Hello !
What about detail normal maps?
I think If I make it 1m by default texture will lose a lot of information, maybe I’m wrong though
I have yet to find an online marketplace (unity asset store, gamedevmarket to name two) where you get more than 70%.
I was hoping epic would go lower and give us at least 75%, not only would they become more interesting for almost everyone who creates marketplace/gamedev related stuff but give other marketplaces a run for their money.
Oh well 
Well, I can tell you one: Opencart Extension Store. If you make a module, or plugin or extension and sell it there, they only charges 20% and they pay you using paypal. 
So, for 70% only of my work, minus taxes and minus bank transfer(They should use paypal to send us our money instead) taxes, I consider too little. And they can even use our stuff to marketing without paying us. Can we use Epic brands the same way?
And, generally, when we sell something like these kind of stuff here, it has a license for one product only. People buy a model, and it can use only for one game. If they want to use it on another game, they should pay another license again. But no, Epic wants us to license it for life and for any amount of products people do. Do we pay Epic royalties for just only one game and that is it, if we ever release it, or do we have to pay for each game that we make with the engine?
I was going to release the ledge climbing system that I am doing for free here, but my wife got fired, and that made change my mind, because bills are coming in like crazy. So, I decide to sell it for a small price on Marketplace. But in order to really be worth, with kind of rules and revenue split, it would have to be too expensive. 
And we still have : “All assets must be fully functional with the latest Unreal Engine.”
So, if still have be paying Epic for the subscription.
There is one more thing, that I have to bring on. Licensing and pricing.
Currently we can sell content only for usage for entire life time. Which is honestly not good.
I’m fine for selling asset pack for let’s say 29$ for one project (game), but let’s say the same studio will use those assets in 10 games.
I mean I sold it only once, and for no that much money anyway.
Now. I have to set price to accommodate for second case, but if it will be to high (299$) less people buy it (for example the ones who want to use it only in one game, or in some demo).
I think there should be two license. One for selling assets for life time usage, and one for selling per project. way I could set more reasonable price points for both.
I tend to agree with Iniside on .
And if a company can purchase the package once… how can we as up-loaders/content creators be sure its an official company and not some rig-rag group of people who pretend as a company so they can share the same file among each other?
Paying 20% is nice, but how many UE devs will go there to look for things? Selling here in the market, I know my products will be found, which is worth the extra 10% to me.
Is worth to have your product sold once, and see a person or a company using it for life, for several games, without paying every time they use it? Hell no!!
Well is how the free market system works and a 50% return on your asking price would be considered fair if not outstanding and there are even some asset resources who ask as much as 50%.
The big worry here though is not how much you should be asking for and not how it will be used but what will happen with the rush to market? Its a given that someone will put out something based on the guidelines that will under cut your plans.
Something to keep in mind as well. The only practical reason a developer would buy anything that they could make themselves is if it saves time and if the license restricts the works can only be used base on per title then it will be replaced with company owned IP long before the next title.
As for tier licensing I think it is a bad idea and our group has already decided to excluded such items to be included as part of our main catalog and already had bad experiences as to what can or can not be used.
Something else to keep in mind. No one knows what will happen with the Market Place, not even Epic, so first adopters should only post items to test the waters so to speak with low cost items that they can afford to sell cheap or even give away for free and wait a bit with the good and expensive stuff.
Someone puts out a fully implemented movement system under the current fair use policy as to use in any game title adjusted to $299, and no one is doing it better or cheaper, then I would say that would be a fair price taking into consideration the cost in development time would/could be 100 times the cost.
The long way of saying don’t rush but wait and see.
There should be two types of license, por use once for each game, and another one for lifetime that would be more expensive. way, people would buy what they need.
And we should also have an option to target to each version of the engine our product is.
For example: My Ledge Climbing System works with UE4.2 and UE4.3. I just finished testing with UE4.4 and it does not work ( And I need to figure out why ). So, when uploading a content, I could choose the version that it would work with. And, after having finishing to make it work with the UE4.4, I would go and uploading it also.
So, when a person would go to buy my product, that person would see something like :
product works with the following UE versions:
UE 4.2
UE 4.3
To be honest, I wouldn’t spend in something I can only use for one game. I can imagine that is the position of most potential buyers. As for the pricing, the market itself will determine the optimum cost.
