What exactly constitutes commercial use?

Obviously directly selling a game made in UE4 counts as “commercial use” and is subject to a 5% royalty, but what exactly is considered commerical use?

Deployed on a website with ads, but the game itself is free to download?
Embedded ads in the game client?
Funded entirely by voluntary donations? (i.e the game’s free but development costs are covered by willing donations from fans)
Other? I’m not a lawyer so I’m genuinely curious exactly what constitutes commercial use.

You may want to post this in the legal section of Answerhub. One of the lawyers from Epic should be able to assist you there. =)

Epic legal will indeed be who you need to talk to - however to my knowledge all of the above count; if you’re giving people a playable game and asking for money, that’s essentially it.

Ads on your website would not count, but ads in the game would. Though I’d imagine if you have some sort of ad that blocks access to the game download on your website until you watch a video or click a link or whatever then that would count.
Donations would not count unless it’s required to get the game (which essentially is the same as purchase)

Epic actually checks that? Huh, I’d never have guessed - most companies don’t care about solo indies in the slightest, I’ll look into that.

Oh? I’ll look into that

Figured as much

Luckily I find such practices entirely too scummy to partake in.

That’s the one I was primarily interested in, so optional donations don’t count - that’s the important one (well that and having ads on the distribution channel), I’ll probably discuss it with a lawyer closer to release [if that time ever comes] just to be on the safe side

Thanks to all of you

Remember that you can sell things like videos and images without having to pay royalties, it’s the real-time interactive applications that require payment.