Is Unity3D not permitted now?

That would mean less 100 MB 'match 3' games. So what?
If somebody can really develop applications/games, whether Unity is allowed or not would not make a difference. Besides, there are lots of free engines for the iPhone.

 

Hmmmm...I wonder if Lua falls into this category too.

I've been looking at the iPhone Wax version of Lua for some future titles, so I guess I had better get a definitive answer to this from Apple.

 

There are very good Unity games out there too though - take Ravensword as an example.

 

My game (not yet released) has been loved by testers, and is based on Unity. Don’t say “so what” about Unity if you’re not truly informed: it’s an incredible tool. And I’ve put a ton of time and money into this game, which is not yet-another-anything. If I do say so myself.

A team of people could spend 10 times as long developing my game and not need Unity. But how do I pay them? I’m one person with an idea, not a rich corporation (nor do I want to be indebted to one, nor have to become a project manager with other people between my vision and the player).

Without Unity, my game and many other fine games (like Ravensword, Battle Bears, Samurai: Way of the Warrior, Zombieville USA, 10 Balls 7 Cups, Monster Trucks Nitro 2, and SkeeBall) will not exist. There’s a lot of creativity out there, and it does the platform no good to waste it.

Unity’s early days were rocky on the iPhone, but things move fast. It’s a great engine—and you can’t even tell which games use it (they don’t all have the logo). And crappy apps can come from ANY source, even Xcode alone. Let a game succeed or fail based on its quality.

I’ve written to Apple hoping for clarification.

 

I totally agree. I hope they write back...

My guess is that Unity will be fine, though I'm also working on a game in Unity so maybe I'm being too optimistic.

-Angelo

 

is this confirmed by Apple or just some rumors from internet?

I would be really really surprised if Apple bans 3rd party engines like Unity, which at the end of the day still builds XCode project.

 

I'm looking forward to several unity games. And, I already own several I love.

 

The language of the new agreement is confirmed. The implications are open, but it’s hard to find an interpretation of them that allows Unity. Now, Apple could still re-word it to improve the situation!

P.S. Another Daring Fireball article, clarifying Apple’s likely motivations (although he doesn’t seem to know much about Unity—it isn’t mentioned):
http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/why_apple_changed_section_331

 

Here's a tweet from Tom Higgins:
"To those concerned about #iphone OS4 terms and if/how it affects #unity3d, please hang tight, we're looking into things. DM me if necessary."

 

Doesnt seem like Apple is prohibiting unity. They just want to make developers work with their tools only. I dont know how they are going to make certain everyone does. I wouldnt worry about this.

 

i do not see the big deal.

what it basically means is that apple wants to prevent developers from writing runtime environments that support java, flash etc. if your application isn't written for the device; it shouldn't be there.. this change in clause covers programs like: styletap - run classic palmos software on your device. however, it should also cover emulators like: c64 - commodore 64 games, intellivision - intellivision games as, the games themselves were not originally written for the platform.

i think the decision is purely to prevent a .class or .swf being uploaded and then have a separate runtime to support them. if you are capable of taking lua, java or flash and converting it to C/C++/objective C and then recompiling it in xcode - you'll be fine. there are initiatives to do this out there - compiling java into an XML language and then using XML style sheets to produce objective-C code.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG-NIt2O5J8

do not push the panic button yet - apple is only trying to screw over adobe with the Flash CS5 news stories and put a tight lid on new environments like silverlight, adobe air, javafx et al.

 

I've read through the article on Daring Fireball - interesting read, just like the first article there !

However, I just cannot agree with the point that this move will be of benefit for users, as there will not be any bad quality cross-platform apps. We're talking about a platform that has over 160.000 apps, most of which are.... well, you know. Yeah, current performance of Flash Beta for iPhone is ridiculous but I'm 100% sure that last thing on Apple's mind was quality of apps...

