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Unity rolls out new rules for devs after Improbable fight
Unity has had a change of heart. The company is updating its terms of service so that any third-party software, including SpatialOS, can be used in conjunction with its popular game engine. "Some of these services will be supported, others will not," Joachim Ante, co-founder and CTO of Unity said in a blog post. That's in stark contrast to the previous terms, published last December, which banned games from being run in the cloud, or on a remote server, "without a separate license or authorization from Unity."
Unity, Improbable and Epic Games are squabbling in public
What a day. Unity, Improbable and Epic Games have been wrapped up in a bizarre and unnecessarily public dispute about terms of service, and the future of games that run on a much-hyped platform called Spatial OS. The quarrel started this morning with an Improbable blog post titled: "Unity's block of SpatialOS."
‘Seed’ is an ambitious, massively multiplayer city builder
From a distance, Seed looks like any other settlement-building game. Tiny villagers shuffle around a colorful, low-poly map, collecting wood, wheat and other important resources. At any time, you can zoom in, check the stats of individual people and cash in items for houses and other important structures.
'Mavericks' promises 1,000-player battle-royale mayhem
It's difficult to stand out in the battle-royale genre right now. Fortnite's bright and zany combat has attracted over 125 million players, while PUBG stands firm with its slower, military-inspired shooting. Blockbuster franchises such as Battlefield and Call of Duty are readying modes inspired by the pair's breakout success. If you're a newcomer like Automaton, a 40-person studio based in Cambridge, England, how do you differentiate and, more importantly, persuade people to switch from the competition? With larger maps and 1,000 player skirmishes, apparently.
The tech that makes MMO development easy for indies
SpatialOS is the technical foundation that makes massive, persistent, online world-building possible, even for small video game studios. Think of large, mainstream games like Destiny or Elder Scrolls Online: These are huge universes that support thousands of players at a single time. It typically takes millions of dollars and hundreds of people multiple years to make one of these games -- let alone support it post-launch -- which is one reason it's notoriously difficult to secure funding for the development of massively multiplayer online games. However, SpatialOS puts a spin on this standard. Improbable's computational platform offers cloud-based server and engine support for MMO games, allowing developers to easily create and host online, multiplayer experiences with persistent features. SpatialOS first made a splash at GDC 2015, when it promised to power MMO games with a swarm-like system of servers that switch on as they're needed in locations around the world.
Meeting strangers in the VR wilderness
I didn't expect to see anyone. Not in the woods. I blink a few times and widen my stance, swiveling my head back and forth to see if there are others. No, just the one. A bearded face floating in midair, a pair of white gloves dangling underneath. "Was that...?" I whisper under my breath but before I can finish the question, the strange being has teleported a few meters toward me. Another split-second and he's standing a stone's throw away. "Hello," he says with a wave and a grin.
Better than 'Destiny': Studios now make massive games in just months
It usually takes millions of dollars, a decade and hundreds of developers to create a single massively multiplayer online (MMO) game. This is the standard in the gaming industry. Smaller studios generally don't have the resources to create huge, persistent games, and larger ones have shut down and bankrupted entire states while trying to craft MMO worlds. A lot of the hurdles in building MMOs lie within the supporting tech -- running servers that handle complex mechanics 24/7/365, maxing those out and buying more, all while solving problems of latency and persistence. Making the worlds feel real for all players, at all times.
