Search Unity

  1. Megacity Metro Demo now available. Download now.
    Dismiss Notice
  2. Unity support for visionOS is now available. Learn more in our blog post.
    Dismiss Notice

Modding and the Asset Store - Licensing

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Tinus, Jan 17, 2013.

  1. Tinus

    Tinus

    Joined:
    Apr 6, 2009
    Posts:
    437
    I want all my Unity games to be modifiable by players. New levels, new models, new animations, new scripts, you name it. Setting aside the technical challenges involved, I was wondering how this works when your game uses assets purchased from the Asset Store.

    For example: If I use Michael O's excellent terrain assets in my game, are my players allowed to create new levels for the game using those assets?

    I'm currently reading through the Asset Store Terms of Service and EULA and the Asset Store Provider Agreement for answers, but I'm wondering if anyone else has explored these issues before.
     
    Last edited: Jan 17, 2013
  2. Sslaxx

    Sslaxx

    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2012
    Posts:
    47
    Not sure the EULA or Provider Agreement would give much help with individual assets like that - that'd be up to the license terms for those assets. Best bet might be to ask the seller(s) in question.
     
  3. Tinus

    Tinus

    Joined:
    Apr 6, 2009
    Posts:
    437
    I'll certainly be contacting the creators of the individual assets in question to see what they think. They might have different licenses when selling assets outside of the Asset Store. But for assets sold within the Asset Store it seems Unity's agreement is always in effect, and other licenses included are nullified:

    - Source: Submission Guidelines
     
  4. wccrawford

    wccrawford

    Joined:
    Sep 30, 2011
    Posts:
    2,039
    So far as I know, the asset store license says that everyone that works on the project has to have their own license.

    So if they wanted to mod your game, with asset store-bought assets, they'd need to buy their own copy.

    Unless, of course, you go outside the store to get the assets from the creator.
     
  5. imaginaryhuman

    imaginaryhuman

    Joined:
    Mar 21, 2010
    Posts:
    5,834
    I suggest emailing Unity to find out. I had a sort of similar question at one time where I was planning to create a desktop app which was kind of a creative graphics application for building multimedia presentations and it was going to in some ways allow people to make games, and then it was going to include a single unity built exe as a `runtime` app which would reference files that I would be modifying/bundling with it to produce distributable versions of the creations people made... and so this was all very touching upon using Unity to make something `like Unity`. I asked Unity about it and they said they'd have to consider it by looking at it but that in general they encourage people to create `multimedia software` or other creative editor type of stuff with Unity and so long as it's not like a direct ripoff of Unity functionality then it's probably okay. I didn't exactly ask about the runtime distributable pre-compiled `player` app as such, and it does get kind of gray in those areas. I would think it's pretty acceptable though for a game to let itself be moddable - you've paid for the license to use the terrain asset in your game and if other people then use what your game provides I think you're already licensed to do so, in the spirit of what Unity is about, but I think if people were to start charging money for their modded games then maybe you're into different territory? But overall I think you need to ask Unity about this.
     
  6. lilymontoute

    lilymontoute

    Joined:
    Feb 8, 2011
    Posts:
    1,181
    I would say it depends on how the game is modded.

    Here's an example scenario, using models from the Asset Store:

    If someone mods your game, but you don't distribute the assets (they stay within your game executable, and the mod consists of a file with a level layout for example), then that shouldn't be a violation of the agreement. The mod would ultimately be something like say, an text file with object IDs, positions/rotations, and maybe additional models that the user adds to the scene themselves.

    However, if the person modding your game can retrieve the model from your game (through normal gameplay) in order to edit it, that would probably be in violation since you're distributing the content outside of your game in that case.

    Your best bet is to talk with Unity though, and explain what you want to do for your specific case.