Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games illegal

Re:Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games... by bengotow on Thursday January 10, 2019 @12:25PM (#18875767)

I dunno this seems clear enough to me - they don't want you circumventing the terms of your license by running the game on a single machine and streaming it to many players. Each game instance requires a separate license.

I'm sure this isn't intended to stop you from running your game's central multiplayer server. It's just to make sure you pay an appropriate licensing fee for Unity.

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Re:Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games... by ricardobeat on Thursday January 10, 2019 @12:55PM (#18876125)

As far as I understand you needed your own Unity / Unreal / Cryengine license to develop using SpatialOS, they don’t do streaming the way you described.

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Re:Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games... by perpetualpatzer on Thursday January 10, 2019 @12:40PM (#18875956)

Gotcha, so it's an effort to close a "run the game on the server, stream video back and forth, and don't pay for client-side licenses" loophole?

I'm surprised to hear that's a scalable model and the terms do seem to read more broadly than that, but it's reassuring that it could be something other than a baldly monopolistic power play.

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Re:Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games... by sam0x17 on Thursday January 10, 2019 @01:03PM (#18876230)

Scalable because players can take turns with the same license ;)

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Re:Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games... by PhasmaFelis on Thursday January 10, 2019 @01:59PM (#18876813)

That may be what they meant, but the wave of confusion and fear says that they communicated it poorly. (Also the fact that I had to go this far down the thread before anyone even attempted to answer "why".)

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Re:Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games... by dwild on Thursday January 10, 2019 @05:24PM (#18878911)

>Each game instance requires a separate license.

Can you give a source for that? As far as I know the runtime of Unity has no paid license.

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Re:Unity Engine ToS change makes cloud-based SpatialOS games... by reagank on Thursday January 10, 2019 @04:01PM (#18878121)

The article explicitly says that Improbable was told by Unity that the new TOS “specifically disallow[s] services like Improbable’s to function with their engine.”

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