Published , by Charles Singletary Jr
Published , by Charles Singletary Jr
Improbable published another blog in response to Unity's response, clarifying the steps that led to the disagreement between the two entities.
Originally, Improbably published a statement saying that Unity's recent change to its Terms of Service rendered current projects using SpatialOS, Improbable's cloud-gaming platform, as breaching the ToS. Unity responded and said that, while it had severed ties with Improbable after negotiations stalled, current and in developmentSpatialOS-based projects didn't breach. In Improbable's new blog post, the clarified claim is that Unity severing ties with Improbable essentially keeps the company from supporting games built on Unity that use SpatialOS.
The new blog post details a series of events where Improbable received regular confirmation that games using SpatialOS were not in breach of Unity's terms after early conversations alluded that they could be. The changes to clause 2.4 in December, however, changed that and Improbable reached out to Unity for clarification. However those conversations went, it ended up with Improbable's Unity licenses revoked. Unity stated that the relationship with Improbable doesn't impact current projects, but here's Improbable's response to that specific detail:
Unity Games can stay live, but we cannot legally support them.
Thankfully, Unity issued a public statement that legacy developers can still run their SpatialOS games. However, Unity has still not granted any kind of exception to Improbable.
We have interpr
whoeted their exception for games to include our services’ physical operation on behalf of those customers (because otherwise it is meaningless) and intend to keep running unless we are prevented. Even then, we will not take down or ask anyone to take down anything unless proper formal legal channels are followed, not announcements or blog posts.
However, Improbable still has all its Unity license and access suspended. We cannot easily fix bugs, improve the service or really support our customers without being in a legal grey area.
Anyone has ever run a live game knows this is a farcical situation that puts games at risk. Unity has still not clarified this, granted an exception or had a conversation with us, but we hope this will change.
Moving forward, the company hopes to have its licenses unrevoked or for Unity to further clarify its Terms of Service. If Unity doesn't respond, this could be the last chapter in this particular tale for a while. Improbable has put a bit of pressure on Unity with the help of Epic Games, with the two companies teaming up for a $25 million fund for game developers that want to switch away from Unity. Stay tuned to Shacknews for additional updates.