I’m curious about this because I know some pornographic games made using Unreal were encouraged not to, but for games not as controversial, is it a requirement? Is it a must by default?
If yes then what would happen if a developer didn’t put the logo or forgot or something?
Read the EULA. “Proprietary Notices and Attribution”:
What happens “if you don’t”?!
It’s not exactly about the logos (read EULA), it’s about acknowledged ownership of Epic Games over the technology. If you don’t publicly acknowledge that they own the technology then in worst-case scenarios things like this could happen:
I havent read that eula, let me rephrase ops question. Do you have to display the epic logo at the start of the game? What if you put their logo and all the appropriate details at the end of the list of credits in the game?
Hey there,
In the link posted above, you can find the following
12. Proprietary Notices and Attribution
You agree to retain and reproduce in all copies of the Licensed Technology the copyright, trademark, and other proprietary notices and disclaimers of Epic and third parties as they appear in the Engine Code and the Content.
You agree to place the following notices in the credits for any Product, other than Unrestricted Products that do not otherwise have credits, (replacing xxxx with the current year):
“[Product name] uses the Unreal® Engine. Unreal® is a trademark or registered trademark of Epic Games, Inc. in the United States of America and elsewhere”
“Unreal® Engine, Copyright 1998 – xxxx, Epic Games, Inc. All rights reserved.”
There is a Trademark Usage Agreement that you need to sign (it is a pdf which you will fill the missing data and send back) and you will be pointed out where to find the logos, pictures and rules for colors etc. Just send an e-mail to lauren.willoughby@epicgames.com and you will get the info!
Hey Kelvothe thanks for the excerpt, I am no lawyer but from what I understand from that sentence is that we don’t have to put the large logo when you fire up the game or anywhere else in the UI for that matter, but of course it needs to be mentioned in the credits of the game as indicated with the form that is required.
I was asking because I see too many games start with a huge animated UE logo when they fire it up, some of us would like to avoid that kind of “in your face” approach and perhaps rather start with their own company logo and then mention all tech that is used including the engine in the credits list.
If I understand it then there should be no problem with this on legal terms?
I was asking this as a general question because people generally don’t have to give credit to Microsoft word if they type out a document; or to the browser they use when they get online. Artist in general don’t seem to have to give credit to the art software they use, (if you go on Deviant Art, Newgrounds, or Artstation you’ll see what I mean). I was just curious why this would be the exception, because most people don’t read the EULA’s in general because they’re laborious to read through. If this kind of thing applied for every tool we used, it could be very cumbersome for the average person.Is there a specific reason why the tool used to make games must be listed, even if it’s not necessary for the other things I listed above? Or is it a ‘Just because’ kind of reason?
Probably because your game literally contains the licensed software’s binary functions.
When you ship a game you are shipping the game engine + game on top, all compiled into one package.
When you ship a song, text file or photoshop painting, you are not sending the software incorporated into your file, it’s just the file.
The explanation given by Bruno is mostly the reason why the credit should appear, because different from art when using Photoshop where you can export the result in .png and nobody can relate that art with the tool, with Unreal is different, because you can’t dissociate the end result with the engine, which is divided in two part: the creation parts (editor and tools) and the running part (the core run-time and libraries) which you need to realize the created part.