 

i think you are spot on.

however, you can write decent quality cross-platform applications; it comes down to how you design and architect your code. keep your business/game logic in portable C code as much as you can and then you only need to provide bindings to the native platform for the user interface or controls. this is exactly how we've been developing games.. now, if apple gave us proper access to the CoreSurface API's instead of forcing us to use OpenGL for even 2D games, portability would be easier.

i recently converted all my iphone games over to the palm webos platform (palm pre/pixi) and it took me less than 5 hours to get all my games, including audio/music up and running. palm is hosting a developer day at their campus which i'll be presenting at - so if you are curious, check it out!

http://www.precentral.net/palm-developer-day-scheduled-23-24-april

apple may have a large market share - but i believe palm or android could easily come back with the right support from these companies. contractual effects like this could drive people away from the platform.

 

I just got approved by Adobe to receive Flash Builder for FREE. How funny and almost... useless now.

 

This pretty much slams a hammer down on every engine, including the one I'm using, GameSalad, if Apple is insinuating what we think it's insinuating. Seems like there'd be too much collateral damage just to screw Adobe over, and if Adobe get's screwed over, they sure as hell are gonna find a way into the AppStore market. They've spent too much time and money.

 

There may be no big deal (though I’d hate to lose my C64 and Intellivision games!) except that Unity Technologies themselves doesn’t even know for sure what’s going on... and there is a LOT at stake for Unity developers like myself. So “maybe” IS a big deal. (Ditto for fans of existing Unity games—which apparently is around 1,000 on the App Store.)

We can guess what Apple has in mind, and we can guess how much collateral damage they’d accept along the way. But I’ll be happier to know the real status.

FWIW, David Helgason of Unity Tech is optimistic (but still awaiting official contact from Apple). UT has always been pretty amazing in dealing with their customers beyond fairly, so their take carries some weight:

http://blogs.unity3d.com/

And if the worst news does come, you can be sure UT won’t shrug and leave it at that. They are a smart and determined crew!

 

This is all about Apple wanting to ensure that important apps are iPhone exclusive. Of course it is also true that certain kinds of cross platform development could drive down quality. I mean, the top of the charts is already full of stuff that looks like quick ports of familiar flash titles even if they were actually coded the hard way. The situation would only get worse if devs could actually spew out an iPhone version with the press of a button.

It's perfectly reasonable for Apple to want to stop this. Look at the state of the pre-iphone mobile games market. Nokia (with the N93 and the N95) and possibly others before had hardware accelerated 3D over a year before the iPhone was released. those devices were at least as 3D capable as the original iPhone but all the games for those devices were java based 2D sub-GBA things because devs needed to target cross platform to make money.

Basically, there is no point in accusing Apple of wanting to scare devs away from cross-platform in an attempt to keep market share from the competition because, even if that was their real motive their stated motive is a good enough reason on it's own.

And anyway, if Apple was that sort of company that wanted to force exclusivity they would try very hard to make it seem like we had to program their hardware in a strange alien language that's no use anywhere else...

I think Unity is safe because it can't be argued that it's bringing the quality of iPhone games down. It's clearly doing the opposite.

 

While part of me buy into the conspiracy theories wholeheartedly I've also seen debates on the web that parts of the new multi-tasking frameworks will not play nice with for instance Flash-created apps. As they still permit C++ it stands to reason that cross-platform work isn't exactly prohibited...

Edit: Misread GlennX post.

 

my games are designed to be cross platform.

i use apple's tools as they require, except i separate my "business/game" logic from the user interaction logic. it is all written in C; and effectively all i need to do when porting between platforms is deal with the interaction model that is defined or required for the platform.

i would never sign an exclusive deal for a platform unless they paid me a lot to prevent me doing stuff on other platforms. this is not an issue about cross-platform, it is purely about preventing applications utilizing a runtime environment which in the end; makes it a horrible end-user experience. apple wants applications to be native; that is, be most efficient in their implementation to maximize battery life, ensure a speedy interaction etc.

if it is found that tools like unity, gamesalad et al are not valid anymore i guess thats just bad luck for the developers who use those tools, it sucks - but, apple control their platform which is also one of the reasons why they are so successful as well.