How to implement an ingame store

Development World Creation
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Hi guys!

We are a team that are working on a side scroller platform game with a basic level editor that will have an ingame store that will allow end-users to add more content to their games. We’ve been searching for the right way to do it in a legally way, but I can’t find a clear solution.

At the moment

  1. The game is planning to launch por PC
  2. The content is going to be stuff like characters, trees, houses…
  3. All the content is provide by us and the end-user cant modify anything

Possible solutions we are considering

Stream assets from the internet.
Each asset (character, tree, house…) will be an individual DLC and can be added to the game individually. Assets that are not used will not be into users end-game.

Weekly DLC
All the assets will be included in a weekly compilation that users have to download. Even if users don’t buy content, they will have everything downloaded in case they buy something.

The first option makes much more sense than the second because eventually the size of the complete game will be huge.

We found these post asking about this topic, and there’s no mention that it violates the EULA terms of use:

However, we found this other one in which user Rama said that this option is illegal.

In our case, all content available at the ingame shop will be cooked and provide by us.

We also search on the document of the EULA terms and we didn’t found anything that help us with the question.

So… the final question. Is it possible to stream assets online as individual DLCs?

Thanks for answer!

2

Two questions:

  1. To confirm, the streamed assets are created by you/your team only?
  2. Your in-game editor won’t fit into this definition?

(a) editors and other tools included in the Engine Code; (b) any code and modules in either the Developer or Editor folders, including in object code format, whether statically or dynamically linked; and (c) other software that may be used to develop standalone products based on the Licensed Technology

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Hi! Thanks for answering!

1.The main assets will be created by our team.

We are also planing to include some third person assets,generating by us the cooked content from the source files they send us (.fbx, .obj, .png…). Is this possible? From your previous answer I’m not sure.

  1. I don’t know exactly the meaning of those definitions. The editor is something like Nintendo’s Mario Maker. Just pick an object and put it on the scene where you want. We are using the standard blueprints to program the editor. Users wont make comercial or standalone games. And all content they generate is going to be free for the rest of the users.

Thnaks for answering!

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My main concern on the assets is that if they come from the Marketplace (our marketplace) or from Epic, there are different restrictions, but that doesn’t sound like the case.

On the editor, if your in-game editor uses any code or modules from either the Developer or Editor folders, there are very different restrictions on how you can distribute your game. You should check with your engineers.

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Thanks for the answers!

We will check what modules or code are we using for building the editor and see if we violate the EULA Terms of use. Thanks again! :slight_smile: