Been checking for updates on David Helgason's Blog but so far nothing. With all the negative buzz this has created I'd hoped that Apple would have clarified the situation this morning. I'm on Eastern time, so perhaps Uncle Steve's having a lay in this morning? This situation is tarnishing a pretty good launch of a new product. Quick clarification is important. Good or bad.
It's me. They're torturing me personally, for all the bad things I said about them last time they froze out Unity games. I'm sorry Mr. Jobs! Is spoke rashly and in anger... now please tell us what's going on!
Mr Russ! I do hope you're typing this on an iPad. As you mention though, Unity has been frozen out before. Is there any reason to believe that if this happens again (my money's on that it will not) then after some late nights and some cases of Redbull, Unity can not again make all thing right with the world?
Unity (and OTHER tools also, seemingly, banned) do indeed account for a LOT of games and a lot of popular ones. However, this analysis suggests that Apple is willing to kill a lot of games (and a lot of future innovation), leaving the big game companies (who can re-invent the wheel in-house) to dominate: http://www.devwhy.com/blog/2010/4/12/its-all-about-the-framework.html That reasoning makes sense—you can see how Apple could have a legitimate big fear here. But if good news doesn’t come soon, then Apple has taken that fear way too far. I want people to play my iPhone/iPad game, which has been in development since 1997. (And is far more awesome now, needless to say! Touch control plus Unity physics really took it to the next level.) Now it looks likely that it won’t see release. Maybe I’ll give it a funeral and post my movies of it in action. But I’m still hoping for heroic CPR to be successful! But I don’t just care about my game. I want to play all KINDS of games that creative, small companies can dream up thanks to Unity! Unity on iPhone is getting more amazing every month, it seems. Someone should start a site to commemorate all the games we’ll never get to play if this plays out for the worst. I bet devs could provide some awesome screenshots of work-in-progress. And then there are the games we ALREADY have that would vanish (and eventually, since they can’t be updated, stop working even if you bought them already). FWIW, someone in the Unity forums is informally compiling a spreadsheet of currently-available apps that would, theoretically, be banned by this new agreement (not just for Unity; for various similar reasons): https://spreadsheets.google.com/lv?key=thI2hub60oD3P9ztEsWXpVw&type=view&gid=0&f=true&sortcolid=3&sortasc=true&rowsperpage=250 EDIT: May be down or private now. Suffice it to say some really good, popular games were on there. (I think there about 1000 that use Unity, plus all the other affected tools. This spreadsheet still only scratched the surface, looking at the top sellers.) Of course the big companies are likely to be granted exceptions (like Playboy being allowed to show bathing suits when small companies were not). EA and Gameloft (big corporations who tend to play it safe and repeat tried-and-true formulas) can make back-room deals. What about the innovative, creative, indie developers with day jobs? Well... they can use Xcode alone to make SMALL games still. With Unity (and other tools) they could bring life to BIG ideas.
Forgive my perhaps naive question-but is this referring only to the iPad or does it include the iDevices as well? If the worst that has been written here does come to pass, does that mean games Unity3D and other engines will be pulled?
Yes you are - why do you explode like that ? I did 'nt mean the post is unconfirmed or it's a rumor that shiva will do this, that is what i meant : * it's even unconfirmed that Shiva, Unity etc. are targeted/affected by the new ToS by Apple. It's even unconfirmed that all of this was'nt just a way to sabotage the Adobe CS5 launch event, and everything (except for Flash mabye) will work out in a far easier way as it seems now.... * It's totally uncertain what the exact text in the final ToS will be, stating now, without (obviously) any assurance from Apple that all will be okay with Shiva is a different approach to the whole thing than Unity does. They get in touch with Apple first, and talk public later. That's all i was talking about... * Here's another reason for my opinion: Stonetrip OFFICIALLY stated iPad support at a time when nobody had the hardware in hands. If they did have real hardware, okay i stand corrected. It's different to target the simulator flawlessly, the hardware is important. Unity on the other hand made a public statement like: Yes we will support it and we are working on it, this was on the unity blog as far i remember. The official press release was done when it was ready.... By the way - i think Shiva IS a cool and capable package, so no reason to believe i'm trying to spike some pro/contra issue here. I just have the opinion that Shiva's PR is doing it's work more agressively, and as i said, am more on the conservative side of those things
My iPad should be here in a couple of days... I was gonna hold out for the second gen device, but couldn't. Now I wonder if it'll end up on ebay... I was so excited, too All this is definitely motivating me to check out other platforms. Apple is just getting to be too risky a basket to have all our eggs in. The fact that we haven't heard any clarification from them yet speaks volumes. If you have any concern about your devs, you don't just leave them twisting in the wind like this. They have more devs than they need, so this isn't surprising. Even if they give Unity a pass this time, there are plenty of good reasons for them to kill it at some point in the future. We need to prepare for that, even if it doesn't end up happening.
