ALL THE LATEST NEWS ABOUT THE BUSINESS OF PC GAMES

News

Updated: Unity changes terms of service again, Improbable games allowed back on the platform

Updated: Unity changes terms of service again, Improbable games allowed back on the platform

Following last week's war of words, Improbable has had its Unity license restored.

That's according to a blog post on the game engine's website, in which it says it has changed its Terms of Service once more saying that developers can use whatever third-party tech they want with Unity.

However, the firm says that some services will be supported while others are not. This means that studios can use any tech they fancy, but the performance might not always be perfect as Unity says it won't fully understand what unsupported tech is up to.

This also means that Improbable can once again use Unity tech with its own SpatialOS as it is no longer in breach of the middleware's terms of service. However, they are not an official partner of the engine firm meaning that the tech integration might not be perfect.

"Today’s change in our TOS means Improbable is no longer in breach by providing you a service, and that we are able to reinstate their licenses," Unity co-founder and CTO Joachim Ante wrote.

"But we do not consider them a partner, and cannot vouch for how their service works with Unity as we have no insight into their technology or how they run their business.

"We know Improbable was in violation even before the December TOS update and misrepresented their affiliation with us. Although SpatialOS is not a supported third-party service, it can continue to be used for development and shipping games."

Update: Improbable has provided the following statement on the news. 

"We are glad that Unity Technologies has done the right thing by making Unity an open platform," the company wrote. 

"We now have access to our Unity licenses again, and can provide full support to developers building games with Unity and SpatialOS. We are confident that this situation will not arise again. We will continue to update SpatialOS to work with Unity.

"We think the best thing for developers would be for Unity and Improbable to formally partner, and we hope to be able to discuss this in the future.

"This recent blog post talks more about our commitment to long-term support for developers using Unity. 

"We would like to move forward positively, and would also like to note that what we think is an incredibly positive thing came out of the events of the last week.

"The three largest third-party engine makers in the games industry have now confirmed that developers should be able to host engines wherever they want in the cloud. This is a key step, technologically, towards making the next generation of virtual worlds possible."


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.