In regards to constant updates, I think that high quality standards is a necessity. Having a plugin that only works for last year’s UE4 version is the same as having static meshes with incorrect UV mapping.
Yet, you might end up using UE4 for your game, where you pay royalties for every copy you sell. Licensing per project is just different way of taking royalties.
Really? Would you pay royalties to Epic for each game that you make or just for only one? Also, where are you buying stuff, because almost everywhere a go, when I buy something is just for only one game or product. Also, that is why we need to be allowed to sell with two kinds of license. One license per product shipped only, and another license for life. And if you want to buy that license, then you would pay a more expensive price. I can say that most people that I know, will choose the first license type.
No, is not the same. And not all people keep changing versions. I already received several requests to keep supporting UE4.2 for my system.
Also, just imagine that you make something that is based on a that the engine has. And then, Epic for the next version removes that . How are going to make you plugin or extension to work?
Then it didn’t work correctly, we’ll try again with the new 4.4 update and if there are still issues I’ll make the animator explain it, because I am really not the one with all the details.
As for licensing, I agree with Alex3d: There should be more flexible models, because the products and use cases can differ so much. If I were to put up some software for life and all projects I will choose a rather high price, say 500$ and up. Single Developers however might want to only use it for one project and would never pay it so to them a 50$ for one project will sound much more attractive.
Also what about product tiers? E.g. a plugin could have binaries only or full source licenses. Similarly there might be cases where different versions have a different set or support coverage. Will there be a possibility to offer upgradeable products?
I also have concerns about the need to update along with the engine, if you create assets it is very simple to import them into a new version, most times you don’t even need to do anything. If you write C++ code it something else entirely, I have had to make major changes with each new UE release and provided Epic keeps its monthly release cycle it will be a lot of future work to keep up. Plus, as Alex3d already mentioned, some people will probably not update their version all the time (especially some that might only subscribe for one month) so whenever I would fix bugs or implement new features I would have to make it compatible to all versions, which might be something feasable for a big company, but certainly not for small teams.
greetings,
FTC
Thanks for all of the feedback! Here are some answers and thoughts on the issues raised so far.
Regarding taxes:
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Sales tax and VAT are added to the retail price of items and remitted to the government. So, the developer receives 70% of the after-tax amount, and Epic receives 30% of the after-tax amount.
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Witholding Taxes are a form of income tax implemented by some countries, mainly in Asia. These countries require an international payer like Epic to deduct witholding tax from payments to citizens/companies in the country, and to remit that the the government to cover that citizen’s/company’s income tax.
Regarding business terms:
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The next update to the EULA will have terms governing use of items purchased on Marketplace, to legally ensure that the items are used within the terms outlined in the Business Terms (https://www.unrealengine/marketplace/marketplace-business-terms-faq).
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The “unlimited company use” term is aimed at being uniformly generous to buyers, thereby encouraging them to buy, use, and benefit from items without worrying about per-user licensing or the need to re-buy them for other projects later. We believe approach is the most likely way to encourage buyers reciprocate generosity by buying and building up large libraries of content as a result of the Marketplace terms giving them confidence in the licensing alongside providing consistent asset quality, consistency, and reusability. We don’t plan to introduce other sets of terms for content. For plug-ins, we’ll consider per-seat licensing.
Answers to other questions:
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Paypal: We’re looking into . I agree that it’s a desirable and super-convenient way to receive international payments.
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Compatibility: Simple forms of content such as materials, meshes, and animations should retain compatibility over long periods of time. Blueprints will require more frequent attention, and C++ even more so. If you’re a seller, you should expect to remain active in the UE4 community for as long as you choose to offer items for sale!
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Analytics: When Marketplace is opened up to purchases in a few weeks, there won’t be much in the way of analytics, just the basic functionality to track items sold over time. We’ll expand later.
Regarding plug-ins:
- Support will be coming later. To participate in the discussion, see the following:
https://forums.unrealengine/showthread.php?29843-Code-Plugins-on-Market-Place
https://forums.unrealengine/showthread.php?13484-Distributing-source-code-with-user-created-plugins
Sorry I disagree.
Here are my reasons.
The single biggest facing Indie development today is due diligence as to fair rights of “all” assets that they carry as part of their overall content and asset resource catalog and it is not uncommon for points of distribution to ask to prove that as a company you own fair rights either through internal development or paid licensing.
