is telling us that they've been in breach the whole time, but didn't mention that they actually changed the TOS 6 months ago to create a situation where Spatial was in breach...

If you're getting that mid 2018 change date from me posting a mid 2018 then you're wrong.

I said 'this was that way in mid 2018' because that was snapshot of their ToS I found in Wayback Machine.

The date on that snapshot says February 21, 2018 (so still after 'over a year ago we told them in person' date Unity claims but before 'six months ago in writing' one). That anti-cloud 2.4 was there in 2016 already too. I just added 'mid 2018' 2.4 in last thread to show what it looked like before they changed it in December to add these 'no SDK + cloud bundle'.

Sorry for that misleading if that was it but it doesn't change much in the he says she says argument they're having. And 2.4 always sounded vague and like it's against almost any-MP.

31 minutes ago, Hodgman said:

And while I'm sure that Spatial OS is spinning things in their favor here / outright lying...

It looks bad they still have Unity on their website too. Zero mention that it's against ToS (which they agree with themselves) or that Unity okay'd it only for (seemingly) ongoing developments in their blog post. It's like they want to pressure Unity into backing off. Maybe they knew Tim Sweeney is a huge pro-openness nerd (after those op eds he had out about UWP or how UE4 gutted itself to get rid of all the too proprietary bits to let everyone have the source code) and that he'd jump in to defend them but that sounds a bit too conspiracy theorist.

It's also a bit sad they have this tech where you get an SDK but only they have cloud workers code and you are locked into their cloud but at least they have something unique enough and are upfront on their website about it.

31 minutes ago, Hodgman said:

The whole "we see this as a platform" wording is so vague. From the sounds of it, Unity is ok with people doing whatever they like with EXE's produced by Unity, but have a problem if people integrate the Unity editor itself into their products, and then rent that product on to customers. If so, that's a fair enough situation to be in... but no one is explicitly saying this at all. Instead they've put out wording that sounds as if putting your Unity EXE onto Steam for distribution is a breach of terms....

But is that what SpatialOS did? To me it sounds like they just give you a lib, you have to build your exe and use that lib in it and then when they execute it on their cloud it does its cloud balancing seamless worlds magic. And they made a convenient Unity 'GDK' to generate C# classes for your game stuff instead of forcing you to use their generic for-all-engines-ever SDKs. It doesn't sound like they let anyone use Unity editor itself (I mean - despite their Editor keys being gone SpatialOS 'works' still and people can develop in it and Unity okay'd that too).

Joachim Ante made some comments under their blog post saying that Steam, itchio, etc. is fine but he also says 2.4 doesn't restrict game devs which (IMO) it does with it's "do not use cloud providers we didn't give an official blessing to".

This also makes no sense since what would happen is I used SpatialOS's generic for-all-engines SDK in Unity, wrap it myself, upload exe - who is then in the wrong? They never even used Unity. Am I? But I'm the 'game developer' so ???

You do not put a 'yes' in any eula.txt file, or pass an option agreeing with and ToS when running a Unity made game exe (some software does it in CLI only installers since it can't pop up a window to tell you the license).

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1. Itch.io / steam or other stores are not violating the section 2.4 because they are not even executing the Unity runtime in the cloud.
In any case we are completely aware that section 2.4 is confusing, and it is too broad. We are working on an improved section 2.4 that we will share soon.

The intention is that nothing in section 2.4 should apply to game developers specifically.
As a game developer you should be able to do whatever you like with the unity runtime in the cloud or your own servers.

Section 2.4’s intent is to only apply to “third party cloud services”.

The intent of section 2.4 is that “Third party cloud service providers” can’t build their own platform on top of the unity runtime without having a partnership with us. Where the Unity runtime is executed in the cloud with custom SDK extensions, essentially morphing Unity into a different game engine and then selling it as a platform / service that builds on our technology. We are super happy to partner with anyone, and obviously do so with many many companies.

2. First of all updates to the EULA only apply to versions of Unity released after the update of the EULA. It does not apply retroactively to older versions of Unity.

Section 2.4 has been in our EULA for years. We changed it in order to make the intent clearer.
Unfortunately it turns out we made it too broad. And it is not explicit enough in saying that section 2.4 in no way should apply to game developers themselves.

11 minutes ago, FRex said:

But is that what SpatialOS did? To me it sounds like they just give you a lib, you have to build your exe and use that lib in it and then when they execute it on their cloud it does its cloud balancing seamless worlds magic.

I'm no expert on SpatialOS Tech, but that seamless worlds magic likely involves an authoritative physics simulation, easier to do that with the Unity Runtime operating at the server... That I assume is why they have a separate SDK for each engine, otherwise it would just be available in different languages.

@Septopus

I don't know the details either but they DO have generic C#, C++ and Java SDKs and claim that any engine works with them, they just pre-made few 'GDKs' as they call them to support two popular engines.

And yes - they say they use the engine, not provide own physics or anything. I mean - it'd be crazy and inaccurate between your machine and their server if they ran own physics in a different engine and so on. But they only seem to use your exe. If no one ever wanted to run a Unity MMO they'd never execute a single line of Unity Runtime on their clouds.

So the way they made it sound it's like if you build a single exe of your game in any language using their SDKs or GDKs, then give it to your players to run normally (which will run no physics, show graphics, etc.) and that connects to SpatialOS cloud running the exe launched in some special way/with other argument where they will cooperate to make seamless worlds, do run physics, do not show graphics, etc. for the players.

And their Unity Editor license was to let them maker their Unity GDK? I mean - SpatialOS games keep working so it can't be needed for that since Unity voided them.

Edit: I also wonder if Unity would consider it a ToS violation to use S3 or DynamoDB in your game and then host on AWS?

