Game Development

3426 readers

1 users here now

Welcome to the game development community! This is a place to talk about and post anything related to the field of game development.

Community Wiki

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

Ategon@programming.dev

LiquidityC@programming.dev

Frank@programming.dev

Unity owned ECS patent uses techniques described in 2013 Stack Exchange post (github.com)

submitted 9 months ago by sirdorius@programming.dev to c/gamedev@programming.dev

7 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The 2013 StackExchange post [^1] describes what is now commonly called an "archetype" based ECS architecture that was implemented as compile time archetypes in the author's open source project in Feb 2018 ^3. A similar ECS model was described later in the June 2018 patent filed by Unity ^2 and active since 2020.

It's useful to bring visibility to the issue for the inevitable patent trolling that will occur in the future.

References: [^1]: https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/58693/grouping-entities-of-the-same-component-set-into-linear-memory/

top 7 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] CodexArcanum@lemmy.world 25 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Software patents are such evil bullshit. As if ECS hadn't been developed 20 years earlier and described in numerous papers and GDC talks after.

[–] sirdorius@programming.dev 8 points 9 months ago

Yeah, I forgot to mention in my original post that ECS was extensively described and already in use by many private commercial engines (like Overwatch) at the time when the patent came out. Absolutely ridiculous patent that shows why the whole system is broken.

[–] AdmiralShat@programming.dev 23 points 9 months ago (1 children)

One more reason to add to the list to not support Unity as a company.

[–] saintshenanigans@programming.dev 4 points 9 months ago

Been learning godot and thankful for it every day we hear something new about this company

[–] MadhuGururajan@programming.dev 22 points 9 months ago

Corporate loves to steal ideas and patent it/copyright it so nobody else gets to steal it next, even the original author of a technique.

[–] Mikina@programming.dev 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Wouldn't this, along with the other numerous talks on ECS that were made before Unity copyrighted it, be enough to challenge the copyright and have it revoked? Or is that not how copyright works?

[–] BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

The patent wouldn't be for any ECS; it would have to be for a specific implementation. The post may match the implementation, and invalidate the patent, but just being an ECS wouldn't be enough.