Because I thought you were saying something stupid. I see your point, but it is confirmed. These tools currently are affected under the terms of the new agreement. I agree that, as the Shiva devs have mentioned, this may not be the end of the story. But, both actions are acceptable. And, the Shiva guys in a way have done better, because they've provided information that puts people's minds at rest today. Talking to Apple wouldn't have changed what they were working on, anyway. You'll need to cite the official statement before I respond properly to what you've said. I don't recall having seen anything along those lines. I'm not saying it's not true, I just need to see some proof of that for context. Unity's PR is a lot more aggressive. Most people don't know about Shiva. The guys drop by forums and announce updates once in a while, and they update their website, but you hardly see the overblown buzzword and hype-filled press releases like what you get from the Unity gang. But, PR is PR. I really don't mind what companies do, as I enjoy hearing about what's coming next.
Im sure Shivas cool, and I wish it well (and may even check it out one of these days). But to be fair to Unity: the UT folks underpromise and overdeliver, repeatedly and in a big way. When they do release a big PR, they deliver what it says and more. Theres substance behind the hype. Similarly, right now, UT doesnt have much concrete to say. When they can say something really solid, they will. (We don know they have meetings with Apple scheduled in the days ahead.)
This is getting totally OT - and hence this is my last post about this: Shiva official press release here, Date: March 29th http://www.stonetrip.com/pr-shiva3s-supports-ipad-game-development.html Apple iPad availability - Date: April 3rd : http://tablet-news.com/2010/03/06/apple-ipad-official-availability-date-is-april-3/ So Stonetrip was able to thoroughly test Shiva on actual hardware in a negative amount of time ? unlikely - except if they had actual ipad hardware, but thats very doubtable...
ShiVA from their product page: http://www.stonetrip.com/shiva-editor.html AIModel Editor to declare variables, functions, states and handlers. Script Editor to write scripts in Lua language. so.. seems like this will break the 3.3.1 section; the applications must be written in C, C++, objective-C or JavaScript using the webkit runtime. lua, ruby, python, custom script languages just wont meet the requirements - unless they translate them into native code for compiling under xcode. while these tools make things easy; i guess apple just wants people to write their openGL code directly but then again: http://www.stonetrip.com/engine-sdk.html Use hooks to intercept message events into your C/C++/Objective-C application. Write your cumbersome calculations in C++! is the engine SDK available on the iDevices platform? if so, then you may be in luck
Unity's HiggyB posted an update: and man - this thread in the unity forum is growing fast ;-) http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=48795&p=299442
For the most part, yes. Some of it is drivel. Good question, and thanks for the links. I have no idea, but I know the guys have been very upfront and decent with the community (and anyone that has asked) about everything they've put out so far. Read a few posts back. The Shiva guys have been (without knowing what Apple would do) developing a solution over the last few months. Heh, I bet I'm all for the Unity guys to get things sorted. I'm sure over at the Shiva camp the same thing would have been going on (except they're in France, making meeting with Apple a bit difficult, possibly) if by pure chance the guys hadn't already been working on what was needed to get past the restrictions. Amazingly they had, so it certainly seems like Shiva is out of the woods. But hey, it's Apple, so I guess anything is possible
Indeed... what's next? Application code can only be typed with your pinkies, and developers must wear a black turtleneck and spectacles at all times?