Take YouTube for example. If you included music with in your works and apply for profit sharing you had to prove not only rights to music sample but also show license for the applications you used to make the samples.
As a developer what does is to put into question fair use of common stock items with in your catalog and it’s our policy to always follow up as to the intent of the rights holder as to the extent of their license as to our needs. If our needs are not covered under the license we don’t buy it.
Now as a client what we expect is functionality as part of the license and if at anytime if a “dependency” on that product breaks we would assume that the fees paid would also account for any future updates or upgrades with out having to pay future fees based on engine version. It’s up to you to include that as part of your initial license.
As for the current guidelines, as a client, I feel they are entirely fair and compatible with our current asset purchase guidelines coming from a point of distribution that we would trust as to legitimate ownership as proof of due diligence and adding any kind of rider to a single point resource pool would once again put into question fair use rights.
But
It’s up to you do decided to sell under Epics Marketplace based on “their” guidelines but if you do feel that your works should be per-title then you are free to sell under your own means of distribution but my opinion is anything sold in the Marketplace should be done so with the same terms and conditions as the engine it’s self.
Not trying to be nasty but is facts as to Indie development that it is not big dollar marketplace that can not support ongoing costs that are not fixed based on assets that creates a dependency and if such items do create a dependency we don’t buy it.
The terms are ALMOST identical to the ones used on Unity’s Asset Store. These business terms are one of the main reasons that the Unity Asset Store has such a massive turnover of goods and makes so much revenue, both for developers and for Unity. I’d bet that if you asked a whole lot of successful developers how they feel about the Asset Store, they’d be pretty happy. Customers just see it as good value and keep coming back. That’s what you want.
If you want to hold onto your rights and reserve them on some kind of per product basis, you can always sell them elsewhere, right? Or wait until Epic gives you some other licensing options in the future. If you don’t like the terms, and think they are too loose, increase your per unit price to cover the slack. Adjust to suit your needs and to compete. Seems pretty simple to me. As for greed, 70/30 split now a defacto standard for new marketplaces, App Store/Google Store/Unity Asset Store etc.
Epic is giving you a massive upside/exposure via their product and IP. They will also promote your product, and if it is great, I bet they will showcase it and wave it around like madmen. They will handle all e-commerce/hosting/storage for you(and associated gremlins). Probably even handle some of your customer support. I understand your position, but I don’t agree with it going forward.
The two license suggestion is a good idea. As for the version stuff, I agree with that also. I believe that was already discussed, so perhaps that will be the case for code plugins. It is unlikely however, that people will stay on previous versions of the engine going forward. They will begin to expect that plugins will just work and that developers will have their code functional upon release of new version. is especially the case because the engine is available early via github and in preview form. Customers are unlikely to cut developers slack for not being up to date and running on new versions of unreal.
Imagine the case where a plugin manages data in a map. Unreal releases a new version of the engine(it has gone through git phase and preview and is now release). Customer wants to move onto new version and get great new features of the new engine but they used your plugin for their project and when they load their project, the plugin doesn’t work and they lose data, forcing them to stay on the previous version. They will not blame Epic, they will blame the developer of the plugin for not keeping up to date.
So, what you prefer then: Pay 50 $ for a product and have it per-tittle or pay 300 $ or more and have it for life?
That is why, it would be better, if there is an option for people to choose. Adding these two types of license, and let the buyer choose what he wants and need. is the most fair.
Buying models, textures, plugins, etc, is like hiring people to do that for you. And when you hire someone to do that work, you pay them, right? Ok, But, do you think, that you will pay them just once, and they will be working for you for life? Or is just for that tittle?
To be honest?
We will buy whatever offers the best terms and conditions at a price that fills our needs and the first to market that fills that need wins.
From what I’ve seen far $300 would be a fair price considering the amount of time that would be saved for those with serious intent and yet to be determined is just what is included with the package?
For example would the package include full animation source, FBX preferred, and of course rights to modify?
Be also generous to us all, and let us pay 5% royalties just once then. Is easy to be generous with someone else work. And shouldn’t be Epic’s choice, at all.
The buyers will buy if the need and if the price is fair, not because we are generous.
Anyway, I created poll here: https://forums.unrealengine/showthread.php?30251-Marketplace-products-license-question
Lets hear what people wants!