Edit 2: I guess it'll all be clear on Monday or Tuesday or so, as Joachim promised a new ToS 2.4 to come soon...

Been checking out Improbables docs, yeah it seems they are just hosting third party developer generated binaries.. A highly customised hosting system where the game server(s) have to be designed and written in a very specific way, using the sdk..

Quote

You’ll need to build your game using an entity-component-worker architecture, writing server-side code in a way that enables SpatialOS to stitch servers together. Instead of writing a single game server, you’ll write server-workers: server-side programs that are only responsible for handling a part of the world at a time.

So... I don't even know anymore.. Haha.

5 hours ago, Hodgman said:

They did post that, it's linked at the top...

No, what you have are two headlines, one screaming Unity are guilty (which was retweeted a day later too, which is just going to affirm things) and one proclaiming Improbable and Epic to be the 'good guys' - no news article/post pointing out the Unity reply, instead it is buried in a post that it's unlikely to be re-read by anyone. That's narrative control...

As for the rest, there is much I can't say and won't say, in fact this will probably be the last post on the subject because I'm risking saying things I shouldn't, but as FRex has pointed out the TOS agreement change was in Feb of last year - Improbable had already been informed of their breech; 6 months after that there were notified in writing. Two weeks ago they had their keys turned off for breaches. Until they whipped up a media storm of this (again, two weeks later, almost like they were waiting for something... ) to try and get the public on their side they have given their own customers ZERO warning there might be a problem. They then tried to user their customers as hostages against Unity in a PR war (and in a news article used the term 'ransom demand' to refer to anything they might/might not owe Unity for no longer breaking the TOS - yeah, they seem like reasonable people...), meanwhile Tim Sweeney cheerleads from the sidelines and then magically pulls a fund out of thin air (at which point a lot of sentiment started to turn against them).

Everyone is focusing on the 2.4 terms, again because Improbable pointed them out as ammo, and while I agree those terms are #*@!ing hard to parse and understand it has led to the assumption those are the only terms Improbable have breached. Unity haven't said either way, just that they are in breech of TOS, likely this is a case of lawyers preventing more details being released because who knows what else might happen.

On a related note; anyone who has tried to work closely with Improbable has nothing good to say about them. Indeed a manager of mine, when hearing someone had gone to work for them a short while back was surprised and reacted with the statement 'they are lunatics [at Improbable]!'. The guy running the place has a bad rep with anyone who has come close to them. I'm sure Tim/Epic will discover this on their own, but frankly for them $25m is currently chump change to do damage to a competitor without having to do it at a technical level, instead just via a PR Proxy War.

I don't believe this union will last, indeed I wouldn't be surprised if Epic just brought them at some point... (Improbable are barely profitable as it is, have a lot of funding overhead, and the majority of their customers seem to be primarily Unity based so no wonder they have shit themselves at Unity finally enforcing the TOS after giving them a year to sort their shit out.)

… but I've probably just wasted my time here; in the court of public opinion Unity are guilty, Improbable are the victims and Epic is the White Knight riding to the rescue of everyone.

At this point I'm not even sure the full details and the truth would change people's mind about this...

33 minutes ago, _the_phantom_ said:

That's narrative control...

That's unity's fumble. They mentioned that deactivating keys is unprecedented, but thought doing it to a bunch of tech bros sitting on a massive pile of VC cash would just occur quietly? They chose when the revocation would occur, so had time to prepare their narrative. Simply being ready to say exactly what Spatial had done, instead of panicking and rushing out a half-baked counter response after Spatial has spent two weeks tweaking their spin seems like an obvious missed opportunity in hindsight...

The updates that they made to 2.4 do put all users of Unity + Spatial into infringement. Unity's blog says in their blog that these people can keep working, but the TOS says that they can't. It's pretty shitty for Unity to knowingly change the TOS to put their customers in that situation and not out out a statement. Complaining that Spatial misinformed these people when it was Unity's responsibility in the first place is a bit rich.

Unity slaps Improbable in that blog, saying that Unity told Improbable that current customers would be allowed to keep working, but that Improbable told these customers that they were in breach. If this is true, then yes that's a dick move from Improbable... However, they're also telling the truth while being misleading -- these users ARE in breach of the new Unity TOS. Unity knowingly changed the rules to put those people in breach, decided to selectively enforce the rules to not punish them for an unfair situation, but didn't bother to actually inform them of this fact. I don't know how Unity can spin that as anyone's PR mess but their own.

33 minutes ago, _the_phantom_ said:

but I've probably just wasted my time here; in the court of public opinion Unity are guilty, Improbable are the victims and Epic is the White Knight riding to the rescue of everyone

Be a bit less dramatic. Over on twitter my feed seemed to be almost entirely of the opinion that spatial are scum, Epic is in on some conspiracy here, and Unity can do no wrong. Even the theoretical discussion around the danger of TOS updates to an engine-as-a-subscription service seems one sided in favour of the Unity can do no wrong standpoint.

Personally, I've always thought that Spatial is a scam... But unity's handling of this honestly does make them look bad. They both look bad now. It does look like they've tweaked their TOS to make a valid use case into an infringing one, in order to extract back room licensing deals. It does look like they're trying to shut down middleware that fairly competes against their own acquisitions. Doesn't matter if that's the case or not - that's the impression they've chosen to create with how they've handled this. Also, the fact that the CEO is also responsible for EA's "worse company in America" period and is famous for nickel and diming his customers, and that this follows on from the Unity-email scandal where they mass accused their own customers of fraud, it fits into that narrative. That's not an external conspiracy, that's from within

Personally I just want to know what Spatial actually did, beside breach the terms that were very obviously written specifically for (against?) them.